President Boris Badenov and his prickly assistant Vice President Natasha Fatale have devised yet another inept scheme to try to salvage their feckless administration. They decided to pretend that the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol was analogous to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the coordinated Islamist attacks on 9/11. Boris and Natasha hope Americans will be so beguiled by these analogies that they will turn their attention away from the insuperable failures of the Badenov administration.

Further, Boris and Natasha are using the unfortunate Jan. 6 riots to inflame a race conflagration their party started and fuels in order to secure the votes of persons of color, especially blacks. They’re counting on Americans of color not looking too closely at how Democrat policies have ravaged impoverished communities.

Read yesterday’s words from Kamala Harris who will live in infamy—or if she’s really lucky, maybe she’ll live just in irony:

Certain dates echo throughout history, including dates that instantly remind all who have lived through them—where they were and what they were doing when our democracy came under assault. Dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars, but a place in our collective memory. December 7th, 1941. September 11th, 2001. And January 6th, 2021.

I’m likely not alone in remembering exactly where I was when radical Islamists hijacked planes twenty years ago, killing 2,977 innocent people, including 8 children, and wounding 6,000. I have no idea where I was when the shameful U.S. Capitol riots took place one year ago, during which no rioter/trespasser killed a single person.

Flailing futilely about to make her warlike analogies plausible, Harris said,

On that day, I was not only Vice President-elect, I was also a United States Senator. And I was here at the Capitol that morning, at a classified hearing with fellow members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Hours later, the gates of the Capitol were breached.

I had left. But my thoughts immediately turned not only to my colleagues, but to my staff, who had been forced to seek refuge in our office, converting filing cabinets into barricades.

Take note, Harris wants the nation to know that she wasn’t concerned about the welfare of only her elite colleagues but also her lowly staff.

As the “gates” were “breached,” her staff sought “refuge” behind their filing cabinets. Sounds exactly as I imagine sailors doing on Dec. 7, 1941. Her staff need not have worried. Although Harris had already left, she was doing what Congressional leaders do best: She was thinking about her staff, quivering as they awaited certain death.

Harris continued her imaginative retelling:

What the extremists who roamed these halls targeted was not only the lives of elected leaders.

What they sought to degrade and destroy was not only a building, hallowed as it is. What they were assaulting were the institutions, the values, the ideals that generations of Americans have marched, picketed, and shed blood to establish and defend.

How does Natasha know the insurrectionists/terrorists/enemy combatants “targeted” the “lives of elected leaders”? Wait! Could she have been colluding with them?

What enrages many Americans is how differently hypocrites like Harris treat January 6th as compared to the months of rioting, arson, looting, and assaults on American institutions, values, ideals, and law enforcement officers committed by Antifa and BLM in 2020. Harris even urged Americans to contribute to a fund to bail out of jail those who assaulted that which “generations of Americans have marched, picketed, and shed blood to establish and defend.” Harris tweeted this in June 2020:

If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.

Harris, second-in-command of the party committed to court-packing, illegal immigration, voter fraud, and filibuster-busting, and fervent supporter of setting leftist criminals free, apparently doesn’t see the irony in this statement

On January 6th, we all saw what our nation would look like if the forces who seek to dismantle our democracy are successful. The lawlessness, the violence, the chaos.

Suddenly Harris cares deeply about the U.S. Constitution, the First Amendment, and the rule of law:

What was at stake then, and now, is the right to have our future decided the way the Constitution prescribes it: by we, the people — all the people.

We cannot let our future be decided by those bent on silencing our voices, overturning our votes, and peddling lies and misinformation; by some radical faction that may be newly resurgent but whose roots run old and deep.

You see, the strength of democracy is the rule of law. The strength of democracy is the principle that everyone should be treated equally, that elections should be free and fair, that corruption should be given no quarter.

If she’s truly committed to the U.S. Constitution, maybe she should encourage her party to stop attacking the Second Amendment. If she truly opposes the silencing of voices, maybe she should encourage her fellow leftists to stop canceling speaking engagements, stop trying to get people fired for expressing their views on race and sexuality, and stop trying to force Americans to use Newspeak when referring to men and women. If she believes the “strength of democracy is the rule of law,” then as the border czar, maybe she should try to stop border lawbreaking.

Next came one of the central goals of the Badenov administration, -the only hope Dems have for winning elections in 2022 and 2024:

And the work ahead will not be easy. Here, in this very building, a decision will be made about whether we uphold the right to vote and ensure free and fair election.

Let’s be clear: We must pass the voting rights bills that are now before the Senate. …

Who knew suffrage was under assault right now in the U.S. Capitol?

Democrats, practiced at the art of deception—particularly through the redefinition of terms—have redefined efforts to ensure free and fair elections and reduce voter fraud as racist efforts to suppress the black vote. They’re doing this, not to help communities of color, but to help Democrats maintain their positions of power.

But increasing numbers of blacks and Latinos now see the Democrat charade of altruism for what it is: a selfish, grasping effort to acquire more power for an entrenched bureaucracy who have little to no regard for those who have trusted them and given them that power for decades even as their communities of color die.

Black and brown communities see that Democrats have destroyed their babies, their families, their communities, and their schools.

They see that Democrats are destroying the bodies and spirits of their children. Democrats have created a hyper-sexualized, morally untethered America that robs children of fathers and leaves mothers alone to try to piece together the broken lives of their children.

They see the decaying and dangerous communities that fatherless boys create.

They see that wealthy, powerful Democrats send their children to the most expensive private schools in the country while denying educational choice to families trapped in dangerous, poor-performing urban schools with union teachers who refuse to work.

They see wealthy powerful Democrats aiding and abetting lawless border crossing in order to import votes. And persons of color know that it will be their urban communities that will suffer most from illegal immigration, while the wealthy and powerful are inoculated from the worst of those effects.

Yes, Americans of color see that Democrats spread government money to buy votes. They see the division Democrats sow in order to grow their power and the lies they tell to maintain it.

Kamala Harris should live forever in infamy.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/The-Vice-President-Who-Will-Live-in-Infamy.mp3

Fatherless children are quickly becoming the norm in the United States. At one time, it was primarily young and poorly educated women who became single mothers. Today that trend is changing. Educated women in their mid-thirties are often having their first child outside of marriage. A quick search on the internet results in a plethora of articles touting single motherhood.

Society seems enamored with the idea that women do not need men to “have it all.” Instead, they can have the education, the career, and the child without the burden of marriage. However, what are the effects of eliminating the father’s role in a child’s upbringing and how should Christians respond?

According to the 2020 census report, over 10 million single-parent homes exist in the U.S., and women head 80.5 percent of those homes. Half of the single mothers have never married, a third are divorced, and the remainder are either separated or widowed. Despite many single mothers being more educated than in previous decades, the single-parent poverty rate remains high. Poverty among single mothers is at 29 percent. Food insecurity and hunger are on the rise as a result.

Economic problems are not the only pressing problems experienced by single mothers. Dr. David Popenoe, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Rutgers University and co-developer of the National Marriage Project, has noted that a father’s involvement in his child’s life is beneficial to the child’s sense of happiness and well-being. Children with involved fathers are more likely to succeed academically and are twice as likely to attend college as children without involved fathers. Fathers also play a role in children developing problem-solving skills, empathy, and independence. The lack of a father can severely stunt these beneficial emotional developments.

For decades, researchers have noted the lasting effects of fatherlessness on children. Poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, and various emotional problems are all associated with the lack of a father figure. There has even been a correlation between fatherlessness and increased suicide rates in children. Children are profoundly affected by the absence of fathers.

There are numerous reasons why women are becoming single mothers, including personal choice. Although Christians may disagree with women choosing to parent alone, it is essential that the church not ostracize them and their children. The church should also not assume that every single mother is parenting alone by choice. Instead, it is up to the Christian church to support single parents lovingly while also promoting fatherhood and the benefits of two-parent households.

James 1:27 offers helpful guidance:

“Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

These single-parent homes are real opportunities for the church to show the love of God. We can accomplish this ministry by making single mothers feel welcome in the church, finding out the needs of the single-parent home, and providing assistance with those needs.

The church should also educate men about the importance of being involved. Even when divorce occurs, men should still play a vital role in their children’s lives, and they need support and encouragement in fulfilling their roles from the church. Male mentors and small groups for men and single-fathers could provide the necessary resources.

We should create opportunities for fatherless children to have positive male role models that help them develop emotionally and spiritually. Sunday school, vacation Bible school, and youth clubs may be the only opportunity for some children to connect to a positive male role model. But if the church is serious, it doesn’t have to stop there.

The church should expose the lies of the feminist movement that tells educated women they can “have it all” without having a marriage. Women need instruction on the value of marriage and the roles played by both parents. The church should encourage women to ensure children have positive male role models even when fathers are absent.

In Proverbs 30:11, we are told,

“There is a generation that curses its father, and does not bless its mother.”

It would seem the birth of that generation is at hand. The lack of father figures has led to all sorts of degeneracy, and feminists are purposefully expunging husbands and fathers. As a result, increasing numbers of children are rejecting authority and cursing their fathers and mothers. For this reason, the church has much work to do in restoring a God-centered understanding of the importance of two-parent households.

Written by Patience Griswold

In a recent video from TakeCharge Minnesota, Rashad Turner, a former leader of Black Lives Matter explained why he left the organization. “I believed the organization stood for exactly what the name implies,” Turner said,

Black lives do matter. However, after a year on the inside, I learned they had little concern for rebuilding black families, and they cared even less about improving the quality of education for students in Minneapolis.

A year and a half after he founded the Saint Paul chapter of Black Lives Matter, Turner left and is now engaged in a movement that is seeking to rebuild families and expand access to quality education.

Until recently, Black Lives Matter stated on their website that one of their goals is to “disrupt the nuclear family.” This goal is incredibly harmful. The data shows that marriage reduces poverty in every racial demographic, and family breakdown consistently harms children and communities. Last year, World magazine’s Tim Lamer drew attention to the international data on fatherlessness, pointing out that throughout the world, fatherlessness hurts kids. Even if the economic disparities are removed, kids who grow up without a dad still face hurdles that their peers do not. No program can ever replace fathers.

Family breakdown has affected all demographics in the U.S. — currently, nearly a quarter of children in the U.S. do not have a father figure in the home and 50% of births occur outside of marriage for women under 30. The black community has been hit especially hard by this trend, with the rate of fatherlessness recently hitting 75%.  Take Charge MN has pointed out,

skin color is not the consistent variable for low performance… Fatherless homes is the consistent variable. The disparity is spreading in the Hispanic and White communities as well. It is prominent in the Black community because of a 50-year head start.

And as Take Charge MN has also noted, government policies that have disincentivized marriage have played a significant role in this trend.

In addition to Black Lives Matter’s ambivalence toward, and even promotion of family breakdown, Turner has pointed out the organization’s failure to pursue policies that expand access to quality education. Turner was raised by his grandparents after his father was shot and killed when he was two years old and his mother was no longer able to take care of him. They instilled in him a love of learning and emphasized the value of education. “I am living proof that no matter your start in life, quality education is a pathway to success,” he said. “I want the same success for our children and our communities.”

 In 2016, Turner left Black Lives Matter when the organization called for a moratorium on charter schools and an end to the “privatization of education.” Turner is an outspoken champion of school choice and has rightly pointed out that for students to succeed, families need to have the ability to put their children in educational settings that best fit their needs.

A student’s access to quality education should not be limited by their zip code, but without school choice, this is the reality for many students. Minneapolis-area schools have been failing black families for years, but when black children from those same Minneapolis neighborhoods attend private, faith-based schools, they score above the national average on exams. BLM’s 2016 decision to call for an end to the “privatization of education” put them at odds with student success.

Turner left Black Lives Matter because he saw how the organization’s goals were hurting, not helping the black community. In his words, “I was an insider in Black Lives Matter, and I learned the ugly truth.” It is impossible to help families and communities while encouraging family breakdown and shutting down educational opportunities.

This article was originally published by the Minnesota Family Council.

Written by Dr. Jerry Newcombe

Much of the mayhem we see today is linked to fatherlessness.

Around this time we celebrate Father’s Day. But fathers in our culture have not recently appeared very important—at least according to Hollywood and other culture-shapers.

We used to have programs like “Father Knows Best” or “Leave It to Beaver” with a respectable father figure. Then we devolved to Archie Bunker on “All in the Family.” He was the stereotypical bigoted, benighted patriarch who was not worthy of emulation.

Then we devolved to Homer Simpson, the buffoonish dad, who was anything but a role model.

Of course, in many households today, there is no dad. And that’s a serious problem. So many of the children in fatherless homes begin life at a serious disadvantage. The breakdown of the family at large has caused a huge crisis in our society. For instance, statistics show that the majority of prison inmates come from broken families.

Fatherlessness is a serious blight on American life. As the family goes, so goes society. And, contrary to what the left says (who spend much of their energy diminishing traditional gender roles and arguing that whatever “family you choose” is just as good as the real thing), fathers are integral to the life of a child.

Take an example. What is it that is devastating the black community today? Many in our current climate would say the main issue is racism. But sociologically, cultural pathologies are linked closely to poverty. And poverty is linked closely to the structure of the family. Government subsidies (by which the left buys votes) has created a permanent underclass of people by subsidizing fatherlessness and unemployment.

Prior to the Great Society, the rate of illegitimacy in the black community was relatively low and families were intact. And as economist Thomas Sowell points out, the poverty rate for African-Americans fell by 40 percent from 1940 to 1960—just before the “Great Society” welfare programs. Today, the illegitimacy rate is over 75 percent, which is devastating—by virtually all accounts.

I remember many years ago when I attended an “evangelical church” in Chicago that was a little on the liberal side. One of the lay leaders, a man, got up and prayed, and he said, “Our Father, Our Mother….”

I was thinking, “What?!?” So I asked him after the service about the unorthodox prayer.

His response was that that church was in the shadow of the most notorious housing project in the city, Cabrini-Green. Fatherlessness was a huge problem there. Most people growing up there had a negative feeling about their earthly father because he was absent or drunk or abusive. Cabrini-Green was such a disaster that it has since been torn down.

In his book, Hearts of the Fathers, Charles Crismier notes that many American children today lack the “God-ordered earthly anchor for soul security” because dad is not in the home. He notes,

“It is well known but seldom discussed, whether in the church house or the White House, that fatherlessness lies at the root of nearly all of the most glaring problems that plague our modern, now post-Christian life.”

For example, take the issue of poverty. Says Crismier, “Children living in female-headed homes have a poverty rate of 48 percent, more than four times the rate for children living in homes with their fathers and mothers.”

He points out that fathers are so important in the Bible, beginning with God the Father, that the words “father,” “fathers,” and “forefathers” appear 1,573 times.

Obviously, children in fatherless homes can survive and even thrive despite that handicap. But what a better thing it is to follow God’s design for the family.

There’s also a link between fatherlessness and unbelief. About 20 years ago, when he was a professor at New York University, Dr. Paul Vitz wrote a book, The Faith of the Fatherless. In that book he showed how famous atheists and skeptics in history had virtually no father figure in their life or a very negative father.

As examples, he cites Voltaire, Bertrand Russell, H. G. Wells, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean Paul Sartre, Thomas Hobbs, and Sigmund Freud, among others.

Conversely, Vitz found that strong believers often had positive fathers or father figures. In an interview for Christian television, he told me, “I would say the biggest problem in the country is the breakdown of the family, and the biggest problem in the breakdown in the family is the absence of the father. Our answer is to recover the faith, particularly for men, and we’ll recover fatherhood. And if we recover fatherhood, we’ll recover the family. If we recover the family, we’ll recover our society.”

If you’re a father and you stay with your children and you love your wife, you’re a real hero and role model. Keep it up—our nation is counting on you.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

On Tuesday, June 2, 2020 the trend of posting a black screen was seen across social media.

What is the Blackout screen?

According to Insider, Blackout Tuesday (with the use of the Blackout screen as a symbol) is “an initiative to go silent on social media, reflect on recent events, and stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.”

What is the Black Lives Matter movement?

According to blacklivesmatter.com, “Black Lives Matter began as a call to action in response to state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism. Our intention from the very beginning was to connect Black people from all over the world who have a shared desire for justice to act together in their communities. The impetus for that commitment was, and still is, the rampant and deliberate violence inflicted on us by the state.”

What is systematic racism?

According to Wikipedia,

“Institutional racism (systematic racism) is a form of racism expressed in the practice of social and political institutions. It is reflected in disparities regarding wealth, income, criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power, and education, among other factors.”

BLM pushes the narrative that police departments are inherently racist, but facts suggest otherwise.

What is the truth about police shootings?

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), blacks are the victims of homicide 8x more than Hispanics and whites combined. These homicides, however, are not by police officers but by blacks.

According to census.gov, the black community makes up 13% of the population. Black men make up 6% of the population, are responsible for 42% of the crime, and account for 44% of all homicides in America according to 2018 statistics.

Michigan State University and University of Maryland College Park created a database of 917 officers involved in fatal shootings in 2015. The study found that in more than 650 police departments, 55% of the assailants who were killed were white, only 27% were black, and 19% were Hispanic.

According to statista.com, in 2017, 457 white people were killed by police and 223 blacks were killed. In 2018, 399 whites were killed, and 209 blacks were killed. In 2019, 370 whites were killed, and 235 blacks were killed.

These statistics and many others show that it is far more likely for a white person to be shot and killed by a police officer than for a black person to be shot and killed by a police officer.

The narrative pushing systemic racism in police departments is factually incorrect. The propagation of this lie by the leftwing media continues to erode race relations in this country.

What does BLM ignore?

If BLM really cared about black lives, they would promote personal responsibility in their own communities and teach their children respect for authority, self-discipline, and responsibility for their own actions.

If BLM really cared about black lives, they would talk about the 20 million black babies that have been murdered in abortion clinics since 1973. Every year 300,000 black babies are aborted. According to the Wall Street Journal,

Nationally, black women terminate pregnancies at far higher rates than other women. … Racism, poverty, and lack of access to health care are the typical explanations for these disparities. But black women have much higher abortion rates even after you control for income. … The more plausible explanation may have to do with marriage. Unmarried women are more likely to experience an unintended pregnancy, and black women are less likely… to marry.

BLM should be promoting traditional marriage with fathers for children. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 2015, 77.3% of all black births were illegitimate.

If BLM cared about their communities, they would not promote their destruction in riots.

BLM would also be talking about the black police officers that have been killed in the riots, like as David Dorn and Dave Patrick Underwood. BLM isn’t talking about these black lives because these lives don’t support the narrative they are pushing.

What BLM really cares about is dividing us. If we are divided, we are weak. If we are divided, we are easy to control, and the left wants complete control of our lives. The left along with BLM want God, law, and order out of America.

What does BLM demand?

BLM and other organizations participating in the riots are demanding that people bow down and ask for forgiveness for the racism they “inherently” have because they have a different skin color. But did not God make our skin color? Did God make a mistake when He made Caucasians, African Americans, Native Americans, Asians, and every other ethnic group? Aren’t all ethnic groups equal in God’s sight and therefore a good thing?

• Galatians 3:28 says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.

• Romans 2:11 says, “For God shows no partiality…”

• Colossians 3:11 says, “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”

If according to Scripture, no skin color is superior to another because God shows no partiality, why should we apologize for the way God created us? God makes no mistakes. God says in Psalm 139 that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Scripture teaches whom humans should bow down before:

• Psalm 95:6 says, “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!”

• Philippians 2:10-11 says, “So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

So, what is the correct Christian response to the BLM movement?

As Christ followers, we kneel only before the throne of God. Before no one and no movement do we bow our knees in reverence and submission.

Believers, stop promoting the voices of those whose platform, ideals, and solutions are completely antithetical to God’s Word. Stop obsessing about how we look to the world. The world will hate us because they hate God (John 15:18). The world is diametrically opposed to God and His laws.

Why are we trying to make people accept us? Could it be that many Christians value the opinions of the world above God’s? (Prov 29:25)

What did your Blackout screen really say?

Your Blackout screen said that being white or something other than black—that this lack of melanin in your skin—is shameful and something to apologize for.

Your Blackout screen said that you are willing to bow before someone other than God.

Your Blackout screen said that America is racist, police are racist, and police are looking for opportunities to kill black people.

Your Blackout screen said that we are not equal. Our skin color separates us. Is this the message of the gospel? No, it is not. God calls for unity, not division. (Psalm 133:1)

The BLM movement is opposed to everything the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ stands for, and no believer should stand—or, rather, kneel—in support of this movement. “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14) 

Believers, stop embracing this movement. Reject the false narrative deceptively advanced in the name of compassion. Stop believing the lie.

The reason all forms of racism must be opposed is that God opposes racism. The same bigotry that has its roots in the BLM movement is the same bigotry that existed in Nazi Germany during the 1930’s and the American South in the 1800’s.

At the center of all racism is sin. Racism must be denounced as exactly what it is—a sin that falls short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). For those of us in Christ, we can and must declare the gospel as the only means to heal our broken and divided land. We are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

Alyssa Josephs is a 17 year-old conservative Christian who is passionate about following Christ and being a gospel witness to her peers. She lives with her family in Chicago.

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The nation is in the midst of a debate over gun control and to a lesser extent, mental health issues, stemming from another school shooting. Not to diminish those two issues, researcher Bradford Wilcox points out that nearly every shooting over the last year in Wikipedia’s “list of U.S. school attacks” involved a young man whose parents divorced or never married in the first place.

Wilcox, writes:

“As the nation seeks to make sense of these senseless shootings, we must also face the uncomfortable truth that turmoil at home all too often accounts for the turmoil we end up seeing spill onto our streets and schools.

The social scientific evidence about the connection between violence and broken homes could not be clearer.”  Boys living in single mother homes are almost twice as likely to end up delinquent compared to boys who enjoy good relationships with their father. Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson has written that “Family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictor of variations in urban violence across cities in the United States.” His views are echoed by the eminent criminologists Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, who have written that “such family measures as the percentage of the population divorced, the percentage of households headed by women, and the percentage of unattached individuals in the community are among the most powerful predictors of crime rates.”

Why is fatherlessness such a big deal for our boys (almost all of these incidents involve boys)? Putting the argument positively, sociologist David Popenoe notes, “Fathers are important to their sons as role models. They are important for maintaining authority and discipline. And they are important in helping their sons to develop both self-control and feelings of empathy toward others, character traits that are found to be lacking in violent youth.

Of course, most boys who grow up in a home without their father turn out okay. They pick up the right cues from a conscientious high-school soccer coach, flourish under the watchful eye of a devoted grandfather, or benefit from the consistent discipline of a strong single mother. But every year enough fatherless boys fall prey to the ministrations of a gang or the rage induced by a high-school bully or the emotional fallout of painful divorce to end up causing real harm to themselves or the members of their communities.”

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