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CNN’s Ratings Collapse, but Only Newsmax Is Mentioned

Last night, CNN’s Brian Stelter contacted us about “Newsmax’s ratings declines for my CNN newsletter.”

Stelter contacted Newsmax at 9 p.m. on Wednesday night and said he would give us just one hour to respond, meaning a 10 p.m. deadline.

Without Newsmax’s response, CNN’s Stelter email newsletter, headlined “Newsmax’s rise and fall,” noted that “Newsmax TV gained a lot of attention last fall when disaffected Fox News fans flocked to the channel en masse. … Newsmax’s Nielsen ratings are way off the post-election highs that I wrote about three and four months ago.”

Stelter chalked up his “Newsmax is falling” story to his theory that “Newsmax is no longer getting a pro-Trump Big Lie ratings boost. Biden is a comparatively tame story.”

As it turns out, Biden is also a very tame story for CNN as well, which has seen its own ratings collapse in recent weeks.

Early Wednesday morning Newsmax sent Stelter the following response: “Only CNN would do a story on Newsmax’s drop in ratings when its own Nielsen total day impressions fell by 45% last week compared to the week after the election, and Brian Stelter’s own ‘Reliable Sources’ show fell by 44% over the same period with, more recently, his show having lost nearly 1 million viewers since January of this year.”

CNN’s Stelter was contacted to comment on his network’s ratings decline, but did not offer comment.

So, what’s the real story for the ratings spin from CNN?

CNN and Stelter have been advocates of “deplatforming” the Newsmax channel, in a clear censorship effort to reduce competition, especially as their own ratings have fallen off a cliff.

Here’s what the current Nielsen ratings really do show:

  • Newsmax remains the #4 cable news channel in the United States.
  • Newsmax remains a top 25 cable network for Total Day.
  • Newsmax growth has accelerated over the past three quarters, up 24% in P2+ impression and up 23% in A35-64 viewers, from fourth quarter 2020 to first quarter 2021.
  • Newsmax has seen double-digit P2+ ratings growth from fourth quarter 2020 to first quarter 2021, led by “Spicer & Co.” (+39%), “Greg Kelly Reports” and “American Agenda” (+35%), “Rob Schmitt Tonight” (+31%), and “Stinchfield” (+24%).

Over the past few months, Newsmax has had a sudden rise, catapulting the independent network as a top cable news player.

This fact has panicked not only CNN but Fox News, which has made dramatic changes in its lineup to counter Newsmax.

Meanwhile, Newsmax continues to take a huge portion of Fox’s audience in the linear cable world as it crushes Fox in the OTT space, streaming as it does to more than 40 million U.S. homes not connected to cable TV.

And, since Election Day, more than 5 million people have downloaded the free Newsmax App on their smartphone.

The bottom line: Newsmax is here to stay. That’s good news for Americans who desperately want fresh, independent voices, but bad news for establishment giants like Fox News and CNN.

For background, here’s CNN’s Nielsen ratings collapse data:

CNN — P2+ Impressions

Week of 11/9 M-F Total Day — 1.654 Million

Week of 3/1 M-F Total Day — 908,000

45% drop in audience

Week of 11/9 M-F Daytime — 1.855 Million

Week of 3/1 M-F Daytime — 1.059 Million

43% drop in audience

Average viewers Jan. ’21 — 2.1 Million

Average viewers Feb. ’21 — 1.1 Million

48% drop in audience

Brian Stelter’s “Reliable Sources” — P2+ Impressions

11/8/2020 show delivered 2.088 Million

3/7/2021 show delivered 1.164 Million

44% drop in audience

First 3 weeks of January — 2.1 Million

Last 2 weeks — 1 million

52% drop in audience

Important: See Newsmax TV now carried in 70 million cable homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Frontier Ch. 115, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, Mediacom Ch. 277, AT&T TV Ch 349, Sling, TVision, and Fubo or Find More Cable Systems – Click Here.

Parler Working on Return to Apple’s App Store

Parler on Thursday said it’s working on returning to Apple’s app store, following a report it was denied reentry last month.

“Parler expects and hopes to keep working with Apple to return to the App Store. We’re optimistic that Apple will continue to differentiate itself from other ‘Big Tech’ companies by supporting its customers’ choice to ‘think different’—to exercise their constitutionally protected freedoms of thought, speech, and association—while using Apple products,” Amy Peikoff, Parler’s chief policy officer, told The Epoch Times via email.

Parler was removed from app stores run by Apple and Google in January following the breach of the U.S. Capitol. The technology giants alleged the social media platform did not have proper moderation practices in place.

Parler was also kicked from Amazon’s web servers. It went offline for weeks before resuming service on Feb. 15 with a new server farm and updated guidelines.

According to a Bloomberg report on Wednesday, Apple informed Parler late last month that the new guidelines are not sufficient to comply with its app store rules.

“There is no place for hateful, racist, discriminatory content on the App Store,” Apple reportedly wrote in a Feb. 25 letter, which included screenshots of Parler users with swastikas and other white nationalist images in their profile pictures.

Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment.

tim cook
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during a tour of the Flextronics computer manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 20, 2019. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Peikoff said Parler’s mission is to provide a welcoming, nonpartisan platform that lets users exercise freedom of speech, thought, and association, and respects their privacy.

“Over the past two months, we’ve worked towards the goal of returning to Apple’s App Store, in reliance on Tim Cook’s statements that Apple’s problem was not with our mission, but only with the perceived lack of enforcement of our guidelines. Parler has always opposed and worked to remove violent and inciting rhetoric from our platform, because it inhibits productive, civil discourse. Accordingly, and even though we knew that problems with violent and inciting content were not unique to Parler in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6—a fact that independent reviews of court records have now shown—we worked tirelessly to adopt enhanced protocols for identifying and removing this type of content,” she said.

“We have since engaged Apple to show them how we’ve incorporated a combination of algorithmic filters and human review to detect and remove content that threatens or incites violence. We’ve also explained our new feature which empowers individual users with the option to filter out personal attacks based on immutable and irrelevant characteristics such as race, sex, sexual orientation, or religion. It’s just the latest way in which Parler enables users to curate their own feeds as they choose.”

Cook, Apple’s CEO, said in January that Parler’s suspension from Apple’s online store was done because there was “incitement to violence” on the platform. “If they get their moderation together, they would be back on there,” he said in an appearance on Fox News.

Parler has argued that Big Tech companies colluded against it while not taking action against competitors such as Twitter and Facebook, which have similar content on their platforms.

“If you look at the actual numbers,” there was “barely a blip on Parler,” interim CEO Mark Meckler told The Epoch Times last month, adding, “It was Facebook. It was YouTube, it was Twitter. That’s where the bad activity was taking place, for the most part.”

Judge Reinstates 3rd-Degree Murder Charge for Ex-officer in George Floyd Death

MINNEAPOLIS—A judge on Thursday granted prosecutors’ request to add a third-degree murder charge against a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death.

Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill reinstated the charge after the former officer, Derek Chauvin, failed to get appellate courts to block it. Cahill had earlier rejected the charge as not warranted by the circumstances of Floyd’s death, but an appellate court ruling in an unrelated case established new grounds.

Chauvin already faced second-degree murder and manslaughter charges.

The dispute over the third-degree murder charge revolved around wording in the law that references an act “eminently dangerous to others.” Cahill’s initial decision to dismiss the charge had noted that Chauvin’s conduct might be construed as not dangerous to anyone but Floyd.

But prosecutors sought to revive the charge after the state’s Court of Appeals recently upheld the third-degree murder conviction of another former Minneapolis police officer in the 2017 killing of an Australian woman. They argued that the ruling established precedent that the charge could be brought even in a case where only a single person is endangered.

Arguments over when precedent from former officer Mohamed Noor’s case took effect went to the state’s Supreme Court, which on Wednesday said it would not consider Chauvin’s appeal of the matter. Cahill said Thursday that he accepts that precedent is now clearly established.

Former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor
Former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor (R), with attorneys Peter Wold (C) and Thomas Plunkett (L), walks out of the the Hennepin County Government Center on April 25, 2019. (Brian Peterson/Star Tribune/AP)

“I feel bound by that and I feel it would be an abuse of discretion not to grant the motion,” he said.

Floyd was declared dead on May 25 after Chauvin pressed his knee against the Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes.

Jury selection resumed Thursday with a sixth person chosen, a man who described himself as outgoing and a soccer fan for whom the prospect of trial was “kind of exciting.” The pool so far includes five men and one woman.

At least three weeks have been set aside to complete a jury of 12 plus two alternates.

Attorneys gave considerable attention to the jury pool’s attitudes toward police in the first two days of questioning, trying to determine whether they’re more inclined to believe testimony from police over evidence from other witnesses to the fatal confrontation.

The first juror picked Wednesday, a man who works in sales management and who grew up in central Minnesota, acknowledged writing on his questionnaire that he had a “very favorable” opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement and a “somewhat unfavorable” impression of the Blue Lives Matter countermovement, yet “somewhat agreed” that police don’t get the respect they deserve. He said he agrees that there are bad police officers.

“Are there good ones? Yes. So I don’t think it’s right to completely blame the entire organization,” he told the court under questioning from prosecutor Steve Schleicher.

He said he would be more inclined to believe an officer over another witness, but that he could set that aside and evaluate each witness on their own merits.

The second juror chosen, a man who works in information technology security, marked “strongly agree” on a question about whether he believes police in his community make him feel safe. His community wasn’t specified—jurors are being drawn from all over Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis and many suburbs.

“In my community, I think when there is suspicious activity the police will stop by, they will ask a question,” he said. “I think that sense of community is all we want right? We want to live in a community where we feel safe, regardless of race, color and gender.”

Schleicher noted that the man also stated in his questionnaire that he strongly disagreed with the concept of “defunding” the police, which has become a political flashpoint locally and across the country in the wake of Floyd’s death.

“While I necessarily might not agree with the police action in some situation, I believe that in order for police to make my community safe they have to have the money,” he replied.

The questionnaire explores potential jurors’ familiarity with the case and their own contacts with police. Their answers have not been made public, and the jurors’ identities are being kept secret.

Chauvin and three other officers were fired. The others face an August trial on aiding and abetting charges. The defense hasn’t said whether Chauvin will testify in his own defense.

Epoch Times Photo
(L-R) Former Minneapolis Police Department officers Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao, in booking photos. (Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Schleicher used a peremptory challenge Wednesday to remove from the panel a woman who has a nephew who is a sheriff’s deputy in western Minnesota. She said she was dismayed by the violence that followed Floyd’s death.

“I personally didn’t see any usefulness to it,” she said. “I didn’t see anything accomplished by it, except I suppose bring attention to the frustrations of the people involved. But did I see anything useful coming out of the burning of Lake Street and that sort of thing? I did not.”

Republican Congressman Pushes Plan to Take Massive Action to Punish China for COVID ‘Cover-Up’

China needs to be accountable for the damage done because it failed to deal honestly with the world at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to one Republican congressman from Florida.

To that end, Republican Rep. Brian Mast planned to introduce legislation Thursday that would allow the U.S. to withhold payments on debts to China as a form of punishment, according to Fox News.

Mast authored a resolution last year to punish China, but it failed to advance in the Democrat-controlled House, a fate that is likely for this year’s legislation as well.

But Mast is planning to take his stand again as his way of marking the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration that the coronavirus was a pandemic.

Mast noted in his legislation that the cover-up of the origins and severity of the virus has been a continuing hallmark of China’s actions on the disease.

The Chinese Communist Party “actively engaged in a cover-up designed to obfuscate data and hide relevant public health information,” which continues to “limit efforts to identify the original source of COVID-19,” his proposal said.

The congressman said in his bill that the eruption of COVID-19 is “a direct result” of China’s “appalling record of human rights abuses, including its suppression of the freedom of expression, as well as its aggressive domestic and global propaganda campaign.”Do you support this proposal?Yes NoCompleting this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

“The People’s Republic of China should be held accountable for its handling of the COVID-10,” the legislation said.

Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee issued a report last year that said China “could have reduced the number of cases in China by up to 95%, had it fulfilled its obligations under international law and implemented a public health response at an earlier date.”

That should not go unpunished, according to Mast.

“The United States and other countries should permanently withhold payments on debts owed to the People’s Republic of China in amounts equal to the public costs incurred by such countries relating to COVID-19,” his proposal said.

Mast said the U.S. has been forced to bear costs for fighting the disease that have their root in China’s unwillingness to be open about the pandemic.

“China’s total lack of transparency and mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, millions of jobs, and left untold economic destruction in the United States,” the congressman said.

“Congress must put America first and hold China accountable for their cover-up by forcing them to pay back the taxpayer dollars that have been spent as a result,” he said.

Mast’s office told Fox News that China holds more than $1 trillion of the debt owed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Apple Tilts to iPhone Playbook for Car as Automaker Talks Stall

Apple Inc. has a tried-and-true approach to launching new products: The company designs in-house, sources its own components, and works with a contract manufacturer to assemble it for sale.

As the tech giant plots a foray into the car market, it could adopt a similar strategy — working with a lesser-known contract manufacturer — after talks with some brand name automakers stalled.

To build a vehicle, Apple has three primary options: Partner with an existing carmaker; build its own manufacturing facilities; or team up with a contract manufacturer such as Foxconn or Magna International Inc.

The Cupertino, California-based company has reached out to automakers including Hyundai Motor Co., but the discussions have not gone well. In this scenario, Apple would develop an autonomous system for the vehicle, the interior and external design, and on-board technology, while leaving the final production to the carmaker. Such a deal would essentially ask an existing car company to shed its brand and become a contract assembler for a new rival.

A longtime manager at both Apple and Tesla Inc. said this would be like Apple asking bitter smartphone rival Samsung Electronics Co. to manufacture the iPhone. Apple wants to challenge the assumptions of how a car works — how the seats are made, how the body looks, the person said. A traditional automaker would be reluctant to help such a potentially disruptive competitor, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters.

Indeed, discussions between Apple and the car industry seem to have fizzled in recent months. Hyundai and Kia Motors Corp. confirmed talks on the development of an electric car, but backtracked soon after. Apple’s self-driving car team met with representatives from Ferrari NV last year. It’s unclear what was discussed, but the talks didn’t advance, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

In February, Nissan Motor Co. said it wasn’t in talks with Apple. Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess said he’s “not scared” of Apple’s entry into the industry. BMW AG’s CFO recently said he sleeps peacefully.

For its computers, phones and tablets, Apple relies on contract manufacturers such as Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron, Flex Ltd. and Luxshare. The iPhone maker has avoided building its own factories, an effort that would cost billions of dollars in construction, worker pay and training, along with new liabilities and complex deals with local governments.

Factories are generally low-margin businesses. Apple leaves that to partners, while focusing on product design and development. The company’s profit margins dwarf those of suppliers such as Foxconn and Pegatron.

Margins Compared

Tesla, the most successful electric carmaker to date, has lost billions of dollars running its own factories and only recently began generating regular income. Last year, the company reported a profit of almost $700 million. Apple made more than $60 billion in the same period.

Auto industry “profit margins are lower than Apple’s current model,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a recent note to investors. Some luxury brands, such as Ferrari, are more profitable, but those are “edge cases and potentially difficult to replicate at higher volumes,” the analysts added.

Apple is more likely to go with a contract manufacturer because that’s the business model they’re used to, said Eric Noble, president of consulting firm the CarLab. He thinks a partnership with an existing carmaker would be a power struggle because both companies are used to tightly controlling their supply chains.

This is why Foxconn and Magna are two primary contenders for Apple’s business, according to industry insiders.

Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., has an existing relationship with Apple as the main assembler of iPhones. And the Taiwanese company is already branching out into the auto business. In October, it introduced an electric vehicle chassis and a software platform to help carmakers bring models to market faster. Last month, it unveiled a deal to assemble more than 250,000 EVs a year for the startup Fisker Inc.

An Apple employee involved in manufacturing said Foxconn is used to having Apple engineers tell it what to do and that the company’s factories are already filled with Apple-designed equipment. The person asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters.

Magna has some history with Apple, too. The two were in talks to build Apple’s car when the iPhone maker first set out on this path about five years ago. Magna is also a lot more experienced at making cars. It assembles luxury models for companies including BMW, Daimler AG and Jaguar Land Rover.

The CEO of a well known self-driving car company was surprised to see Apple talking to existing carmakers when an option like Magna exists.

Magna is the most logical choice, said Noble, who has worked with the Canadian auto supplier on projects in the past and calls the company “amazingly good” at what they do.

For its part, Apple appears to be designing its car with production in mind. The company recently posted a job listing seeking a “senior hands on manufacturing engineer” for its special projects group, the team leading its work on a car. The candidate will be responsible for growing a team of engineers focused on manufacturing strategy and the supply chain. The person is also required to have experience working with aluminum, steel and composites, key materials in cars.

Johns Hopkins professor rips CDC for ‘absurdly restrictive’ guidelines for vaccinated people

Johns Hopkins professor rips CDC for ‘absurdly restrictive’ guidelines for vaccinated people: Agency is ‘paralyzed by fear’

Dr. Marty Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, so he knows a thing or two when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus.

And he is none too impressed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest recommendation for Americans who get the vaccine. He made his disdain for the agency’s latest “absurdly restrictive” guidelines clear in a Wednesday op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, “Covid Prescription: Get the Vaccine, Wait a Month, Return to Normal,” in which he noted that though the CDC claims to be “following the science,” the truth is “its advice suggests it’s still paralyzed by fear.”

What did he say?

In the wake of the CDC’s announcement that it’s now safe for fully vaccinated people to mingle indoors with some other people without masks or social distancing — a move CNN described as the agency “giving limited freedoms” to people — but not to travel, Makary stated that this is just another instance of the CDC being late or wrong when it comes to COVID-19. Which fits a pattern, the doctor said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has lost a lot of credibility during the Covid-19 pandemic by being late or wrong on testing, masks, vaccine allocation and school reopening. Staying consistent with that pattern, this week—three months after the vaccine rollout began—the CDC finally started telling vaccinated people that they can have normal interactions with other vaccinated people—but only in highly limited circumstances. Given the impressive effectiveness of the vaccine, that should have been immediately obvious by applying scientific inference and common sense.

Parts of the new guidelines are absurdly restrictive. For example, the CDC didn’t withdraw its advice to avoid air travel after vaccination. A year of prevaccine experience has demonstrated that airplanes aren’t a source of spread. A study conducted for the defense department found that commercial planes have HEPA filtration and airflow that exceed the standards of a hospital operating room.

Makary added that instead of running scared from encouraging a return to normal, the agency should take a look at the available data, including that vaccination reduces transmission 89% to 94% and almost totally prevents hospitalization and death, according to a study from Israel.

Full immunity kicks in around the four-week mark after the first dose, he added, making the vaccinated patient “essentially bulletproof.” Combine that with wearing a mask indoors “for a few more weeks or months,” and there is “little a vaccinated person should be discouraged from doing.”

Instead, Makary said, the CDC has been wasting time and tests and is being “ridiculously cautious” about the virus while ignoring the dangers that come from the isolation that has been forced on the American people:

On a positive note, the CDC did say that fully vaccinated people who are asymptomatic don’t need to be tested. But that obvious recommendation should have come two months ago, before wasting so many tests on people who have high levels of circulating antibodies from vaccination.

In its guidance the CDC says the risks of infection in vaccinated people “cannot be completely eliminated.” True, we don’t have conclusive data that guarantees vaccination reduces risk to zero. We never will. We are operating in the realm of medical discretion based on the best available data, as practicing physicians have always done. The CDC highlights the vaccines’ stunning success but is ridiculously cautious about its implications. Public-health officials focus myopically on transmission risk while all but ignoring the broader health crisis stemming from isolation. The CDC acknowledges “potential” risks of isolation, but doesn’t go into details.

It’s time to liberate vaccinated people to restore their relationships and rebuild their lives.

Being too cautious about the virus has been the hallmark of “authorities” as hospitals stood in the way of family members being with loved ones as they suffered and died, Makary said, calling the separation of families “excessive and cruel, driven by narrow thinking that focused singularly on reducing viral transmission risk, heedless of the harm to the quality of human life.”

The doctor urged the CDC to not repeat its mistakes. Instead of exaggerating the public-health threat that crushes the human spirit, he said, it’s time to use “common sense” and tell Americans to “go back to normal” a month after they have received their first shot.

Michael Youssef: ‘Woke’ culture creeping into evangelical church is ‘deadly’ for the Gospel of Christ

Egyptian-American Pastor Michael Youssef has issued a strong condemnation of “woke” pastors within evangelical churches, warning that spewing far-left ideology from the pulpit is “deadly as far as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is concerned.”

In an interview with The Christian Post, the 72-year-old pastor of the 3,000-member Church of The Apostles in Atlanta, Georgia, recalled how, as an Episcopal priest in the 1980s, he watched with dismay as the mainline Episcopal denomination slowly moved away from biblical principles, eventually voting to approve same-sex marriage in the denomination.  

But in recent years, Youssef told CP that he’s seen the same subtle bend toward leftist ideology slowly permeating the wider evangelical church. 

“Those same battles that I fought in the mainline denominations are now invading the evangelical churches,” he said. “It’s the same arguments, the same lingo, and the same words repeating themselves with such precision I am deeply, deeply concerned.”

According to Youssef, who also founded the Leading The Way television ministry, more and more pastors are “falling into the trap” of woke culture because it’s “popular and appeals to the flesh.”

“Bowing to woke culture allows you to avoid rejection by culture and society,” he said. “It’s a very, very popular message that is now being preached from many evangelical pulpits; traditionally Bible-believing, Gospel-preaching churches. We have gone so far that it just grieves me to the point that I literally sometimes just weep tears.”

“I’ve always believed, as goes the pulpit, so goes the pew. As goes the pew, so goes the culture,” he continued. “As a pastor, I put the full blame on us, right in our laps, because we want to be liked, loved, and followed on social media by millions of people. Pastors are the culprits. We need to be about Jesus, not about being liked, because that is deadly as far as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is concerned.”

In his latest book, Hope for This Present Crisis: The Seven-Step Path to Restoring a World Gone Mad, Youssef provides a diagnosis of the insanity of the culture and a concise seven-step prescription for restoring sanity to a world gone mad. 

His heart, he told CP, is especially burdened for young pastors and ministry leaders who are tempted to waver from biblical truth amid societal pressure. 

“Young pastors must realize that this is a deception. It’s very subtle and very clever, but it’s a deception nonetheless,” he continued. “And that is the burden that God laid on my heart to such a point I just couldn’t sleep. I had to address it. I believe people are in a state of confusion and need a clear word from Scripture.”

Youssef, who was born on the African continent, said that one example of bowing to woke culture is the increased popularity of Critical Race Theory, even in the Church. The theory utilizes race as the lens through which every area of life is examined, categorizing everyone into oppressor and oppressed groups.

“It’s a very Marxist ideology that people are taking very seriously,” he said. “The idea of the oppressed and the oppressors is not that simple. Now we have private Christian schools here in Atlanta where white children are apologizing to black kids. Apologizing for what? They are innocent; they haven’t done anything. It’s crazy; it’s just going insane.”

The pastor identified several “signs” a pastor is abandoning biblical truth, from failing to preach the whole Word of God to bowing toward moral relativism and demonstrating hesitation to “offend” anyone.

“If someone is saying, ‘There are many ways to God, you run out of there as fast as you can,” he said. “If they say, ‘We need to ditch the Old Testament,’ you need to run out of there as fast as you can. Because the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the inspired Word of God.”

A grandfather of 11, the pastor warned that if the Church fails to adhere to biblical truth, the consequences will be devastating for future generations. He compared child-rearing to a “three-legged stool,” stressing the importance of a healthy home, church, and school environment.

“The home is number one, the church is number two and school is number three,” he said. “Even if the school is working against the kids, if they have the strength in the home and in the church, they will make it. But when the church avoids talking about issues or goes along with culture, then kids are confused.”

Satan is “working overtime” to deceive children,” Youssef said, adding: “If these words are terrifying, I’m glad they are because it’s time for us to build the fences around our children and their hearts and seal them with the Holy Spirit.”

“Children must know that there is a Satan and he hates God, he hates God’s children, and he’s conspiring against them every minute of every day. Therefore, they have to galvanize themselves with the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, in order to fight.”

Youssef understands firsthand the pressure to bow to culture. Growing up in Egypt, Christianity was under “severe persecution” from Islamic extremists, he said. As a result, he was “continually trained at home for how to stand up for the faith and not be deceived.”

“I knew that, though they might offer me jobs, money, prestigious scholarships to convert to Islam, I had to stand strong,” he said. “So I grew up with it. And what I’m trying to do is say to the next generation, ‘Expect to be aliens and sojourners. This is not our home. Jesus places us here to be a light to this dark world, not to be part of the darkness.’”

Through his book, Youssef hopes to encourage those who love Jesus to be “encouraged and motivated to stand up and not to be afraid,” and compel those “teetering” to find the strength and courage to stand for the truth of the Gospel.

“We must take charge,” he said. “Christians have abandoned so many areas of society, from media and the classroom. Instead of withdrawing, we need to go and invade these areas and take them for Christ and not be afraid. We are on the right side. We have read the last chapter, and it says we will win.”

Hope for This Present Crisis is available now through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, BAM, and ChristianBook.com.

The Miseducation of America’s Elites

Affluent parents, terrified of running afoul of the new orthodoxy in their children’s private schools, organize in secret.

The dissidents use pseudonyms and turn off their videos when they meet for clandestine Zoom calls. They are usually coordinating soccer practices and carpools, but now they come together to strategize. They say that they could face profound repercussions if anyone knew they were talking.

But the situation of late has become too egregious for emails or complaining on conference calls. So one recent weekend, on a leafy street in West Los Angeles, they gathered in person and invited me to join.

In a backyard behind a four-bedroom home, ten people sat in a circle of plastic Adirondack chairs, eating bags of Skinny Pop. These are the rebels: well-off Los Angeles parents who send their children to Harvard-Westlake, the most prestigious private school in the city.

By normal American standards, they are quite wealthy. By the standards of Harvard-Westlake, they are average. These are two-career couples who credit their own success not to family connections or inherited wealth but to their own education. So it strikes them as something more than ironic that a school that costs more than $40,000 a year—a school with Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right hand, and Sarah Murdoch, wife of Lachlan and Rupert’s daughter-in-law, on its board—is teaching students that capitalism is evil.

For most parents, the demonization of capitalism is the least of it. They say that their children tell them they’re afraid to speak up in class. Most of all, they worry that the school’s new plan to become an “anti-racist institution”—unveiled this July, in a 20-page document—is making their kids fixate on race and attach importance to it in ways that strike them as grotesque.

“I grew up in L.A., and the Harvard School definitely struggled with diversity issues. The stories some have expressed since the summer seem totally legitimate,” says one of the fathers. He says he doesn’t have a problem with the school making greater efforts to redress past wrongs, including by bringing more minority voices into the curriculum. What he has a problem with is a movement that tells his children that America is a bad country and that they bear collective racial guilt.

“They are making my son feel like a racist because of the pigmentation of his skin,” one mother says. Another poses a question to the group: “How does focusing a spotlight on race fix how kids talk to one another? Why can’t they just all be Wolverines?” (Harvard-Westlake has declined to comment.)

This Harvard-Westlake parents’ group is one of many organizing quietly around the country to fight what it describes as an ideological movement that has taken over their schools. This story is based on interviews with more than two dozen of these dissenters—teachers, parents, and children—at elite prep schools in two of the bluest states in the country: New York and California.

This is an excerpt from a longer article appearing on City-Journal.org.

Read the full article here.

NYC school encourages kids to stop using words like ‘mom,’ ‘dad’ in ‘inclusive language’ guide

A Manhattan private school aiming to use more “inclusive language” is encouraging its students to stop using the terms “mom,” “dad” and “parents” because the words make “assumptions” about kids’ home lives.

The Grace Church School in Noho — which offers academic courses for junior kindergarten through 12th grade — issued a 12-page guide to students and staff explaining the school’s mission of inclusivity.

The detailed guide recommends using the terms “grown-ups,” “folks,” “family” or “guardians” as alternatives to “mom,” “dad” and “parents.” It also suggests using “caregiver” instead of “nanny/babysitter.”

“Families are formed and structured in many ways. At Grace Church School, we use inclusive language that reflects this diversity. It’s important to refrain from making assumptions about who kids live with, who cares for them, whether they sleep in the same place every night, whether they see their parents, etc.,” the guide reads.

The document also states how to use appropriate terms relating to gender, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity.

Instead of asking a person, “What are you? Where are you from?,” the query should be, “What is your cultural/ethnic background? Where are your ancestors/is your family from?,” according to Grace’s guide.

The school defended the guide, telling City Journal that its goal is to “promote a sense of belonging for all of our students.”

“Grace is an Episcopal school. As part of our Episcopal identity, we recognize the dignity and worth common to humanity,” the Rev. Robert Pennoyer, assistant head of school, said in a statement to the outlet.

In Nevada, 92,000 mail-in ballots went to wrong addresses in 2020 election

An analysis compiled by a conservative watchdog group shows that over 90,000 ballots were mailed to the wrong addresses in Clark County, Nevada, in the 2020 presidential election.

“Clark County 2020 General Election data show that 92,367 mail ballots were returned undeliverable to wrong or outdated addresses,” the Public Interest Legal Foundation wrote in a research brief released Wednesday. “For a sense of scale, Former Vice President Joe Biden carried the whole of Nevada with a final lead of 33,596 votes.”

Clark County, home to most of Las Vegas, automatically sent mail-in ballots to every “active” voter registered on file during the 2020 presidential election due to coronavirus fears at polling places.

Trump’s legal team alleged a variety of significant voting issues in the state, including over 1,500 ballots from dead voters and tens of thousands of people potentially voting multiple times.

“In my years of experience in politics, I have never seen the amount of illegal voting like we have documented in Clark County, Nevada,” Trump surrogate Matt Schlapp said. “It is a level of corruption I didn’t think could happen in a modern, free country.”

The Supreme Court of Nevada upheld a district court’s order dismissing claims of election fraud.

The foundation also warned that pending legislation in Congress, the voting rights bill known as H.R. 1, would make mail-in ballots even more of a concern.

“Mass-mail balloting is a step backward for American elections,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “There are millions of voter registration records with unreliable ‘active’ address information that will ultimately send ballots to the wrong place in a mail election. H.R. 1 does more harm than good for the American people and will leave them at a constant disadvantage to correct election system errors which ultimately impact their abilities to vote in a timely manner.”

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