☕️ HIT MEN AND HEIFERS ☙ Thursday, August 8, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Multiplier orders! Good Mideast war updates: signs it might be cooling off; cows are back in weird heifer story; FBI raids Mar-a-Ritter; bizarre Iranian assassin story; great news from Bulgaria; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! Today’s essential news roundup includes: Middle East war updates including signs things may, possibly, be cooling back down; Israel ponders preemptive action while Russia and Iran signal restraint; Israeli people split on wisdom of shooting first; weird red heifer practice ceremony may be more potential escalation; more FBI raids on Biden’s political enemies, this time Scott Ritter; Wall Street Journal runs a rather odd story about Iranian Trump assassin, but the facts don’t add up (maybe it’s the anti-racist math); and great news from Eastern Europe as Bulgaria puts the kibosh, or however they say it there, on gay school curricula.

🗞 C&C ARMY POST 🗞

🪖🪖 MULTIPLIER ORDERS: Last week, Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham published a controversial new book, “Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda.”  In her heavily-footnoted, carefully-cited book, Basham described a decades-long conspiracy among leftist billionaires, some of whose names rhyme with ‘Noros,’ to infiltrate America’s churches and seed wacky leftist ideas like climate change, gay marriage, trans surgeries, and open borders.

How are they doing it? Bribing them with money. In Shepherds for Sale, Basham names names, identifying prominent Evangelical leaders and even pastors who grabbed money from Soros-affiliated groups with innocent-sounding names, and then suddenly warmed up to all kinds of bizarre, non-Biblical ideas.

Basham’s book has ignited a firestorm in Evangelical circles and ginned up predictable cancellation efforts.

This multiplier isn’t just for Christians. The conspiracy revealed in Basham’s book affects us all, Christians and non-Christians alike. Firstly, it describes how the leftists infiltrate our institutions and create astroturfed political campaigns to support loony schemes like cap-and-trade and childhood chop-a-dictoffmies. These sneaky efforts imperil all our institutions, religious or secular, far beyond churches alone.

But more importantly, if our churches are ever successfully undermined, we will lose the country, and fast. The reason far-left billionaires are targeting Christians is because we constitute the most significant impediment to the globalists’ ‘progressive’ agenda.

As a reminder, after a regrettably faltering start, the Church arguably did more to reverse the pandemic’s authoritarian excesses than did any other institution. More mandates were struck over Constitutional religious liberties than any other single issue. Lockdowns were abandoned after even the liberal Ninth Circuit held churches couldn’t be closed or pastors fined for holding services.

Given the slightly different form, we’ll have to skip the ending in ‘2’ tradition this time. Basham’s new book is currently number 5 on Amazon’s top-seller list. Let’s flex C&C’s muscle and ram it up to number one. If you can easily afford it, you know what to do (Kindle version, $17.99). If you have an extra moment, add a supportive review. You might even work a ‘2’ in there somewhere. (Amazon objectors, here’s the link to the Barnes and Nobles version ($15.99).)

Happy hunting, C&C!

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🚀🚀  Just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in. The Jerusalem Post ran a story late yesterday headlined, “Netanyahu warns of preemptive attack as Tehran speaks of Israel’s annihilation.” But things might be slightly better than that dire headline suggests. Finally, some good news.

Let’s start with the good news part. First, you’ll recall recent reports of top Russian General Shoigu’s visit to Iran back on August 5th. It turns out that, instead of firing up the Iranians, General Shoigu may have been a more conservative wet blanket. According to Iranian media, Iran’s key ally strongly warned against any action against Israel that might cause civilian deaths. Headline from Iranwire, August 6th:

Iran is likely to take that warning very seriously. Nor was that all. Also according to Iranian media, reported in JPost’s article, Iran’s brand-new president asked Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader’ Khamenei to avoid escalating the burgeoning conflict:

This is welcome news for two reasons. First, President Pezeshkian should have been most offended by the assassination of the Hezbollah ‘guest’ on his inauguration. So his opinion has weight beyond the strength of his office. Second, the news of what must have been a very private conversation between the two Iranian leaders was obviously deliberately leaked to Iranian media, proving the regime is not operating out of pure testosterone and sandy hubris.

Even discounting the additional cautionary words of Iran’s neighbors, like Jordan (whose airspace lies between Iran and Israel) and Saudi Arabia, the two reports from internal Iranian sources were serious signals that Iran is likely to use restraint. It is always possible this is a head fake, but so far, no one has suggested that.

Now the bad news for regional stability. Yesterday, Israel’s President Netanyahu plucked these sprouting hints of peace by himself hinting that Israel is considering a preemptive strike against Iran. Hit Iran first! In other words, Israel is thinking of adding a military strike to the insult of the double assassination:

In good news / bad news, MediaLine ran a story yesterday headlined, “Israeli Public Divided Over Preemptive Strike Against Iran.” According to its survey, half of Israelis support a preemptive strike on Iran. And who can blame them? It must be very tempting to quit waiting on pins and needles for the Iranian shoe to stomp, but instead take some kind of action and hope for the best. Doing something feels better than just waiting.

But Netanyahu’s carefully calibrated words may be just that; words intended to deter Iran, rather than signal imminent action. I supposed yesterday that Israel might, politically, need Iran to attack first. Hopefully that dynamic holds, along with Iranians and Russians continuing to be the mature adults in the nuclear room. These restraint reports are the first good news we’ve received in the conflict thus far.

We’ll pray it holds.

🔥🔥 In Middle East news of the weird, yesterday an Israeli journalist tweeted a picture showing some Jewish clerics ‘practicing’ the so-called “Red Heifer sacrifice” near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, using a cardboard mockup, which I am told is less effective than one that says ‘moo.’ It all started back in 2022, when an orthodox group of Israelis dedicated to rebuilding the Jewish Temple bought five very expensive candidate cows from a Texas rancher, who probably retired right after that. But most significantly, Hamas blamed its barbaric October 7th attacks, in part, on these heifers. Cows, again.

It won’t make any sense to secular readers, but the ashes of a sacrificed, ‘perfect red heifer’ (aka ‘cow’) are required for a purification ritual allowing Jews to resume their daily penitential sacrifices, a practice wiped off the map when the Roman army destroyed the Second Temple in 70AD, two thousand years ago.

In 1921 —before Israel was nationally reconstituted— Jewish authorities ruled that orthodox Jews must never enter the Temple Mount without being first ceremonially purified using heifer ashes. Don’t complain to me it doesn’t make sense; I didn’t make this up. But the point is, if they can’t enter the Mount, they can’t perform sacrifices there, pray, or build anything. They are stymied by a lack of cow ashes.

Beyond the spiritual implications, and beyond Christian excitement over is widely seen as an ‘End Times’ sign, the immediate question is whether or not the Hamas terrorists who reacted badly to the red hefer preparations the first time around in October were serious about stopping the ritual, or just used it as a convenient excuse. If they were serious, then even practicing the ritual could be profoundly provocative.

I won’t even pretend to know whether this cow story goes anywhere or not. I report, you … decide or whatever.

Hat tip to Zerohedge for the article.

🚀🚀 Fox ran a story yesterday headlined, “FBI raids New York home of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter: 'Ongoing federal investigation’.” The sub-headline added, “The raid came a day after Ritter posted a photo of himself with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” So, be aware of the possibilities whenever you pose for selfies.

Ritter has been a thorn in the U.S. government’s paw ever since the former U.N. weapons inspector protested the Iraq War, and correctly predicted the U.S. would never find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He was right, and he won’t shut up about it. You know how people are, it’s “I told you so” this and “I told you so that,” until you want to drill a hole in your own skull with a cordless power tool.

Or you can sic the FBI on them. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Recently Ritter has turned his attention to the U.S. Proxy War in Ukraine, of which he has been a relentless public critic. His efforts have not gone unnoticed. Two months ago, FBI agents, citing vague directions from the U.S. State Department, stopped Ritter in the airport on his way to an economic conference in Russia and confiscated his passport, which has probably now been shredded and scattered from a military cargo plane somewhere over the lower Antilles. (We aren’t sure yet.)

Yesterday, the FBI raided Ritter’s modest home in Bethlehem, New York. It must thave been much less exciting for the agents than raiding Mar-a-Lago. As Fox noted, the raid came one day after Ritter met with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., although any connection between the two events remains murky. Your guess is as good as anyone else’s.

It’s not clear what they were looking for. The FBI won’t say, citing “ongoing investigation,” but Ritter told reporters the case involves alleged violations of FARA (the Foreign Agents Registration Act).

FARA is the same law the government invoked to prosecute General Mike Flynn during the Trump Administration (although General Flynn was only charged with ‘making false statements to FBI agents’). FARA is also the same law the government has not charged Hunter Biden with, even though the evidence is so clear that Hunter’s gun-violation judge even asked the government about potential FARA charges against President Cabbage’s son.

Presumably, FBI agents were looking for evidence in Scott’s home and the trunks of his cars to support some kind of FARA indictment.

So.

🔥 In yet more Iran news, the Wall Street Journal ran a very strange story yesterday featuring a cover picture of President Trump and the headline, “U.S. Charges Man With Ties to Iran With Plot to Assassinate Trump, Other Politicians.” From the headline, it sounds bad; it sounds like there was an Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump. But the story immediately began unraveling right in the sub-headline: “Asif Merchant traveled to New York in April to recruit hit men, federal prosecutors said.”

Wait. Hit men? In New York? Where do you go to hire them? Manhattan? The Bronx? I have no idea, and apparently neither did Mr. Merchant, since the first person he approached on his hitman shopping trip promptly hooked him up with undercover FBI agents posing as hit men.

Once the Journal began describing the details, it all sounded very strange and amateurish for an international scheme to assassinate a presidential candidate enjoying Secret Service protection. First of all, the indictment doesn’t even mention Trump, for reasons that will be obvious in a moment, and which raised serious questions about why the Journal bunged the former President into its headline and cover picture:

They unsealed this weird indictment? Why? And, Merchant doesn’t even have a lawyer? And what kind of name is Merchant for an Iranian assassin? Wasn’t ‘Merchant’ the same name as one of Trump’s judges? (Or was it ‘Merchan’?)

Anyway, they arrested the not-so-crafty Mr. Merchant on July 12th, as he was getting ready to leave the country. By that time, Merchant hadn’t yet identified a target. He just said he would pay “thousands” to the ‘hit men’ — after he told them who to kill. “Thousands” doesn’t sound like nearly enough to organize a hit on a prominent Secret Service protectee. See if any of this makes sense:

Let’s think this through. If it wanted to ‘fleece jacket’ President Trump, Iran could send teams of assassins through our wide-open Southern Border, anytime it wants. Why would the Republic of Iran send a goofy guy named ‘Merchant’ to New York, to start shopping for hit men and making up strange code names, all of them types of men’s shirts? Merchant is practically obsessed with upper garments.

Plus, Trump lives in Florida, not New York. Wouldn’t Miami be a better place to stage the attack? Why didn’t the Wall Street Journal ask any of these questions? Does anything about this story make any sense to you?

🔥🔥 Finally, a few scraps of common sense are still, apparently, flying around the world somewhere, and this time they gathered in Bulgaria. French paper Le Monde ran the story headlined, “Bulgarian parliament bans LGBTQ+ 'propaganda' in schools. The overlong sub-headline, with way too many internal scare quotes, explained, “The bill, which was voted through with an overwhelming 159-22 majority despite outcry by rights NGOs, bans 'incitement' to 'non-traditional sexual orientation' or ‘gender identity other than the biological one.’”

The vote wasn’t even close. The Bulgarian parliament, which Le Monde terrifyingly identified as “pro-Russian,” overwhelmingly voted Tuesday to ban, and I quote, “propaganda, promotion or incitement in any way, directly or indirectly, in the education system of ideas and views related to non-traditional sexual orientation and/or gender identity other than the biological one.”

The rest of Le Monde’s article quoted far-left gay activists who think the new law stinks to High Heaven and will probably cause  —without hyberbole— more carnage than one million Vietnam Wars put together. Oh, the Humanity!

Le Monde’s diligent team of crack reporters were, somehow, unable to scrape up a single supporter of the new law who could provide a counter-quote. They couldn’t even find any of the 159 Bulgarian ministers who voted in favor of the excellent new law for a comment. Maybe the power was out. It is Paris we’re talking about, after all.

Le Monde did report at least one fact accurately. The article’s cited critics were all correctly identified as being members of various ‘non-governmental organizations’ (NGO’s) which various countries for some strange reason believe are funded by U.S. intelligence agencies.

But better context was provided in Balkan Insight’s article, headlined “Bulgaria’s Parliament Unexpectedly Outlaws ‘LGBT Propaganda’ in Schools.” It explained the issue had “unexpectedly” united both the country’s traditional left- and right-wing groups, and both its pro-Russian plus pro-Western parties. For some strange reason, they all seem to believe the homosexual agenda is being pushed by “very influential rich people:”

Note Ms. Ninova’s reference to the opening ceremonies from this year’s Summer Olympics in Paris. One wonders how much that eye-searing display contributed to Tuesday’s “unexpected” anti-LGBTQ+ vote in Bulgaria’s parliament. May that obscene spectacle continue to bear fruit.

Drip, drip, drip. The counter-revolution continues apace.

Have a tremendous Thursday! March back here tomorrow morning for another delicious, hot and fresh serving of Coffee & Covid.

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