The Faithful Watchman

China Threatens War If Taiwan Resumes Diplomatic Ties With US

Theodore Bunker – October 07, 2020

China should “fully prepare itself for war” with Taiwan if the country resumes diplomatic ties with the United States, according to the editor-in-chief of China’s state-owned news tabloid the Global Times.

Hu Xijin wrote in an opinion piece on Tuesday that legislators in the Taiwanese Kuomintang Party, or KMT, “have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. They have gone downhill and become vulgar. They would do anything to just get rid of their political passivity on the island of Taiwan. They are losers.”

He adds, “We must no longer hold any more illusions. The only way forward is for the mainland to fully prepare itself for war and to give Taiwan secessionist forces a decisive punishment at any time. As the secessionist forces’ arrogance continues to swell, the historical turning point is getting closer.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is currently touring Asia and recently told the Nikkei Asian Review in Japan that “the United States will be a good partner for security in every dimension” when asked if the U.S. would intervene if China attacked Taiwan.

“We’ve only come to recognize that appeasement’s not the answer,” he said. “If one bends the knee each time the Chinese Communist Party takes action around the world, one will find themselves having to bend the knee with great frequency.”

https://www.newsmax.com

UK’s Johnson: Britain Will Take Back ‘Full Control’ From EU

Newsmax – October 7, 2020

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday Britain would take back “full control of our money, our borders and our laws” on Jan. 1 when a status-quo transition arrangement with the European Union ends.

“This country has not only left the European Union but on January 1 we will take back full control of our money, our borders and our laws,” he told parliament, repeating a mantra that helped him win an election last year.

https://www.newsmax.com

Louisiana braces to relive a nightmare with Hurricane Delta

REBECCA SANTANA and STACEY PLAISANCE – October 9, 2020

LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — Residents in south Louisiana braced to relive a nightmare Friday as bands of rain from approaching Hurricane Delta began soaking the same area of the state that was badly battered by a deadly hurricane six weeks ago.

The streets were largely vacant in the city of Lake Charles, where Hurricane Laura destroyed buildings in late August. Blue-tarped roofs stretched as far as the eye could see, and rain pooled around piles of moldy mattresses, sawed-up trees and other leftover debris that officials worried could cause more damage or deaths when Delta hits.

The first tropical storm force winds brushed the Louisiana coast Friday morning. At midday, the storm was 80 miles south-southwest of the coastal community of Cameron. Blustery winds ahead of the storm’s arrival began picking up at midday along with the rain.

“We just got lights back on like two weeks ago and then evacuating again? It’s extremely hard,” said Roslyn Kennedy. She was among a handful of evacuees at the Burton Coliseum in Lake Charles, waiting to be transported, again, to safer destinations.

Forecasters said the 25th named storm of an unprecedented Atlantic hurricane season would likely crash ashore Friday evening somewhere on southwest Louisiana’s coast. Hurricane warnings stretched from High Island, Texas, to Morgan City, Louisiana.

The question was how powerful Delta would be by the time it makes landfall. In its latest update Friday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center said Delta had continued to weaken and become a strong Category 2 storm with winds of 110 mph (175 kph). Earlier Friday, it had sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) .

Forecasters have said they expect the weakening trend to continue until Delta makes landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast, but they cautioned that it remained a dangerous storm.

https://apnews.com

Catholic and Jewish leaders sue New York over 10-person limit on services and mask mandate

Nicholas Rowan, Staff Writer – October 09, 2020

Catholic and Jewish leaders Thursday afternoon sued New York after the implementation of increased coronavirus restrictions on worship services.

Both groups argued that the new restrictions, which took effect Tuesday in “red zone” parts of New York City, imposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and enforced by Mayor Bill de Blasio, are unnecessarily harsh and violate the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. Jewish leaders, led by the Orthodox group Agudath Israel of America, added that the restrictions single out Jews for special treatment because they impede the celebration of a series of holidays beginning Friday.

The group argued that it’s possible to hold safe, socially distanced services, in contrast to the protests against the restrictions that many Orthodox Jews have taken part in over the past week. Rabbi Chaim Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel, added that the new 10-person limit on gatherings would make it impossible to celebrate the holidays Hoshana Rabbah, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah properly this weekend.

“Social distancing, masking, and all health precautions must, of course, be observed,” he said in a statement. “However, we think that it is possible to stay safe and at the same time have more than ten people in a Shul building that is meant to hold hundreds.”

Catholic leaders, led by Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, in their suit said that the new restrictions and the 10-person cap “arbitrarily reduce capacity,” even after the diocese followed the state’s previous coronavirus restrictions.

“This religious community will be denied its most fundamental right, the free exercise of religion, for no legitimate reason whatsoever,” said Randy Mastro, the diocese’s attorney.

https://www.conservativereview.com

In a year that already brought murder hornets and giant lizards, get ready for the Joro spider

Strange Sounds – October 9, 2020

Another threat from the East is invading America! And this time it’s not a virus but a giant spider!

Kathy Ramatowski is the kind of person who doesn’t scare easily, but some things can push a person to their limits.

“The first one was on the deck in the back. I was like, ‘What is that?’”

“That” was a spider outside her Dacula home. Not just any spider, but one that is more than four inches long.

In a year that already brought us murder hornets and giant lizards, more people are now seeing the Joro spider.

University of Georgia agriculture extension agent James Murphy says the Joro spider is traditionally found in China, Japan and Korea but it’s also apparently in north Georgia.

“If you fully stretch out those legs, maybe up to around five inches in particularly large individuals,” Murphy said.

Murphy says spiders may have stowed away in crates that came through Atlanta’s airport at some point.

The good news is they are not deadly. The bad news is a four-inch spider has large fangs and if they bite, it can hurt.

https://strangesounds.org

A new congressional report proves that the institutions of marriage and family are being systematically destroyed in America

Michael Snyder – October 6, 2020

The numbers that I am about to share with you are extremely sobering, and they should be a massive wake up call for all of us. Yesterday, I wrote an article about how our society is breaking down everywhere we look, and nowhere is this more evident than in our marriages and in our families. But without strong marriages and strong families, no society can thrive for long. Recently, the Social Capital Project of the Joint Economic Committee Republicans released a report entitled “The Demise of the Happy Two-Parent Home”, but you probably never heard about it until now because it was almost entirely ignored by the mainstream media. I have never seen a congressional report document the collapse of marriage and family in American society to such an extent, and to be honest it is quite surprising to see such a quality piece of work come out of Washington.

I have selected nine of the most alarming quotes from the report and put them in bold below. Following each quote from the report, I am going to share some of my own commentary…

#1 Overall, between 1962 and 2019, the percentage of women ages 15-44 who were married dropped from 71 percent to 42 percent (Figure 1).¹⁶ Furthermore, Figure 2 shows the percentage of women ages 30-34 who had never married increased from 7 percent in 1962 to 35 percent in 2019.¹⁷

Numbers for men are similar, but they were not included in the report. We have never seen marriage rates collapse like this ever before, and most of the decline can be attributed to the fact that many young Americans simply do not see any reason to get married anymore.

These days, many would prefer to be free to run around having sex with whoever they want. When they become dissatisfied with their current sexual partner, they just move on and find someone else.

#2 Today, around 45 percent of American children spend some time without a biological parent by late adolescence.³ That is up from around one-third of children born in the 1960s and one-fifth to one-quarter born in the 1950s.⁴

Study after study has shown that children do better with two parents, and so the fact that nearly half of our children have been raised by just one parent for at least a portion of their lives is extremely alarming.

http://endoftheamericandream.com

Satanists Pitch Abortion as a Satanic ‘Ritual’ to Bypass Laws

Ricky Scaparo – October 1, 2020

(ETH) – The Satanic Temple based in Salem, Massachusetts just announced this week that it has sued an advertising company because it refused to display some billboards promoting a ritual offered by the organization to help people bypass abortion rules in some states.

TST has sued Lamar Advertising in Arkansas state court according to a report from CBN News, accusing the Louisiana-based company of religious discrimination. The organization claims that Lamar refused to display eight billboards in Arkansas and Indiana promoting what the group is calling its “religious abortion ritual.” The group describes the ritual as a “sacramental act that confirms the right of bodily autonomy.”

The group claims that by performing the ritual, people can claim a religious exemption from mandatory waiting periods, counseling, ultrasounds, and other measures that some states require before an abortion can be performed. According to the report, The group claims that it submitted five designs to Lamar to be displayed near pro-life pregnancy centers.

In one of the images, a bowl of cake batter is shown with the text, “not a cake,” next to an image of a sperm and egg with the text “not a baby.” It’s accompanied by text saying, “Our religious abortion ritual averts many state restrictions.” Lamar reportedly rejected the billboards from the group stating that their content was “misleading and offensive,” according to the suit.

This latest report follows a recent story that was also first distributed by CBN News in August, where TST announced that it was raffling a free abortion to promote the organization’s Satanic abortion ritual while arguing that its members’ religious rights are exempt from any state laws or any regulations that might block access to abortion services during the first trimester.

This is because the organization claims that those who practice the Satanic abortion ritual are automatically exempt from being subjected to waiting periods, mandatory counseling, forced viewing of sonograms, and reading materials as required in many states.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

Violence Erupts Between Armenia And Azerbaijan Over Long-Disputed Region

Rachel Treisman – September 27, 2020

Fighting broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday, causing casualties on both sides and prompting the Armenian government to declare martial law and mobilize its military.

The conflict is the latest eruption of violence in a decades-long dispute over the region, which lies within the borders of Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenian forces. Both countries have reported military and civilian deaths as of Sunday afternoon.

Armenian officials said Azerbaijani forces launched a “missile and aerial attack” in the region on Sunday morning, targeting peaceful settlements and shelling civilian infrastructures, while Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said its armed forces were responding to Armenian shelling.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a tweet that the aggression seemed to be pre-planned, and “constitutes large-scale provocation against regional peace & security.”

Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, countered that “the first fire, including artillery fire, was opened by Armenia, and the first victims were Azerbaijani servicemen.”

Officials in both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh declared martial law and dispatched armed forces as tensions rose on Sunday morning.

The human rights ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh said that a woman and child were killed and two civilians were wounded in the Martuni region as a result of Azerbaijani shelling. The region’s deputy defense minister later said that 16 Armenian forces were killed and more than 100 were wounded.

Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president, said enemy fire had killed and wounded both servicemen and civilians, and that “shedding of their blood will not go unpunished.”

“Armenia is an occupying state, and an end to this occupation must and will be put,” Aliyev added.

https://www.npr.org

Trump says he and first lady tested positive for coronavirus

JILL COLVIN and ZEKE MILLER – October 2, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said early Friday that he and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the coronavirus, a stunning announcement that plunges the country deeper into uncertainty just a month before the presidential election.

Trump, who has spent much of the year downplaying the threat of a virus that has killed more than 205,000 Americans, said he and Mrs. Trump were quarantining. The White House physician said the president is expected to continue carrying out his duties “without disruption” while recovering.

Still, Trump’s diagnosis was sure to have a destabilizing effect in Washington, raising questions about how far the virus had spread through the highest levels of the U.S. government. Hours before Trump announced he had contracted the virus, the White House said a top aide who had traveled with him during the week had tested positive.

“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately,” Trump tweeted just before 1 a.m. “We will get through this TOGETHER!”

Trump was last seen by reporters returning to the White House on Thursday evening and did not appear visibly ill. Trump is 74 years old, putting him at higher risk of serious complications from a virus that has infected more than 7 million people nationwide.

The president’s physician said in a memo that Trump and the first lady, who is 50, “are both well at this time” and “plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence.”

https://apnews.com

EU launches legal action against UK over Brexit bill

DW – October 1, 2020

The European Union launched a legal case against the United Kingdom on Thursday for a “breach of the good faith articles in the Withdrawal Agreement.”

The action is due to the UK’s new Internal Market Bill that undercuts the British government’s earlier legal commitments as part of the agreement, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

“We had invited our British friends to remove the problematic parts of their draft Internal Market Bill by the end of September,” von der Leyen said. “The deadline lapsed yesterday.”

London has one month in which to respond to the formal letter of complaint submitted by the Commission. The EU’s executive branch will then assess the answer before considering further action.

If the Commission deems the response to be unsatisfactory it then has the option of suing at the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice.

Von der Leyen said it was “the first step in an infringement procedure.” A draft “letter of formal notice” has been finalized, meaning legal action is imminent.

The choice of words “leaves some wiggle room to walk this back,” said DW Brussels correspondent Barbara Wesel. “Negotiations about a trade deal are still going on, but they are not going well… and a trade deal cannot come into force if the Internal Market Bill passes.”

Michael Gove, the UK minister handling Brexit divorce issues, said “differences still remain” between Britain and the EU in trade talks, but that some advances had been made after the ninth round of negotiations between the two parties took place this week.

“We made progress in a number of areas and specialized committees will meet in the coming weeks, in order to conclude further work,” Gove told parliament.

https://www.dw.com