SERMON ON THE MOUNT CONTRADICTION? Was Jesus’ most well-known sermon delivered up on a mountain or down on a plain? Both locations seem to be suggested in Scripture, which critics claim amounts to a contradiction. Not so fast, says Apologetics Press Eric Lyons this morning on HillFaith.

UNIMAGINABLY FOOLISH: That’s how a former U.S. State Department adviser on Iranian affairs describes the decision of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to invite Hussein Mousavian, who is, according to The Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Credo, “a former member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team who works as a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University, to headline its 2023 Deterrence Symposium, a high-level powwow that brought the former Iranian official shoulder-to-shoulder with America’s top military brass.”

But Mousavian is so much more indicative of the feeble-mindedness of the present American military elite, as described by Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.): “Mousavian helped lead the murderous Iranian regime’s efforts to obtain nuclear weapons so it could threaten the United States and our allies with annihilation. Now he’s in semi-retirement at Princeton as a full time propagandist for the IRGC. Inviting him to spread lies at a U.S. military seminar is insanity.”

And then there is this from Gabriel Noronha, the former Iran adviser at State: “The decision to invite former Iranian ambassador Mousavian to speak to STRATCOM is unimaginably foolish. He is a pawn and propaganda agent of the Iranian regime, which explains why he is allowed to travel back to Iran.”

I mean, the guy admired Soleimani and attended his funeral after President Donald Trump introduced him to eternity. “Unimaginable foolish” seems an understatement. God help us.

WHY PAY FOR OFFICES BUREAUCRATS REFUSE TO USE? That’s the question being posed by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in her continuing effort to force some simple, basic common sense on the people responsible for the day-to-day operations of the federal bureaucracy. Since 75 percent of the Washington, D.C. region feds are still mostly working from home more than a year after the COVID-19 Pandemic ended, Ernst says there’s no reason to keep paying billions of tax dollars for leases, maintenance and related costs with maintaining empty or nearly empty office space.

CHINA’S REPUTATION TAKES BIG HIT IN U.S.: Latest I&I/TIPP Poll indicates China’s reputation here in the U.S. is heading in the wrong direction, thanks to the rethinking more than a few Western corporations rethink being subject to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Hmmm, ya think???

WHY THE RADICAL TRANSFORMATION: Can people convince themselves that somebody they know to be evil is in fact a saint? Or that somebody who is certified dead is actually alive? That’s the issue at the heart of the critics’ claim Jesus’ disciples lied about the resurrection. Five scholars who have devoted their lives to studying, researching, thinking and debating this issue concisely present the evidence on HillFaith. Odds are good you will hear evidence you’ve never before encountered.

AP JUMPS THE SHARK ON BIAS: If you run a left-wing nonprofit advocacy group with beaucoup bucks and want to shape how the nation’s oldest and most widely read wire news service covers a particular issue, say climate change, or “democracy,” or race, then the Associated Press is ready to join forces with you.

As the Washington Free Beacon’s Chuck Ross explains:

“The Associated Press is also taking nonprofit money to fund coverage of race and climate. The organization’s ‘democracy journalism initiative,’ a division whose reporters cover “the intersection of race and voting,” is bankrolled by nonprofits such as the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. That organization also funds Stacey Abrams’s New Georgia Project and the left-wing activist group Take Back the Court, which advocates for expanding the Supreme Court.”

And that’s just a small slice of how a once-hallowed news operation has sold its soul.

VICTOR SHOKIN DEMANDED BIDEN PROBE IN 2020: You didn’t hear about it because the Mainstream Media was busy protecting and promoting the Biden presidential campaign. But, as The Lid reports, “the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General filed a complaint with Ukraine’s National Bureau of Investigation demanding an investigation of then VP Joe Biden for ‘illegal influence on him as the prosecutor general of Ukraine.’”

According to an English translation of the Shokin complaint, he attributed his dismissal to Biden’s demand:

“Owing to my firm position on the above-mentioned cases regarding their prompt and objective investigation, which should have resulted in the arrest and the indictment of the guilty parties, Joseph Biden developed a firmly hostile attitude towards me which led him to express in private conversations with senior Ukrainian officials, as well as in his public speeches, a categorical request for my immediate dismissal from the post of Attorney General of Ukraine in exchange for the sum of US $1 billion in as a financial guarantee from the United States for the benefit of Ukraine.

“Throughout the last months of 2015 and the first months of 2016 Joseph Biden, taking advantage of his position, came several times on official visits to Ukraine in order to negotiate with the leaders of the country my eviction and, consequently, the closing of the objective investigation into the offenses committed by persons associated with the company ‘Burisma Holding Limited’ (Cyprus), including the son of the aforementioned US official.”

For those who depend upon the Mainstream Media, Shokin’s reference to “the son of the aforementioned U.S. official” is to Hunter Biden.

HAVE YOU NOTICED: Strikes by hospital employees are increasing, especially in facilities “represented” by locals affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Labor Pains has more on the SEIU’s calculated strategy.

IS MATH GOD’S FAVORITE SUBJECT: One might think so, given the deeply intertwined natures of mathematics and the universe. Something different on HillFaith to ponder during your Saturday rounds and chores.

GOTTA CHOOSE ONE OR THE OTHER: Science or faith, that is. Or must we? Not according to the latest installment on HillFaith of the Colson Center’s excellent “What Would You Say?” video series.

JUDAS CONTRADICTION: Skeptics often claim the Gospels of Matthew and Luke give conflicting accounts of the death of Judas Iscariot. But Eric Lyons of the Apologetics Press demonstrates why the accounts are complementary, not contradictory. It’s the latest installment of a new regular Wednesday feature — CONTRADICTIONS — on HillFaith.

HUNTER’S SWEETHEART DEAL WAS ACTUALLY PLAN B: That’s because, according to Issues & Insights, it’s damn good to be a Biden these days.

BUDGET RED LINES BEING DRAWN: First out two weeks before the September Budget Battle Showdown begins is the House Freedom Caucus.

WHY IS THERE SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING? Interesting question to contemplate as you go about your Saturday chores, cutting the grass, changing your vehicle’s oil and filter, buying groceries, watching a grandson’s ball game, etc. etc.

LINK FIXED.

OTHER SIDE OF THE SNOW WHITE MYTH: Leave it to Babylon Bee to report the news other media absolutely will not touch.

IF YOU LIKE AMERICA, THANK CHRISTIANITY: It’s not just that the 1619 Project is slanderously inaccurate, such “history” completely and purposely obscures the deeply faith-driven roots of the American political and cultural experience. That’s the view of Bradford Littlejohn, writing in “Public Discourse: The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute.”

The specifics of the Christian influence on the founding are subject to various interpretations, to be sure, but in a review of  Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land: How Christianity Has Advanced Freedom and Equality for All Americans by Mark David Hall, Littlejohn impressively and critically marshals the facts, connections and logic that long pre-date the Philadelphia convention.

NO, SEX/GENDER ARE NOT ‘ASSIGNED’ AT BIRTH: It shouldn’t have to be explained but, since it clearly does for a lot of deeply misinformed folks these days, the latest “What Would You Say?” video from the Colson Center on HillFaith does an excellent job of it this morning.

HEY, WE’RE NO BANANA REPUBLIC! The White House, according to Babylon Bee, corrects the record.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S FIVE BIGGEST LIES: There were so many to choose from! The Washington Stand’s Joshua Arnold winnows it down to five, but I suspect that will be an ever-changing compilation as he updates it.

FOIA TURNS UP CRACKS IN GLOBAL DISINFORMATION INDEX: Hans Bader just received a large batch of documents from the Department of State on the UK-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI) that targets conservative and non-Lefty media that advertisers are urged to boycott. The GDI is a transparent censorship operation seeking to silence dissenters from the conventional wisdom of the Progressive Establishment. The more sunlight is shone on GDI, the better and the sooner the whole thing will fall apart.

THE MOST ASININE CLIMATE CHANGE SENTENCE EVER: You’ve read about the absurd Montana judge’s ruling that the state’s constitution requires officials there to consider the climate impacts of issuing new oil and gas drilling permits. But leave it to Issues & Insights to dig out what does read like the most asinine statement ever uttered on these issues.

WHAT WILL JOE ADMIT NEXT? Just in the past several weeks, President Joe Biden has admitted that his “Inflation Reduction Act” didn’t actually have much to do with reducing inflation, and he, finally, acknowledged having a seventh grandchild. Who knows what he might admit next, but Issues & Insights has some interesting suggestions.

ABOUT THOSE ‘DARK AGES’ AND SCIENCE: It’s conventional wisdom these days that the Medieval epoch (500 to 1500 AD) included the Dark Ages when the Christian church establishment suppressed science and kept people trapped in fairy tales and myths. In fact, as science historian Michael Kaes argues today on HillFaith, it was Christianity that encouraged the development of what became modern science.

NATIONAL REVIEW’S BOOMER SOONER BLOWS IT: Go read Don Surber’s latest on Substack. It’s a devastating comparison of Oliver Anthony – he of the Appalachian Scots-Irish and sudden smash hit, “Rich Men North of Richmond” – and National Review Executive Editor Mark Antonio Wright.

Anthony’s No BS ballad about the current state of American leadership captures the frustration and desperation of a generation of Appalachian men who have seen their economic way of life taken away from them, jobs shipped to China and industry outlawed by distant bureaucrats determined to shove America into a Green Energy Hell.

Wright lectures Anthony about upholding the traditional masculine virtues in the workplace and all but accuses him of being a lazy welfare bum, which, of course, totally misses the point of the song. At first I was puzzled why an NR editor would be so mindless about one of the most vivid illustrations of the Left’s Welfare State.

But then Surber notes that Wright is from Oklahoma. “Bet he’s an OU graduate,” I thought to myself. A quick check of Wright’s bio confirmed that initial intuition. Wright is indeed a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, that seething cauldron of liberal enlightenment that features itself adrift in the sea of Red Neck Ignorance that is the Sooner State.

Somewhere, Bill Buckley continues mourning the death of a once-great magazine.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I grew up in Oklahoma, but I had the good sense to attend The Oklahoma State University (BS in 72) instead of that liberal sinkhole in Norman.

JOE’S FAVORITE SUPER PAC SHROUDS DONORS IN SECRECY: Future Forward is President Joe Biden’s favorite super PAC and Andrew Kerr of the Washington Free Beacon may have uncovered the reason why it’s the Chief Executive’s top choice.

Turns out that Future Forward’s largest single donor is an affiliated dark money operation that poured $3.4 million into the Biden-boosting PAC. Federal campaign law requires the names of the donors of that money to be disclosed, but that ain’t happenin’ with Future Forward.

Kerr quotes GOP campaign finance lawyer Charlie Spies, who tells him:

“Future Forward USA Action admitted to making over $3 million in earmarked political contributions, where they apparently obscured the true super PAC donor’s identity by routing the money through the nonprofit. The U.S. DOJ has sent people to prison for this sort of illegal activity, and the FEC has imposed major fines on conservative organizations accused of less blatant earmarking.”

How long before Attorney General Merrick Garland appoints a Special Counsel to get to the bottom of this latest Biden scandal? Not.