TRAMPLING ON 1ST AMENDMENT HURTS NATIONAL SECURITY: The connection between upholding the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious expression and practice and protecting national security likely isn’t the first most people would think of if asked. But The Washington Stand’s Ben Johnson lays it out in detail today:

“Even as the military faces its greatest enlistment crisis in decades, tens of thousands of Christian service-members face expulsion for refusing to take the COVID-19 shot. The largest branch of the services, the U.S. Army, announced it met only 52% of its recruitment goal this fiscal year, which ends Friday,” Johnson reports today.

“’The Department anticipates we will collectively miss our recruiting mission despite accessing more than 170,000 remarkable young men and women,’” the deputy assistant secretary of defense for military personnel policy, Stephanie Miller, testified before a Senate subcommittee last Wednesday. That leaves the Army with 466,400 soldiers on active duty — 10,000 soldiers shy of its reduced goal, a gap that will creep to 21,000 by next September.”

And that’s just for the ground-pounders. The Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard face similar problems. But wait a minute, didn’t President Joe Biden declare the Pandemic over just last week?