“Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.”
(John 5:25)
Dead Shall Hear

Dear Friends,

Greetings! This week we are including some material that some may find a little unusual and possibly even hard to believe. As we are sure most of our readers can discern, we have now entered some very unusual times, to say the least.

In presenting this material we must always remember we are in a spiritual warfare. Ephesians 6:12. There are numerous references to this truth, many of which we have presented over the years on this web site.

One thing we must always continue to keep in mind is greater is He who is in us then he who is in the world. 1John 4:4.

Paul tell us in 1Thessalonians 5:4 that “ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief” and that we are not to be ignorant of the enemy's devices so that he can take advantage of us. 2Corinthians 2:11.

One thing is certain, we are not to worry or fear. Much of the enemy's power is in fear.

We need to do what we can and trust God to do what we can't.

For he has said I will never leave you or forsake you. “Be courageous and strong, fear not, neither be cowardly neither be afraid before them; for it is the Lord your God that advances with you in the midst of you, neither will he by any means forsake thee, nor desert thee.” Deuteronomy 31:6

Have a great week ahead.

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Christian Universalist Association

The History of Universalism

Universalism is a major spiritual tradition dating back to the Apostles of Jesus Christ and the ancient Christian church. It is an understanding of the Gospel that has inspired saints, mystics, philosophers, theologians, and churches in nearly every era of religious history from the time of Jesus to today. Even before the proclamation of the Christian Gospel, there were foreshadowings of Universalism in the Hebrew scriptures as well as in Greek and Eastern philosophy — some of which taught the truths of reformative divine justice, the potential of all people to be perfected in the divine image, and the emanation and restoration of all things back to the Source of All Being.

“We are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses” ~ Heb. 12:1

If you believe in Universalism, you are not alone! You are part of a rich heritage of religious thought and practice that has always managed to bubble up from the wellspring of the human spirit — reappearing over and over again in different places and time periods — even though the teaching of God’s all-inclusive love has been opposed and suppressed by more powerful churches teaching a god of eternal torment. It is as if despite man’s most strenuous efforts to stop it, the Holy Spirit keeps on reminding people that Jesus came to earth to bring Good News.

The flow chart below shows the institutional history of Christian Universalism from roughly 2000 years ago to the present day. Solid lines indicate direct descent from one church group or movement to a later one. Dashed lines indicate a historical relationship of indirect influence.

This two-part article will provide an overview of the development of Universalism as a Christian tradition. It is in Christianity that universalist faith has attained its most complete and meaningful manifestation. Christian Universalists would argue that the main purpose of Jesus Christ coming to this world was to proclaim and reveal a God who loves all people with a parental love, who will never give up on any soul, and who has a plan for the reconciliation of all things. A wide variety of Christian groups and individuals throughout history have believed in these ideas and taught them. Read on to learn about the most significant teachers and organized bodies of believers that are part of this great Universalist tradition we have inherited — the shining lamps of the Gospel that illuminate our minds and set our hearts afire with the love of God!

The Apostolic Era

Jesus of Nazareth, known to his followers as the Messiah (Christ), taught that God has a benevolent Fatherly nature and character. In moving parables such as the Prodigal Son, the Lost Sheep, and the Good Samaritan, he emphasized love, mercy, forgiveness, and compassion for all people. He instructed people to love not only their neighbors but also their enemies; forgave a woman caught in the act of adultery, who was supposed to be stoned to death according to Jewish religious law; and even asked God to forgive the Roman soldiers who pounded nails into his own hands.

When Jesus spoke of God’s judgment upon the wicked, he did so with words that implied a limited, corrective punishment. Specifically, he referred to divine judgment as aionios kolasis, meaning age-long chastisement. The idea was that a person who turns away from God and lives a life of evil will have to face justice — a purgatorial period in the afterlife — before enjoying eventual harmonious reunion with God.

Jesus explicitly prophesied that after his death on the cross and resurrection, he will “draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32). This hopeful promise was echoed by the teaching of the Apostleswho founded the Christian ecclesia (church community). For example, St. Peter taught that Jesus visits sinners in hell to help them become redeemed (1 Pet. 3:18-20, 4:6).

Numerous verses in the writings of St. Paul speak of God’s plan for the ultimate reconciliation of all, and Paul approvingly referred to the practice of baptism on behalf of the dead in the Corinthian church he founded (1 Cor. 15:29). This practice presupposes that God will save even those who died in sin and unbelief. Paul’s vigorous and courageous efforts to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ were probably the most important factor in the development of Christianity as a major world religion. He was at the forefront of the movement to include non-Jews in God’s new community of faith and to broaden the understanding of salvation beyond the confines of Jewish law. Paul created an intellectually coherent view of the meaning and message of Christ that was heavily focused around the teaching that through successive ages of time, God is in the process of bringing all beings back to Himself — that through the transformative influence of His firstborn Son, the Christ, all people can be raised up into the station of mature sons and daughters of God (e.g. see 1 Cor. 15:22-28, 2 Cor. 3:18, Gal. 4:4-5, Eph. 5:1).

Other early disciples of Jesus whose writings appear in the Bible also advocated a universalist understanding of the Gospel. St. John the Apostle was a notable example. He made the striking statment that “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16) and frequently wrote of the importance of Christians showing love to everyone as brothers and sisters.

The Patristic Era

The early church from the time of the Apostles until the 4th century was primarily a Universalist church. Most of the church fathers during this period believed that all people will be saved. Over time, alternative doctrines about the fate of sinners grew more popular, such as annihilationism and eternal conscious torment. These doctrines were often held by Christians who could not read the New Testament in the original Greek language in which it was written, and who interpreted the Bible through the lens of barbaric forms of paganism. It is noteworthy that Irenaeus the Bishop of Lyons wrote a lengthy book called Against Heresies in the late 2nd century, which never once mentioned universal salvation as a heretical belief. This is because for the first few centuries of Christian history, Universalism prevailed as the mainstream understanding of the Gospel.

The greatest theological school of the Patristic era — which directly descended from the Apostles themselves — was called the Didascalium and was based in Alexandria, Egypt. It was founded by St. Pantaenus (d. ca. 216) in the year 190 C.E. Pantaenus, described by some of his students as “the Sicilian bee,” was a Stoic philosopher who became a Christian missionary and traveled as far as India to spread the Gospel. He sought to reconcile the best of Greek philosophy with the radical new spiritual message of Jesus and the Apostles. He was martyred for his faith in Christ.

The Didascalium was the earliest catechetical school, and it played a very influential role in the development of Christian theology prior to the rise of the imperial Roman Church. The city of Alexandria was the center of learning and intellectual culture for the entire ancient world. This cosmopolitan metropolis was the meeting place of philosophers, theologians, writers, teachers and students of various belief systems, and during the first three centuries of Christian history it became the most important city in the Christian world. The Alexandria school of Christianity was thoroughly Universalist in its theology. One wonders how history would have been different had Alexandria remained the center of gravity of Christian thought instead of Rome, which developed a diametrically opposite theological system based on the teaching of eternal damnation.

St. Clement of Alexandria (150-220) was a student of Pantaenus and became his successor as the head of the Didascalium. Among his main goals was to convince pagans that Christianity is an intellectually rigorous worldview, and to convince Christians that one could be a well-educated philosopher and a follower of Christ at the same time. He believed that God has planted the seeds of truth in every rational mind, and that “the Law is for the Jew what philosophy is for the Greek, a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ.” In the year 202, Clement had to flee Egypt due to persecution of the Christian community by the Romans, and he ended up as the leader of a church in Cappadocia. On the issue of salvation, Clement wrote in his Stromataand Pedagogue:

“For all things are ordered both universally and in particular by the Lord of the universe, with a view to the salvation of the universe. But needful corrections, by the goodness of the great, overseeing judge, through the attendant angels, through various prior judgments, through the final judgment, compel even those who have become more callous to repent. … So He saves all; but some He converts by penalties, others who follow Him of their own will, and in accordance with the worthiness of His honor, that every knee may be bent to Him of celestial, terrestrial and infernal things (Phil. 2:10), that is angels, men, and souls who before his [Christ’s] advent migrated from this mortal life. … For there are partial corrections (paideiai) which are called chastisements (kolasis), which many of us who have been in transgression incur by falling away from the Lord’s people. But as children are chastised by their teacher, or their father, so are we by Providence… for good to those who are chastised collectively and individually.”

Clement’s student and successor was St. Origen (185-254), a great early Christian theologian and church father. Origen began his work in Alexandria, was ordained as a priest in Greece, and later founded a school at Caesarea, the provincial capital of Palestine. He wrote the first systematic commentary and exegesis of the entire Bible, including concordance, and he produced a Bible in six columns, showing parallel versions of the Greek and Hebrew text. His greatest contribution was to develop a comprehensive understanding of the Gospel that was based on belief in God’s plan for the ultimate redemption and restoration of all as the foundation of the Christian message. Origen died as a martyr, enduring torture at the hands of the Roman government for his faith in Christ, during a time of terrible persecution of the Christian community.

Most of Origen’s copious writings have been lost or destroyed by later opponents, but what remains shows a picture of a truly deep spiritual thinker who bridges the divide between East and West in a way that few, if any, other major religious leaders of history have done. He emphasized the teaching that all souls have emanated from God, descended into realms of separation as they fell into sin, and must ascend back to the Source of All Being through a divine plan of multiple ages and trials. Origen’s belief in preexistence and reincarnation of the soul led to a great deal of controversy, as these ideas were supported by some early Christians but adamantly opposed by others. These controversial views have prevented him from being canonized in most branches of Christianity, but he is recognized as a saint in the Coptic Church.

Regardless of whether one agrees with all of his specific teachings, Origen’s theology is rich and illuminating, and has a strongly Universalist flavor. Origen understood the Biblical story of the Fall of Man as an illustration of the way human spirits have left God, seeking earthly things of ego, and thus have been separated from the true happiness that can only be found in God’s Presence. He saw Christ as the firstborn Son of God, the only being in the universe who never fell from grace, and whose eternal perfection is an example to all other humans in their progression back toward reunion with God. Origen wrote in his De Principiis and Against Celsus concerning the way God will restore all beings to Himself:

“God’s consuming fire works with the good as with the evil, annihilating that which harms His children. This fire is one that each one kindles; the fuel and food is each one’s sins. … When the soul has gathered together a multitude of evil works, and an abundance of sins against itself, at a suitable time all that assembly of evils boils up to punishment, and is set on fire to chastisement… [I]t is to be understood that God our Physician, desiring to remove the defects of our souls, should apply the punishment of fire. … Our God is a ‘consuming fire’ in the sense in which we have taken the word; and thus He enters in as a ‘refiner’s fire’ to refine the rational nature, which has been filled with the lead of wickedness, and to free it from the other impure materials which adulterate the natural gold or silver, so to speak, of the soul. [O]ur belief is that the Word [Christ] shall prevail over the entire rational creation, and change every soul into his own perfection. … For stronger than all the evils in the soul is the Word, and the healing power that dwells in him; and this healing he applies, according to the will of God, to every man.”

Three major Universalist figures of the 4th century are St. Didymus the Blind, St. Macrina the Younger, and St. Gregory of Nyssa. St. Didymus the Blind (313-398) — also known as “the Seer” because of his spiritual vision and prophetic gifts — was a follower of Origen who served as the head of the Alexandia school for half a century. He was a great scholar, not only of religion but other subjects as well. He memorized large portions of the scriptures, wrote many books and commentaries, and invented a system of reading for the blind based on letters carved into wood (a precursor to Braille), which enabled blind students to study at his school. Didymus was known for his angelic nature and his gentle but intellectually persuasive responses to critics of the true Christian faith.

St. Macrina the Younger (324-380) was a nun who founded a sisterhood of several hundred women, and is honored as one of the most prominent nuns of the Eastern Church. Her grandmother was St. Macrina the Elder, also a Universalist — in fact, her family contained several significant church leaders who either professed Universalism or were sympathetic to it. Macrina the Younger was well educated and well versed in scripture, and was a supporter of Origen’s teachings. She was an avowed believer in the salvation of all, writing that God’s judgments are a “process of healing [which] shall be proportioned to the measure of evil in each of us, and when the evil is purged and blotted out, there shall come in each place to each immortality and life and honor.” She also taught that the resurrection is “the restoration of human nature to its pristine condition.” Macrina was known for her skill as a manager of her family and religious community, her life of piety and force of character.

St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-394) was one of Macrina the Younger’s brothers. He was a bishop and theologian. He was much influenced by Origen’s religious views, but made significant contributions of his own to the development of Christian theology. Gregory’s main issues of interest were the Trinity, the nature of God, and God’s plan for humanity. One of his most significant teachings is the idea that God is infinite and beyond any limited human understanding. Another is his teaching of epektasis, the constant progress of human beings toward greater and greater levels of divine perfection. The combination of this idea with the infinite transcendence of God was an important development in the Christian belief in theosis (divinization of man through spiritual growth).

In a book called Sermo Catecheticus Magnus, Gregory of Nyssa asserted “the annihilation of evil, the restitution of all things, and the final restoration of evil men and evil spirits to the blessedness of union with God, so that He may be ‘all in all,’ embracing all things endowed with sense and reason.” He taught that “when death approaches to life, and darkness to light, and the corruptible to the incorruptible, the inferior is done away with and reduced to non-existence, and the thing purged is benefited, just as the dross is purged from gold by fire. In the same way in the long circuits of time, when the evil of nature which is now mingled and implanted in them has been taken away, whensoever the restoration to their old condition of the things that now lie in wickedness takes place, there will be a unanimous thanksgiving from the whole creation, both of those who have been punished in the purification and of those who have not at all needed purification.”

The Nestorians were another branch of early Christianity — originating separately from the Alexandria school, in the cities of Constantinople and Antioch. Nestorianism eventually broke away from the Eastern Orthodox (Byzantine) churches and became a major influence in the development of the Assyrian Church of the East, which spread to Persia, India, Mongolia and China, and claims descent from St. Thomas the Apostle. This church continues to exist in some places today.

The Nestorian school of thought was characterized by the belief that Jesus Christ possessed two natures: the divine Christ who became embodied in the man Jesus. Nestorians also argued against the view of Mary as the “Mother of God,” which came to be an official church doctrine in Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. They argued instead that Mary was only the mother of Christ the human being. Nestorianism and the Assyrian Church have never taught eternal damnation in their creed, being heavily influenced by universalist ideas.

Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople (386-451) is regarded as the founder of Nestorianism. Another equally important figure in this branch of the Christian religion is Bishop Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-428), who was an avowed Universalist and is still regarded by many Nestorians as “the Interpreter” of their faith. He is thought to have been the one who first introduced universal reconciliation into the Nestorian liturgy.

Theodore of Mopsuestia emphasized the sovereignty and power of God to restore all beings to Himself regardless of their free will to rebel. He wrote: “The wicked who have committed evil the whole period of their lives shall be punished till they learn that, by continuing in sin, they only continue in misery. And when, by this means, they shall have been brought to fear God, and to regard Him with good will, they shall obtain the enjoyment of His grace. For He never would have said, ‘until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing,’ [Mat. 5:26] unless we can be released from suffering after having suffered adequately for sin; nor would He have said, ‘he shall be beaten with many stripes,’ [Luke 12:47] and again, ‘he shall be beaten with few stripes,’ [vs. 48] unless the punishment to be endured for sin will have an end.”

The Middle Ages

Perhaps the most important event in Christian history after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ was the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine (272-337), who legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire in the year 313 and became a patron of the Christian clergy. Christianity quickly went from a persecuted minority group to the dominant and semi-official religion of Rome because of Constantine’s support. But along with this dramatic improvement in status came increased infighting among Christians who believed in different versions of the faith. Constantine sought to resolve these conflicts by calling an ecumenical council of bishops to decide Christian orthodoxy.

The result of these changes was that Christianity came to have a much more Roman orientation, because Rome was involving itself in Christian affairs through government power. Knowing that the Roman Empire — formerly the arch-enemy of the Christian faith — would play a role in determining what type of Christian beliefs and practices would be considered normative or heretical, Christian leaders increasingly sought to please the state and ensure their position rather than seek truth. A politicization of Christianity thus took place over the coming centuries, with the end result that church and state became closely united with the development of the papacy as a powerful governing institution. The bishop of Rome assumed the title Pontifex Maximus, which was originally a title used by the Roman emperor, and is still used today to refer to the Roman Catholic pope who presides over the church from Rome. Christianity and Roman imperial traditions became thoroughly merged.

One of the side effects of the shifting center of gravity of Christianity from Alexandria, Palestine, and Eastern cities to Rome was that the Bible increasingly came to be read in Latin translation, rather than the original Greek and Hebrew. This allowed for distortions of the scriptures to be seen as part of the Judeo-Christian message.

Tragically, the most influential church theologian after Origen was a man who converted to Christianity from a pagan background after the development of the post-Constantine Christian empire, who could not even read Greek and thus had no command of the language in which the New Testament was written and in which the early Christians had read the Bible. This theologian was Augustine (354-430), considered the father of Western theology. He was responsible for a wholesale change in Christian thinking, replacing the belief system of the Apostles and most of the early church fathers with a completely different version of the gospel that has been handed down as the fundamental basis of much of Catholic and Protestant Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox churches remained somewhat skeptical of Augustine and have preserved the use of the Greek Bible and at least some of the Hellenistic interpretation of the Christian message rather than the later Latin ideas that usurped the Gospel.

Augustine was the turning point in the development of Western church-approved theology because he enunciated the central concepts of the religious paradigm that took hold in the Middle Ages and persisted in large part to the present day. His most important ideas which are contrary to the Biblical Gospel include, first and foremost, the belief that the very essence of our being is evil, because humans are defined in God’s eyes by our “original sin” that is passed on as a sexually transmitted disease at birth, and therefore damnation is the default destiny of all people — even unbaptized babies who die in infancy — because of God’s furious anger. Secondly, he taught that hell is eternal and anyone who is not saved from divine condemnation during life on earth will experience eternal conscious torment. The cornerstone of Augustine’s religious system was strong support for the authority of the Roman Church hierarchy and organization as the “visible kingdom of God on earth,” and its role in law, politics, war, and government — including the punishment of heretics.

The development and spread of this perverse, unbiblical Augustinian theological system was bad enough, but it was reinforced in future centuries by further key events, which combined to force Christianity as a whole to repudiate many of its original teachings and serve a completely different function from what it was originally intended to be. One of these was the official declaration that hell is eternal by the Roman Emperor Justinian in the year 544. Another important event was when Origen was officially declared a heretic in 553. The legacy of the greatest early church theologian and his illuminating writings were thus cast out of the church, and with this travesty the suppression of original Christian theology and its replacement by Roman Church tradition was ensured.

The Nestorians were also condemned as heretics — as was anyone else who had views of Christian theology that did not conform to the preferences of Rome. Many writings of Origen, his supporters, and Nestorian Universalists such as Theodore of Mopsuestia were destroyed by church censors. In many cases, we only know what these early church leaders taught because of the criticisms of those in later centuries who argued against their views. How much of their work was lost will probably never be known, but it was part of an overall trend of rejection and destruction of progressive intellectual works that took hold during the centuries that came to be known as the “dark ages.”

The Roman Catholic religion — falsely claiming the mantle of Christ — became a barbarous, evil enterprise of military conquest, torture chambers, and execution of anyone who dared to challenge its official doctrines and practices. Countless numbers of innocent people were wantonly killed in the Crusades in the name of Jesus, who had specifically prohibited the use of force to spread his religion. With the rise of the Inquisition, numerous intellectuals, free thinkers, and adherents of indigenous religions in Europe were tortured and murdered for their beliefs at the hands of clerical leaders loyal to Rome.

Yet surrounded by darkness, the light of the true Gospel never completely went out. A few isolated dissident philosophers and mystics arose with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, rediscovering universalist beliefs that the church sought to obliterate from existence. The three most significant Universalists of the Middle Ages are Johannes Scotus Erigena, Johannes Tauler, and Julian of Norwich. Various others — especially mystics — embraced some aspects of the universalist view of the Gospel but did not necessarily accept the entire belief system of Universalism.

Johannes Scotus Erigena (815-877) was a Scotch Irish theologian, philosopher, mystic and poet, who was highly proficient in Greek and read and translated some early Christian writings and Greek philosophy. He regarded man’s nature to be part divine and part animal, and believed that all people can return to God by cultivating their divine nature and resisting the animalistic impulses to sin. Nevertheless, he believed all beings (even animals) reflect attributes of the Creator and are capable of progressing toward harmony with God, to which all things ultimately must return. Scotus Erigena’s universalism was radical, especially for the time in which he lived. He was a free thinker who emphasized knowing God through direct revelatory experience, rather than the authoritarian dogmas of church orthodoxy. Nevertheless, he found support for many of his ideas in the Greek writings of the early Christian fathers, and perceived himself as being within the bounds of orthodox Christian thought. Several centuries after his death, his works were condemned as heretical by a Roman pope.

A period of four centuries between roughly 900 and 1300 was largely bereft of Universalist Christian thought — at least in any way that has been recorded by history. The next major figure who was definitely a Universalist was Johannes Tauler (1300-1361). He was a German Dominican mystic, theologian, and preacher who became quite influential and was highly esteemed by Martin Luther, who studied his sermons. Tauler wrote that “All beings exist through the same birth as the Son, and therefore shall they all come again to their original, that is, God the Father.”

Tauler was influenced by Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) and Blessed John of Ruysbroek (1293-1381), both of whom were mystics who had some sympathies with universalist ideas. Eckhart wrote that man’s final end and purpose of existence is “to love, know and be united with the immanent and transcendent Godhead,” adding that “The seed of God is within us. It will grow and thrive up to God, whose seed it is.” Ruysbroek never developed a comprehensive theological system but wrote as the Holy Spirit moved him by automatic writing. He wrote that “Man, having proceeded from God is destined to return, and become one with Him again.”

Blessed Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) was a great mystic who lived in England during the days of the Black Death. Life was very difficult at that time, with famines and pestilences, wars, and the constant shadow of death hovering over all things. Naturally, the church tended to focus its preaching on themes of death, judgment, the wrath of God, and the horrors of hell. Julian asked God to reveal Himself to her in a near-death experience, and she got her wish: She fell ill with the Plague and almost died, whereupon she saw visions that profoundly affected her life and led her to write two books — the first ever written by a woman in the English language. After recovering from her illness, she dedicated herself to a life of contemplation and prayer as an anchoress, occupying a cell adjoining the church in the town where she lived.

In her book called The Revelations of Divine Love, she described Jesus as a joyful and compassionate Savior: “Glad and merry and sweet is the blessed and lovely demeanour of our Lord towards our souls, for he saw us always living in love-longing, and he wants our souls to be gladly disposed toward him…. [B]y his grace he lifts up and will draw our outer disposition to our inward, and will make us all at unity with him, and each of us with others in the true, lasting joy which is Jesus.” Julian was troubled by the question of what would befall those who had never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The answer she received was that whatever God does is done in love, and therefore “that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Julian’s visions were of a God of love who cares deeply about all beings and promises to save everyone. In one vision, she saw God as our clothing, wrapping us tenderly in His love. In another vision she saw God holding what looked to be a small brown hazelnut in His hand, and she knew that this tiny seed was the entire created universe! Though it seemed so fragile and insignificant, she understood that it would continue always because God loves it — all that exists is loved and has its being by God’s love. She was told, “God made it, God loves it, God keeps it.” Receiving this revelation brought a deep sense of rest and happiness to her soul, knowing that nothing could separate her or anyone else from the magnificent love of God.

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Common Dreams

"Scariest Thing You'll Read All Day": Report Sounds Alarm Over Brain-Reading Technology and Neurocapitalism

"Your brain, the final privacy frontier, may not be private much longer."

by Jessica Corbett

August 30, 2019

Ethics and neuroscience experts are warning that existing laws are poorly equipped to handle the human rights threats posed by emerging brain-reading technologies. (Photo: Mehau Kulyk/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

A Vox report that swiftly sparked alarm across the internet Friday outlined how, "in the era of neurocapitalism, your brain needs new rights," following recent revelations that Facebook and Elon Musk's Neuralink are developing technologies to read people's minds.

As Vox's Sigal Samuel reported:

Mark Zuckerberg's company is funding research on brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that can pick up thoughts directly from your neurons and translate them into words. The researchers say they've already built an algorithm that can decode words from brain activity in real time.

And Musk's company has created flexible "threads" that can be implanted into a brain and could one day allow you to control your smartphone or computer with just your thoughts. Musk wants to start testing in humans by the end of next year.

Considering those and other companies' advances and ambitions, Samuel warned that "your brain, the final privacy frontier, may not be private much longer" and laid out how existing laws are not equipped to handle how these emerging technologies could "interfere with rights that are so basic that we may not even think of them as rights, like our ability to determine where our selves end and machines begin."

Samuel interviewed neuroethicist Marcello Ienca, a researcher at ETH Zurich who published a paper in 2017 detailing four human rights for the neurotechnology agethat he believes need to be protected by law. Ienca told Samuel, "I'm very concerned about the commercialization of brain data in the consumer market."

"And I'm not talking about a farfetched future. We already have consumer neurotech, with people trading their brain data for services from private companies," he said, pointing to video games that use brain activity and wearable devices that monitor human activities such as sleep. "I'm tempted to call it neurocapitalism."

The Vox report broke down the four rights that, according to Ienca, policymakers need to urgently safeguard with new legislation:

1. The right to cognitive liberty: You should have the right to freely decide you want to use a given neurotechnology or to refuse it.

2. The right to mental privacy: You should have the right to seclude your brain data or to publicly share it.

3. The right to mental integrity: You should have the right not to be harmed physically or psychologically by neurotechnology.

4. The right to psychological continuity: You should have the right to be protected from alterations to your sense of self that you did not authorize.

"Brain data is the ultimate refuge of privacy. When that goes, everything goes," Ienca said. "And once brain data is collected on a large scale, it's going to be very hard to reverse the process."

Samuel's report generated concerned commentary on Twitter, with readers calling the piece "the scariest thing you'll read all day" and declaring, "I do not want to live in this future."

Tech reporter Benjamin Powers tweeted, "So how long until this is co-opted for national security purposes?"

Ienca, in his interview with Samuel, noted that the Defense Department's advanced research agency is assessing how neurotechnologies could be used on soldiers. As he explained, "there is already military-funded research to see if we can monitor decreases in attention levels and concentration, with hybrid BCIs that can 'read' deficits in attention levels and 'write' to the brain to increase alertness through neuromodulation. There are DARPA-funded projects that attempt to do so."

Such technologies raise concerns about abuse not only by governments but also by corporations.

Journalist Noah Kulwin compared brain-reading tech to self-driving cars, suggesting that the former "can't possibly work as presently marketed," and given that governments aren't prepared with human rights protections, companies will be empowered to "do a bunch of unregulated experimentation."

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.” Revelation 12:16)

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The Common Sense Show

Revelations From the Underworld (Part Two)

Submitted by Dave Hodges on Monday, September 2, 2019 - 14:30.

My readers and listeners know me as someone who writes about corruption and plots to undermine our country and dramatically alter our culture which includes the attacks upon our culture. However, there is a side to my background experiences that only a few know about until now

Since 1984, I have known about demonic entities here on the earth that are "waking up" and plan to bring death and destruction to the planet on an unprecedented scale. I have always been much more knowledgeable about this topic than what I write and broadcast about today. I am more than qualified to speak about this topic. I am going to introduce the audience to the existence of these nonhuman entities but they are aren't what you think. I am going to introduce the topic by describing my relevant background which contains the necessary information needed to help one understand the full revelation about what is coming which is the final battle for control of this planet and this precedes the return of Jesus.

As contextual background, and as I have stated before, my father was “retired” by order, from Navy six months early, with full retirement and was subsequently sent to Littleton, Colorado to work with captured German scientists from the World War II era. Sometimes, under guard, my father would bring them home accompanied by a security detail. He will later tell me he did so to avoid the scrutiny of the CIA which has never been the friend of the United States people.

I was only 4 years old but I remember some of these German scientists. Being that my father’s family was from Germany, and my German grandmother was living with us, I was somewhat fluent in German and I would converse in German with these scientists. However, it will not be until 1984, that I will come to understand what I was looking at.

In 1984-85, when my father became terminally ill, I would visit him on a near nightly basis. He began to tell me what he had been doing his last few years and in his new DOD duty assignment at Martin Marietta (now Lockeheed Martin) in Littleton, Colorado. Here is a summary of what I learned:

1. The Germans knowledge of physics as it applied to such things as vertical take-off craft was an estimated 300 years ahead of what we had. My father’s job was to reverse engineer what the Germans knew in actionable form to be used by our military.

2. The Germans had told my father that they had received the technology from a group of aliens but that there was a significant delay in transferring the information because these aliens were opposed by another group of aliens that interfered with the technology transfer. These German scientists admitted that they had never met the aliens but had been told about them in briefings by their commander, the alleged inventor of the Nazi Bell. He had other information that involved the supernatural and he warned me that a mass of supernatural and demonic beings would one day be brought to earth through special portals and some were already here. When you read this, does CERN come to mind? My father believed the German scientists were lied to by their commanders about the alien presence so the Nazi leaders could protect the origin of their real power, the occult. World War II history buffs will remember the “Foo Fighters” and the jets that could break the sound barrier at the end of WWII that were inflicting significant losses on allied bombers. For the war effort, however, it was a case of “too little, too late”.

   3.Much of the leadership of the Nazis escaped to South America and some set up shop in Antarctica where they still operate today. Steve Quayle has detailed this in his book “Empire Beneath the Ice”.

   Steve contends that the Germans were not defeated and they have teamed up with non-human entities (not Hollywood’s traditional ET’s). The late Jim Marrs reached somewhat similar conclusions but was not as detailed as the Quayle account.

4.In 1993, I had a chance encounter with the show Coast to Coast with Art Bell. The first time I listened to the show, Vance Davis from the NSA was on the show. Vance revealed much of what I am going to reveal here. He discussed the secret space program, which is where my father suspected his research was going because it never showed up on NASA’s radar so to speak. Knowing I was barred from going public, I desperately wanted to discuss what I knew, privately, with someone who would understand the importance of what I knew. I reached out to Vance and sent him a cryptic message that only someone like himself would understand. Instead of answering, he sent the late Bill Pawelec to meet with me. Bill had an extensive background in intelligence and in satellite technology. In fact, he had actually worked with my father at Sundstrand Electronics in Westminster, CO. on advanced satellite technology. That would be the last job my father would hold. The three of us became close friends. When I finally met Vance, I learned of a new science that he had learned about. Vance told me that when he joined the NSA and was stationed in NATO in Germany, he was told, as part of his training, that there was a war in the cosmos. The ultimate prize was the possession of the human soul. The secret of the soul could be unraveled by the evil ones that had come to this planet to steal God’s most precious property. We would know these entities as fallen angels and Lucifer was the leader. Since they could not be possessed by these evil entities and destroy God’s creation, they invented a science to destroy the holder of the soul, namely the human being. Vance was writing about this in 1993 and people thought he was crazy. Today, we call this science, Transhumanism. Vance, because of his training, was a generation ahead of the curve. Bill Pawelec also had this information. The attacks upon our nation, today are inspired by Lucifer. There is a deliberate attempt to fully demonized mankind and fully implement depopulation strategies. From Vance, I was introduced to Robert Dean. He was retired from the US military, but had become the top noncom in NATO, which means he had the power of a General.

5. Robert Dean, Bill Pawelec, Vance Davis and myself, along with about 15 others met on a Sunday afternoon in the back of a hair salon in Mesa, AZ., in 1995 The meeting was highly secretive and had security. My part of the meeting was to privately share what I knew from father’s work. Robert Dean revealed that in his role as senior noncom of NATO, he learned that there were several, over two dozen competing nonhuman entities vying for control over the Earth. Some were relatively benign and some were very dangerous (ie cannibalism of humans, desire to enslave the survivors of a planned holocaust).

6. From 1993-1999, Vance Davis and I walked the perimeter of downtown Phoenix. He would show me where deep underground technology was stored and that the technology was over 20,000 years old. He felt safe in revealing this information because I had already been briefed by some of the Hopi Elders on the fact that we were living in the 5^th world meaning that mankind had risen up was destroyed and the survivors had to start over four times previously and that advanced technology had existed in the 4 previous worlds. I spoke with the Hopis because I knew one of their grandsons as he was an undergraduate student of mine and he approached me because he felt “I had knowledge”. The Hopi’s explanation of the 5^th World explains things like the pyramids, which modern man did not create, because the technology was far in advance of anything we possess today. The Hollywood story of erecting mega-ton stone slabs at a 12 degree angle with a margin of error of placement of 1/200^th of an inch is laughable. And when we look at the fact that the Egyptians were using pulleys to accomplish this feat, it is even more laughable. Princeton’s John Anthony West told us that the fulcrum would have to been 1.5 miles long and would have needed 1.5 million slaves to perform the task. At that time in our history, there weren’t 1 million people in the Nile River Valley. Modern man cannot duplicate this feat today on a single family home. Atlantis, Lemuria, etc., are examples of past civilizations. Before the reader wrinkles their nose up against what I am saying, please realize that Plato also wrote about Atlantis for which the Atlantic Ocean was named.

7. In March of 1997, while I was still living in the metropolitan Phoenix area, I was out shooting baskets in my driveway under the lights when I saw the infamous Phoenix lights. I saw a major portion of the sky become black with no stars. A silence overcame the area. And the craft was running parallel to I-17 which was about three miles from where I living at the time. We were later told that the lights were actually a training exercise for the Illinois National Guard and it was taking place south of South Mountain. Is that the best they could do for a cover story?

8. Through Bill Pawelec, whose interview with Steven Greer, can be viewed on page two of my website, I had dinner with Mike and Frances Barwood. At the time of the Phoenix Lights, Ms. Barwood was on the Phoenix City Council. She publicly asked the question what was it that flew over Phoenix and was seen by no less than 100,000 people? She was vilified for asking the question. Arizona Governor Symington held a press conference to specifically discredit Barwood for asking the question. Symington had a man in a fake alien suit come out as he had promised to reveal all. Later he apologized for this antic and professed a belief in UFO and ET life. In my meeting with Barwood, she shared that the Feds demanded that Phoenix donate the land for the Federal Center. Today, the Federal Center, over a generation later, sits nearly empty. In my walks in downtown Phoenix with Vance Davis he pointed to the Federal Center and said it had to be built to conceal underground operation in retrieving the 20,000 year old technology beneath the city.

9. One last thing, my father's last duty assignment in the Navy was to be one of the people in charge of rewiring the Combat Information Center of the carrier, Roosevelt. This was in the days before advanced satellite surveillance. Therefore, as the ship left its port in Jacksonville, FL., it sailed around Cape Horn to do the work. Why? So the Russians would not know what we were up to. However, someone, or something else did know what they were up to because for 4 straight nights they were followed by glowing orbs. I asked my father if that was not proof of aliens. He said it was proof of demons. He predicted CERN in this conversation and that is what it was created for. To usher in nonhumans to literally raise hell on the earth. We are moving towards the final battle on this planet before Jesus returns.

This is a brief summary of what bring me to the point where I am going to be joining a mass of journalists who are going to be exposing what we know on this topic. You better get used to this America because even Mike Adams is covering this in Branson and he has an alien article on his website today. The late Jim Marrs once told me that one cannot understand world events without looking at the ET contribution. We all know about this. However, the subject has been so categorized as the topic of crazy people, that most of dared not touch this, until now.

There is not a more knowledgeable person on this topic than Steve Quayle. I am interviewing Steve for two hours on these topics. This topic also bends into earth changes which are nearly upon us.

In the next two parts of this series, I am going to be covering who DARPA is preparing to fight in this publicized subterranean war beneath American cities. I am also going to be covering related earth changes that will conservatively kill millions.

The Common Sense Show (We weren't sure whether to put this up. It goes into...)

Revelations From the Underworld: Our Hidden History (Part 3)

Submitted by Dave Hodges on Tuesday, September 3, 2019 - 12:14.

The ultimate threats facing all of humanity come from above and below. This installment of this series deals with our hidden past and what we know about the threats from above which are tied to the threats below.

In writing about the non-human entities that threaten mankind there are some basic principles that must be considered before providing details.

When a technologically superior culture encounters a technologically inferior culture, things do not end well for the inferior culture. Historical examples and sociological principles are uniform in the assertion of the principle that says one of two thing will transpire: (1) In the best case scenario, the inferior culture is absorbed by the superior culture (best case scenario); and, (2) the superior culture destroys the inferior culture (worst case scenario). As this series will demonstrate mankind is at the precipice of realizing its fate.

The Brookings Report

The Brookings Report is long considered the final arbitrator of NASA affairs as it relates to ET disclosure. In fact, the Brookings Report even states that when and if we travel out to the stars, and discover we have been there before (and we have), this, too should be covered up. The major reason listed in the report for necessitating a coverup, is that the report assumes that all of our institutions (eg religions) would fall apart because the paradigm from which human civilization is built would be destroyed. This is a fake cover story. What is really behind these planned coverups is that the global elite, through NASA, want to control the final narrative when it finally comes time for disclosure and we are clearly headed in that direction. One important caveat, disclosure is synonymous with enslavement, and I believe will lead to the introduction of the Age of Transhumanism. By the way, we have been "out there" before. I would challenge the reader to carefully observe the aerial photographs, portrayed below, taken by the Viking explorer of the Cydonia region of Mars. You will note the infamous and NASA debunked “Face on Mars” and the 45 degree and 90 degree shadows. Nature is random and does not work in such a uniform manner. These are artificial creations. In fact, overlay Cydonia of the Giza Plateau and the structures perfectly line up. How do I know? I had several mutual friends of Richard Hoagland who already did the leg work and have proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Using a software program called progression, one can line up where the stars would have been at any point in the past, present or future. There is no doubt that whoever, or whatever created the Giza pyramids, also created Cydonia’s structures. True to the Brookings Report, NASA maintained that Cydonia’s anomalies were due to “tricks of lights and shadows”. Yes, and Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide, too!

The Phoenix Lights, Giza and Cydonia Pyramids

After the 1997, Phoenix Lights incident, Hoagland, at the Phoenix Civic Convention Center, before an amazing crowd of 12,000 people, provided the overlay of Cydonia and Giza to a stunned crowd whose initial silence was met by a collective gasp. I was there, in the first row, thanks to mutual friends of Hoagland, and the event was life-altering. Richard Hoagland wrote a book entitled The Monuments On Mars that everyone who truly desires to begin to unlock our hidden past should read. I also refer the reader to the great work of John Anthony West who clearly demonstrates that the primitive Egyptians did not build the pyramids. Here is direct evidence of what we know to be true regarding the link between Cydonia and Giza:

Again, Richard Hoagland of the Enterprise Mission, former NASA consultant, championed the similarities between the Mars Cydonia pyramids and the Giza Egyptian pyramids. After the Viking Explorer photos of the Cydonia region of Mars were released in the late 1970's, it became clear for anyone with eyes to see that whoever built the pyramids on Earth, also built the pyramids on Mars. Why? Because the astr
onomical alignment to key constellations in Earth folklore (e.g. the Egyptian Book of the Dead).

Cydonia Pyramids

Giza Pyramids

Egypt

Cydonia

Orion stars

A striking characteristic of the pyramids and Sphinx of Giza is the way in which they are integrated into a grand architectural plan, based on mathematical and astronomical data. The two narrow shafts emanating from inside the Great Pyramid were directed to two specific stars: Zeta Orionis, one of the three stars in Orion's belt, and Sirius, in the constellation of Canis Major. Both Cydonia and Giza pyramids share this commonality. I defer to Richard Hoagland for more a detailed explanation and comparison.

The Hyperdimensional Physics of Giza and Cydonia

Hoagland, with the help of experts has made the connection between a number of intriguing mathematical and geographical connections between Cydonia and Giza. Math expert, Torun, while working for Hoagland, was first to realize that one of the large pyramids on Mars, the D&M Pyramid, contains a variety of functions and constants used in a sophisticated mathematical system known as tetrahedral, sacred geometry which represents the Tesla science known as Hyperdimensional Physics.

Evidence of such advanced and non three-dimensional mathematics on both planets at the same relative location on each planet, demonstrates a conscious design. Hoagland and his associates discovered that the most important recurring feature found in the mathematics of Cydonia is the value 0.865 - derived from the ratio of 'e' (an important mathematical constant equal to 2.7) and pi (the mathematical constant of 3.142 used to calculate the properties of spheres and circles). This Hoagland calls the 'message of Cydonia' A trigonometrical function, that arc tangent of 'e'/pi, gives the value of 40.8 that is the Mars latitude on which both the D&M Pyramid and the NK Pyramid are sited. Amazingly, another trigonometrical function, the cosine of 'e'/pi, gives the value 30, which is the exact geographical latitude of the pyramids of Giza on Earth. Hoagland has demonstrated that the Great Pyramid of Giza contains tetrahedral or sacred geometry functions identical to those of the D&M Pyramid on Mars, and Torun has shown that the positioning of the Great Sphinx, relative to the pyramids, expresses the 'Cydonian ratio 'e'/pi. 'The odds of such correlation happening by coincidence on two neighboring planets are somewhere in the region of one in 7,000, says Hoagland. One of the key angles of Cydonia, repeated again and again, is 19.5 degrees. this is precisely the latitude (19.5) degrees north. Which is also the exact latitude of the pathfinder-landing site. These are no coincidences despite what the Globalists would have you believe.

What Is Hyperdimensional Physics?

I had a very interesting conversation in an interview I conducted with Chris Kitze. He discussed how our educational system is designed to produce inferior math and science knowledge. He claims that this is due to the ET influence that wants to keep humans locked into the most primitive existence possible. In 1985, when I was speaking with my father on a nightly basis, he said that physics went through bifurcation. It was in these conversations with my father, I was introduced to the work of Tesla. In working to reverse engineer the conceptual physics of vertical lift-off craft that could achieve orbital escape velocity, my father's research team in conjunction with captured German scientists went beyond a three dimensional approach. They employed a branch of science that will later become known as hyperdimensional physics, the same physics that underlies both the construction and purpose (ie stargate) of the pyramids. The technology is multi-dimensional and to teleport objects, energy is "borrowed" from higher dimensions. Yes, Virginia, time travel is possible and probably is occurring because all one has to do is to master the 4th and 5th dimension to make all time a single event at a single point in time. This would make moving through time as easy as walking down the street to your grocery store.

Just prior to the end of the 19th century, Tesla discovered hyperdimensional physics. Some years later, when he told industrialist Westinghouse, that he could bring "free energy" (ie zero point energy) to the masses, he was shunned as the preferred scientist to the rich and famous. The industrialist wanted nothing to do with any idea that a meter could not be placed upon a technology in order to derive maximum profit. Subsequently, and after his banishment from the rich and famous, Tesla had no choice but to go to work for the Navy where he was involved in the development of radar, sonar and yes, the attempted teleportation of a Navy ship in the controversial "Philadelphia Experiment". This was the resurfacing of hyperdimensional physics that got Tesla banned. Again, the technology was repressed and the Philadelphia experiment was sabotaged by entities who desired to keep control of this physics.

One might wonder how I seem to know so much about this technology? The late Bill Pawelec, Vance Davis and others were working in conjunction with Enron to develop a community in the San Luis Valley of Colorado to use free energy (ie energy based upon hyperdimensional physics). I was involved in this project and witnessed what went down with our sponsoring partner, Enron. Enron was viciously and falsely attacked by the DOJ under the direction of Weissmann. Who is Weissmann? He was the hit man for many of the Mueller witch hunt prosecutions in the Russian-Collusion-Delusion. There were actually "dead man switch discussions" that I observed with regard to this technology. The principals knew they were playing with fire. As history showed, Enron was shut down after ignoring warnings to stop the production of this technology. Ken Lay was framed by Weissmann and prosecuted and then committed he supposedly committed suicide. But he did not commit suicide. How do I know? He had a trail of dead man switches which guaranteed his survival, so his suicide was faked, just like Epstein.

Hyperdimensional Physics Is Resurfacing

Nazi knowledge of Hyperdimensional Physics as opposed to the Newtonian model that we largely teach today is still being actively repressed by the elite and nonhuman entities. However, mainstream science is catching up with the elite as evidenced by Michio Kaku's Superstring, multi-dimensional theory in which it is demonstrated that there are least 26 dimensions. The bifurcation of science that happened with the death of Tesla is about to be reunited. However, the Secret Space Program is, no pun intended, light years ahead of the discoveries of today's mainstream physics. In reality, there is probably nowhere that certain groups of humans have not been.

There is no way that the self-appointed demonic powers that be, can keep a lid on this technology any longer. And just like the Bible promised, all things will be revealed. Disclosure could happen at any time. The unveiling of "sacred geometry" and hyperdimensional physics is already here and is being unsuccessfully represed. The veil of silence imposed by the Brookings Report is falling apart. People are waking up to the notion that we are not the first advanced human civilization that has occupied this planet. Our ancestors were far more advanced than we are (eg Cydonia). We are indeed, as Alex Jones has stated, a Prison Planet.

It should be obvious that what is being said here is can be simply summed up in the following:

1. Mankind's knowledge is purposely being repressed so as to control humanity for the purposes of "others"

2. We are latest generation of humans living on this planet whose existence has been tampered with as we advance to the stage of being a threat. It is clear that at one time, humans occupied both Mars and Earth before their civilization was destroyed and mankind was forced to start over, again.

3. Mankind is facing its biggest challenge as encounter entities which directly confront and seek to overthrow God and whose intent is destroy mankind, God's most previous creation.

The human race, the prized creation of God Almighty, faces extreme dangers from above (the topic of today's article) and below. The dangers that lie below the earth are the most serious and the most deadly. Humans, without divine intervention. face multiple dangers, in the form of extinction level events, from multiple non-human entities. These will be revealed. In upcoming installments in this series, I will be covering the attack upon China Lake and the mad rush for DARPA to occupy the "low ground" in preparation to fight the non-human entities beneath our cities in a subterranean war. By the way, extreme earth changes will quickly enter into this series.

In the meantime, I would suggest that the readers find one of the best predictive programming events in television history, the Twilight Zone. In particular, I am referring to the episode, To Serve Man. This will give this whole presentation a very unique perspective.

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FOX NEWS

Ancient Mars was warm and rainy enough to support life, study says

By Chris Ciaccia

August 27, 2019

It's long been established that Mars once had water on its surface. But a new study suggests that between 3 and 4 billion years ago, the Red Planet was warm and wet enough to have massive rainstorms and flowing water, an environment that may have supported life.

The new study, presented at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Barcelona, compares mineral deposit patterns on Mars with those seen on Earth to support the hypothesis.

"We know there were periods when the surface of Mars was frozen; we know there were periods when water flowed freely," Purdue University professor Briony Horgan said in a statement.

This is the site of the Mars 2020 landing. Chemical Alteration by Water, Jezero Crater Delta: On ancient Mars, water-carved channels and transported sediments to form fans and deltas within lake basins (color enhanced to show mineral types). (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL)

Horgan continued: "But we don't know exactly when these periods were, and how long they lasted. We have never sent unmanned missions to areas of Mars which can show us these earliest rocks, so we need to use Earth-bound science to understand the geochemistry of what may have happened there. Our study of weathering in radically different climate conditions such as the Oregon Cascades, Hawaii, Iceland, and other places on Earth, can show us how climate affects pattern of mineral deposition, like we see on Mars."

By analyzing patterns seen in the Martian mineral data that has been collected by the Curiosity rover and NASA's CRISM spectrometer and comparing it with those seen in the various locales on Earth, researchers found evidence that Mars had at least one extended period of rainstorms and flowing surface water.

"Silica signatures have been identified from orbit on Mars in Amazonian periglacial terrains, and the Curiosity rover has identified silica-rich poorly crystalline materials in Hesperian lake sediments in Gale crater," the study reads. "We suggest that these amorphous phases on Mars could have formed in cold climates during punctuated melt events. However, the most common Noachian alteration signatures are crystalline clay minerals in compositionally zoned stratigraphies, for which the closest terretrial [sic] analogs are deep weathering profiles only known to form under persistent rain-dominated climates."

"If this [silica signatures] is so, it is important in the search for possible life on Mars," Horgan added.

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about 4 billion years ago when almost half the planet’s northern hemisphere could have been covered by an ocean up to a mile (1.6 kilometers) deep in some places. (ESO/M. Kornmesser)

For years, scientists have generally acknowledged that water existed on Mars, including recent evidence of clay spotted by the Curiosity rover. However, up until now, scientists have debated what Mars' climate was like, whether the water was frozen or the planet had warm temperatures and conditions to let the water flow and potentially support life.

Even if conditions on Mars used to support flowing water, that's no longer the case. According to Space.com, present-day Mars has an average temperature of approximately negative 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Add in the planet's thin atmosphere that is largely made up of carbon dioxide, and it's difficult for Mars to support life as we know it.

Horgan continued that researchers understand that the building blocks of life on Earth "developed very soon" after the planet's formation, adding that flowing water is "essential for life's development."

"So evidence that we had early, flowing water on Mars, will increase the chances that simple life may have developed at around the same time as it did on Earth. We hope that the Mars 2020 mission will be able to look more closely at these minerals, and begin to answer exactly what conditions existed when Mars was still young".

NASA hopes the Curiosity rover, which "has a few more years before its nuclear power system degrades enough to significantly limit operations," can provide additional clues about the planet prior to the launch of the Mars 2020 rover mission.

Mars looms ever larger in America’s space future.

In November, NASA announced that it had selected the location where its Mars 2020 rover will land on the Red Planet. The rover is expected to reach the Martian surface on Feb. 18, 2021. NASA’s long-term goal is to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s.

However, former astronauts, including Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, think we should skip a return mission to the Moon, slated for 2024, and "shoot directly for Mars."

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CT

EFCA Now Considers Premillennialism a Non-Essential

The denomination drops end times doctrine from its statement of faith in a move to “major on the majors” and “minor on the minors.”

DANIEL SILLIMAN

AUGUST 23, 2019 8:00 AM

Image: Evangelical Free Church of America Conference

The Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) changed its position on end times theology, voting this summer to drop the word “premillennial” from the denomination’s statement of faith.

Many of the 350,000 people who belong to EFCA churches still believe Jesus will return to earth to reign as king for 1,000 years, but the denomination no longer considers that doctrine essential to the gospel.

An internal document explaining the rationale for the change says premillennialism “is clearly a minority position among evangelical believers.” Premillennialism has been a “denominational distinctive” for the EFCA, according to the document, but shouldn’t be overemphasized.

“The thought was, we must either stop saying we are a denomination that majors on the majors … and minors on the minors, or we must stop requiring premillennialism as the one and only eschatological position,” said Greg Strand, EFCA executive director of theology, in an interview with Ed Stetzer.

The revised statement says, “We believe in the personal, bodily and glorious return of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Whether or not Jesus will set up a literal kingdom on earth for a millennium is left to individual discretion.

The EFCA has been considering the change for more than a decade. John Woodbridge, a professor of church history at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), the ECFA-affiliated seminary in Deerfield, Illinois, spoke in favor of the shift back in 2008.

“People really saw high stakes in the move. One person of great stature told me that if you give up premillennialism, you will give up biblical inerrancy,” Woodbridge told CT. “For me, I never made that connection. John Calvin, Martin Luther, and others, certainly in the Reformed tradition, had a high view of Scripture, but they were never premillennial.”

The US church didn’t accept that argument in 2008, but the Canadian branch of the denomination did.

“It just happened to be easier for us,” said Bill Taylor, executive director of the Evangelical Free Church of Canada. “There’s a stronger dispensationalist history in the US than we have in Canada.”

Taylor said, looking back, the change was good for the Canadian evangelicals—and the darker predictions didn’t come true. “We’ve had no slippery slope to an allegorical approach to the Word,” he said. “There’s no pull toward liberalism, so there’s no negative impact in that way.”

When issue came up again in the EFCA leadership conference this year, a majority of US

delegates were ready to vote to drop the word premillennial. The revision passed 79 percent to 21 percent.

Matthew Avery Sutton, a US historian at Washington State University and the author of American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, was surprised by the timing.

“Emphasis on premillennialism waxes and wanes,” Sutton said. “There are moments of tremendous global chaos in which the church returns to premillennialism, and there are moments of more peace and stability, during which premillennialism takes a back seat. I am surprised that this is one of those moments in which the Evangelical Free Church of America is backing away from it. Things seem pretty chaotic to me, and the future looks pretty dark.”

The change was met with nonchalance at TEDS, where the faculty signed the revised EFCA statement of faith before the start of the school year.

“It’s not a huge topic,” said Graham Cole, the academic dean. “I’m not aware, of all my years here, of any big controversy over the issue.”

Dropping “premillennial” from the faith statement will mean one big change for Trinity, though.

“We’ll have a much larger pool from which to hire,” Cole said. “Our faculty have to hold to an inerrant Bible and the gospel of grace, but that eschatological barrier is removed.”

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WND

Dems explicitly vote to condemn 'religious liberty'

Claim faithful have used beliefs 'to threaten civil rights'

WND staff

August 31, 2019

"In God We Trust" is America's national motto.

Democrats, who who famously booed the mention of God in their party platform, now have condemned "religious liberty" and praised the religiously "unaffiliated."

The Washington Examiner reported the Democratic National Committee approved a resolution "taking aim at religious liberty."

At a summer meeting in San Francisco, the DNC adopted a resolution concerning the "nonreligious."

It explains that the the "Religiously Unaffiliated Demographic has tripled in the last two decades, now representing 25 percent of the overall American population and 35 percent of those under the age of 30."

Further, they "overwhelmingly share the Democratic Party's values," with support for same-sex marriage, open borders and more.

And the "nonreligious have often been subjected to unfair bias and exclusion in American society, particularly in the areas of politics and policymaking where assumptions of religiosity have long predominated."

"WHEREAS, those most loudly claiming that morals, values, and patriotism must be defined by their particular religious views have used those religious views, with misplaced claims of 'religious liberty,' to justify public policy that has threatened the civil rights and liberties of many Americans, including but not limited to the LGBT community, women, and ethnic and religious/nonreligious minorities.

"BE IT RESOLVED, that the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE recognizes: 1. The value, ethical soundness, and importance of the religiously unaffiliated demographic, a group of Americans who contribute in innumerable ways to the arts, sciences, medicine, business, law, the military, their communities, the success of the Party and prosperity of the Nation; and 2. That religiously unaffiliated Americans are a group that, as much as any other, advocates for rational public policy based on sound science and universal humanistic values and should be represented, included, and heard by the Party."

The Secular Coalition of America embraced the statement.

"Nonreligious Americans want to work with people of all faiths to build an effective government that serves and protects all of our rights equally," Sarah Levin, the director of governmental affairs for the organization, said in the Examiner report. "At the end of the day, it is critical that all political parties embrace and work with the secular community to ensure that policy is driven by science and evidence, not sectarian beliefs. Religiously unaffiliated Americans strongly identify with secularism, and will fight to protect the separation of church and state."

WND reported in June the DNC, in apparent acknowledgement that the party has a "God problem," hired a religious outreach director.

Rev. Derrick Harkins, who held a similar position in 2012, is former senior vice president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, which recently celebrated "rejoicing in the queerness of God."

Democrats have alienated themselves from many religious voters by promoting abortion and same-sex marriage. In 2016, Trump won 80 percent of the white evangelical vote.

During the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, delegates booed, jeered and shook their fists when the chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, affirmed the adoption of an amendment to the party's platform that restored a mention of God.

He had to call for a vote three times before he could make the declaration that, in his opinion, the ayes made up two-thirds of the vote.

After the first vote, which sounded like a dead heat between the yes and no votes, he said, "In the opinion of the ... let me do that again."

The second vote sounded the same, and Villaraigosa looked offstage for help and advice.

A woman came up behind him and said, "Let them do what they're going to do."

On the third vote, Villaraigosa was prepared and stated that in his opinion, two-thirds of the voters said "aye," apparently without considering the volume of the voice vote.

Shaking fists and jeers erupted before he could finish speaking.

The platform of the party drew nationwide astonishment just a day earlier when it removed a reference to God and a declaration that Jerusalem is Israel's capital.

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Hungary Journal

HUNGARY BASES POLICY SUCCESS ON “CHRISTIANITY REGAINING ITS STRENGTH IN EUROPE”

Leader slams globalist anti-family, mindless green movements

September 5, 2019

IMAGE CREDITS: ATTILA KISBENEDEK / CONTRIBUTOR / GETTY, ROY GRUNDEKEN / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.

Without families and children, a national community could end up disappearing, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in a speech to the Budapest Demographic Summit III on Thursday.

“And if a nation disappears, something irreplaceable disappears from the world,” he said at the event held in the Varkert Bazaar, where he said one of the state’s goals and the government’s task was to pursue a vigorous demographic policy. The prime minister said the “solution of immigration” and the “mindless green argument that the Earth would be better off with fewer births” were off the table when it came to the issue of demography. He said Hungary’s family support scheme would only reach a turning point when those who decide to have children enjoyed a higher standard of living than if they had opted against having children.

Hungary’s family policy is based on the concept and conviction that every child has a right to have a father and a mother, Orban said and that a family and children are prerequisites of “the biological reproduction of a national community”. The Hungarian family support model rests on a foundation that has “a constitutional nature”, Orban said, adding that this was essential for pursuing a long-term family policy.

These constitutional foundations protect Hungary against court rulings that are detrimental to families and against attempts by “anti-family” international organizations, NGOs and networks “to penetrate” into the country’s state affairs and decision-making, the prime minister said.

Good family policy needs economic foundations as well, Orban said, noting that allocations in the central budget to support families had doubled over the past ten years. The prime minister highlighted the need for a predictable family support system over the long term.

Orban said the key to the success of Hungary’s demographic policy was “Christianity regaining its strength in Europe”. Partners in this endeavor such as Serbia and the Czech Republic, represented at the summit at presidential and prime ministerial level, are already on board, Orban added.

The prime minister said the demographic policy’s success would be ensured if the country’s annual economic growth rate exceeded the EU average by at least 2 percent between now and 2030, Orban said.

Orban said there was abundant skepticism in Europe as to whether Hungary could achieve its demographic policy goal of a 2.1 fertility rate. But those people said the same before about other Hungarian government measures such as “sending home the IMF”, introducing a banking tax and a progressive income tax, levying a tax on multinational companies, cutting utility costs, creating one million jobs in ten years, stopping migration and building a border fence, he added.

Addressing the summit, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called it important that demographic changes were being addressed as one of today’s top challenges and an issue that calls for immediate action. Vucic also emphasized the gravity of Europe’s demographic woes in terms of the future of central Europe, and the need for the continent as a whole to find solutions to the problem. He said Serbia was ready to cooperate with Hungary and the other central European countries in tackling the issue.

Andrej Babis, the Czech prime minister, said the effects of a population decline on Europe could be almost as severe as those of climate change.

Tony Abbott, Australia’s former prime minister, advocated a policy that sees family support as a means of promoting population growth in place of immigration. He praised Hungary’s family support scheme as unique, saying it should be studied by other countries.

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HAL Turner Radio Show

COMPLETE DESTRUCTION ON GRAND BAHAMA ISLAND

September 3, 2019

Hurricane Dorian with its 185 MPH and 220 MPH gusts, caused such complete destruction of Grand Bahama Island, that not only are most structures gone, much of the island itself no longer exists above sea level!

The photos below show the catastrophic results of the Hurricane "stalling" over the island and smashing it with hurricane force winds for over 24 hours:

The "AFTER" photo shows green lines which outline where the land above sea level used to be. It is possible that once floodwaters recede, part or all of the land may return, but not likely. The erosion by wind and wind-driven water has likely changed the land forever.

It is hard to imagine such destruction and even harder to imagine anyone surviving. The death toll among island inhabitants and tourists is expected to be horrifying.

The photos below are coming in from Abaco Island:

The average person does not grasp the destructive power of a hurricane.I do. It is DESTRUCTION like this which drives me to warn folks to evacuate whenever a hurricane is inbound anywhere. That's why I cover these storms from early-on and tell people to either prepare or to get out.

Abaco Island

Lots of the public whine that it is "fear-mongering" and say "it's just a little wind and rain" but it isn't; I KNOW what these storms can do. That's why I tell people to get out. I will continue to do so.

Abaco Island

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USAWatchdog

Hurricane Dorian Steered by Military – Dane Wigington

By Greg Hunter On September 4, 2019

Climate engineering researcher Dane Wigington says Hurricane Dorian is the latest storm to be steered by the U.S. military. Wigington contends, “It’s an historical, verifiable fact and verifiable in the immediate term as well as we have animations of radio frequency microwave transmissions directly interacting with, interfering with and steering that storm (Dorian) as well as other storms such as Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Maria. That data can be found on GeoEngineeringWatch.org. . . . You can see real time, conclusive evidence that these storms are being manipulated. . . . We can speculate on the agenda, but the fact that that storm is being manipulated and stalled is absolute indisputable fact. The U.S. military started their hurricane manipulation operations 72 years ago in 1947. We have 7 decades of this going on. . . . President Johnston stated on the record that the military had the power to control the world’s cloud cover even then. The notion that this is not going on right now is simply a deception.”

Wigington also points out, “We have seen in the last 5 years in the Eastern U.S., the lower 48, the most anomalously, less warm region in the entire world. That’s not nature. That’s not coincidence. It’s geoengineering. What does that do? It confuses and divides the population in those zones in the U.S. as to the true state of the climate.”

The wildfires around the world are also being leveraged by climate engineers. Wigington explains, “We have many, many sources for the ignition of those wildfires. We are not claiming to come to any conclusions on the sources of the ignition for the fires. What we are saying is the conditions are being orchestrated to make it conducive to make these burns. The template is being set by climate engineering. There is absolutely no question about that. . . . These wildfires are being used as a last ditch, desperate effort by the climate engineers to put enough sun blocking particles into the atmosphere to temporarily mask the Polar Regions on which life depends. The total loss of summer sea ice in the Artic is immense because then the heating goes exponential. Methane released from the sea floor goes exponential. That methane fills the atmosphere and covers the planet like a layer of glass, and then we are on track for what is known as ‘Venus Syndrome.’”

Wigington also says the geoengineering spraying program commonly referred to as “chemtrails” has not been stopped as many in the alt-media are saying. Wigington contends, “There is not a shred of evidence to support that. Although some people in some regions are seeing less visible geoengineering spraying and dispersion operation in some regions, they are in the Polar Regions. . . . The Polar Regions are the focus of the climate engineers. So, those assets have moved up to the Polar Regions. We have current grid pattern spraying from all over the globe. . . . We see massive spraying operations over the oceans, for example.”

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Strange Sounds

The Mighty Mekong River Is Almost Dry in the Middle of the Rainy Season

September 2, 2019

This is the worst ecological disaster in history of the of Mekong region.

A severe drought that has caused water levels in Southeast Asia’s Mekong River to drop to their lowest in more than 100 years could have devastating consequences for fish, as well as the tens of millions of people living and working along the river, experts warn.

Mekong River dries up and almost disappears. Picture by Chun Lei/Featurechina, via European Pressphoto Agency

The crisis began when critical monsoon rains, which usually start in late May in the Mekong region, failed to arrive. Dry conditions persisted well into July. At that time, observers say, the situation was made worse by hydropower dam operators upstream, in China and Laos, withholding water for their own purposes.

Although the rains finally began to fall in the last week in much of the river basin, with water levels now slowly rising, experts warn that the potential damage from the drought could be worse than in 2016, when another drought caused forest fires around Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia and widespread disruptions to food production.

Many rice farmers in the region have been unable to plant their main crop, raising fears of a heavily diminished harvest this fall. Less water flow could also have a devastating impact on fish reproduction in the Mekong River basin. This is normally the time when fish use rising water levels as a cue to spawn and to disperse their young, but there is little evidence of this happening so far this year.

Perhaps even more alarming, experts expect that droughts and disruptions to the water flow of the Mekong will become more common, and they warn that it could eventually lead to the collapse of the entire ecosystem.

“With the completion of more mainstream dams and the cumulative effects of climate change, that tipping point” for when the Mekong can no longer sustain these changes “may be coming closer,” says Brian Eyler, the Southeast Asia program director at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C.

Flood Pulse

Originating in the Tibetan highlands, the Mekong River flows through six Asian countries, including China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, before emptying into the South China Sea. The river basin is home to the largest inland fishery in the world and more than 60 million people depend on it for their livelihoods.

Few rivers in the world rise and fall with the seasons as much as the Mekong, which can drop up to 40 feet in some places at the end of the dry season. When the monsoon rains arrive, they normally produce a flood pulse that brings with it sediment essential to agriculture as well as enormous amounts of larvae and tiny fish, including many critically endangered species such as the Mekong giant catfish, that are swept into the Tonle Sap Lake and other floodplains where they can mature.

Every year, scientists have been collecting samples of these tiny fish and larvae on the Mekong River near Phnom Penh, Cambodia. However, so far this year, sub-normal water levels have produced no flood pulse, and the researchers have not seen any dispersal of fish larvae.

“Without the flood pulse, fish may delay or skip spawning,” says Zeb Hogan, a National Geographic Explorer and fish biologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who leads a USAID project called Wonders of the Mekong. “For rare and endangered species, this situation threatens their survival, and for commercially important fish species, future harvests could be significantly reduced.”

According to Peng Bun Ngor, a fish ecologist with the Cambodian Fisheries Administration, the low river flow also forces brood fishes to concentrate in spaces where they become more vulnerable to being captured by fishers. “This adds to the existing problem of low recruitment,” he says.

Dam Politics

This year, the dry conditions in the Mekong region persisted due to warm Pacific Ocean currents known as the El Niño effect.

“I have no doubt that this present drought is caused by the shift in world weather patterns as the result of global change, especially warming trends, and it would not be surprising if it lasted several more years,” says Peter Moyle, a biology professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis.

Moyle and others say dams on the upper parts of the Mekong are contributing to the degradation of the entire river system.

“Dams collect sediment, block fish migrations, and create reservoirs that support a fraction of the fisheries that the equivalent reach of flowing water would support,” he says, adding that the dams will worsen the effects of drought.

China, which operates 11 dams along the main stem of the Mekong (or Lancang, as it’s known in China), has come under particular criticism for how it operates its dams in secrecy without much regard for water flow downstream. It is not a member of the intergovernmental Mekong River Commission, which was set up in 1995 to facilitate regional dialogue in the lower Mekong River basin.

China’s decision to halve the water released from its Jinghong Dam for two weeks in July, due to “grid maintenance,” is believed to have contributed in large part to this year’s historically low water levels in the Mekong River. Chinese promises to release more dam water in the future have only served to raise worries over the extent to which China controls the river flow in the Mekong.

“This highlights underlying inequities among Mekong basin countries,” says Sarah Null, a professor at Utah State University in the Department of Watershed Sciences. “Richer nations reap more benefits of hydropower dams, including economic benefits and increased energy supply, while poorer nations are more affected by environmental degradation and reduced food security.”

‘Battery of Asia’

Many experts are particularly concerned about the environmental impact of Laos’ plans to turn itself into “the battery of Southeast Asia” by building dozens of hydroelectric dams on the Mekong and its tributaries and selling power to neighboring countries.

Earlier this month, at the same time China reduced the water output from the Jinghong Dam, Laos conducted trials on the giant Xayaburi dam in the northern part of the country, its first hydropower project on the main stem of the Mekong, scheduled to go online in October this year. The trials may have further disrupted the Mekong River’s flow.

One of the poorest countries in the region, Laos already has close to 50 hydroplants operating on various Mekong tributaries and more than 50 planned or under construction, several of them along the main stem of the Mekong. Last year a dam collapsed in southern Laos, flooding large areas and killing dozens of people. Environmentalists have long warned that the Lao projects carry environmental costs that are not fully appreciated or factored in to the decision-making.

“There is a system of total anarchy for hydropolitics and hydropower in the region,” says Eyler, who is the author of the book Last Days of the Mighty Mekong. “There was no overall vision for what the ‘battery of asia’ would look like, and now there is no vision for how that battery will operate.”

Still, there are signs that some countries in the Mekong basin are moving toward alternative forms of energy. Officials in Cambodia have expressed doubts about its plans for two, Chinese-constructed dams on the Mekong River in the northern part of the country, as Cambodia aims to instead increase its solar energy production.

Hogan says the Mekong must avoid the fate of other heavily dammed rivers, like the Colorado in the U.S., which has seen a complete alteration of its natural hydrography and the near total failure of spawning and recruitment of most native fish.

He points out that while the Mekong basin has proven remarkably resilient for many years, it is now facing unprecedented pressures.

“The accelerating pace of change, coupled with cumulative impacts of transboundary stressors, and the impending impacts of climate change, point to a fear that the river, which is the lifeblood of most of Southeast Asia, will gradually lose function until it no longer supports the huge diversity of wildlife and millions of people that depend on it,” he says.

Yep! All Mekong governments should collaborate to prevent any aspects of natural disasters, ecosystem collapses and natural ressources along the river that boosts their economy and the lives of millions of people.

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RT

50+ murders per day: Over 450,000 South Africans endorse death penalty in wake of grisly murders

Published time: 3 Sep, 2019 17:18 Edited time: 4 Sep, 2019 10:55

Reeva Steenkamp (left) and Uyinene Mrwetyana (right) were inspirations for the petition. © Public domain

Over 450,000 South Africans have signed a petition calling for the death penalty to be reintroduced, following several high-profile murders and widespread violence.

The campaign was set up after a student, Uyinene Mrwetyana, was raped and murdered at a post office in Cape Town. Its founder cited several other high-profile deaths, including the 2013 killing of model Reeva Steenkamp, who was shot dead by her boyfriend Oscar Pistorius, as the inspiration for the petition.

“We as a movement must find our voice to bring back the death sentence for crimes against women and children in the hope of saving this great country,” the petition reads.

The most recent crime statistics reveal that there were 20,336 murders in South Africa between April 2017 and March 2018, a 7 percent increase on the previous year. This puts the country’s murder rate at 57 murders each day.

The body of 19-year-old Mrwetyana was found on Monday. The suspect, a post office employee, has appeared in court charged with her murder and rape after he confessed.

South Africa abolished the death penalty after the fall of apartheid, when a constitutional court ruled that it was in conflict with the country's 1994 constitution.

There has been widespread violence across South Africa in recent days, with police using tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets to try and stamp out looting and rioting.

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RT

‘Chaos unseen since WWII’: UK parliament subverts democracy, leaves pre-Brexit Britain ungoverned

Published time: 3 Sep, 2019 22:52 Edited time: 3 Sep, 2019 22:59

© Reuters / Hannah McKay

The Parliament’s vote to open debate on a motion blocking a no-deal Brexit leaves the UK in a state of chaos not seen since World War II, former MP George Galloway has told RT.

The step closer to blocking a no-deal Brexit “effectively takes the Brexit process out of the hands of [Prime Minister] Boris Johnson” and places it in the hands of the opposition and the Tory rebels, the former MP told RT following the vote on Tuesday.

The 328-301 vote was not a victory for Johnson’s government, and according to Galloway, a sign that tomorrow’s vote could mark “two government defeats over Brexit in two consecutive days, largely at the hands of their own rebels.”

The Parliament will vote on Wednesday to determine whether a no-deal Brexit will be permitted, and whether a general election will be held next month.

It is chaos in Parliament. Britain is effectively now ungoverned just weeks before we’re supposed to leave the European Union… Not since Hitler was at the Channel ports in 1940 and Chamberlain was brought down and replaced by Sir Winston Churchill has Britain been in a more chaotic and precarious place.

Meanwhile, the pro-Remain Parliament is almost guaranteeing they’ll get the worst possible deal, journalist Neil Clark told RT, noting that “it’s just basic common sense that if you’re going to any negotiations…and you tell the person you’re negotiating with that you will in no circumstances leave without a deal, then you’re not likely to get a very good deal, because there’s no incentive for the other side to make concessions.”

Clark sees the conflict as a clash between direct democracy – the 2016 referendum that gave the country Brexit in the first place – and the indirect democracy of a pro-Remain Parliament.

“Time after time in our history, and particularly in recent years, we’ve seen Parliament actually subverting what the public wanted, whether it’s war with Iraq…whether it’s privatization, issue after issue Parliament has taken a different line on things than the public.”

I think people have had enough in Britain. People are sick of this. People just want Brexit to happen… Even Remainers I think are the same - they just want this to be finished off now, it’s gone on far too long.

While polls show Johnson’s government is “not terribly popular, the opposition Labour party is even less popular,”journalist George Szamuely told RT. As long as the Conservatives form some kind of “tactical alliance” with the Brexit Party in order to avoid facing off against each other during the general election, Johnson is likely to come out on top – especially as he has “withdrawn the whip from everybody who has voted against the government” on Brexit, Szamuely predicted. “He’s gambling everything on the general election.”

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RT

No-deal Brexit block removes all excuses for election delay… unless ‘something dramatic’ happens?

Published time: 4 Sep, 2019 22:28 Edited time: 4 Sep, 2019 23:45

© Reuters / Henry Nicholls

While UK parliament has shot down PM Boris Johnson’s bid for a general election next month, there’s no excuse for further delays once the risk of a no-deal Brexit is removed from the table, former MP George Galloway told RT.

Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party all abstained from voting to hold early general elections, leaving only 298 MPs in support – woefully short of the required two-thirds majority to pass the measure on Wednesday.

However, Johnson requested the opposition take the time to “reflect overnight,” which is “parliamentary code for ‘negotiations are going on behind the scenes’,” the former MP and RT contributor pointed out, adding that the MPs used to call this sort of thing "behind the speaker’s chair.”

Once the October 31 Brexit deadline is out of the way – and with it the possibility of a no-deal Brexit postponed – Labour will have “no excuse at all for refusing a general election,” Galloway said, predicting that the rebels who had been so vociferously demanding a contest up until “just the other week” would return to clamoring for it.

The measure to stop a no-deal Brexit by asking the EU for an extension is almost certainly a done deal, Galloway explained, with a caveat:

Unless something dramatic happens in the House of Lords – which can’t be ruled out, because they intend to sit all night and filibuster this bill.

Galloway noted that “giving to the EU the power to extend [the Brexit deadline] indefinitely” is a “very dangerous move indeed.”

“My prediction? There’ll be an election in early November,” even though it is a “very bad month to have a general election.”

The weather is poor, the nights are dark and it's only in extreme cases of parliamentary emergency that Britain traditionally goes to the polls in November, December, January, even February.

Labour’s decision to prioritize stopping a no-deal over trying to get into power as soon as possible “will cost them dearly when an election does come,” journalist Neil Clark believes. “Having called repeatedly for an election for the last two years, it doesn’t look good that when they finally get the chance of one, they turn it down.”

The new general election is inevitable, agrees former Brexit Party member and MEP David Coburn. “I think, he [Boris Johnson] will get it [elections] in the end. But it will be difficult. Johnson can put through a legislation that simply changes the fixed-term parliament act so that he only needs a 50 percent majority.”

We need an election to clear those Euro-fanatics and have a Parliament that will be more representative of the people of the UK and of what they want.

If that general election does come to pass, and Johnson comes out on top, Brexit is “a done deal,” journalist George Szamuelypredicted, noting that Johnson is likely to succeed.

However, if voters “take out all their resentment against the Conservative Party in the general election” and Labour takes the reins, “I don’t think there’ll be Brexit,” Szamuely continued. A second referendum would no doubt follow, “in which case they’ll continue with these endless negotiations, or it might go against the result of the first referendum.” In that case, all of this political agony has been for naught.

Britain will just continue limping along with this kind of on-again, off-again relationship to the EU.

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Until next week...keep on believing.
Almondtree Productions

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with exultation.”
(Psalm 100:1-2)