We don't know. Have you seen family relationships? Bloodkin doesn't mean anything. In fact bloodkin can often divide more.

To quote another forum user:

Cearbhall said:

Why would anyone bring this thread back...

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essentialsaltes said:

Pentagon likely to cancel missile deal with Germany over fears of Russia​

The Pentagon is expected to cancel a plan to send Tomahawk missiles to Germany partly because officials are concerned Russia will view it as an escalation, a startling reversal of a long-planned agreement with one of America’s biggest allies.

U.S. officials fear Moscow will retaliate if the Trump administration follows through on the effort to deploy precision missiles in the middle of the continent, according to two European officials and one American official. But any decision not to deliver them would yank back a deal made during the Biden administration and leave Berlin without defenses German leaders say they desperately need.

American officials, even if primarily fearful of Russia’s reaction, likely are also worried about the shrinking U.S. weapons stockpile.

Sad. Low energy.

Joe didn't put up with defeatist malarkey like that.

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Can't trust the word of the current USA regime, and our leaders are fools for thinking otherwise.

durangodawood said:

Does it sometimes seem like the amount of appalling characters among the J6 convicted set is just a bit above national average?

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Almost 100 January 6 rioters charged with new crimes after being pardoned: report​

The number of pardoned rioters charged or convicted of new crimes, according to reporter Katherine Pompilio, is at least 97 — or more than 1 in 16 of the total 1,500.

These crimes, she continued, "run the gamut from relatively low-grade offenses like property damage, possession of drug paraphernalia, and trespassing to serious felonies like grand larceny, stalking, planning to assassinate law enforcement officials and prominent politicians, and defrauding government agencies" — and some of the rioters have been sentenced to life in prison, like Andrew Paul Johnson, who was convicted of horrific crimes against children.

I suppose the world has always been rather toxic in one way or another. Even among so called "believers' there has been unhealthy rancor. We can either isolate or find community among those who most share our beliefs. But we need to be careful because beliefs can also become toxic. Certain interpretations of the Bible can be toxic. But can love be toxic? That is the main call and commandment of Jesus. "Love one another as I have loved you."

I think personal boundaries are important. That is, just because I walk into an angry space of someone else, does not mean that I have to bring it into myself. And yet it is almost automatic that we do so. Even here on the forum it can be quite easy to get sucked into a knee jerk response that disquiets us.

Matthew 16:24 “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

There have been a few of them lately..

Not as prevalent as Russians falling out windows - but enough to make me go "hmmm"

Michie said:

Fifty years ago, France was the undisputed leader in wine. The Judgment of Paris changed everything.

The tablecloth was white, and the wines were red. The organizers were British and American, and the judges were French. And pretentious.

Actually, that last part probably conveys an unfair French stereotype. Let’s just say they were confident.

There were nine of them. Each came to the Intercontinental Hotel near the Champs-Élysées in Paris to compare the tastes of ten glasses of American and French wine — cabernets and chardonnays — poured from unmarked bottles.

It was May 24, 1976. Around 3pm, the judges took their first sips.

Within days, the global wine industry would be changed forever. So would the life of an American immigrant who’d become known as the King of Chardonnay.

The suffering that built a wine legend​

Continued below.

A cereal moonshot

Plus: A Swatch store lockdown, the year in songs, and more.

thehustle.co

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Outstanding!

“Too many people receive Holy Communion without repentance, preparation, or awareness of what they are doing.”

Repentance, isn't it strange how we can be so good at appointing out the sins of other and yet be so unaware of our own? Quite often we easily can acknowledge our general sin. "Yes, I am a sinful man". But when it comes to specifics there is denial and the defensive walls go up.

She was raised by an abusive uncle who instilled his atheism in her. She converted after accidentally
going to Mass, which she thought was just a Bach concert, and in there she was impressed by the sermon.
She looked much tougher than what Hollywood presented her in The Sound of Music, after all, she was
Austrian.

JacquelineDeane55 said:

Chicken 'N a Biscuit.

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My daughters like those. There is a box in our pantry. I even like them but I know to stop at 5 or 6 or the salt gets to be too much.

I bought an Amish canning book a couple of years ago, which are not hard to find in OH and PA, and it was well worth the $22 or so that it cost. All of the recipes can be done in a water bath rather than a pressure cooker, which makes it even easier to work with.

Michie said:

For years, there has been a progressive effort to criminalize parody and political humor, a push that hit a low point in 2023 when satirist Douglas Mackey was sentenced to seven months in prison for engaging in “conspiracy against rights” over an Internet meme.

Fortunately, a unanimous appellate court overturned his conviction, finding that there wasn’t a shred of evidence indicating that Mackey had ever coordinated, solicited, or intimidated anyone in posting his meme, as the prosecution had alleged. The man had simply told a joke.

Despite this, progressive states continue to try to put guardrails on speech, including political satire, but they, too, are learning that the First Amendment is an especially strong bulwark against government authoritarianism.

The latest to learn the lesson is Hawaii.

The Aloha State recently agreed to pay approximately $118,000 in attorney fees and costs to the satire website The Babylon Bee and political activist Dawn O’Brien after the pair successfully challenged the state’s law banning certain “materially deceptive” election-related content. The law targeted parody and satirical political content deemed harmful to a candidate’s reputation during election season and threatened fines and jail time for creators unless they added disclaimers stating that the material was fictional.

Continued below.

Babylon Bee Wins Hawaii Free Speech Settlement

Hawaii agreed to pay more than $118,000 after The Babylon Bee defeated a censorship law that swept political satire into an unconstitutional speech regime.

www.standingforfreedom.com

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It's amazing how some see the speck in another's eye but fail to perceive the plank in their own

The guy Bondi threw under the bus is the not only the acting AG, but the next nominee:

NYT: Trump Says He Plans to Nominate Blanche for Attorney General

NYT: Trump Says He Plans to Nominate Blanche for Attorney General

Just think, even before we take our initial steps of faith, all waits us. God has already “given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness;” none of which is any of our doing, and it’s all completed for us at the outset and inception of our walk of faith. We will just continue to grow unto all this which we already have, by the Father’s “work” in us (Phl 2:13). —NC




It is the power of God Himself, as it wrought in the Lord Jesus, which works in us to give us the new standing in life. Viewed in connection with our resurrection with Him it implies—by the very fact of our receiving—that hat we are forgiven perfectly and forever. We were under the burden of our sins, and died in them. This burden the Savior took upon Himself, and died for us, accomplishing what put away our sins in going down into death. Raised up with Him, inasmuch as partaking of that life which He possesses as risen from the dead, we have—like Him—left all that burden of sin and condemnation behind us with the death from which we have been delivered. Therefore He says “Having forgiven you all your trespasses” (Col 2:13).

The Lord Jesus, when he arose, left death and the weight of condemnation under which we were lying, behind Him—we also being raised up with Him. Naturally God, in thus raising us up from the standing in which we were, has not raised us up to condemn us, or with condemnation attached to this new life, which is the Lord Jesus Himself. For He had only already borne the condemnation, and satisfied the justice of the Father, and died for the putting away of sin, before He communicated this life to us. The Father brought us out of death and condemnation with His Son who had borne it for us.

Risen with the Lord Jesus, we are to set our affections on things above, where He sits at the right hand of the Father, and not on things on the earth. The two cannot go together. To look, to have one’s motives, above and below at the same time, is not possible. Be tempted by things, have to resist them, we may; but this is not to have them as our object. The reason for this is however found in our position; we have died, and our life is hid with Christ and God.

It does not say, “We must die.” Man cannot do this by will: we cannot deny will by will. Nor would the will of the flesh ever do it (Rom 8:7). If it acts, it does not abdicate. We have died: this is the precious comforting truth with regard to the believer by virtue of the Lord Jesus having died for him and he in Him. He has received his life, and all that he did for him on the Cross. He is no longer in the life with which the power of temptation, guilt, the attacks of sin, are connected. Death has cut this connection.

Now that which was connected with the life of the old man with sin, condemnation, weakness, fear, powerlessness against the assaults of the enemy—all this is past. We have a life, but it is in the risen Lord Jesus; it is hidden with Him in the Father. We are not yet manifest in its glory, as we shall be before the eyes of all in heaven and earth. Our life is hidden, but safe in its eternal Source. He is hid in God, so also are we. When the Lord Jesus shall appear we shall also appear with Him in glory. —J N Darby (father of dispensationalism - 1800-1882. During the winter of 1827–1828 following a riding accident, Darby spent months recuperating and intensively studying the Bible. During this time, he began to separate from the established Church of Ireland and conclude that the church and the kingdom of God were distinct. - Liberty University)





MJS daily devotional excerpt for June 5

“Free Born”

“If God be for us, who can be against us”? (Rom. 8:31)

Faith in the facts alone gives the rest of reliance. “Is there an accuser, a judge, or an executioner, still after us (Rev 12:10)? The accuser may go away rebuked by this, that God has justified us; the judge may go away rebuked by this, that the Lord Jesus has died—has already suffered the judgment, and His work has been accepted to the full in heaven itself; the executioner may go away rebuked by this, that all the malice of earth and hell together shall never drag us away from the firm embrace of our God. And if there be now neither accuser to charge, nor judge to condemn, nor executioner to slay, the court is cleared!” -J.G.B.

“It is a blessed thing to be shown our enemies and told with Gideon, that Jehovah has delivered them into our hands (Josh. 8:7). Our old man has been crucified (but only restrained and still on the Cross—NC - Rom. 6:6), the world ‘overcome,’ and its prince ‘judged’ (John 16:33, 11). If we are walking by faith, as risen with the Lord Jesus Christ, Satan, the world, and the flesh (old man; the unholy trinity—NC) are under our feet.” -J.N.D.

“Not a hair of the child of God can fall without God’s permission. Satan is but the unintentional instrument to accomplish God’s will; he can do no more than he is allowed to do. If trials come as a host against us, we know that the Almighty is between us and them. They will but work out for us His own purpose of His love.” -MJS

Romans 8:1-8 NKJV


Carnally Minded

What does it look like to be carnally minded? According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, it is relating to or given to crude bodily pleasures and appetites. It is marked by sexuality. It is worldly. And according to Bible Hub’s Greek interlinear, being carnal is fleshly, of human origin, and it is generally used in a negative sense to describe someone who is living by the flesh, doing what the flesh desires, and what is displeasing to the Lord. It is making one’s life decisions based off the flesh and not according to our Lord.

So, someone who is carnally minded is someone who is still living by their sinful flesh, doing what their flesh desires, and not what God requires of them, whether or not they are professing faith in Jesus Christ with their lips. They are those who are idolaters who are living in immorality, selfishness, self-indulgence, hypocrisy, disobedience, defiance, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness, and/or pride, just doing what pleases their flesh without regard for what God requires of them in the way of thought, word, and deed.

Godly Minded

What does it look like to be Godly minded? We are those who no longer walk (in conduct, in practice) according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. This does not necessarily mean we are absolutely perfect in every respect and that we never fail to be who God wants us to be (see 1 John 2:1-2), but it must mean that by God-gifted and God-persuaded faith in Jesus Christ we have denied self, died with Christ to sin, and that we are now walking by the Spirit in walks of obedience to our Lord and to his commands in holy living.

This means that Jesus Christ is truly King of our lives, and our desire is to please him in every respect. We are those whose ears are tuned into hearing from the Lord as to what he wants us to do each day, and then we do what he says, not necessarily with absolute perfection and timing every time, but we listen to and we obey our Lord in daily practice, as our lifestyle. We want to please our Lord, and we want to serve him, even despite daily challenges and some opposition and persecutions, because we love our Lord Jesus.

No Condemnation

So, when this says that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, don’t stop reading there. Keep reading. For we are not “in Christ Jesus” if we are still living according to the flesh, in practice, by habit. For those who are in the flesh cannot please God, for they are carnally minded and not Godly minded. Their minds and their hearts are set on what the flesh desires, and not on what God desires. So, regardless of whether or not they profess faith in Jesus, they are not “in Christ” and they are condemned.

Those who are in Christ Jesus are those who are walking (in conduct, in practice) according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. They are those who are living (in practice) according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. Their minds and their hearts are set on doing what pleases God and on obeying his commands and on living holy lives, pleasing to our Lord, in his service. Because of what Jesus did for us on that cross, and in his resurrection, we want to serve and obey him. So we are the not condemned.

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

Unless You Are Born Again

Based off John 3:1-21
An Original Work / November 3, 2013
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Nicodemus came to Jesus.
He acknowledged God was with Him.
Jesus said, “You can’t see heaven
Unless you are born again.”

“How can a man be born when he’s old?
Can he enter into his mother’s womb?”
Jesus answered, “Flesh is flesh,
So of the Spirit, you must be.”

Jesus said to Nicodemus,
“You’re a teacher, and yet you don’t
Understand of what I tell you,
Because you will not believe.

“For God so loved the world that He gave
His one and His only Son for your sin.
So, whoever believes in Him
Has eternal life in heav’n.

“Light has come into the world,
But human beings love the darkness,
Because their deeds are so evil,
So in truth, they stand condemned.

“Everyone who practices evil
Fears that the Light will expose his sin.
Yet, whoever lives his life by the Light
Does so through his God.”

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No Condemnation?
An Original Work / June 5, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Leviathan-at-play said:

“Fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28).

Not counter-arguing brother, but rather nuance-pointing

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No problem. God's power to destroy both soul and body in hell should be enough to convince people to seek His mercy that is in Christ before they meet Him in judgement.

JosephZ said:

The article failed to mention the reason the principal decided to resign.

"Outside voices and national political narratives" have distorted facts since February and Doolan became the subject of personal, targeted online harassment.

"A procedural mistake should not result in months of harassment, intimidation, misinformation, profanity-laced phone calls and emails, or coordinated efforts to destroy an educator's reputation and livelihood," the statement said.

The district provided over a dozen examples of expletive and threatening voicemails, emails and texts sent to Doolan and other staff, which were reviewed by The News. Many messages included derogatory language toward Muslims and Islam. As recently as Saturday, an unknown number sent Doolan an expletive-filled text message calling her a misogynistic slur.

www.dallasnews.com/news/faith/article/wylie-east-high-school-principal-resigns-22286584.php

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Yeah, not an example of Christ in that.

Catholic theologian Léocadie Lushombo praised Pope Leo’s ‘prophetic’ inclusion of care for digital workers and encouraged people to ‘care about knowing’ how their use of AI products affects other people.

When most people type a question into an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, it may not occur to them that the speedy and friendly responses they receive could have any connection with sweatshop-style dehumanizing labor. Pope Leo XIV is hoping to make this connection clearer. In Magnifica Humanitas, the new papal encyclical on safeguarding human dignity amid the rise of AI, the Pope vividly highlights “new forms of slavery” that AI is already facilitating, writing that that the benefits of enhanced efficiency and other innovations are not to be celebrated if they are “built on a chain of exploitation that remains deliberately hidden.”

Some experts on the topic welcome the papal intervention, noting that AI-driven exploitation is not only difficult to track, but also hard to get people to care about, given that it typically takes place far away from the places where AI products are most in demand.

In her home country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Catholic theologian Léocadie Lushombo has witnessed children and women emerging from cobalt and nickel mines, bathed in toxic dust and doing the backbreaking but largely invisible labor needed to supply the elements necessary for the chips that make countless modern technologies possible, including AI systems.

“It’s an image you can never forget — it breaks your heart," Lushombo told the Register.

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*Permission to post in full*

The most revealing thing about the modern attempt to sell progressive politics through Christian language is how little Christianity must remain in the conversation before everyone is asked to applaud the performance as “spiritually refreshing.”

The New York Times profile of James Talarico and his pastor Jim Rigby gives us an almost perfect specimen of this modern perversion. Rigby rarely uses the word “God,” completely avoids the word “Lord,” rejects male pronouns for God, refers to the Annunciation as mythological, and leads a congregation where the Apostle Paul is dismissed as a villain, misogynist, and jerk, so that his congregation can leave each session feeling enlightened and affirmed—but spiritually impoverished.

This is modern Christianity after the Creed has been thinned into or completely replaced by moralistic therapeutic deism. It presents a wonderfully convenient deity for the modern man: a God who never demands repentance from sin, who validates all our feelings, desires, and preferences, and seldom contradicts certain political platforms.

The absurdity becomes even clearer when the Annunciation is used as an argument for abortion rights. Yes, you read that right: Talarico argues for the right to slaughter the unborn using Mary’s fiat.
Meanwhile, Luke’s Gospel presents Mary’s fiat as a willing yet completely obedient surrender to the Lord’s saving economy; it was far from a slogan for “bodily autonomy.” In fact, the eternal Word took flesh in her womb precisely because he wanted to save and redeem all human life from conception—not create the premise for abortuary slogans.

This kind of modern religion can sound deeply compassionate because it speaks constantly about the poor, the immigrant, women’s rights, and the oppressed; yet compassion detached from objective truth and divine revelation is nothing more than politically weaponized sentimentality that destroys souls en masse while manipulating voting decisions.

The Christian answer is far sturdier and far more powerful. Christ is not ancillary to politics or a historical symbol waiting to be co-opted by modern ideologies. He is Lord over all—and his revelation is absolute and unchangeable, even in the face of modern whims and social therapeutic coercion.

Therefore, every party, pastor, and voter must be judged beneath his cross and judgment seat. With that eternal perspective, the only Gospel worth preaching still begins and ends with the fullness of truth of Jesus Christ and his unchanging Catholic Church.

GOP plan to help social security?