Sky Links, 12-21-19
Horowitz Report & Testimony Provide Historic Condemnation of FBI’s Surveillance Actions—Jeff Carlson
Amidst the media spin about the recent Department of Justice IG report, what is the real bottom line? What does it mean for the FBI and its future?
Did Inspector General Horowitz really find that there was no bias in the opening of the Russia probe?
And, doing a deep dive into the Horowitz report and Horowitz’s testimony in the Senate hearing that followed, what’s the most important information that was revealed?
-Jan Jekielek.
Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast- Terry Wardle
Terry talks about why so many leaders cave under the pressure of leadership, what's underneath the moral failure so many leaders experienced, and how to grieve the losses that come your way in leadership and ministry.
The Eric Metaxas Radio Show- Sidney Powell
Sidney Powell is the attorney for Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and author of “Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice”.
How FBI (or Congress) can use warrant surveilling one American… to spy on many more-Sharyl Attkisson
If you’ve watched the current impeachment proceedings with something beyond a passing interest, you might have heard the controversy over Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) secretly obtaining and then releasing phone records of political rival Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and journalist John Solomon.
Critics say such an alleged invasion of citizens’ privacy and rights for political purposes is beyond the pale.
But Democrats argue that Schiff didn’t really target Nunes or Solomon in his information dragnet. He says their calls were merely picked up incidentally because they spoke to two people who are targets: the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani or Lev Parnas, a figure charged with violating campaign finance violations.
However, Schiff’s controversial release of information naming Nunes and Solomon provides a window into how the FBI secretly operates to obtain information on Americans for whom they have no explicit permission to wiretap or monitor.
Believe it or now, intelligence agencies can use one legal wiretap to monitor as many as 25,000 people for which there was no wiretap justification.
The Shaming of Wayne Grudem
-Matt Kennedy
I know that there are, lurking in the dark corners of the biblical patriarchy movement, horribly abusive pastors who instruct abused women to stay in their homes and endure abuse. Such men are disqualified from the ministry and should be fired by their congregations. Husbands, likewise, who physically abuse their wives should find themselves on the receiving end of severe civil and ecclesial justice.
But one must not conflate Dr. Grudem with pastors of that ilk or suggest that all who hold his former view would in any way countenance physical abuse. The vast majority of those who hold Dr. Grudem’s former view would rightly do all in their power to help a woman subject to abuse get out of the house and separate from her husband. They would enact church discipline against the perpetrator and call the police.
Dr. Grudem, before he changed his mind, also upheld the biblical principle that the weak and/or those being victimized must be protected from abuse and that the abuser ought to be punished by law. There are numerous places where Dr. Grudem expressed this concern explicitly had Dr. McGowin taken the time to look. Just last year Dr. Grudem and the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) published a “Statement on Abuse”. Here’s a snippet:
“We believe that abuse is not only a sin but is also a crime. It is destructive and evil. Abuse is a hallmark of the devil and is in direct opposition to the purposes of God. Abuse must not to be tolerated in the Christian community. We believe that the local church and Christian ministries have a responsibility to establish safe environments; to execute policies and practices that protect against any form of abuse; to confront abusers and to protect the abused, which includes the responsibility to report abuse to civil authorities. We believe that church and ministry leaders have a special obligation to report abuse to civil authorities. Moreover, these leaders are responsible for knowing the laws of their state about reporting the suspicion or accusation of child and spousal abuse, and for following those laws in good faith. We believe that the church must offer tender concern and care for the abused and must help the abused to find hope and healing through the gospel. The church should do all it can to provide ongoing counseling and support for the abused. The wounds of abuse run deep and so patience and mercy are needed over the long-haul as the church cares for the abused…”
Dr. Grudem’s former position forbidding divorce in cases of abuse was, I believe, biblically incorrect. But he never denied the principle that the abused must be protected and that their abusers be subject to discipline and judgment.
12 Most Mortifying Media Moments Of 2019
-Tom Elliott
If there’s a theme for this year’s Most Mortifying Media Moments, it’s that some hoaxes are just too big to fail. Over the last 12 months, many of the biggest stories America’s major media broadcast turned out to be … flat wrong. And unfortunately, these networks’ enthusiasm for their reporting dissipated when it came time to correct the record.
The hoaxes came in all different forms — fake hate crimes, foreign collusion, debunked dossiers — but that isn’t to say they had nothing in common. These stories all helped advance a narrative that just so happened to be shared by the news outlets themselves.
But as you’ll see from the items below, not everything was serious; many of these stories — like the collective freakout about an obscure Trump meme — were complete jokes.
This year we’re organizing things differently, going in chronological order, with a “most mortifying media moment” from each month of the year. Enjoy!
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