Yet the elders in McIntosh County, with Ashley as its county seat, frequently live into their 90s, and sometimes beyond. It had the highest proportion of people 85 and older in the country. Doesn’t make sense until you see why it does.

Stress levels are low. The farmers pursue a lifetime of physical exercise. When they retire in town, they still mow their small lawns and grow vegetables in the backyard. The numbers may be skewed by the many young people who leave town for economic opportunity in bigger places, but they’re hard to dismiss.

A big factor in this longevity, researchers found, was social connection. Every morning the old men would gather at the Dakota Family Restaurant for coffee and breeze-shooting. The women had their own table.

“The cafe is where the networking takes place,” the county’s director of social services said. “If somebody doesn’t show up for coffee, it would cause a lot of chatter, and someone will check on them.” The pattern repeats itself across the Northern Plains.

The most recent National Vital Statistics report lists the states for the highest life expectancy at birth: No. 1 is Hawaii, followed by Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Utah and New Hampshire. What these very diverse places have in common are relatively strong social infrastructures.

A New York psychiatrist known for running group sessions would tell his patients: “You don’t need me. You need friends.” He’d put together people with little in common by age, ethnicity and income level. Forced at first to air their angst before absolute strangers happy to be critical, the group members developed fast friendships that flourished decades after official therapy stopped.

Loneliness has been declared an epidemic leading to sickness and self-harm, and rightly so. The pandemic deepened isolation, but the shrinking personal ties began well before. Robert Putnam’s 2000 book, “Bowling Alone,” documented an ongoing collapse of American community.

Recent research found that from 2003 to 2022, face-to-face socializing among American men fell by about 30%. But for teenagers, it shrunk 45%. (Reporters covering youth sports have long bemoaned driving past beautiful baseball fields with no one on them.)

Email, texting and posting have not replaced in-person socializing. And the result appears to be increased depression, especially among teenagers. And if their communication swims in anger-provoking social media feeds, small wonder so many are drowning in despair.

Are there remedies? Some are being tried. Several cities run activities fairs, where attendees can look over groups to join. Interests can be books, oil painting, choral singing, cooking, whatever. We now read of adult sleep-away camps designed to spark new friendships. Attendees piled into a room of bunk beds have little alternative at night to yakking with new acquaintances.

It’s bit of a shame that these encounters seem more mechanical than the simple act of saying hi to the neighbor taking out garbage at the same time. But let’s give them a try.

The early 19th-century French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville noted Americans’ fondness for joining associations: political, neighborhood, labor. He famously wrote, “Nothing in my view deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America.”

And in many ways, they were superior to the social groups in old Europe, largely rooted in fossilized class distinctions. Americans, unplug your monitors, open the door to the fresh spring air and strike up a conversation. People need people. You, too.

Written by Froma Harrop

Official website; https://twitter.com/FromaHarrop

Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, works by time.

Somewhere in our distant past, there was no time, just eternity. Things were the way they were, as they ever were, and then God intervened and created time.

People have argued for centuries about this earth, how old is it, how did it come into being, how long will it last, and asked deep questions that we do not have answers to.

What we do know, is that this world, as soon as it was inhabited by people, began to turn bad, it became disrespectful of its maker, and God, out of love for humanity had to cleanse it by sending the great flood about 2300 BC. The flood wiped out the human race, and saved just eight people; consisting of Noah and his family.

Of those eight people the world was repopulated, humanity grew and as is customary with people, they became wicked, reckless and dishonourable.

God saw the waywardness of the people and intervened, not by punishment as with the flood, but by sending messengers, prophets, and priests, and godly kings to warn, to guide, and to shepherd people back from disaster and onto a path of goodness and prosperity.

Sometimes we were blessed with good, wise leaders, leaders who have been committed to the welfare of the people and has done great work for the entire world to see and to admire. But too often the world has been cursed with abominable leaders and wicked tyrants.

God saw that the world needed a leader, a new kind of leader, to lead it out of spiritual darkness, out of immorality and idolatry, out of paganism and atheism. And so he sent his only begotten son, Jesus Christ the promised Messiah.

God works to time whenever he works with people. The Bible tells us, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5)

God sent his Son to lead the world to a higher and better place, to bring light into our darkness, and to lead us to reconciliation with God.

Jesus did not come into the world as a conquering hero, or a dominating warlord, but as a suffering servant who gave his life as a ransom for the whole world.

Because of what Jesus Christ did, we all have a chance of redemption. God knows that we all need redemption, for the best of us are flawed, imperfect human beings.

So what did Jesus Christ do?

He came and lived a sinless life, right here on earth, so that the world could see that he was the Holy One sent from God. Nothing beats evidence. Even his enemies could not justifiably find fault in Jesus Christ. The Jews rejected him, ill-treated him and brought him to Pontius Pilate, whom they thought would condemn him, but the Bible says in John 19:4, “Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.”

Jesus by his living showed that he was the perfect lamb of God, and the Bible gives confirmation in 1 Peter 2:22, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.”

This man Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, came to earth for the sole purpose of redeeming us from the yoke of sin and reconciling us to Almighty God.  He did so by dying for us on Calvary’s cross, shedding his blood, and rising again the third day for our justification.

And so Jesus Christ, who is alive, and here in spirit, is calling you, he wants you to come into fellowship with him, and become part of his earthly kingdom the Church.

Jesus is here, and calling you, as written in the book of  Matthew chapter 11 verse 28, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Jesus wants to be your friend, He says in Revelation 3 verse 20, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

Jesus is calling you; men and women, boys and girls, and you can accept his call right now. He wants you just as you are; so why not come to him.

All that is required for you to be saved, to accept the call, is that you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, admit that you are a sinner, accept that sin must be punished, for the Bible says that the soul that sinneth must die, and recognize that Jesus is our substitute who died for us, that we might live.

Jesus is calling because he thinks you are worth saving, and he wants you to spend a blessed eternity with him.

The master is here, pleading for you to come on board, because he alone knows what waits for you ahead, and he wants you to be safe and secure with him.

It is always easy to put off the decision to give your life to God, and become a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, but to procrastinate is to endanger your soul, since you may not see tomorrow. Today is your time, so make up your mind now that you have the time.

Remember these words, “To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.” (Hebrews 3:15) Today, the master is calling for you, and deep down in your heart you know it is the time to answer that call.

Staff Writer; Henderson W.

You can contact this Christian brother at: HWard@ThyBlackMan.com.

I am still amazed at my own relationship with Christ, which began over 27 years ago. God radically changed my life instantly. A couple of my colleagues could not believe that the same person who drank beer with them during lunch the previous week was now saying he did not drink anymore. They never saw me go back on that testimony.

On the other hand, none of us has arrived. The Lord continues to work in our lives. We may not be aware that this is happening. He integrates this progressive work into our daily lives, exploiting opportunities to shape us into the image of His dear Son.

I believe that if Christians would be truthful, most of them would admit that they are not satisfied with their current relationship with Christ. Perhaps it’s because they are struggling morally in one or more areas in their life, and they can’t seem to get victory. Or maybe they feel inept to effectively do what they know God has called them to do in the ministry. Maybe they don’t even know exactly what it is, but they just know something is missing in their relationship with the Lord.

Listen to what the Lord inspired Paul the apostle to say about this: “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). I want to look at three key words in this verse:

The first word is confident. We must know without a shadow of a doubt that God continues to work in our lives. Have you ever heard a Christian who has a bad temper try to justify his outbursts of rage? He may say, “I can’t help it; God made me this way.” But it’s not the will of God for His children to go about erupting into tantrums. We need to pray for victory in that area. Such prayer for personal change must be undergirded by a confidence that it is the will of God to continuously change us into the image of Christ.

The second word is begun. The good work the Lord has begun in us is salvation. This experience does not denote spiritual maturity. The truth is that when we first got saved we didn’t act much differently than we did before we met Christ. That’s because we were babes in Christ. Not knowing what to do, we did what we knew. Through salvation, however, the Lord has provided us everything we need to become the great champion He wants us to ultimately become.

The third word is perform. I quoted Paul’s words from the King James Version of the Bible. The word “perform” from this verse means to “bring to completion.” You see, God wants to complete the good work He has begun in us. He will not be finished with us until the very end of our journey here. Thanks to the Lord’s salvation in our lives, we are no longer what we used to be, but because of His progressive work in our lives, neither are we yet what we are destined to become!

Paul’s letter to the Philippians is addressed to “all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi” (Philippians 1:1). The word “saints” applies only to those who have been saved. But it is important to understand that though salvation is instant, sanctification is a lifetime endeavor.

A lot of misconception has been perpetuated by believers who refuse to be for real. They have promoted this false idea that when a person becomes born again he almost walks on water. Some unbelievers who might accept Christ feel intimidated because they have been given this misconception that being a Christian denotes perfection. Not that we necessarily make statements that bluntly, but at times when someone fails we comment, “I know he said he was a Christian, but he must not be if he did something like that.” Well, friend, sometimes Christians do non Christian like things.

Even prominent ministers bear out the truth of what I am saying. As I write this message, I am reminded of three ministers who made the news big time last year in bad ways. I won’t name them. My intent is not to add embarrassment to them, but to expand on my point. Each of these ministers had national influence. A couple of them pastored megachurches. Because of their moral failures, none of them presently remain in those leadership positions.

Understandably, many Christians who had supported these ministers felt betrayed. They came on TV and stood behind pulpits telling the people of God how to live a victorious Christian life, and they themselves were not doing the same, some argue. Then some of the Christians at the grassroots felt that if these bigger than life preachers failed in such a big way, what hope was there for the little guy?

There is no way to put a positive spin on what those preachers did, the events were tragic for the body of Christ, the devil rejoiced over them, and the ministers involved no doubt endured much pain. But it is also important for us to remember that though ministers are saved and called to preach, God is still working on them as well. Being called to preach the gospel does not denote perfection.

The Bible says that the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: “and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Galatians 5:17). God inspired Paul to write this to the Christians at Galatia. He is telling us that a war exists within us. It’s between our born again spirit and our flesh. The one always goes contrary to the direction of the other. In this life, we will never be immune to be being tempted in our flesh. God’s will for each of us, however, is that we learn how to walk in the Spirit that we not fulfill the desires of our flesh (verse 16). This we will do if we cooperate with His progressive work in our lives. By that I mean we must be committed to fully developing. Some Christians fail to mature because they are not ready to die to themselves in some areas.

Perhaps as you read this article you are not where you want to be in Christ. You may even wonder how you will ever reach spiritual maturity, based on where you currently are, and where you desire to be. But believe me, friend, the Lord is not finished with you yet.

He deals with each of us differently for a number of reasons. You may be struggling in an area that you have been battling for the past decade, yet you know of new converts who had the same problem but God just miraculously took it away from them at salvation. That seems so unfair, right? Your theology is as good as mine as to why it happens that way. For example, I know believers who have been delivered from drugs and alcohol but who can’t seem to leave cigarettes alone. But I say never give up. Never read into your lack of progress in an area of spiritual development that God wants you to remain that way. Rather, for the struggles that make you feel less than complete, you must pray and seek the face of God, being confident that He has begun a good work in you, and He is committed to finishing the same.

Staff Writer; Frank King

You can contact this devout Christian at: King@ThyBlackMan.com.

The traditional path to business ownership required capital, location, licensing, and years of relationship-building before revenue materialized. Digital platforms have compressed that timeline significantly. A well-built online business can reach customers in multiple countries before it turns six months old. That geographic reach was once reserved for corporations with international offices and logistics infrastructure. Today it is available to any operator who understands the technology.

Where the real opportunity sits

The most durable digital businesses are not built on content alone. They are built on infrastructure — platforms that process transactions, manage users, and deliver services at scale. The entrepreneurs who have understood this early have moved from building individual products to building systems that other businesses run on.

This is visible across industries. Fintech platforms now power payment flows for businesses that never touch a bank branch. SaaS companies provide the back-end for operations that look, from the outside, like entirely different companies. In online entertainment, Vegangster represents this model — a platform infrastructure provider that equips operators to launch and scale digital businesses rather than building everything independently from zero.

The pattern is the same across categories: the platform layer captures value consistently, while individual products rise and fall.

What digital ownership actually requires

The accessibility of digital business models can obscure how much operational discipline they still demand. A platform-based business still needs clean financial management, customer acquisition strategy, and an understanding of the regulatory environment it operates in. The difference is that the infrastructure constraints — physical space, supply chains, local staffing — are largely removed.

For entrepreneurs entering the digital economy, the most important early decision is often not what product to build, but which platform layer to build on or with. Choosing an infrastructure partner with documented reliability, real integrations, and transparent pricing is the equivalent of choosing the right commercial real estate in a physical business — it shapes everything downstream.

The compounding advantage

What separates digital wealth-building from traditional models is the compounding dynamic. A physical business generates revenue proportional to its capacity. A well-structured digital operation can grow revenue without proportionally growing costs — because the marginal cost of serving an additional customer through software infrastructure is close to zero.

This is why the entrepreneurs who entered digital platforms early, even in categories that seemed niche or speculative, have built significant asset bases. The question for the next generation of Black entrepreneurs is not whether digital platforms represent a real opportunity — that case is settled. The question is which categories still have room to move, and how quickly operators can build the operational knowledge to compete in them.

The digital economy does not have a fixed number of seats. It expands with participation. That is the part of this conversation that does not get enough attention.

Staff Writer; Ricky Brown

I thought that since I went to college to be an engineer it would rub off on at least one of my six children. After all, they are all of my flesh and blood. But that didn’t happen. In fact, no two of my children have similar career interests.

There is something common to all of them, however. They all want to be winners. That’s true about everybody. Really, who in their right mind wants to be a loser? I’m convinced God has wired us that way; that is, to desire to want to win in life.

Winning requires more than a desire to win. We also must have or develop a winner’s attitude. This mindset is not incidental to salvation. A person can be born again, confident of his salvation, and still be driven by a loser’s mentality. The apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, writes about the winner’s attitude. The points we can draw from his letter are very practical and can be immediately implemented:

1. Be determined to win. “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize?” Paul asks (1 Cor. 9:24). “So run, that ye may obtain.” What he is saying here is that we should live our life as if we are running in a race for which there is but one winner, and we are determined to be that winner. No, he is not saying we should go around competing with everybody. But he is saying that winners become winners because they first determine to be winners.

2. Strive for mastery. Observe any great athlete on TV. One of the reasons he electrifies a crowd is because he has mastered what he does. This mastery does not come overnight. To get there, one must become “temperate in all things” (v. 25a). That means he must endure the road to perfection with much patience and persistence.

One thing that intrigues me is the finesse with which figure skaters perform. I can only imagine how long it takes for them to master their performance. They do all of this working for a crown that’s here today and gone tomorrow, but from the Lord we will receive an incorruptible crown (verse 25b).

3. Remain focused. We must maintain some sense of purpose in life. Paul talks about this in terms of a boxer. In order for him to hit his target, as opposed to missing his target and beating the air (verse 26), he has to remain focused on his opponent. We must do the same in life. We need a clear purpose, and we must focus our energies toward that purpose. No one can be a winner going through life aimlessly.

4. Play by the rules. In verse 27, Paul talks about the possibility of his preaching and winning others to Christ while at the same time himself becoming a castaway! What he is talking about is being disqualified. Even if you are not a baseball fan, you have no doubt heard the controversy surrounding Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants. At my writing this newsletter he is within one home run of tying Mr. Hank Aaron’s record. Many baseball lovers, however, do not and will never respect Mr. Bonds’ accomplishments because he allegedly used performance-enhancing drugs. I don’t know if he did or did not. But his case illustrates the importance of our playing by the rules so in the end we are not disqualified.

There are some people who will do anything to get ahead in life and to realize their dream, but God never regards cheaters as winners.

Notice the verbs used in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27: run, strive, fight, etc. These verbs suggest that opposition exists to our becoming a winner. This opposition comes from the devil. Hence, winning is not happenstance.

A winner’s attitude has nothing to do with where you are in life at this very moment. As you read this newsletter, you may be in the worst of times, but you can still adopt the biblical principles above, and they will revolutionize your life.

The medical profession recognizes the power of a winner’s attitude. I have witnessed a couple of instances where a person was in the hospital at the point of death, the doctors had done all they could, and the family had been praying constantly. After all of that, the only thing standing between the patient and death was the life support system to which he was connected.

Acknowledging that medicine and techniques have been exhausted, the doctor will say something like it’s really left up to the patient now. What does he mean by that? He is saying that a patient’s mere determination to live and not die can bring him through at times. Apparently, even when the body is at the point of shutdown, and all bodily organs have been compromised by the shadow of death, a winner’s attitude can energize one’s morbid being.

“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth,” Jesus said to a man” (Mark 9:23). The Lord was saying to him that if he could believe that Christ could do for him what he was requesting, then it was possible. Let me paraphrase this for you:

No matter what your situation is, and no matter how finished you appear to be, if you pray to God with a winner’s attitude, and if you believe that what you are praying to God for is possible, then to you it is possible.

From what I have said up to this point, it should be obvious that a winner’s attitude requires more than positive thinking. You don’t become a winner simply by repeatedly telling yourself that you are until you believe that you are. Think about the pointers we drew from Paul’s letter: be determined, strive for mastery, remain focused, and play by the rules. A winner’s attitude is a way of life characterized by these actions.

There is a lot of truth in the trite cliché, “attitude determines altitude”. I firmly believe that a winner’s attitude can soar us to great heights.

Up to this point I have been purposefully ambiguous about the application of the four pointers above from Paul’s epistle. Though I have been talking about winning I have done so generically. The truth is that the concepts will work in any noble endeavor in life. Perhaps you work as a teacher in the public school system, for example. I say to you that if you are determined to be a success, strive for mastery, remain focused, and play by the rules, you will be a great teacher.

As you have been reading this article you may have been thinking about how you can implement the principles to boost your success in your career. Again, the concepts will work for you. But Paul’s focus in the epistle is on our walk with the Lord and our service to Him. That’s where we are being challenged to implement the principles above. They will make us winners in our walk with the Lord. In turn our winner’s attitude will spill over into every other aspect of our life. More importantly, our trophy will be an incorruptible crown that only the Lord can give.

Staff Writer; Frank King

You can contact this devout Christian at: King@ThyBlackMan.com.

            For example, we are told inflation is on the rise which is true, but they are not telling us the actual causes of inflation or what inflation really is. We think inflation is rising costs for consumer goods and services which is true but that is not the cause. Inflation is a result of actions the ruling class do not want us to know about. Why? Because once we found out and we were in our right minds we would hold them accountable for their dastardly deeds and crimes against humanity.

            The truth is, inflation is caused by a rise not in prices but in the amount of money in circulation; which in a fiat system like America has, directly impacts the value of the money in circulation since it is not backed by anything tangible like gold. Western economists use what I call mumbo gumbo speak to obfuscate the reality the US economy which is based upon money, is manipulated by the central banksters. Their machinations have a direct influence on the supply of money in circulation at any given time.

 “Central banks can influence M2 supply by either issuing more money into the economy or by incentivizing people to spend less. Quantitative easing is one way that a central bank can increase money supply and stimulate the economy. To reduce the supply of M2 in an economy, a central bank might issue bonds or other government-backed securities which lenders can buy; in doing so, they loan the government money. This means that a central bank’s money reserves increase at the expense of the money available in the economy. Central banks can also increase or decrease interest rates to influence M2. If interest rates are lower, borrowing will likely become more popular, which will increase the supply of money. Conversely, if interest rates rise, then the cost of borrowing will also go up which will deter people from taking out loans. This will decrease the M2 money supply in an economy.” M2 Money Supply (Emphasis is mine.)

            This is why Trump was applying so much pressure on the former US central bank chair Jerome Powell; Trump wanted Powell to reduce interest rates meaning the cost of borrowing money. In effect Trump wanted to make it easier for people to get deeper in debt! `But what also was/is in play was the actual increase in the US money supply (M2) over the past few years. In fact, this increase has been humongous in the trillions of dollars.

“Since 2009, the TMS money supply is now up by more than 206 percent. (M2 has grown by more than 160 percent in that period.) Out of the current money supply of $20.4 trillion, nearly 30 percent of that has been created since January 2020. Since 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis, more than $14 trillion of the current money supply has been created. In other words, more than two-thirds of the total existing money supply have been created since the Great Recession.” Money Supply Growth in 2026 Rises to Multi Year High as the Fed Pumps New QE (Emphasis is mine.)

            The constant rise in M2 is making existing money worth less and less; which means you need more dollars to purchase goods and services. Trump’s foolish tariffs, his misuse of tariffs and his insane war on behalf of Israel against Iran, are causing massive repercussions which negatively impact US and global economies. The loss of global trade, numerous supply chain disruptions, US dollar debasement as the central banksters print more and more dollars are making life miserable for ordinary Americans while overvalued stocks are making the ownership and managerial classes richer every day!

            Suffice it to say inflation is not going to stop or go down. Due to the wars in Iran and Ukraine there will be food, oil, chemical and petroleum-based product shortages which will affect our pocketbooks and wallets. And this is merely the tip of the spear!

 Trump has already said he is not concerned about how this affects Americans! In an earlier post I predicted the Iran war will continue and it has. Now we are looking at a perfect storm of devastating consequences that will not only smack the American Empire but the whole world; which by the way is why this is being manipulated by the powers who shouldn’t be!

Written by Junious Ricardo Stanton

Official website; http://fromtheramparts.blogspot.com

But they’re not. FIFA, which oversees the once-every-four-years soccer tournament, is slapping astounding prices on the tickets. No one has to buy them.

This should be very obvious.

That said, some products are priced in ways that understandably bring out villagers with pitchforks. Bread in 18th-century Europe, for example. Rapidly rising prices for the “staff of life” helped foment the French Revolution. The peasants demanded what they deemed a “just price.”

I don’t know what’s the “just price” to sit in one of the 85,500 seats at a stadium in New Jersey. Tickets for the World Cup Final to be held there are being offered in the many thousands.

If someone chooses to pay more than $8,000, the starting price on the SeatGeek page, what’s that to me? The inability to see a World Cup game in person is not my idea, or any sane human’s idea, of deprivation. And, you know, the games will all be on TV.

The rabid passions that explode after soccer games in Europe and Latin America are hard for the average American to understand. A sports columnist for La Stampa, a newspaper in Turin, Italy, once told me that after writing something critical about one of the local team’s star players, he woke up the next morning to find a death threat scrawled on the brick wall facing his apartment window.

Clearly, FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) is treating the 2026 games to be played in 16 North American cities as an opportunity to squeeze the sport’s well-to-do fans, especially in the United States.

The attorneys general of New York and New Jersey have served FIFA with subpoenas, demanding it reveal its sales practices. Are fans being misled? If so, there may be a case. But this seems more a case of FIFA extracting thousands from willing buyers for its tickets. I don’t understand why anyone would pay so much to see a game, but if they want to and can do it, what’s that to me?

Scalpers peddle wildly overpriced tickets to shows, concerts and various sporting events. Even the box offices are charging prices that seem shocking to many. But the seats get filled.

An acquaintance confessed that she and her mate recently paid $1,800 to see Bruce Springsteen rail against today’s political scene. The “intimate” setting was Boston’s 19,000-seat TD Garden (TD as in TD Bank).

“Crazy but worth it,” she said.

Ticket prices are a touchy subject for FIFA. Outside the U.S., soccer has been considered the peoples’ game. And there was a time when the federation exercised more self-control. In 1994, the U.S. Soccer Federation proposed charging $1,000 for a ticket to the final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. FIFA put its foot down on what seemed an exorbitant price at the time. It didn’t want to upset the fans, so FIFA claimed.

To keep the fig leaf of “affordability” in place, FIFA this year is issuing 104,000 tickets at the bargain price of $60 each. That sounds like a lot of tickets, but it’s less than 2% of the 6 million to be sold.

The other tickets are being tagged through “dynamic pricing.” That means the price changes according to demand. This is similar to Uber surge pricing, whereby the cost of a ride rises at times when demands for the service are high.

FIFA says it hopes to rake in $11 billion from the upcoming World Cup, with the revenues to be distributed to its 211 member nations. Is that the explanation for high prices? If so, so be it.

Written by Froma Harrop

Official website; https://twitter.com/FromaHarrop

The defendants are Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four alleged mass murder co-conspirators. Mohammed is the second person that the government has characterized as the ringleader of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Originally, the feds had labeled Osama bin Laden as the ringleader. Yet, rather than charging and arresting bin Laden, in order to keep him quiet it sent a team of Navy Seals to his home in Pakistan to murder him and his wife and their children.

After that, the feds labeled Mohammed as the orchestrator of 9/11 even though that, by the time of bin Laden’s death, Mohammed had been in U.S. custody for eight years. During that time, he was brutally tortured by CIA officers and other U.S. civilian agents.

His torture was truly repellant. He was waterboarded 183 times. He was hanged by his wrists while naked and in well-lit walk-in refrigerators such that he was freezing and denied sleep for days. His head was smashed repeatedly against wooden walls. His rectum, through which he was fed, was so brutalized that he bled for months, often ingesting into his intestines his own blood and fecal material.

At the end of three years of these criminal attacks at foreign sites operated by cooperating intelligence agencies with the torture administered by Americans, he told his torturers what he thought they wanted to hear. Then he was transferred to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he has remained since 2007.

Upon his arrival at Gitmo, a different set of interrogators took over. The video tapes of his hundreds of torture sessions were destroyed but not the transcripts of his confession. The purpose of the second round of interrogations was to elicit another confession by agents who could testify to a judge that they did not torture him, and that his confession to them was not coerced.

Though some of these interrogators at Gitmo were FBI agents, no one read him his Miranda warnings, advising him of his right to silence, to counsel and to the legal implications of anything he told his new interrogators. Mohammed made admissions to this second group of interrogators substantially similar to those he made to his torturers.

The government, which once denied but now admits to the torture, nevertheless was prepared to argue that his second confession was voluntary. Then, the feds had a change of heart. And, two years ago, his lawyers entered into plea negotiations, at the request of the government because the military lawyers and their Department of Justice legal colleagues concluded that they could not ethically defend torture in an American courtroom.

Federal law, the federal rules of criminal procedure, the canons of legal ethics and state bar licensing authorities all prohibit lawyers from using coerced testimony in a courtroom.

The government and all defense lawyers entered into a plea agreement that provided for full public confessions, a public confrontation by family members of 9/11 victims during which the defendants agreed to reply truthfully to their questions, and, of course, life in prison at Gitmo.

The Army general in the Pentagon in charge of all Gitmo prosecutions — herself a former military judge — approved the plea agreement, as did the military trial judge, and all five defendants.

Then, the Biden administration Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin fired the general who approved the plea agreement and revoked the Pentagon’s approval. A federal appeals court upheld his revocation. At that point, Mohammed was on his fourth military judge and his fifth team of prosecutors.

After the court affirmed the Pentagon’s change of heart, the military judge who had approved the plea agreement retired. The current and fifth judge has presumably read the 44,000 pages of documents and transcripts that 15 years of litigation has generated as he announced last week that he will rule on the admissibility of the second round of confessions this summer.

The present judge, who did not preside over any of the hundreds of hours of proceedings in the case, including those during which the horrific tortures described above were related in an American courtroom, must now decide if the second confession was voluntary. Though the government now admits that the first confession was not voluntary, its relevance here is not the words Mohammed told his torturers but the degradation of his mental faculties due to the egregious tortures such that the second confession was also not voluntary.

Was Mohammed so conditioned to the power of his interrogators that his will was attenuated?

The standard of proof that the government must meet to get the second confession admitted is voluntariness beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. That’s the same high standard for proving guilt in all American courts. If the feds fail to meet this standard to the satisfaction of the judge, the case will proceed to trial without the jury hearing the confession.

This is a two-edged sword for the government. If the confession is read to the jury, then the defendants and their experts can relate to the jury all the horrific things the government did in order to produce the confessions. But if the confession does not come into evidence, then the jury will not hear of the tortures unless there is a conviction and the torture testimony is presented in mitigation of punishment.

What we have here is a lawless system of brutality. Torture and all it produces is a profound violation of natural rights, the Constitution’s guarantee of due process, as well as federal law. Even practitioners of this medieval behavior have acknowledged it produces unreliable statements. It is the tool of monsters.

On the eve of America’s 250th anniversary, we are asked to accept government at its worst; one that the Framers thought they had prohibited and one to which the governed never consented.

Written by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

Official website; https://twitter.com/Judgenap

He still cannot explain how to pay for it. Can anyone?

Single-payer health care has been the progressive left’s signature domestic demand for four decades. It has generated presidential campaigns, mass rallies, congressional cosponsors and an inexhaustible supply of Twitter righteousness. What it has never generated once is a workable legislative proposal.

Brookings Institution economist Jessica Riedl has spent years waiting for one. Her challenge is simple: Show us a progressive bill that specifies

(a) a provider payment system that actually saves money under America’s existing, already expensive health infrastructure, and

(b) a financing mechanism to replace the roughly $32 trillion in private premiums and out-of-pocket costs that would need to be covered by federal taxes over the next decade.

Despite hundreds of legislative proposals and multiple presidential campaigns built around the issue, no one has met the challenge.

It’s not for lack of pretending. Sen. Bennie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) have bills that people trumpet as serious legislative vehicles. But as Riedl notes, the proposals are only aspirational. They enumerate generous new benefits with great enthusiasm and then instruct the secretary of Health and Human Services to figure out the rest. The phrase “The Secretary shall …” appears 62 times in the Sanders bill alone.

OK, but what about Europe and Canada? Progressives inevitably say: They made it work! This is a rhetorical sleight of hand that collapses on contact with basic facts.

European countries built modest, government-controlled health infrastructures from the ground up over several decades. They contained costs — meaning, among other things, they rationed care — as they expanded access. America did the opposite.

We built the most expensive, technologically advanced, sprawling health system in human history, which consumes nearly 20% of GDP, under mostly private incentives and market pricing. As Riedl puts it, “We cannot simply pay European prices for the more vast American health infrastructure that exists.”

The central theory of single-payer savings has always been this: Slash payments to providers to offset the surge in the use of universal, no-cost-at-point-of-service coverage. The Congressional Budget Office took a serious look at this fantasy. Its conclusion was that national health expenditures might actually rise, and demand for care would outrun supply. The final result would be European-style rationing, delays and forgone services, all leading to worsening health care.

Then there’s the inconvenient question of how to get the tax revenue needed for a single-payer system to replace private health care premiums, out-of-pocket expenses and state health programs. Although neither Sanders nor Jayapal has an answer, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget does. Financing a Sanders-style system would require a new 32% payroll tax, a 25% income surtax or a 42% value-added tax, more than doubling every individual and corporate income-tax rate.

CBO found that such a system would reduce GDP by 6% to 10% by 2030. From a movement that claims to care about working Americans, that number deserves more than silence.

The state-level record confirms what the nasty arithmetic and voters’ disgust tell us. Vermont passed single-payer legislation in 2011 and assigned an expert commission to make the numbers work. After three years of failure, Gov. Peter Shumlin abandoned the plan, admitting that the required 11.5% payroll tax per company plus the 9.5% income tax per Vermonter (with small businesses paying both) would be politically unsurvivable even in Sen. Sanders’ home state. Colorado voters rejected their single-payer initiative in 2016 after analysis showed that even tripling taxes wouldn’t cover the costs.

Back in California in 2022, the state’s nonpartisan legislative analyst estimated that the proposed single-payer system created by the California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act would cost between $494 billion and $552 billion annually. Imagine the taxes needed to more than double that state’s spending overnight.

After the bill died without a vote, Assemblymember Ash Kalra reintroduced it in February 2026, and it failed to advance again few months later. California has now killed single-payer twice in four years.

The absence of a workable plan after 40 years tells you everything you need to know. This is Riedl’s essential insight and the one that cuts deepest. It’s unworkable. It’s expensive. And it will kill the supply of health care. Steyer knew all this in 2020 when he ran for president. The only thing that’s changed is politics.

Written by Veronique de Rugy

Official website; http://twitter.com/veroderugy

At the beginning of every professional sporting event, it has become an American tradition to stand during the playing of the national anthem. By doing so, it represents a moment of unified respect for our nation that goes beyond race, class, gender, age, political affiliation, and religion. It represents a time before the game when players, coaches, and fans of opposing teams are Americans first, and are joined together as one American team. The national anthem is a few precious minutes where patriotism and unity are established. It establishes an atmosphere of fan camaraderie where MAGA conservatives and die-hard liberals can cheer together for their favorite home team while being free of the political divisions from the outside world. Fans sitting in the stands can be totally unaware of the political persuasions of those around them because political differences are put aside, and support for the home team on the court or field becomes the unifying shared interest of those in attendance. It is a part of the game day experience that can easily be overlooked and taken for granted.

As starting quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, Colin Kaepernick received backlash on multiple fronts when he used kneeling during the national anthem as a means of silently protesting racial injustice and police brutality. At the time, Joe Lockhart was the executive vice president in charge of communications and government affairs for the NFL. He later became a political analyst for CNN. In a column written in 2020, Lockhart stated, “No teams wanted to sign a player – even one as talented as Kaepernick –whom they saw as controversial, and therefore, bad for business.” Colin Kaepernick was not blackballed from the league because of his lack of skills, injuries, or salary demands. He was ostracized because he became a financial liability. “For many owners, it always came back to the same thing,” Lockhart wrote. “Signing Kaepernick, they thought, was bad for business. An executive from one team that considered signing Kaepernick told me the team projected losing 20% of their season ticket holders if they did. That was a business risk no team was willing to take, whether the owner was a Trump supporter or a bleeding-heart liberal. As bad of an image problem it presented for the league and the game, no owner was willing to put the business at risk over this issue.”

Looking back, I personally believe he should strategically use his platform as an NFL player in speaking out against racial injustice and police brutality, but his method underestimated the fan reaction when he invaded the political safe zone on game day with controversial social issues. It arguably led to Kaepernick losing his promising NFL career, and not being re-signed by any other team in the league. Recently, the New York Giants’ starting quarterback was another NFL player who misjudged a politically sensitive situation by introducing President Trump at a MAGA rally. Jaxson Dart’s decision will not cost him his job and career, but it did result in a backlash from a different perspective: The public backlash came from those defending the Black cause, including one of his New York Giants teammates. Linebacker Abdul Carter initially voiced discomfort with the optics of the event, according to multiple reports. “Some things are bigger than football, and this is one of those things,” Carter told reporters during a press conference. “If he chooses to align himself with a man like President Trump, it’s my responsibility based on what I believe and what I stand on to not only show my teammates that I’m against that, but to show the world.”

Dart, along with other Trump supporters, cannot forget that the majority of players in the NFL are Black. Abdul Carter’s comments refer to the character of a leader. If Dart is accepting the character of an anti-DEI leader, how can he, with any sense of credibility, be the quarterback and leader of a locker room that is predominantly Black? Hopefully, during the private meeting used to repair the fractured locker room, the team will learn that a player in leadership cannot bring racial insensitivity into another version of the NFL safe zone. This is why diversity, equity, and inclusion are always needed to bring racial awareness when needed.

Written by David W. Marshall

Official website; https://davidwmarshallauthor.com/

One may purchase his book, which is titled; God Bless Our Divided America: Unity, Politics and History from a Biblical Perspective.