Watchmen Ministry North Idaho

(CNSNews) The issue of critical race theory is raising a more fundamental question about our nation: education.

Education is about more than teaching children to read and write. It is about transmitting values, transmitting a worldview that will define how our youth think and how they will live.

Per the Department of Education, in 2020, 56.4 million children were enrolled in K-12 education. Of these, 50.7 million were in public schools, and 5.7 million were in private schools.

So, government plays a substantial role in the education of our children.  (Read More)

(FRC) When looking at the cultural landscape from a biblical perspective, it’s more than clear that America is in dire straits. But what’s particularly striking in recent years is how corporate America has collectively decided to latch on to this moral decline. It wasn’t that long ago that American companies were careful to steer clear of public advocacy or making donations to groups with a stake in contentious social issues such as abortion, LGBT “Pride,” and “Defund the Police” in order to avoid alienating their customers.

Yet as we are witnessing, the moral goalposts determined by secular cultural elitists shift on an almost daily basis, and everyone — without exception — must comply or face cancellation. As the rainbow symbol of sexual anarchy adorns virtually every company logo and our inboxes and social media accounts are flooded with “woke” jargon, it’s easy for believers to feel powerless against a seemingly unstoppable onslaught intended to influence the culture in a direction away from biblical truth.  (Read More)

(Townhall) If America is systemically racist, why have millions of blacks from Africa and the Caribbean come to this country over the past 50 years? Why would they and many millions more want to move from all-black societies to a white-dominated, racist one?

This is a question every black and white leftist should be asked. After all, no Jews moved to Germany in the 1930s. And why didn’t any? After all, many Jews were suffering terrible persecution and poverty in Russia and in Eastern Europe. Why didn’t any of them move to Germany after 1933?

So, one can only conclude that, in the view of America’s leftists, non-German Jews of the 1930s had the wisdom not to move to Germany, but present-day non-American blacks have no wisdom. In the view of America’s leftists, then, the millions of blacks who have moved here and the many millions who want to move here must be fools.  (Read More)

(RedState) The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) denied a Christian non-profit organization tax-exempt status because “the Bible’s teachings are typically affiliated with the Republican Party and candidates.” The group, which is called Christians Engaged, is fighting the decision.

According to its website, the organization “exists to awaken, motivate, educate, and empower ordinary believers in Jesus Christ to PRAY for our nation and elected officials regularly, VOTE in every election to impact our culture, and ENGAGE our hearts in some form of POLITICAL EDUCATION OR ACTIVISM for the furtherance of our nations.”

The group offers educational materials and encourages Christians to vote. It holds seminars and classes to show people how to get involved in the political process and provides a forum for people to converse on the issues of the day.  (Read More)

(Townhall) Iowa teachers were subjected to mandatory training from the Mississippi Bend Area Education Agency that categorized the phrase “Make America Great Again” as one example of “covert white supremacy,” leaked documents show.

Other examples of “covert white supremacy” include Columbus Day, U.S. immigration law, and a denial of white privilege.

Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson posted the slides on Twitter, showing what he called a “rock solid, real world application of Critical Race Theory being used as a *political* weapon to target Republicans.”

“This is NOT education,” he added. “It is naked political vengeance using the state education system and our children’s educators. This training is CRT in practice.”  (Read More)

(The Federalist) Everyone knows the political left disdains men — at least, white heterosexual men who aren’t confused about their sex. But it also has a serious misogyny problem. For all the trumpeting of women’s rights, leftist policies frequently demean, disempower, or even endanger women.

Women are expected to shoulder burdens not imposed on men, all to promote what’s touted as a greater public good. Besides, is there anything more dismissive and denigrating of women’s value and humanity than referring to them as “menstruators,” “birthing units,” or “uterus owners”?

Much of the left’s misogyny arises from the sudden “transgender” contagion. Trans-accommodating policies have real victims, in addition to the ultimate victimization of the gender-dysphoric. Usually if not always, those other victims are women.  (Read More)

(OneNewsNow) The grassroots pushback against CRT is rooted in the best of the American tradition: a rejection of racial essentialism in favor of individualism, an enthusiastic endorsement of agency rather than determinism, a willingness to stand united against tribalism.

According to the establishment media, critical race theory, or CRT, is a distraction. It is a right-wing smear. It is a conservative attempt to quash the dark side of American history. Most of all, according to the establishment media, you must never — ever — pay attention to the infusion of CRT into the nation’s institutions of power.

According to MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, controversy over CRT is a “creation … It keeps people watching or it keeps people clicking.”

According to CNN’s Bakari Sellers, CRT is just “America’s history.”

Critical race theory, of course, is not America’s actual history. It is a perverse worldview, unsupportable by the evidence, in which all of America’s key institutions are inextricably rooted in white supremacy; it is an activist campaign demanding the destruction of those institutions. The founders of CRT have written as much.  (Read More)

(FRC) Yet again, Democrats are outraged to discover that religious beliefs actually impact people’s actions. In the latest dust-up, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted 168-55 on Friday to proceed with a draft document “on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church” that, when finalized, may deny the Eucharist to politicians who support abortion. Representative Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) tweeted in response, “If they’re going to politically weaponize religion by ‘rebuking’ Democrats who support women’s reproductive choice, then a ‘rebuke’ of their tax-exempt status may be in order.” You read that right: a sitting congressman casually suggested repealing the tax-exempt status of one of the largest religious organizations in America because they are upholding biblical truth.  (Read More)

(The Federalist) “The greatest threat to religious liberty in America today,” said former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr in a recent speech, is “the increasingly militant and extreme secular-progressive climate of our state-run education system.”

“The heavy-handed enforcement of secular-progressive orthodoxy through government-run schools is totally incompatible with traditional Christianity and other major religious traditions in our country. In light of this development, we must confront the reality that it may no longer be fair, practical, or even constitutional to provide publicly-funded education solely through the vehicle of state-operated schools,” he said.  (Read More)

(WND) In his new book, entitled “Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe,” Baucham discusses the divisions and the deterioration he’s observed during his recent trips to America.

“I think that’s one of the reasons that I just became so keenly aware and so passionate about writing this book, because it was really noticeable to me that things were shifting quickly and deteriorating quickly,” he explained to The Daily Wire. “And I’m watching families be divided, churches be divided, institutions and schools and denominations be divided over this thing. Being an expat coming back and seeing that, it was just alarming to me.”

Brown pointed out that Baucham’s ancestors were slaves, and he addresses this in his book. Baucham writes, “The most powerful weapon in our arsenal is not calling for reparations: it is forgiveness. Antiracism knows nothing of forgiveness because it knows nothing of the Gospel. Instead, antiracism offers endless penance, judgment, and fear.”  (Read More)

(OneNewsNow) A native of China and leader of a well-respected human rights group that advocates for persecuted Christians in the Communist-run nation has won a prestigious award from another well-recognized organization.

ChinaAid president Bob Fu was awarded the “Wilberforce Award” last month by The Colson Center for a Christian Worldview.

After being jailed by the Communist Party for hosting house church services, Fu fled with wife Heidi through Hong Kong in 1997. But he never forgot the persecuted Church he left behind, and today Texas-based ChinaAid and its network of pastors and underground churches relay first-hand accounts of arrests and beatings by the CCP.  (Read More)

(Standing For Freedom Center) The Washington Post is drawing criticism after posting a video calling on white people to form “accountability groups” and encouraging white shame in what some are calling a “pseudoreligious” movement.

A recent episode of “The New Normal” video series with host Nicole Ellis explored the idea of white accountability groups in which white people gather together to challenge each other on their “whiteness.”

“In this episode,” Ellis said, “we’re tackling white racial identity and why understanding your whiteness is integral to becoming self-aware as a white person.”

Resmaa Menakem, an author and trauma specialist, appeared on the video and said, “[A]n antiracist culture does not exist among white people. White people need to start getting together specifically around race.”  (Read More)

(WND) A radio talk-show host has revealed that organizers of a black “pride” event at a public park in Seattle are insisting that white people pay a “reparations” fee of up to $50 in order to enter in a race-based manipulation that has the endorsement of mayoral candidate Lorena Gonzalez.

Jason Rantz at his MyNorthwest site explains that those organizing what they are calling the “Taking b[l]ack pride” events have stated that, for their event, “All are free to attend HOWEVER this is a BLACK AND BROWN QUEER TRANS CENTERED, PRIORITIZED, VALUED, EVENT. White allies and accomplices are welcome to attend but will be charged a $10 to $50 reparations fee that will be used to keep this event free of cost for BLACK AND BROWN Trans and Queer Community.”  (Read More)

(LifeNews) Senate Democrats have introduced a new bill that would eliminate every single pro-life law nationwide.

The so-called Women’s Health Protection Act, “would invalidate nearly all existing state limitations on abortion,” said Jennifer Popik, director of federal legislation for National Right to Life.

“This legislation would also prohibit states from adopting new protective laws in the future, including various types of laws specifically upheld as constitutionally permissible by the U.S. Supreme Court,” she said.

Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said the measure “would essentially remove all legal protections for unborn children on the federal and state level. The Women’s Health Protection Act is, in effect, a no-limits-on-abortion-until-birth bill.”  (Read More)

(Idaho Freedom Foundation) Coeur d’Alene School District spokesman Scott Maben responded Tuesday to my reporting about public officials weaving critical race theory into a schoolwide framework with six falsehoods, misrepresentations, and evasions.

Let’s review them individually:

1. “The commentary misrepresents our work to help all students be successful in school. It is full of falsehoods and appears aimed to sow fear and division.”

The published article includes direct quotations and citations of critical race theorists from the district’s equity toolkit and cited the framework in its entirety for the public to examine—nothing was “false.” Critical race theory discriminates against people based on their race, and public officials are promoting it.  (Read More)

(PJ Media) The Department of Education (DOE) under President Joe Biden announced that it would reverse the Trump administration policy on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The Biden DOE will effectively flip the meaning of “sex” on its head, determining that “discrimination on the basis of sex” includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This means the DOE sanctions transgender invasions of women’s private spaces and women’s sports in schools, which arguably violate Title IX.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona defended the new policy by referencing the Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), in which the Court ruled that discrimination on the basis of “sex” in a 1964 civil rights law included discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Justice Samuel Alito condemned this notion — which Congress and the president could not have even conceived in 1964 — as “preposterous.”  (Read More)

(Faith & Freedom) Michael Farris, President and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom —a conservative Christian-based law firm that specializes in religious freedom cases says a backlash against “woke public schools is coming,” and it may be catastrophic.

He says the “reports coming out of Portland, Ore., and its suburbs, are simply terrifying,” but it “isn’t only Portland and Seattle,” it’s everywhere.

He and journalist Christopher Rufo take a deep look at what is really going on in public education in Portland, Seattle, and across the nation —and why a major backlash is coming, and it’s coming soon.
Be informed, not misled.  (Read More)

(Gregg Pruett) With the liberty movement gaining steam in Idaho, the Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) are increasingly concerned that their hold on power here is evaporating. They are lashing out with a vengeance and attacking anyone they can who defends the U.S. and Idaho Constitutions.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that their most hopeful method of attack is to label anyone who believes in limited government and constitutional principles as “far-right.”

To the Democrats and their liberal media allies, every conservative in existence is a member of the “far-right.” That includes RINO Senator Mitt Romney and former President Donald Trump. The left also tries to paint all conservatives as active members of the KKK, and they attempt to tie the terms “far-right” and “KKK” together to scare citizens from supporting the conservative movement.

As Idahoans desire less government intrusion into their lives, you can expect these attacks to increase. You can expect that the RINOs, liberals, and the mainstream media are going to team up to try and take us all down.  (Read More)

(OneNewsNow) There’s a reason why Americans are fleeing America’s major cities: the Leftist form of governance has become all too common there, and people are migrating away from those foolhardy policies.

This week, a video from a San Francisco Walgreens went viral on Twitter. The video depicted a man standing next to his bicycle, loading up a garbage bag with products. The man then rides his bicycle down the aisle, past a security guard, who limply throws out a hand to try to grab the bag; the shoplifter simply brushes past him, then rides out the door.

This sort of thing has become exceedingly common in San Francisco. In late May, Thomas Fuller wrote in The New York Times, “At a board of supervisors hearing last week, representatives from Walgreens said that thefts at its stores in San Francisco were four times the chain’s national average, and that it had closed 17 stores, largely because the scale of thefts had made business untenable.” Employees at Walgreens had been told to stand aside as shoplifting took place because security officers had been assaulted repeatedly.  (Read More)

(Standing For Freedom Center) Weeks after California settled with Harvest Rock Church, the state of Nevada was forced to pay out $175,000 for discriminating against Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley in its COVID restrictions.

“We’re just extremely pleased to be able to come together to once again worship in person because of just how vital and essential it is to families of faith and the entire community,” said Garry Leist, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley.

The Nevada Board of Examiners approved a request by the Office of the Attorney General to pay a tort claim to Calvary Chapel in the amount of $175,000.

The church had sued Gov. Steve Sisolak, Attorney General Aaron Ford, and Lyon County Sheriff Frank Hunewill because the Governor’s order originally banned all indoor worship services while allowing other “essential” businesses to operate.  (Read More)

(WND) Remember when you could talk about anything in America without fear of retribution, shaming, harassment?

Do you recall when “media” was a plural noun, implying a multitude of voices?

What about speech codes? Can you remember a time before they were imposed on college campuses?

How about the internet before Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google set the rules for what you could say and what you couldn’t say?

A generation ago, America was celebrated for its free speech, its free press, its freedom of religion.

But consider the topics today that you can’t talk about, write about or dissent about.  (Read More)

(The Federalist) Wikipedia’s quiet dominance over internet knowledge and close ties to authoritarian big tech companies is giving the online encyclopedia site too much unchecked power.

In one recent example, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is under federal and state investigation for mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic and growing list of scandals, is described on his Wikipedia page in a positive light while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential GOP frontrunner for the 2024 presidential election, is painted as a partisan hack who ignored the science.

Anyone who searches for information about both of these governors’ pandemic responses will be given this information that isn’t necessarily true, and Wikipedia doesn’t seem to do anything about it.  (Read More)

(Gem State Patriot) I try to swim 5 days a week and I have developed a group of friends who swim with me. One of them is named Paul. He told me the other day between sets that he was a “conservative Republican” but that he voted for Biden because he couldn’t tolerate Trump’s behavior. We have all become familiar with this line. What they are actually saying is that they were placing their own “feelings” above any principles that support liberty and capitalism. He voted against boorish behavior and for Marxist-progressivism. We all know that he was never a conservative.

After our workout, we met again in the hot tub where we both stretched out. He told me that he considered himself a “humanist “and that he “cares” about his fellow man. I told him that I was a Christian and that my Catholic Christian faith informed every aspect of my life. He then became angry and made this fantastic statement “that all Christians are delusional” and I needed to seek psychiatric care. This was a college educated man telling me that I was delusional because I believed in God and Jesus Christ! I bet many who read this have had similar experiences.  (Read More)

(Dennis Prager) The most frequent question people pose to me is: What can I/we do to fight back against the nihilistic anti-American destruction of virtually all the country’s major institutions?

There is an answer.

The single best thing Americans can do to counter the left-wing attack on America — against its freedoms, its schools, its families, its children, its governmental institutions, its sports, its news and entertainment media, its medical establishment, the CIA, the FBI, the State Department and the military — is to take their children out of America’s schools.

Other than in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), the vast majority of America’s elementary schools, high schools, colleges and universities teach your child or grandchild almost nothing important; prematurely sexualize them, thereby robbing them of their innocence; and harm them intellectually and morally.  (Read More)

(The Federalist) “In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?” Anthony Fauci penned these words in a 2012 paper, long before the COVID-19 outbreak, about gain of function research. “Scientists working in this field might say — as indeed I have said — that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks.”

The benefits outweigh the risks. For research involving scientists extracting viruses from the wild and engineering them to infect humans in order to study potential therapeutics, Fauci determined the high risk was worth the potential benefit. Whether Fauci was right or wrong — although hindsight and mass casualties have certainly teamed up to condemn him — all the doctor did was perform a cost-benefit analysis.  (Read More)