I asked AI recently how many Christian denominations exist. It mentioned approximately 40k but hard to pinpoint an exact number.
Is an attempt to unify all Christian denominations into One worth undertaking if that attempt is well received and supported? It would require interdenominational conversation in attempts to find common ground. Does the Bible say we should be divided or does scripture indicate unity among all Christians? I’m just not sure Jesus intended his ministry to be disentegrated as it has been these past 2 millennia.

Foremost Group CEO Angela Chao died after car went into Texas pond, sheriff says

Foremost Group CEO Angela Chao, the sister-in-law of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, was pronounced dead after her car went into a pond at a private property located about 40 miles west of Austin, Texas, officials said.

• Chao, a double Harvard graduate who became CEO of the dry bulk shipping company Foremost in 2018, was married to venture capitalist Jim Breyer.
• She is the sister of Elaine Chao, who served as Secretary of Transportation in the Trump administration and as Secretary of Labor in the administration of former President George W. Bush.

I was thinking about something in my life that I would do differently if I could go back in time. I mean, there are a few things really but one in particular. I don't necessarily consider it a "regret" because I made some good friends doing it and it still got me to where I am today. But if I could redo anything I think I would choose not to go to college.

I went later in life. I was born in 87 so most of my friends and peers graduated between 2009-11. Because of the path my life took I started community college after high school in 2005 but spun my wheels pursuing the wrong career for almost 10 years. In 2014 the opportunity came to go back to school after taking some time off and a lot of things clicked when I realized what I wanted to pursue (media). I finished my general ed courses and transferred to a four year where I got my BA in Communication Design. Now it was a fun time, but I had to go into debt to do it. $30,000 to be exact. It'd probably be less but I foolishly borrowed $10K privately so I could rent an apartment close to campus and live on my own, rather than staying with my folks (which being 28 and freshly divorced felt weird at the time, that's how I justified it) and just buying a $120 parking permit.

So long story short, I had 5 years of broadcast experience before going back to school, and when I graduated I dove right back into the same scene, starting at the bottom of the totem pole again. Within a year I worked my way up to video editor of our morning show, and two years after that I was hired at a global network as a video editor for the evening news show.

Three months after I started there I was having a friendly conversation with my supervisor when he let me in on a secret: they didn't hire me because of my education or degree, they hired me because of my professional experience. They were impressed that I edited all the video for the morning show all by myself. So I reflected on that for a while and realized I could've gone a much quicker and cheaper route. I could've simply pursued a certification, or at most an AA, from community college for about $1-2K that I could've paid out of pocket, I would've been able to get the same job at the station I worked at after graduating, and likely would've achieved the same promotions and obtained the job I have now.

Now I'm still dealing with $30K in debt for a degree that honestly doesn't have much value to me when my industry prefers experience. I also had to shovel a lot of crap taking extra "required" classes for stupid subjects that weren't related to my major.

That's what I'd change. Do you guys feel the same way about anything in your life? Not necessarily "regret" but just something you'd do differently if you had a chance to "edit" that season of your life?

The love that this is speaking of here is not human love. It is not based in human emotions and feelings nor in our circumstances. It is not dependent on the one being loved being lovable. And it is not based in our culture and traditions and in human interpretation and application. This love is “agape” love which originates with God, and which prefers what God prefers, which is all that is holy, righteous, godly, morally pure, upright, honest and faithful.

So, the one who is loving with this agape love will prefer to live through Christ, to embrace God’s will, to choose his choices, and to actively obey them in his power and strength and wisdom. And he is going to do to and for others what is for their good, as God defines good. And he (or she) will not deliberately and/or habitually and/or premeditatedly sin against others. So he will not lie to, cheat, or cheat on, slander, and gossip about them, etc.

So, when this says that “whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” this is speaking of those who are actively loving God and other humans with this agape love. And if we are loving God with this love which comes from him, we are going to obey him and his commandments under the New Covenant, and we are going to live holy lives, pleasing to him, separate (unlike, different) from the world because we are becoming like Jesus.

So, this is not saying that if you just go around being nice to people that it means that you know God and that you have been born of God. For to know God means that we have been crucified with Christ in death to sin, and we have been raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness, to live no longer as slaves to sin but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness, in his power.

For if we profess to be in fellowship with God/Christ, but we continue to walk in sin, we are liars. And if we profess to know God, but we do not obey his commandments, in practice, we are liars. For no one born of God, who abides in Christ, makes a practice of sinning. But whoever practices righteousness is righteous in the sight of God. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

[Romans 6:1-23; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]

Now our prime example that we have in human form of what this kind of love looks like is Jesus Christ who is God, the second person of our triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When Jesus Christ lived on this earth he healed the sick and afflicted, raised the dead, delivered people from demons, fed the hungry, comforted the sorrowful, and he preached repentance and obedience to him for forgiveness of sins and eternal life with God.

But he also spoke the truth in love to the people, even strongly to some who were self-righteous and full of pride and who were hypocrites who did not live what they professed. They were big on looking good on the outside, but Jesus said that inside they were full of wicked deeds, greed, hypocrisy, and self-indulgence. They were those who did not practice what they preached who were leading others to hell on the promise of heaven (false teachers).

Jesus didn’t lie to people to make them feel good about themselves. He did not dilute and alter his gospel message in order to attract the world to “Christian” gatherings. He was not concerned about offending people with the truth. He was concerned about their lives here on the earth and where they would spend eternity. And he didn’t die on that cross just to forgive us our sins so that heaven would be secured us for eternity.

He died that we might die with him to sin and walk with him in holiness and in obedience to his commands so that we would have eternal life in him. And he died that we might live for him and no longer for self. And he shed his blood for us to buy us back for God (to redeem us) out of our lives of slavery (addiction) to sin so that we will now honor him with our bodies. And he died and rose from the dead to give us new life in him to be lived for his glory.

[1 Peter 2:24; 2 Corinthians 5:15; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Luke 9:23-26]

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,
Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

Login to view embedded media
Caution: This link may contain ads

please pray for a job and wisdom re: which church to go to. thank you

What is the real purpose of being a missionary ? Is it not to reach those who are hungry naked sick to give them money to provide to also visit christians in prison and other prisoners to let others know their situation ? for isnt that what christ commanded to preach that one should be preaching the whole gospel. But actually it seems it is not God will for all to travel abroad as they are not protected. We should just support from where we are those in such situation which is the job of christians who are protected to reach all those to record them unless christ specifically calls us. How might we help support christian prisoners and other prisoners overseas is there anyway we can help ?

How might people help the needy if one is poor without money ? How can they fulfill matthew 25 even if they seek to work to help they may die before they make money

How can one know if someone made all their living ethically if for some example they cheated in high school to get into a better course or in college and made money after they graduated in college. Should they sell all money they made and start from scratch. And i am not sure if one somehow did anything illegal in business to make money. Must one sell it all to have no money. And what if one works for a company that in one time they cheated in life. Is all their money ethical.

We see Matthew only gave away most of his money but kept some.

Also I want to ask about piracy because some make a profit selling old items but how do you know if they somehow stole it and is it ethical to sell it for big price. If one downloads a thing illegally and pays the original company that made the item by buying one of their recent products but sometimes a product is made by multiple companies. But I think is wrong to support others to distribute things illegally.

Anyway I am just wondering but I will not make excuses that I will pay for item online if I want it but I am troubled as I wonder if some sometimes stole it and I should pay the companies also who made it.

I was going to use a strategy guide for a game I have that I downloaded illegally before but now want to pay for it but the price is about $90 aud

Though it will be expensive may be able to manage by not being occupied with too many possesions that i should only focus on one thing at a time than desiring many things. But I wonder anyway if the money I have which is some amount by my father to support me as I was not working but now am sometimes working as I did find job where I can choose hours to work not too big though to still not making enough yet I wonder if we would have that amount if it was all obtained ethically which I assume is.

I will be frank and say that I live in the world as a wordly person as I don’t see any alternative. Which is begrudging because I don’t really like it here. I don’t even see why anyone would want to be here or why people cling to their lives, as if it is important? What am missing?

Jerryhuerta said,​

You aren't a historicist, so you should be posting on my thread.​

As to your statements on Israel,



Quote. Not only do I disagree with dispensationalism but I disagree with what you are saying also. Israel, the lost sheep, went into dispersion/captivity, at least 100 years before Judah went into captivity in Babylon; The difference between Israel and Judah was Israel had abandoned God, to the point of Keeping Sunday; Judah was still in covenant even when in captivity, and when Jesus arrived all they had to do was repent and anoint the most high; it was Mary Madeleine who anointed Jesus and less than 200 repented. Unquote



the OT affirms Christ came to punish the shepherds and scatter the sheep. In Ezekiel 34, God is angry with the shepherds for failing to care for the sheep, some of which are lost, driven away, and scattered.

.......

I am certainly a Historicist, You may not be, I think you do not know what the word and practice is; or you practice an Orwellian version. You may also be confusing method with result.

A Definition and Short History of Historicism as a Method for Interpreting Daniel and Revelation (andrews.edu)

While I often disagree with the SDA, I do not disagree with their method.

Jesus fulfilled Ezekiel 34, as he fulfilled half of those things said of him in the Law and the Prophets before he was cut off; as any good Jew could tell you about half of those prophesies the Messiah was to fulfil are outstanding; but still to come.

How would you refute this argument? Would you share resources online or citations for further study?

1. All the history and miracles in the Christian Bible (including Hebrew Scriptures, both Old and New Testament) can be explained by aliens with advanced technology who deceived humans, rather than a supernatural God telling the truth.
2. This theory has more explanatory power as it accounts for suffering, God's absence today, lack of miraculous answers to prayer today, reports of alien sightings, etc.
3. The only problem this theory appears to introduce is how to explain cause-and-effect, i.e. the reliability of the universe enabling the scientific method. (See Ed Feser's Aquinas, The Last Superstition.) However, just as Christians say God or God's nature is a brute fact, we are free to likewise say the universe being reliable and intelligible in this way simply is a brute fact. Thus there is no loss of explanatory power. Other issues: Exorcisms are explained through power of suggestion and imagination; other miracle claims are simply due to natural phenomenon or contain falsehoods in their reporting (or could be the same aliens operating again).
4. Thus "it was aliens" accounts for more of the facts (namely, suffering, unanswered prayer, God's absence) than the God-claims of Judaism or Christianity and is to be preferred rationally.

Please note the argument is not declaring that aliens exist. Rather, the supposition is that, since both God and aliens are not certainly known to exist, aliens provide more explanatory power. (I have studied philosophical proofs for the existence of God, and they all rest on uncertain premises, so remain uncertain arguments.)

Problems with an earlier attempt to refute this argument:

Consider the facts that Jesus of Nazareth is a historical figure, a man, born of Mary and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. This is firmly embedded in human history and rules out the possibility of Jesus being an alien.

Click to expand...

It is not at all certain Mary wasn't abducted by aliens, inseminated via IVF, and brainwashed, for example. It's simply not true that it's an obvious fact that the Gospel is literal historical truth: It's merely what Luke wrote or was told to write.

Furthermore, it‘s also a fact that Jesus reveals Himself to be God.

Click to expand...

Yes, and Jesus may have been an alien lying to us. This explains His silence and absence and false promises e.g. 'seek and you shall find', 'knock and the door shall be opened', 'believe that you receive it and it shall be yours.'

if you study Jesus’ words and actions, His character, you’ll also have a hard time making this case [that Jesus lied to us].

Click to expand...

The previous comment shares my experience already that Jesus does not keep His promises, and even apart from this despair, it is not difficult to make a Biblical argument. The Gospel says for example 'to them Jesus only spoke in parables, speaking plainly only to His Disciples', i.e. he was not concerned that the general public understand him correctly from the outset, indicating a cunning manipulation strategy rather than telling everyone plainly the truth of the matter. He also spoke ambiguously so as to deliberately deceive and mislead, as for example when he discusses 'tearing down this temple and I shall raise it up again' referring to His Body while causing his hearers to naturally understand he was referring to the Jerusalem Temple. So it is plausible his moral code was consistent with deceiving all of mankind, especially if He determined it was 'for our own good' to survive as a species, sentient life being so rare in this universe.

These days, we see way too many freshman attempts to discredit (or sometimes buttress) the Biblical conceptions of God by way of mere deductive arguments.

In the following video, Christian philosopher, Greg Ganssle, briefly explains 'why' it is the case that so many merely deductive arguments don't effectively provide the conclusive punch line that their proponents assert they do, either way ...

... trust me, this beats me having to pull off several Logic textbooks from my shelf and attempt a pedantic and no frills explanation.

PHILOSOPHY - Epistemology: Argument and Evidence​

House impeachment investigators are seeking to uncover what role, if any, Joe Biden played in his son’s foreign business dealings. After repeated denials of ever having met Hunter's business partners, evidence of meetings, key payments and witness testimony tell another story.
Evidence including sworn impeachment inquiry testimony, confirmed emails and financial records increasingly show that President Joe Biden’s meetings with his son’s foreign clients were closely followed by payments and agreements that advanced his family’s business deals.

House Republicans on Thursday subpoenaed new financial records belonging to Hunter Biden, his associates, and companies in a growing effort to find evidence that Joe Biden benefited personally from his son’s foreign dealings.
Rep. Greg Steube agreed on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show on Thursday that Joe Biden played a “rainmaker” role in Hunter Biden’s business ventures.
“We’ve known that all along and now we’re getting corroborating witness testimony,” Steube said. “Thankfully, for the subpoenas that have been issued to the financial institutions, we now have financial evidence of the money that was laundered from the Chinese Communist Party or Russian oligarchs, or the Ukrainian government and entities through the Biden family members, his brother, James Biden, and Hunter Biden.”

“And we know that obviously, Joe Biden was the impetus behind all of that,” Steube claimed.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.

Hi everyone, there has been word on the news lately, apparently the Amazon rainforest is nearing collapse and they are saying it may collapse by 2050. The Amazon is a natural treasure that God has given us, it would be very sad if anything happened to it. I think that the body of Christ needs to say NO to this! Please agree with me in prayer!

Lord God we agree right now for the Amazon Rainforest, we pray that the ecosystem will not collapse and there would be no profound climate change on the earth! We forbid the rainforest to collapse in the name of Jesus and we speak life into the Amazon rainforest now in the name of Jesus! Lord show mankind what to do to combat climate change on the earth, show us what to do to prevent a catastrophe! We pray for an end to climate change, an end to global warming, and an end to the destruction of the natural environment in Jesus' name!

A group of truck drivers who support former president Donald Trump have announced that they will not be driving to New York City to express their disappointment with the civil fraud judgment that fined Trump more than $350 million.
This all comes in response to Trump being barred from operating his business in New York for three years and being found liable for more than $350 million in damages in the civil fraud case brought against him, his family and the Trump Organization by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
New York Judge Arthur Engoron handed down his ruling Friday after a months-long trial beginning in October and stemming from James' lawsuit alleging the former president inflated his assets and committed fraud.
As a result, many pro-Trump truck drivers across the country have not taken the ruling lightly.
"I'm just one of the many millions of Truckers who believe in God and love this Country," a trucker known as "Chicago Ray" wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "I stand with Trump because Trump stands with me. Truckers for Trump ain't just a slogan, it's real," he wrote.
Chicago Ray took to X on Feb. 16 when the ruling came down, calling on fellow truckers to boycott taking shipments to New York City.

listening to God is not as simple as listening to our MP3 players or cell phones. How do we even learn to listen to God? How does someone know whether God is speaking or whether they are hearing a little voice in their own heads?

Click to expand...

-- Pacwa, M (2011). How to Listen When God is Speaking. Frederick, MD: The Word Among Us Press. p. 11.

Why is this not practically a stand-alone 'proof by contradiction' argument? It needs only a little fleshing out:

1. If God created us for relationship with Him and intends to speak to us, he would give us all the intrinsic ability to hear Him, not something to be learned by other humans.
2. He has not done so.
3. Thus God either did not create us for relationship with Him or doesn't intend to speak to us.

Why would God make our ability to hear Him dependent on humans teaching other humans?

To 'have good works' for us to do? Are we really to believe God created some people whose purpose is to get others to listen to Him? How is that compatible with "God's love for all mankind" if people go to hell if they are not taught to listen to Him? and compatible with God's wisdom as there seems to be far fewer teachers available than those who need to learn.

(while yes I know that some of this has to do with my thyroid or hormones I was just wanting to ask a question)

is it normal to feel more I guess scrupulous during Lent? Is it being Christ is “drawing near to us”?

I feel like I’ve been sleeping and woke up. i guess i could explain it like I need to clean house before guest comes?

ive only been to church a handful of times in the last two years due to various reasons (i was pregnant and now thyroid/hormones).

God bless

Well, why not? Ye did it, successfully.

This was the first week of Lent at my local methodist church. It seems that the work of Christ in atonement and salvation has almost completely given way to calls for social justice activism.
SJ hymns like "In an Age of Twisted Values" (which we sang) just make me very uncomfortable indeed. Where is the cost to God the Father in giving up His Son, who took on Himself the sin of mankind? Are our leaders embarrassed by religion, by the supernatural? We are told we are ALL on a journey, implying there is no point of finally giving in and acknowledging that we are sinners, deserving of eternal separation from a good, but Holy God and needing the indwelling Christ? Nor can it be said that the people know these truths but just need to be moved to good deeds. One lady said she never understood who the Holy Spirt is after years of attending.
I am very exercised. My wife and I feel very isolated theologically although we have made friends, but who just seem to go along with whatever is offered to them on a Sunday.

Three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed when a wandering Mobile hospital patient dropped the specimens can sue for wrongful death because the embryos were “children,” the Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday in reversing a judge’s decision to throw out the case.

The Wrongful Death of a Minor Act “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location,” wrote Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell. “[T]he Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and unqualified. It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation.

Article about the lower court ruling

“It is clear to this court, based on Alabama’s statutes and case law, that a strong belief in the sanctity of life has not prevented the Alabama Supreme Court from recognizing and upholding our legislature’s clear pattern of using the term “in utero” [emphasis original] when defining the unborn or minor child, including in the context of a wrongful death case,” Phillips wrote in her ruling Tuesday.

AL Supreme Court ruling

I gather the thrust of it is that the law says 'child', we've previously ruled that that includes 'unborn child', and that fits these frozen embryos.

If they'd left it there, it might not have had such a whiff of violating church-state separation, but the chief justice's special concurrence wanders off to quote Aquinas, Calvin, van Mastricht, and the Bible (KJV).

In summary, the theologically based view of the sanctity of life adopted by the People of Alabama [the state constitution literally has a "Sanctity of Life" amendment added in 2018] encompasses the following: (1) God made every person in His image; (2) each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate; and (3) human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.

The People of Alabama have declared the public policy of this State to be that unborn human life is sacred. We believe that each human being, from the moment of conception, is made in the image of God, created by Him to reflect His likeness. It is as if the People of Alabama took what was spoken of the prophet Jeremiah and applied it to every unborn person in this state: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, Before you were born I sanctified you." Jeremiah 1:5 ... Carving out an exception for the people in this case, small as they were, would be unacceptable to the People of this State, who have required us to treat every human being in accordance with the fear of a holy God who made them in His image.

From some of the dissents, pointing to originalism

In my judgment, the main opinion's view that the legal conclusion is "clear" and "black-letter law" is problematic because when the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act was first enacted in 1872, and for 100 years thereafter, IVF was not even a scientific possibility.
at the time the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act was enacted -- and long thereafter -- the term "unborn child" was only understood to refer to a child within its mother's womb.

It is not our role to expand the reach of a statute and "breathe life" into it by updating or amending it. It is also not our role to consider whether a law has become "stale" or "shelfworn."34 This is the same error made by those commentators who advocate for a living constitution and argue that the words in our Constitution should evolve over time.35

Instead, it is the role of the Legislature to determine whether a law is outdated (for instance, because of new technology) and, thus, requires updating. If our Court does "breathe life" into a law by expanding its reach, we short-circuit the legislative process and violate the Alabama Constitution's separation-of-powers clause.

Our own poll attached

I can't blame them one bit because Ukraine is losing territory. They are also aiding Russia in the fight. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
"The top Chinese diplomat delivered his response before the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. "There are not ripe conditions in place for parties to go back to the negotiating table," he announced in an on-stage interview.

"China has done a lot of constructive work and we will continue to play a positive role," he added. Noticeably, China has never outright condemned the war or Russia's invasion. Instead, it has issued a number of statements highlighting the role of NATO's expansions in leading up to the crisis."

The National Republican Congressional Committee Chair, Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., named a swath of candidates he told reporters fit the "formula" needed for the GOP to add to its fleet in November, the Associated Press reported. Those candidates included Prasanth Reddy, a cancer doctor and veteran who migrated to the United States from India who's running for a seat in northeast Kansas; Alison Esposito, a gay police detective and congressional candidate in New York; and Kevin Lincoln, a Black American and Hispanic California mayor running in the state.

“We beat 15 Democrats [in 2022] and every one of those we beat with a woman, a minority candidate or a veteran,” Hudson said. “That’s really been the playbook for the last two cycles. And so we’re using that same formula.”

“The motivation is we want our Congress to reflect America. And we believe that if we have dynamic candidates with compelling life stories, then they can win any district because they are not generic Republicans,” Hudson told the outlet.

OTOH

Mazi Pilip was the Republican congressional candidate running for the Nassau County seat and a near-perfect model of the NRCC strategy.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., ripped Pilip after her loss, saying during an appearance on Newsmax, "it turns out DEI isn’t a real good strategy for Republican candidate recruitment."

America has destabilized the world and because of the meddling, we are at a point where the whole world hates us. This does not include President decisions to invade Iraq and Libya.

When President Dwight Eisenhower decided that Africa’s rising political star, democratically elected Patrice Lumumba of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), was the “enemy,” the CIA conspired in his 1961 assassination, thus undermining the democratic hopes for Africa. He would hardly be the last African president brought down by the CIA.

Since 1975, the CIA has run secretive operations backing Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan that utterly wrecked Afghanistan while giving rise to al-Qaeda.

In the case of Syria, we learned from a few stories in the New York Times in 2016 and 2017 of the CIA’s subversive operations to destabilize Syria and overthrow Assad, as ordered by President Barack Obama. Here is the case of a dreadfully misguided CIA operation, blatantly in violation of international law, that has led to a decade of mayhem, an escalating regional war, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and millions of displaced people, and yet there has not been a single honest acknowledgment of this CIA-led disaster by the White House or Congress.

In the case of Ukraine, we know that the U.S. played a major covert role in the violent coup that brought down Yanukovych and that swept Ukraine into a decade of bloodshed but to this day, we don’t know the details. Russia offered the world a window into the coup by intercepting and then posting a call between Victoria Nuland, then U.S. Assistant Secretary of State (now Under-Secretary of State) and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt (now Assistant Secretary of State), in which they plot the post-coup government. Following the coup, the CIA covertly trained special operations forces of the post-coup regime the U.S. had helped bring to power. The U.S. government has been mum about the CIA’s covert operations in Ukraine.