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Metal band Anger Within release their brand new EP, Through The Eyes Of The Bedouin, via Pavement Entertainment. The EP was co-produced by Matt Washburn (Mastodon) and mixed and recorded at Ledbelly Studios in Dawsonville, GA. Featuring five tracks, Anger Within fuse metal, hardcore punk, and death metal to create an aggressive, non-compromising form of modern day thrash on this EP.On the title track, vocalist and guitarist Wulf Morris says, “When I write songs these days, I try to do something outside of the box, something that not every metal band is doing. ‘Through The Eyes Of The Bedouin' gave me the opportunity to incorporate some Middle Eastern styled music, and lyrics that told a story about desert nomads in ancient times.”Anger Within are a long standing, original metal act from Atlanta, GA. Inspired by classic Metallica, Sepultura, Napalm Death, and other great legacy acts, they are ready to bring their music to a worldwide audience. They have opened up for Excruciating Pain, Karma To Burn, Two Man Advantage, Byzantine, Thy Will Be Done, Origin, Sworn Enemy, Dying Fetus, Kingdom Of Sorrow, Soilent Green, Madball, Primer 55, D.R.I., Malevolent Creation, Six Feet Under, Cannabis Corpse, Decrepit Birth, Marty Friedman, Holy Grail, Soulfly, Sacred Reich, Raven, Incite, Salem's Childe, & Venom Inc. They have also played the Atlanta stop of the Vans Warped Tour, (2010 & 2012,) on the Ernie Ball Battle Of The Bands stage @ Lakewood Amphitheater.Wulf Morris – vocals/guitarBryan Powers – lead guitarChris Hoff – drumsJason Confer – bass/backup vocalsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.
CAPTION 1919 VERSAILLES CONFERENCEDiplomatic Strains Impact Global Western AlliancesMary Kissel notes global polls indicate declining trust in American leadership as both the United States and China are perceived as international threats. Friction over tariffs and rhetoric pushed Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to pursue European Union associate membership and deeper ties with Beijing. In Ukraine, American requests asking Kyivto spare Russian oil refineries reflect a flawed moral equivalency that undermines deterrence against aggression. Meanwhile, escalating Middle Eastern instability and Houthi chokeholds along Red Sea shipping lanes threaten Saudienergy security, risking a shift where Gulf allies seek Chinese security partnerships if Washington fails to provide reliable military backing today. (2)
1943 WAR EMERGENCY PIPELINECONTENTS THE JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW 9-16Global Diesel Shortage Spans Multiple ContinentsMichael Bernstam explains Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian refineries impact domestic Russian consumption rather than global markets because Moscow previously banned refined petroleum exports. The worldwide diesel crisis stems from losing 2.5 million barrels daily due to Middle Eastern supply disruptions, Strait of Hormuz closures, and pipeline attacks. With global refineries running at 96% to 98% capacity, facilities face severe quality mismatch issues because domestic shale crude yields less diesel than heavy Middle Eastern imports. Meanwhile, overall Russian oil production dropped by 1.5 million barrels per day. New United States congressional legislation permits potential 100% tariffs on purchasing nations. (1)America Deploys Operational Space Control WeaponsRick Fisher reports Air Force officials publicly confirmed that the United States deployed operational space control weapons capable of protecting joint military forces. A French Space Agency graphic recently detailed orbital assets operated by America, Russia, and China, including telemetry jamming, proximity operations, and kinetic collision satellites. These classified capabilities were maintained secretly across multiple congressional administrations to prevent a dangerous space arms race. Strategic tensions surrounding Iran or potential Russian aggression in Europe likely prompted this public disclosure. Importantly, these conventional defense systems fully comply with established Outer Space Treaty terms because the agreement exclusively bans nuclear weapons. (2)Canada Seeks EU Integration Amid RealignmentCharles Burton reports Canada is rapidly reorienting its economic and defense relationships away from dependency on the United States. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed opening associate membership to Canada, creating a unique alliance covering defense, trade, and personnel movement. Supported by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canadian leaders are promoting infrastructure initiatives to redirect trade flows while granting Europeaccess to critical minerals. Polling indicates that over 70% of Canadians identify with European values, whereas USsympathy dropped to 16% due to trade unpredictability. Canada also quietly strengthened strategic military defense ties with China regarding security. (3)Hellscape Defense Strategy Deters Taiwan InvasionRebecca Grant reports the United States Indo-Pacific Command developed an offensive tactical framework named Hellscape to counter potential Chinese invasions of Taiwan. Designed by Admiral Samuel Paparo, Hellscape deploys swarms of cheap drones, loitering munitions like Damocles, and unmanned vehicles to confuse attacking Chinese forces. This strategy draws upon lessons from Ukrainian drone warfare to disrupt enemy spectrum operations and clear pathways for heavy precision weapons. Regional allies including Japan, Australia, and the Philippines are integrating into this defense architecture. To ensure deterrence succeeds, Taiwan must receive delayed military shipments of advanced electronic warfare systems for its fighter jets without delay. (4)Diplomatic Strains Impact Global Western AlliancesMary Kissel notes global polls indicate declining trust in American leadership as both the United States and China are perceived as international threats. Friction over tariffs and rhetoric pushed Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to pursue European Union associate membership and deeper ties with Beijing. In Ukraine, American requests asking Kyivto spare Russian oil refineries reflect a flawed moral equivalency that undermines deterrence against aggression. Meanwhile, escalating Middle Eastern instability and Houthi chokeholds along Red Sea shipping lanes threaten Saudienergy security, risking a shift where Gulf allies seek Chinese security partnerships if Washington fails to provide reliable military backing today. (5)Addressing Transnational Repression Before Summit MeetingPiero Tozzi, co-host Gordon Chang: Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's summit in Washington, Tozzi urges increased protections against Beijing's transnational repression targeting dissidents, Tibetans, and Uyghurs on American soil. China operates clandestine police stations in cities like New York and Boston while using its United Frontapparatus to suppress peaceful protest movements. Grounded in a legalist Leninist governance ideology that demands complete cognitive control, Beijing recently enacted an ethnic unity law requiring families to teach love for the Communist Party. United States foreign policy must prioritize releasing prominent political prisoners, including Hong Kong Catholic publisher Jimmy Lai from solitary confinement in prison. (6)Historical Roots Shape Complex Yemen ConflictGregory Copley explains the ongoing conflict in Yemen reflects deep historical, cultural, and tribal divisions stretching back to pre-Islamic Jewish roots. Mountainous North Yemen, led by Hashemite Zaydis, maintains historical claims as traditional guardians of Mecca and Medina predating Saudi control. Demonstrating sophisticated defense capabilities, North Yemeni forces recently downed a Royal Saudi strike jet. Meanwhile, Egypt refuses to reenter the conflict after its disastrous 1960s war, leaving Oman as the primary regional mediator. Additionally, Canada is strengthening economic ties with Europe and King Charles III to reassert national sovereignty independent of Washington trade policy pressure across global commercial sectors today. (7)European Inflation Escalates Under Energy PressuresSimon Constable reports a severe heatwave in southern France damaged sunflower harvests while diesel prices soared to $9.20 per gallon, causing widespread agricultural and logistical distress. Rising European natural gas costs pushed electricity rates up 12% in one month, driving price hikes across essential agricultural commodities like corn and wheat. Meanwhile, public opposition against artificial intelligence data centers reflects underlying hostility toward wealthy technology figures rather than environmental impact. In the United Kingdom, escalating national debt service costs reached $127 billion annually, far surpassing the nation's $80 billion defense budget during severe ongoing international economic challenges facing European leadership in government circles. (8)Commercial Space Programs Advance Amid ShakeupsBob Zimmerman reports SpaceX is preparing Starship Super Heavy for an orbital test carrying commercial Starlinksatellites, while Amazon booked extra Ariane 6 launches to deploy its constellation. Meanwhile, NASA awarded Blue Origin a $700 million Mars communication satellite contract based on its Blue Ring orbital tug, prompting an unusual formal protest from Rocket Lab. Internationally, China is conducting an unannounced major organizational overhaul of its lunar program following recent mission failures. Additionally, American authorities arrested a Chinese tourist for flying drones over restricted Kennedy Space Center launchpads, and Djibouti joined the Artemis Accords as the newest member nation in global space. (9)
CAPTION 1943 WAR EMERGENCY PIPELINEGlobal Diesel Shortage Spans Multiple ContinentsMichael Bernstam explains Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian refineries impact domestic Russian consumption rather than global markets because Moscow previously banned refined petroleum exports. The worldwide diesel crisis stems from losing 2.5 million barrels daily due to Middle Eastern supply disruptions, Strait of Hormuz closures, and pipeline attacks. With global refineries running at 96% to 98% capacity, facilities face severe quality mismatch issues because domestic shale crude yields less diesel than heavy Middle Eastern imports. Meanwhile, overall Russian oil production dropped by 1.5 million barrels per day. New United States congressional legislation permits potential 100% tariffs on purchasing nations. (1)
Ben Shapiro joins us to react to J.D. Vance's political comments on American foreign policy with Israel, the UT fallout within the “heritage immigration” debate, and the new Daily Wire film, “Run Hide Fight: Infidels” being canceled by Alamo Drafthouse. J.D. Vance gives a questionable answer on a podcast saying “we cannot let our Middle Eastern foreign policy be subservient to the state of Israel”. Dana thoroughly debunks the myths with facts and figures. Dana slams Macklemore's continued lie that “Israel is committing genocide”. Plus, more commentaryThank you for supporting our sponsors that make The Dana Show possible…Alliance Defending Freedomhttps://JoinADF.com/danaIf you believe your freedom is worth defending, now is the time to act. Donate to Alliance Defending Freedom at the link above and have your gift MATCHED. Chapterhttps://Chapter.Org/DanaAsk Chapter today if you could be saving money on your medicare coverage. PreBornhttps://PreBorn.com/Dana Donate to PreBorn today. For just $28, you can sponsor one ultrasound and help save a baby's life while supporting parents during a critical moment.Relief Factorhttps://ReliefFactor.comBe the next person sharing a Relief Factor success story. Get started today with the 3-Week QuickStart for only $17.76 and tell them you heard about them on The Dana Show. Patriot Mobilehttp://PatriotMobile.com/DANAMake the switch to Patriot Mobile today. Visit online or call 972-PATRIOT and use promo code DANA for a FREE month of service.Webroothttps://Webroot.com/DanaSave 60% off Webroot. Protect your devices. Protect your family. Protect your peace of mind. Live a better digital life with Webroot. Byrnahttps://Byrna.com/DanaTrusted by law enforcement, security professionals, and everyday Americans—defend yourself and your family with Byrna.Ghost Bedhttps://GhostBed.com/DANAIf you're waking up tired before the day even starts, check out GhostBed. Now get an extra 10% off their lowest prices of the season with promo code DANA. HumanNhttps://Humann.com/DanaGet the limited edition HumanN Watermelon Flavor and find out how to get a FREE 30-day supply before they sell out.Subscribe today and stay in the loop on all things news with The Dana Show. Follow us here for more daily clips, updates, and commentary:YoutubeFacebookInstagramXMore InfoWebsite
“You know, the Dr. Pepper jingle, a year ago, there was that jingle. So I'm not going to make any claims that the jingle itself isn't great. It's a great jingle. And I do think if you analyze it, there are a lot of ways you can dissect it to actually properly represent Dr. Pepper. But I do think that the main reason it became so viral and people are still linking it to Dr. Pepper is the roll-out strategy, even though it wasn't intentional. I believe she was an influencer or an Insta or a content creator on social media who recorded a song on her phone. And there was this whole thing. It went viral and they published it in the Super Bowl or whatever it is. But I really think it's the roll-out that made it so big.” – Sami El-QuqaThis week's guest is the founder and CEO of MusicGrid, a leading sonic branding agency serving brands across the GCC and wider MENA region. With over a decade of experience in the music industry, he blends creative expertise with strategic business insight to help organizations translate their brand identity into sound. A graduate of Berklee College of Music in Contemporary Music Composition and Production, he also holds a Master's degree in International Business Management, specializing in music licensing and intellectual property in the digital age.He's worked with over three hundred brands across government, financial, and commercial sectors, leading projects that position sound as a core driver of brand recognition and emotional connection, and he's contributed to copyright legislation in Kuwait while regularly participating in regional industry events as a speaker and advisor, shaping the future of sonic branding in the Middle East.His name is Sami El-Quqa, and in this discussion, we'll be discussing why sound is a brand's most unavoidable tool. He'll reveal how to cut through marketing noise, the psychology behind sounds we can't forget, and the secrets to blending cultural heritage with modern tech. Whether you're a CEO or a creator, you'll learn how to stop being just ‘seen' and finally start being heard.And if you like what you hear and you want to support this podcast, there are a bunch of ways to do that at audiobrandingpodcast.com, including subscribing to the YouTube channel, the newsletter, writing a review, or buying me a coffee. Because this takes a lot of coffee. Thanks so much.(00:00) – Sami's Early Memories of SoundAs our conversation starts, Sami shares an early memory of sound that helped spark his musical career. “There's a TV channel that, during Ramadan, would play this jingle,” he recalls. “It was called the NBC Ramadan jingle. And I'd say that's my earliest memory… of music that not just moved me, but music that I could attach to a specific calendar day on the year.” He tells us about his studies at Berklee and how he made the jump to music licensing, and how his father's advice helped convince him to focus on sonic branding in the Middle East. “He said, ‘You know what, this is a market that doesn't really have that. If you stay in the UK or if you go back to the US, it's a saturated market. You may not be really filling a gap there,'” Sami recalls his father telling him. “There's a need for culturally relevant Middle Eastern music or Saudi or Kuwaiti music, but there was nowhere to really find that.”(11:28) – The Secret to Creating Sonic IdentitiesSami tells us more about culturally authentic sonic branding in the MENA region vs the West, and his perspective as someone who's been on both sides. “Even Hollywood movies,” he says, “sometimes for us here in this region, when we watch a clip of a Hollywood movie and they're in the Sahara Desert, the music is often off. We call it Orientalist or Aladdinesque.” We talk about his early career in sound and how hiring an orchestra helped give a sonic brand launch an extra boost. “For the launch,” he explains, “they wanted something grand and prestigious. So we worked with an orchestra in Europe to record and film a launch film and a performance of that sonic identity…. people not only became more aware of the brand Trolley, but they are able to remember it more because of the launch film.”(20:16) – Blending Heritage with ModernityThe first half of our conversation comes to a close as Sami tells us more about the branding process and how it can change depending on the industry. “When we work in finance,” he says, “a lot of brands are looking to be digital first. That's a big initiative when it comes to finance, because their most important touchpoint is their phone app.” We discuss how each campaign's approach can depend on its region, and how the younger generation is increasingly blurring those geographical lines. “There's a large cultural influence everywhere from North America, from England,” he explains, “so often [being] modern means being attractive to the younger generation who doesn't only speak Arabic, but their second language is English, and they're also influenced by Western culture.”Episode SummarySami shares his early memories of impactful music and jingles.The process of developing sonic identities through client workshops.Sami discusses how to merge cultural heritage with modern soundscapes.Tune in for next week's episode as we discuss how Sami fused traditional and high-tech sound for the Kuwaiti Stock Exchange's sonic logos, his approach to implementing an effective branding strategy, and the dramatic changes he's seen in the audio industry just within the past seven years.Connect with the Audio Branding Podcast:Book your project with Voice Overs and Vocals by visiting https://voiceoversandvocals.comConnect with me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jodikrangle/Watch the Audio Branding Podcast on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/JodiKrangleVOConnect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodikrangle/Leave the Audio Branding Podcast a review at https://lovethepodcast.com/audiobranding (Thank you!)Share your passion effectively with these Tips for Sounding Your Best as a Podcast Guest!https://voiceoversandvocals.com/tips-for-sounding-your-best-as-a-podcast-guest/Get my Top Five Tips for Implementing an Intentional Audio Strategyhttps://voiceoversandvocals.com/audio-branding-strategy/Editing/Production by Humberto Franco - https://humbertofranco.com/This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Come Out to Play… A New Warriors Podcast: Episode 58Issue: New Warriors Vol.1 #58Jarrod and Delvin ride shotgun with the Warriors as they provide security for a Middle Eastern peace conference...of course things are going to go well right? Come out to Play with us and find out!#ComeOutToPlayBe sure to check out and subscribe to the YouTube Channel for live streams of this show and much more at: https://goo.gl/4LkhovLet us know what you think!Leave a comment by sending an email to: contact@longboxcrusade.comThis podcast is a member of the LONGBOX CRUSADE NETWORK:LINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/longboxcrusadeVisit the WEBSITE: https://www.LongboxCrusade.comFollow on TWITTER: https://twitter.com/LongboxCrusadeFollow on INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/longboxcrusadeLike the FACEBOOK page: https://www.facebook.com/LongboxCrusadeSubscribe to the YOUTUBE Channel: https://goo.gl/4LkhovSubscribe on APPLE PODCASTS at:https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-longboxcrusade/id1118783510?mt=2Thank you for listening and we hope you have enjoyed this episode of Come Out to Play..!#newwarriors #marvel #marvelcomics
Are personal profits and executive power colliding in Washington? In a high-stakes Capitol Hill shadow hearing led by Ranking Members Robert Garcia and Richard Blumenthal, anti-corruption experts and Democratic lawmakers laid out serious allegations against Donald Trump, his family, and senior administration officials. From $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency profits and high-stakes Middle Eastern diplomacy to government loans and presidential pardons, this breakdown explores the major findings and what they mean for the future of American governance Independent media has never been more important. Please support this channel by subscribing here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkbwLFZhawBqK2b9gW08z3g?sub_confirmation=1 Join this channel with a membership for exclusive early access and bonus content: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkbwLFZhawBqK2b9gW08z3g/join Five Minute News is a MeidasTouch Podcast, covering politics, inequality, health and climate - delivering independent, unbiased and essential news for the US and across the world. Follow us on Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/fiveminutenews.bsky.social Follow us on Instagram http://instagram.com/fiveminnews Support us on Patreon http://www.patreon.com/fiveminutenews Support Anthony on Substack https://theanthonydavis.substack.com You can subscribe to Five Minute News with your preferred podcast app, ask your smart speaker, or enable Five Minute News as your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing skill. CONTENT DISCLAIMER The views and opinions expressed on this channel are those of the guests and authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The MeidasTouch Network, Anthony Davis or Five Minute News LLC. Any content provided by our hosts, guests or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything, in line with the First Amendment right to free and protected speech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1641 RED SEA PASSAGEHouthi Red Sea Offensive Exposes US Strategic Failure in the GulfGaius and Germanicus: Gathered in Londinium in 92 AD, the hosts analyze the worsening Middle Eastern crisis. They focus on the Houthi offensive capturing Mocha and the strategic Bab el-Mandeb choke point, which interdicts Saudi oil transport and pipeline routes. Germanicus compares this swift maneuver to Germany's 1940 invasion of Norway, contending that the United States has been completely outmaneuvered. With global energy flows disrupted and Saudi Arabia forced to rely on ineffective mercenaries, they conclude that American strategic hegemony in the Middle East is rapidly unraveling. (2)
In this episode of The President's Daily Brief:• U.S. officials say Iran obtained high-resolution satellite imagery from Chinese entities before launching the July missile strike that killed three American troops at a U.S. base in Jordan, raising new questions about the outside support behind Tehran's improving targeting.• Iran-backed Houthi forces seize a strategic island near the entrance to the Red Sea, increasing pressure on another critical shipping route for Middle Eastern oil.• A Russian drone strikes an evacuated Kyiv-Warsaw train near the Polish border on a rail line frequently used by foreign leaders traveling into Ukraine.• Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney explores the possibility of Canada becoming an “associate member” of the European Union as relations between Ottawa and Washington continue to deteriorate.To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com.Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybriefTrust & Will: Estate planning doesn't have to be complicated—create your will or trust online in minutes with Trust & Will and get 20% off at https://trustandwill.com/PDB Arca Wealth: The President's Daily Brief listeners can book a complimentary financial planning call with an Arca advisor at https://arcawealth.com/pdb Perplexity: Start your free trial of Perplexity Computer today at https://PPLX.ai/PDB and experience the next phase of AI. #ad
The Middle East is not merely changing—it is melting down before our eyes. Iran, battered but not broken by months of American and Israeli attacks, is now reaching for the most powerful weapon it possesses: the ability to choke the flow of oil upon which the global economy depends. Tehran is squeezing the Strait of Hormuz while its Houthi proxies tighten their grip around the Bab el-Mandeb, placing Saudi Arabia between two strategic chokepoints. This is not random retaliation; it is a calculated economic siege designed to make the entire world pay for Washington's war. Trump's war with Iran is actually, ironically and paradoxically, making Tehran stronger.“All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Matthew 24:8 (KJB)Saudi Arabia believed its East-West pipeline offered protection by allowing its oil to bypass Hormuz and reach the Red Sea. Then Houthi drones struck that pipeline while Houthi fighters seized Perim Island in the middle of the Bab el-Mandeb. Iran's message could not be clearer: there may be no safe passage, no protected oil route and no corner of the region beyond its reach. The kingdom that once stood as the undisputed giant of global oil exports is now watching its refineries, pipelines, cities and shipping lanes come under attack as crude prices surge and the danger spreads far beyond the battlefield. Every missile launched in Arabia can eventually explode at an American gas pump, grocery store and household budget. Fun fact, the average price of gas here in America is right now $4.31 for regular and $6.23 for diesel. Is that the Golden Age you were expecting, the Golden Age you voted for? But I digress.President Trump launched this war promising to obliterate Iran's nuclear program, prevent Tehran from attacking its neighbors and create the conditions for regime change. Instead, Iran has survived, Saudi Arabia has become a primary target, the Houthis are capturing strategic territory, and two of the world's most important shipping lanes are being dragged toward paralysis. Washington may possess the larger military, but Iran is attempting to seize the greater leverage by placing its hand around the throat of the world economy. The Abraham Accords promised a new Middle Eastern order built upon peace and prosperity; what is emerging instead is war, scarcity, collapsing alliances and desperate nations searching for someone capable of imposing peace.COUNTDOWN STATISTICS:Today is day 1,663 of the Russia-Ukraine WarToday is day 2,373 of 15 Days To Flatten The CurveToday is day 198 of World War Trump in IranOn this episode of the Prophecy News Podcast, we are watching the MIDDLE EAST MELTDOWN—and the end times furnace is only getting hotter.LINKS FOR BOOKS MENTIONED TODAYISRAEL A DEADLY PIECE OF DIRT:https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/product/israel-a-deadly-piece-of-dirt-ruckman/
Crude oil supply remains constrained, and Ellen Wald says any subsequent hits to Middle Eastern oil infrastructure, like what was seen over the weekend, adds to headwinds. She adds that Russian sanctions and Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries deepen the global supply impacts, nor will supply from Venezuela help long-term. Stewart Glickman explains the trickle effects to the U.S. economy and ways supply woes will hit consumers and transport companies. That said, he sees opportunities in the energy space and highlights stocks he likes. ======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day. Subscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/ About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about
In this Daily Editorial, I am joined by Craig Hemke, Founder and Editor of TF Metals Report, to analyze the shifting macro landscape, key central bank catalysts, and the latest technical action in the gold and silver markets. FOMC Expectations and the Yield Curve: A look into shifting market expectations for Wednesday's Fed decision, how the bond market has moved ahead of policy makers, and what the latest Summary of Economic Projections could mean for market direction. Geopolitical Escalation and Energy Shocks: How widening conflict and major Middle Eastern pipeline infrastructure damage are supporting crude oil prices and altering the inflation narrative. Precious Metals Price Consolidation: Why the pullback from the August highs resembles a healthy, multi-month base-building process rather than the start of a deep breakdown. Plunging COMEX Open Interest: The structural impact of near-record low open interest and changing exchange margin rules, leaving thin order books that create volatile air pockets in both directions. Gold Versus Silver Performance: Technical divergence across the metals space as gold maintains relative strength near major moving averages while silver works through an extended technical digestive phase. Click here to visit Craig's website - TF Metals Report - https://www.tfmetalsreport.com/ ------------------ For more market commentary & interview summaries, subscribe to our Substacks: The KE Report: https://kereport.substack.com/ Shad's resource market commentary: https://excelsiorprosperity.substack.com/ Investment disclaimer: This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation to buy or sell any security or investment product. Investing in equities, commodities, really everything involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Guests and hosts may own shares in companies mentioned.
To commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Aimen and Thomas take a deeper, wider look at the historical, ideological, and geopolitical context on either side of that momentous world-changing event. Join the CONFLICTED COMMUNITY here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Aimen and Thomas discuss: Was 9/11 an ending as well as a beginning? The myth of the peaceful 1990s America inherited a geopolitical mess after the USSR's collapse America as a revolutionary power Could preserving Middle Eastern monarchies have prevented later disasters? Al-Qaeda and liberal globalisation Jihadism amid the wreckage of earlier promises Was the War on Terror a rupture or an acceleration? Bin Laden's selective use of history History without a puppet master Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. Produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Kevin Green takes investors through price action hitting the energy space after a key Middle Eastern oil pipeline was reportedly struck. Crude oil slid below $100 in the premarket but KG warns that can spike again at a moment's notice. In equities, Oracle (ORCL) showed its CapEx story is starting to show returns after topping earnings estimates and raising fiscal 2027 guidance. Adobe (ADBE) is seeing a much different reaction. ======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day. Subscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/ About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about
North America is suddenly facing a wave of new oil pipeline proposals—but which projects actually make commercial sense, and which are being driven by energy security and geopolitics?On this episode of Oil Ground Up, Rory Johnston is joined by Rob Wilson, President of East Daley Analytics, for a deep dive into the rapidly changing North American oil infrastructure landscape. They begin with the latest resurrection of Keystone XL and explain how the proposed Prairie Connector and Bridger Pipeline system could move more Canadian crude through Cushing and ultimately toward the U.S. Gulf Coast. Wilson explains why the project has commercial backing—and how adding more Canadian heavy crude could displace lighter U.S. barrels and create new infrastructure constraints elsewhere in the system. The conversation expands into the growing competition between commercially driven pipelines and strategically motivated projects. Rory and Rob discuss Trans Mountain expansion opportunities, Enbridge Mainline optimization, a potential new Canadian West Coast pipeline, and whether Canada can realistically produce enough incremental oil to fill all the proposed capacity.They also examine the return of Venezuelan heavy crude and whether it poses a meaningful threat to Canadian barrels in U.S. refineries. Wilson argues that existing pipeline infrastructure makes Canadian crude difficult to displace in the Midwest, while Venezuelan supply is more likely to compete with Mexican, Colombian and Middle Eastern heavy barrels on the Gulf Coast. Finally, the discussion turns to the Permian Basin, where Rob sees a potentially overlooked problem developing. While enormous amounts of natural gas takeaway capacity have been built, crude pipeline additions have lagged. If high oil prices accelerate Permian production, existing pipelines could approach their limits and create a new crude egress bottleneck as early as 2027.
25 years ago, America fundamentally changed with the attacks on September 11, 2001. Since then, the world has grappled with the rise of global terrorism, war in the Middle East, and the refugee crisis. But how and why did the 9/11 attacks happen? What led us up to this moment?Chris Stoltzfus brings his years of Middle Eastern experience and Islamic studies to this conversation, explaining the origins of radical Islamic fundamentalism. How does its foundation compare to the foundation of Christianity? How should we engage with, and respond to, radical Islam?West Nickel Mines Amish School ShootingChris' paper on Menno Simons versus Wahhabist IslamJay Smith's teaching and research on IslamWahhabismThis is the 336th episode of Anabaptist Perspectives, a podcast, blog, and YouTube channel that examines various aspects of conservative Anabaptist life and thought.Sign-up for our monthly email newsletter which contains new and featured content!Join us on Patreon or become a website partner to enjoy bonus content!Visit our YouTube channel or connect on Facebook.Read essays from our blog or listen to them on our podcast, Essays for King JesusSubscribe on your podcast provider of choiceSupport us or learn more at anabaptistperspectives.org.The views expressed by our guests are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Anabaptist Perspectives or Wellspring Mennonite Church.
Gas prices hit record highs, with diesel reaching $5.90 per gallon!
This high-energy episode takes a deep dive into massive systemic issues, starting with Dr. Oz's staggering estimate of $100 billion lost annually to Medicare fraud—and how cutting out bad actors could double the trust fund's life expectancy. The discussion quickly pivots to heated debates around state welfare systems, voter registration rules, and ongoing legal battles over election databases like ERIC and federal privacy laws.
On this edition of The Adult in the Room, Victoria Taft delivers an incisive analysis of escalating Middle Eastern maritime conflict, domestic political controversies, and courtroom drama: Iran SITREP & Economic Vise (Edmund Fitton-Brown): Former UN Sanctions Coordinator and FDD Senior Fellow Edmund Fitton-Brown breaks down the economic devastation inside Iran as the rial collapses, fuel queues grow, and citizens openly mock the IRGC on social media. Fitton-Brown addresses Iran's attempt to establish an exclusion checkpoint in the Strait of Hormuz, Oman's delicate diplomatic tightrope, and the broader erosion of international maritime law. 25 Years After 9/11 & The Terror Resurgence: Fitton-Brown reflects on global complacency post-9/11, Al-Qaeda's territorial expansion across Africa, and the catastrophic risk of terrorist elements destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan. Plus, Victoria reacts to Canadian broadcaster CBC initially barring the word "terrorist" to describe 9/11 attackers. NYC Mayor Mamdani's 9/11 Pen Scandal: Victoria exposes the outrage at New York City Hall, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani handed a ceremonial 9/11 executive order signing pen to chief counsel Ramzi Kassem—an attorney who previously defended high-ranking Al-Qaeda operatives. Caught by AirTag (Georgia Professor Busted): Hilarious police bodycam captures a Georgia college professor attempting to deceive officers after being tracked via AirTag for stealing local campaign signs from a public roundabout. The Lindsay Clancy Trial Deadlock: Victoria examines the second hung jury in the Massachusetts murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, dismantling the defense's postpartum depression claims and reviewing the historical 1954 Constance Fisher infanticide case. Listen now for sharp political analysis, investigative reporting, and foreign policy insights! Make sure to subscribe, share, and leave a 5-star review!
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with journalist and commentator Negar Mortazavi about the developments & dynamics around the now six-month old war in Iran. They discuss what the U.S. got wrong in its expectations for the war, why the MOU between the U.S. & Iran broke down, and how the economic warfare of sanctions is working. They also look at what is happening on the ground in Iran, including with the possibility of real opposition to the regime, and how the Iranian diaspora is navigating the war, opposition to the regime, and divisions in the diaspora. Negar Mortazavi is an award-winning journalist and commentator, editor and host of the Iran Podcast, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy (CIP), based in Washington DC. She has been covering Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs as well as US foreign policy towards the Middle East for fifteen years. She is a frequent media commentator and has appeared on CNN, NBC, NPR, BBC, France24, Aljazeera, and other global outlets. She has written for Foreign Policy magazine, Politico, The Intercept, The Independent, and other publications, and is regularly invited to speak at panels and conferences around the world about Iranian affairs and US foreign policy. Peter Beinart is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is also a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, a Contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, an Editor-at-Large at Jewish Currents, and an MSNOW Political Commentator. His newest book (published 2025) is Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. He publishes regularly on https://peterbeinart.substack.com/. Original music by Jalal Yaquob.
25 years after September 11, 2001, the images are still impossible to forget. The airplanes. The burning World Trade Center. The collapse of the Twin Towers. The dust-covered faces. The rubble. The fear. And the moment the world seemed to collectively gasp.In this special episode of What's New with ME, I share my deeply personal 9/11 story and reflect on how September 11 changed America, my family, American politics, immigration, national security, faith, and an entire generation.On September 11, 2001, I was a 15-year-old living in Casablanca, Morocco, thousands of miles away from New York City. My mother was already living in New Jersey, and as the attacks unfolded, communication became difficult and I had no immediate way of knowing whether she and my family were safe.I also share the vivid memories I carry from watching the attacks unfold on live television in Morocco, including the World Trade Center burning and collapsing, the destruction at Ground Zero, and the reactions I personally witnessed around me.At the exact same time, a 13-year-old girl named Claudia was immigrating from Colombia to the United States. Her arrival in America happened on September 11, 2001. Her flight was disrupted and landed in Miami.Years later, Claudia would become my wife.Our lives would eventually become part of a much larger American story.My older brother went on to serve in the United States Army, completing two tours in Afghanistan.My sister became a police officer.My cousin serves in Homeland Security.My wife volunteers in EMS.And today, I am raising my children in America, serving my community, and running for Eatontown Borough Council.This episode also examines the legacy of 9/11 beyond Ground Zero: the War on Terror, Afghanistan, Homeland Security, airport security, immigration policy, national security, fear of terrorism, attitudes toward Muslims and Middle Eastern immigrants, and the political worldview of an entire generation of Americans.But above everything else, this episode is about remembrance.Nearly 3,000 people went to work, boarded airplanes, responded to emergency calls, or simply began their normal Tuesday morning—and never returned home.We remember them.We honor the firefighters, police officers, EMTs, service members, families, survivors and countless Americans whose lives were forever changed.Twenty-five years later, I don't believe fear should have the final word.The strength of America inspires me to stand tall, love hard, protect my family, serve my neighbors and do everything I can to do what is right—as a father, husband, Christian, American and community member.September 11 changed America.It changed my family.And it changed me.We remember. We serve. And we never forget.For more episodes of What's New with ME, original interviews, news, history, business, faith and community conversations, visit:TheMEStudios.net
Tarek Bibi, born in Jordan to Syrian and Lebanese parents, brings a rich Middle Eastern heritage that deeply informs his commitment to spiritual healing, oneness, and abundance. Tarek shares how his multicultural roots, personal healing journey, and deep spiritual awareness led him to create Infinity Healing Modality, a practice designed to help people release scarcity, fear, trauma, and limiting beliefs. His story reflects the heart of the podcast: moving beyond separation and into wholeness, purpose, and conscious abundance.(00:00:07) Playing with All the Colors of Light (00:09:39) Reclaiming Power Through Infinity Healing Modality (00:18:57) Heart-to-Spirit Transmission for Collective Healing (00:19:09) Alchemizing Collective Pain Into Healing Art (00:27:22) Words That Help People Remember Themselves (00:39:08) Seed in Humanity for Safety and Abundance (00:43:25) Clearing Scarcity Filters, Traumas, and Ancestral Imprints(00:49:32) Free Monthly Zoom Support for Purpose and Abundance YouTube channel of Tarek Bibi: https://www.youtube.com/@TarekBibi8 His LightWarrior Anthem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_8CNCG340I Tarek's Websites: https://tarekbibi.com and https://infinityhealingacademy.com ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~You are invited to bring your wisdom and powerful energy over to our Fb group where you can share it with us and others. Feel welcomed and comforted in our community. https://www.facebook.com/groups/movingtooneness You can request a topic of your choice to be spoken about or a song to be sung for you on a future podcast. Just let us know. :) Email me: meilin@MovingToOneness.comFollow the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzEWKXR957EmpmXvG9YgbhwIn Love and Light, Your host, Meilin Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Reformed Brotherhood | Sound Doctrine, Systematic Theology, and Brotherly Love
In this solo episode, Jesse sets the stage for an upcoming conversation with Tony by diving into one of Jesus' most theologically rich parables — the Parable of the Midnight Friend in Luke 11. Rather than treating this as a simple lesson on prayer technique, Jesse unpacks the passage as a carefully constructed theological argument: a qal wahomer (lesser-to-greater) reasoning that ultimately reveals the character of God the Father. Set within Luke's central travel narrative, the parable is not free-floating wisdom — it is discipleship instruction delivered by the Messiah en route to Jerusalem and the cross. The episode challenges common misreadings that pit persistence against divine sovereignty and instead grounds persevering prayer in confidence in God's willing, lavish character. The culmination — the gift of the Holy Spirit — awaits next week. Key Takeaways The parable's literary structure is intentional and theological — the Lord's Prayer leads to the parable, which leads to a promise (ask, seek, knock), which is grounded in the Father's character and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The sleeping friend is not a type of God — he functions as the lesser pole in a lesser-to-greater argument; identifying him with God is a category error that compromises divine immutability and aseity. Persistence in prayer is grounded in confidence, not desperation — the point is not to wear God down, but to recognize that a God who is not reluctant, not asleep, and not inconvenienced will give all the more freely. The a fortiori (lesser-to-greater) structure is the interpretive key — Jesus deliberately invokes cognitive dissonance through an imperfect analogy so that the contrast reveals something about God's character that a direct statement could not. Ask, seek, knock are present-tense imperatives in Greek — they denote continuous action, matched by divine passives in the promises, meaning God himself is the subject acting behind every answer. The promise is absolute within its covenantal frame — "everyone who asks receives" is not a blank check, but a promise spoken to disciples praying according to God's revealed will, in the name of the Son, by the help of the Spirit. The passage has a redemptive-historical dimension — it sits within Luke's travel narrative where Jesus is forming the disciples' inner life as He moves toward the very cross that makes the Spirit gift of verse 13 possible. Key Concepts The Sleeping Friend Is Not God One of the most persistent misreadings of this parable is the identification of the reluctant, sleeping friend with God — as though Jesus were teaching that dogged repetition in prayer will eventually wear down a half-willing deity. Jesse is careful to reject this firmly on both exegetical and theological grounds. The sleeping friend functions as the lesser pole of a rabbinic a fortiori argument: a flawed, inconvenienced human who still yields to legitimate need. James 1:17 seals the case — the Father is one "with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." An immutable God cannot be represented by a changeable, reluctant figure. The friend's reluctance is not a window into God's character; it is a foil designed to make God's willing generosity shine all the brighter by contrast. Persevering Prayer Is Grounded in Confidence, Not Doubt A common application drawn from this parable is essentially motivational: don't give up, pray harder, keep going. While there is something right about that call to perseverance, Jesse argues it is being drawn from the wrong well. Biblical perseverance in prayer is not rooted in uncertainty about whether God might eventually come around. It is rooted in the certainty that He already has — that He is a Father who delights to give, who is not asleep, not inconvenienced, and not reluctant. This re-centers the entire posture of prayer. We are not beggars hoping against hope that a distant God notices us. We are covenant children running with confidence into the throne room of a Father who has already given us His Son and, supremely, His Spirit. The Covenantal Frame of the Promise The sweeping promise — "everyone who asks receives" — has tripped up many readers who take it as an unconditional divine guarantee for anything sincerely prayed. Jesse is careful to locate the promise within its literary and canonical context. It is spoken to disciples who have just been taught to pray "Your kingdom come... give us... forgive us... lead us not" — prayers shaped by God's revealed will and kingdom priorities. James 4 and John's Gospel reinforce the point: prayer that does not receive has asked wrongly or outside God's will. The Westminster Confession of Faith (Chapter 21) frames acceptable prayer as offered in the name of the Son, by the help of the Spirit, according to His will — a tripod of covenantal orientation that, far from weakening the promise, gives it its full and glorious force. Memorable Quotes We draw that persistence not out of our own willingness, not even because God might encourage us, but we should be drawn to it as a representation of His character — of in fact who He is. Jesus is not commending 'wear God down with nagging' as a technique. He's having established that even flawed human reluctance eventually yields to a legitimate need pressed persistently — and he pivots to make the positive direct application: how much more freely and immediately will the Father, who is not reluctant, not asleep, not inconvenienced, give? Even the seeking, even the knocking, even the opening that will be done for you and unto you and on your behalf is from God the Father himself. Full Transcript [00:01:03] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 504 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse, and this is the podcast for the persistent prayers Hey, brothers and sisters. We have got something a little bit different for you on this episode. Tony will be back with me next week, and we will be continuing our journey through the parables. [00:01:27] And I thought while we anxiously await for his return, that we would set up the next parable that we're gonna talk about so we can hit all the major points together. So we're gonna be hanging out in Luke chapter 11, and we're talking about the parable of persistent prayer, or as I think Tony described it, the parable of the midnight friend. [00:01:47] You can choose whichever one you like. But before you do that, if in fact you miss Tony, here's a good way to fill that need, and that is you should go to the Reformed Brotherhood website. That's reformedbrotherhood.com. And you will [00:02:00] find all of the other podcast episodes living out there. They're all searchable by topic. [00:02:05] Everything we've recorded is right there for you. These some 10 years of lovely conversations with my brother Tony are all available for you. And while you're there, you might be thinking, "How is it that all this is so freely given?" Well, as you've heard us say before, that's because so many lovely brothers and sisters come alongside with a little bit of financial support to make sure all of the hosting and editing and distribution fees are all covered so that this can all be made available to whoever, whoever is searching for it, whoever finds it, whoever wants to join in the conversation and follow closely along with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. [00:02:41] So I encourage you to go check that out and also listen along. This will be a quick episode just to help us get our bearings on this really amazing teaching that Jesus gives us about the character of God that comes about in really a kind of unexpected story. And in fact, even the message itself, [00:03:00] the context, I think, is going to sound at first like one thing, but Jesus uses it to describe something entirely different. [00:03:07] Even the literary device He's about to use for us invokes some kind of cognitive dissonance that actually draws us deeper into the character of God than I think if He had explained it more directly. I mean, this is what parables do, loved ones. So come hang out with me in Luke chapter 11 for just a couple minutes. [00:03:24] Wherever you are, join me in this. I'm gonna read from the beginning part of that chapter all the way through the parable, though we will get nowhere near the end, because I told you, I'm saving that for Tony. We're gonna get there next week. So join me in Luke chapter 11, beginning in verse one. [00:03:39] Luke 11 Reading and Structure [00:03:39] Jesse Schwamb: "And it happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.' [00:03:51] And He said to them, 'When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread [00:04:00] and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.'" Then he said to them, "Which of you has a friend and will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.' [00:04:21] And from inside he answers and says, 'Do not bother me. The door has already been shut, and my children and I are in bed. I cannot rise up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not arise and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. [00:04:40] So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened. But what father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of [00:05:00] a fish? [00:05:00] Or if his son asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" This amazing little pericope, you'll notice it follows upon the disciples' request, which is, "Lord, teach us to pray." [00:05:24] And the giving of this model prayer is the whole instruction, the whole, like outcropping of this entire little parable. And I think what we should look at first, that I wanna really hit on to set us up, is that Luke has this... It seems to me like a structure that's very deliberate. There's a pattern. The Lord's Prayer, which leads to this parable of encouragement. [00:05:45] Here's the friend at midnight. It leads then to a promise, ask, seek, knock, which then of course leads to this ground of confidence. Why? Because the Father's character, sealed in the gift of the Holy Spirit, has been given to His children. This whole thing [00:06:00] occurs within Luke's central, like quote-unquote, "travel narrative." [00:06:04] It's where Jesus is forming the disciples' inner life. He's teaching them in these really final moments of His life. It's prayer, dependence, kingdom priorities, as He literally moves toward Jerusalem and to the cross. And so I think the biblical exegesis here takes this placement really seriously, because this is not like free-floating wisdom teaching, but it's real discipleship. [00:06:28] It's real firm instruction given by the Messiah en route to accomplish the very redemption that makes the Spirit gift of verse 13 possible. All of this is wrapped up in this story. It is not just about what's being said, but I think literally where it's being said, the context in which it's being said, the very interactions that are taking place around the story itself. [00:06:50] And I cannot help but believe that, of course, God in His foreordaining wisdom is placing this all together. It's as if the experience of the disciples, their time with [00:07:00] Jesus, them literally walking en route to the place where He'll be crucified, all this gets distilled down into a single point in history, and the instruction that is on Jesus' lips is this story about the midnight friend I think we've talked about this before, but there's some principles here that I always go back to, and I think they're especially relevant for looking at this particular parable. [00:07:22] First, there's this understanding that this, there's an analogy of scripture. Like, this text should be read alongside its Matthean para- parallel, which we've talked about briefly, and the whole canon's teaching on prayer, on providence, on the Spirit. We can't look at this instance in complete isolation. We shouldn't. [00:07:39] It-- That wouldn't be proper understanding of the whole passage here, including its redemptive historical reading, which I think is important. It's the second piece here. The passage is suited and situated within this unfolding covenant of grace. This Father language is not like generic theism, but it is like the covenantal Trinitarian Christ-mediated, like all the [00:08:00] rich fullness of what God has done in the redemptive arc of salvation. [00:08:04] It's prayer offered in the name of the Son as we are sons or daughters in the Son. And so there's this light then to heavy inference. Like Jesus' argument, which I think we'll talk about with Tony, in verse eight is this kind of like rab- rabbinic like fortiori reasoning. It's, it's from like the lesser to the greater, or the, the lesser reluctant or flawed party that acts in one way, and how much more the greater than will the willing perfect party act. [00:08:36] And so, so many commentators have really flagged this as like the interpretive key to the unit. This is the thing that draws us in. It's actually this juxtaposition, this cognitive dissonance, this seeing one thing and recognizing that God is so much better than that one thing and so much far beyond it, that really draws us into understanding something about His character that would not be made manifest to us without that kind of comparison or [00:09:00] that setup. [00:09:01] And then, of course, we're Reformed, so we have to talk about the element of sola Scriptura here, that we really, we have to read this passage not as teaching either that God is manipulable by human persistence. I mean, that would com- compromise entirely the, the principles of divine aseity and His immutability. [00:09:20] Or B, that there's some kind of like bare Arminian conditionality here, as though prayer creates possibilities God otherwise lacks. Really, the Bible holds, biblical theology holds that prayer is to be a means that God has sovereignly ordained to accomplish His decreed ends. It's never a lever upon which, you know, otherwise an undecided God acts because we pull. [00:09:46] It's not that at all. So let's talk about just a couple of verses that I think will get us in the vibe here, in the jam, in the middle of this whole parable, and this will set us up for a conversation that we're gonna have next week, which is the culmination, the giving of the [00:10:00] Holy Spirit. That's really the end. [00:10:01] So it's interesting that we start with this whole idea of persistence, of a friend coming with, and it's gonna end with God giving to His children this incredible, unparalleled gift of the Holy Spirit. So let's start in verse five. We get this whole setup. "Which of you has a friend and will go to him at midnight?" [00:10:20] So of course, like, you-- we hear this, hear this in English, it's even more profound in the Greek. The construction here is like this rhetorical question. It's expecting, of course, the hearer, which is you and I, to place ourselves imaginatively in the position of the petitioner. And the scenario is, of course, like pregnant with cultural meaning. [00:10:38] Like, it's just loaded down because in Middle Eastern cultures, of course, like hospita- hospitality was a matter of covenantal honor. I say it that way because I think that's what's at play for us in the text. We're gonna get these, like, themes, this, like, little bit of shading or, like, this, this little taste on the back end of your tongue of the covenant, and it's represented [00:11:00] here even in, like, the situation here. [00:11:01] Because failing to feed an arrived guest was a social and religious disgrace, not merely to the host, but, like, to their entire community, to, like, their entire village And the petitioner has no bread, and he's looking for three loaves because that's what he needs to help feed these guests that have arrived at his house. [00:11:19] And so he comes to a friend. Notice it's not a stranger, so the relationship itself is somewhat covenantal. It's emphasized three times in the verses five through eight. And so we're establishing the premise upon which the argument from the lesser, this friendship, which is reluctantly acted upon, to the greater, which is fatherhood, gladly acted upon, will be built up so that it reaches the peak in verse thirteen I think we need to notice here that this is not some kind of isolated moral vignette, but it's like the first rung of a ladder that's being built for us here. [00:11:55] And the first rung on this, I think, is that Christ accommodates himself [00:12:00] to human experience, which is like a mind-boggling statement. I mean, we could spend all of eternity just contemplating what that means. It's certainly a la Philippians 2, but here in, especially we're seeing that there's the use of this imperfect analogy precisely because it's, its imperfection. [00:12:19] Again, a friend who is reluctant will be highlighted against in contrast to the perfection of the true referent, which is God the Father, a father who is not reluctant. And so this doctrine of accommodation is a standard, uh, that you see a lot in Reformed exeg- as a exegetical principle because it's Scripture speaks of God in creaturely terms, not because God is like the creature, but so that the creature may grasp, however inaccurately, the character of God. [00:12:50] That's what's really lovely about this parable. That's what I think kind of sits underneath the, the surface here. And so many of us wanna run to the action of the petitioner [00:13:00] here and try to equate or invoke something about that persistence as if God is saying to us like, "Please don't give up. Please keep on praying. [00:13:07] Please bend my ear." And while there is something important about that, we draw that persistence not out of our own willingness, not even because God might encourage us, but we should be drawn to it as a representation of his character, of in fact who he is. And so the friend who is reluctant responds very forthrightly with a, "Don't bother me." [00:13:28] And I find when I read this, I kind of chuckle a little bit because, loved ones, is that refusal not completely realistic? Like, it's not caricatured malice. In, in like a one-room peasant house, the door being barred and the family being bedded down on a single sleeping mat meant that practically speaking, rising would wake the entire household. [00:13:49] I mean, the friend's refusal is totally understandable, but still a refusal of a friend to a friend for a legitimate n-need. And so this is the negative pole of the entire analogy. [00:14:00] I also find this, like, totally relatable. Like, even in my own life when I'm serving my own needs and purposes, if I am on like the-- If I've descended, let's say, to like the first floor of my house, and I remember that after getting ready for the day, I've totally forgotten something on the second floor, I'm annoyed with myself. [00:14:17] Sometimes I literally have that thought of like, "How badly do I need that thing? I just don't want to go back upstairs again." And so I think this is totally identifiable I mean, how often have we been in a situation where we- we've just sat down and the phone rings, or we've just finished our day and something else pops up that we have to do, or we just shut down our computer and we've-- as we do that, we remember the one thing that we needed to do, and so we have to go back in. [00:14:40] Or you leave your office and realize that you've forgotten your car keys, now you have to walk all the way back in. I mean, I-- this makes total sense to me that in this, the context of this story, even a loving friend would be like, "Are you kidding me? Uh, we're all in bed. Please, can you just figure out another way to do this?" [00:14:59] I know [00:15:00] there's been a lot of commentators, and I think like a lot of popular preaching, that in my estimation here have mistakenly identified the sleeping friend with God, teaching that persistent prayer, like, wears God down. And that, I think, is a category error that the Reformed tradition and biblical theology generally has consistently rejected. [00:15:21] You know, that's why we read in James 1:17 that every good gift comes from the Father with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. The immutable God cannot be the referent or the reluctant changeable human host here, not according to James. The friend in the parable functions as the lesser term, and again, this argument moving from the lesser to the greater, not as a type of God. [00:15:45] I think that's important for us to keep in mind because there is, again, a temptation for us to want to say, "Well, really the person in the story who is represented by God is this other friend, and he just needs to be awoken," so to speak. And even if we don't feel that strongly, th- that's pressing us a little bit too [00:16:00] far, we, we know theologically that that's not accurate. [00:16:02] We still are prone to believe, "I need to pray harder." The point of this is to pick yourself up, pull up your praying socks, and just pray more and pray more consistently and pray harder. Don't stop. Now, there is, again, something about calling on God that is like the special benefit and privilege of the Christian to run confidently into the throne room of God as we read in Hebrews. [00:16:25] And yet at the same time here, we don't want to get this twisted. We have to set this up right so that by the time we get to, again, the pinnacle of this parable in th-- in Jesus giving the crown teaching of the giving of the Holy Spirit, that we understand it's because God is a good Father who delights to give, who is not reluctant at all. [00:16:46] And that if you ask, if you ask for His Holy, Holy, Holy Spirit, that He will in fact give His Holy Spirit to you. So verse eight: "I tell you, though, he will not get up and give him anything because he is his [00:17:00] friend. Yet because of his imprudence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs." Now, the crux of this question is the referent here. [00:17:11] So traditionally rendered, you know, inopportune or inopportunity or persistence. The word literally denotes like shamelessness or refusal to be governed by some kind of social propriety. And I think either way here, the theological payload in verses nine through thirteen is all about the main point of this passage being but a foil. [00:17:31] You know, Jesus is not commending wear God down with nagging as a technique. He's, he's having established that even flawed human reluctance eventually yields to a legitimate need pressed persistently. And so he pivots in this to make the positive direct application, how much more freely and immediately will the Father, who is not reluctant, not asleep, not inconvenienced, give? [00:17:57] And so this verse does [00:18:00] teach persevering in prayer, but it grounds that perseverance not in doubt about God's willingness, but in confidence about it. This to me is very similar to how we would understand evangelism or missional or missionary type works. There is a type of Christianity that is very thin, that is maybe like a, a mile wide and an inch deep, that essentially considers that when we pray for God to work among peoples, in our families, in our communities, across the land, and across the world, that we do so almost with fingers crossed, hoping against hope that God will show up and make a way. [00:18:38] And yet what the scripture says is it emboldens us knowing that God has already done these things, that we might pray ourselves, as it were, into them in faithfulness to what God has already in-- is accomplishing through his great work. And in this way, we pray with a great empowerment. We pray with persevering prayers because we know that God will make it so because he's a God who gives promises, [00:19:00] and he always fulfills those promises. [00:19:03] And that's why we get three of them, which are beautiful in this passage. [00:19:07] Ask Seek Knock Explained [00:19:07] Jesse Schwamb: Ask, seek, knock. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you, for everyone who asks, receives. Loved ones, are there more beautiful words than these from God the Father? This is how much he loves us that he says, "Test me on these promises. [00:19:28] In persevering prayer, come before me, ask, seek, and knock." These three present tense imperatives in the Greek, Greek. In other words, keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. The present tense is conveying this continuous action. They're matched by the three future passives here, and the passives are almost certainly divine passives. [00:19:51] In other words, like it's a Jer- Jewish circumlocution, avoiding the direct naming of God as subject out of reverence, which of course, is common in Jesus' [00:20:00] teaching. But what's being unstated here is the subject acting within them. It will be given. It will be opened. Who is doing all these things? God himself. [00:20:10] And so behind these beautiful words, this promise to you and to me, is God in filling them all, so that again, God does all the words. It's as if like he's saying to us, "Seek, knock, and open." And yet even the seeking, even the knocking, even the opening that will be done for you and unto you and on your behalf is from God, the Father himself. [00:20:32] And the escalation from asking to seeking to knocking, in my view, it intensifies this effort and this urgency. Like a beggar asks, one who has lost something seeks, one who shuts, is shut out knocks on the door. And it's, I think, denoting not necessarily like three distinct kinds of prayer, though there are certainly lots of people who have talked about that. [00:20:56] The Patristics in particular, uh, Augustine was very fond [00:21:00] of kind of delineating between these as different types of prayer. I think there, there may be some usefulness in that. But I think the dominant grammatical point is this cumulative intensity. It's reinforced in verse 10 by this chiastic restatement in universal terms. [00:21:14] Everyone who asks, the one who seeks, to the one who knocks, all of these things will be given. This is the beautiful setup that's before us. It's an incredible word from God for us, practical for daily living, to give strength for today and a hope for tomorrow, that our God is one who gives us this promise. [00:21:34] And then he says, in perseverance, with the power that the Holy Spirit enables all of us, seek, ask, seek, knock. What lovely verbs for us to participate in by the power of the Holy Spirit Everyone who asks receives. I, I don't think that can be read as an unconditional blank check. And this is, I think, what trips many people up. [00:21:57] And, and certainly you've had conversations, [00:22:00] I'm sure, with others who've said, "Well, this sounds like some kind of just open-ended promise. There's no closed end to this. And so if I pray for something that I want, maybe if I pray for the thing that I feel like I desperately need, if I put all of my effort into it and pray with all the emotion, and I have, and every concentrated effort of my mental being, and God does not give that to me, it, this proves this passage to be wrong or to be ineffective." [00:22:27] And I think this would contradict directly, again, what James tells us in chapter 4, "You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly." Or John in his gospel, "If we ask anything according to His will." And so I think proper hermeneutics here resolves this not by weakening the promise, but by locating it properly within, again, its covenantal frame. [00:22:53] This promise is spoken to disciples who have just been taught to pray, "Your kingdom come, give [00:23:00]us, forgive us, lead us not." That is, it's a prayer conformed to God's revealed, revealed will and kingdom priorities. I think the Westminster Confession of Faith is particularly strong on this in chapter 21. It qualifies acceptable prayer as being offered in the name of the Son, by the help of the Spirit, according to His will. [00:23:22] What again, like lovely things to help shape us even as we go into times of daily worship, that we might seek to pray to God in the name of the Son, by the help of the Spirit, according to His will. I find in my own prayer life, in my own journey of speaking with God, and of trying to listen to Him as well, that I am much better aligned, that start in the better places, that there is more compatibility, so to speak, when I consider, even before I pray literally, that I might do that in the name of the Son, by the help of the Spirit, according to His will. [00:23:56] By the way, I love that in Ruth- Luther's writing on prayer, [00:24:00] he speaks so highly of what it means to pray in the name of the Son. That that isn't something that we just, of course, put as a suffix onto our prayers to signal that they are concluded. For some reason, when I was younger, I remember thinking that when you said at the end of the prayer, "In Jesus' name," it was like you were talking to somebody on the phone, and that's how you hung up. [00:24:20] Because if you forgot to say that, then God might think you were, like, as you went about your life and you were talking to other people, that you were also talking to Him, and that would be confusing. And so of course, like I, since grown out of that and realized that this is not something just out of custom. [00:24:33] It's not even saying like, "Amen, agree with me." This is a way about an, an explicit, standing in the explicit covenantal promise of God that is bound in the work of, the finished work of His Son, Jesus Christ. And that when we invoke His name, we shouldn't do so even flippantly as we end a prayer. But knowing that that's not just like the grand kind of crescendo of everything that we're saying, but we are sealing it as it were, so that we might again pray in the name of the Son, [00:25:00] by the help of the Holy Spirit, according to His will. [00:25:03] And that promise of verse 10 is absolute within that frame. It's not an absolute, like, simplifier. You know, this is not special pleading, but simply reading the verse in its literary context. It's a unit that begins with the Lord's Prayer and ends with the gift of the Spirit. And its canonical context is according with the rest of the New Testament in this idea that this is what prayer really is. [00:25:29] It is praying in such a way that we are invoking God, not so that He would come and condescend to our needs or meet us where we're at. He's already done this very thing, which is why He's a good Father who gives us gifts. Instead, it is that we might l- meet the Lord in His purposes, according to His power, with His perspective. [00:25:49] And so this is the, the ladder that's being built for us. It starts with this idea of saying, you know, there's this universality qualifier, the Reformed [00:26:00] doctrinal caution, as it were, that not-- "You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly." That itself is a challenge that we should all take very, very seriously. [00:26:09] So I'm gonna stop us there, because what I'm really looking forward to speaking to Tony with next week is basically the, the rest of it, really coming into the second rung of this ladder, this human fathers and their children, which sets up a now... We're really transitioning into the setup on this reluctant friend, the lesser, to this great, loving, not reluctant at all, but lovishly la- Man, I just got two words at the same time in one mouth. [00:26:37] This loving Father who lavishes this love upon us, and proof in the pudding in that is the promises which He gives us. And so I wanna save that for next time. So now you've been warned. You yourself can go back and take a look at Luke chapter 11. You can join us there for the culmination and the conclusion of [00:27:00] this little parable. [00:27:01] And again, I encourage you, go check out reformedbrotherhood.com. Go find us on Telegram, which is just a messaging app, and we have a small little corner of the internet where there's a community of listeners who hang out, support one another, are very kind and loving toward one another, and you can be a part of that group too just by going to t.me/reformedbrotherhood. [00:27:21] Slap that bad boy into your browser of choice, t.me/reformedbrotherhood. And until next time, honor everyone and love the brotherhood. [00:28:00]
Watch the show on television by downloading the SuperCrowd.tv Channel app to your Roku or Amazon Fire TV or e360tv channel app to your Roku, LG or Amazon Fire TV. You can also see it on YouTube.Devin: What is your superpower?Jason: I like to think that we are people with big brains and small egos. If we are high-impact, low-ego folks and we keep our eye on the ball, that's a recipe for success no matter what industry you're in.NextGen Scientific is turning an ancient Middle Eastern medicinal plant into a modern platform for cancer drug development and wellness products.In this episode, I spoke with Jason West, co-founder of NextGen Scientific, a PurposeBuilt100™ company recognized for combining growth with measurable impact. Jason explained that the company operates along two related tracks: Hyatt Life Sciences, its dietary supplement business and Genzada Pharmaceuticals, its drug discovery and development company.The common thread is chemistry.Jason described the company's work with Arum palestinum, a plant that grows wild in the Middle East and has long been used there as a tea. That history is what pulled the scientific team in.“What caught our attention was that there are references to the use of this plant as a medicinal plant going all the way back to the 9th century AD,” Jason said. “For 1,100 years, it's been in continuous use.”That kind of longevity raised a serious scientific question for the team: why would people keep using it for more than a millennium if there were no benefit? Jason said NextGen began studying naturally occurring molecules in the plant, ultimately identifying compounds that became the basis for its oncology research.The company now has two lead oncology or oncology-related drug candidates. One is an oral capsule in clinical trials at Virginia Commonwealth University for late-stage prostate cancer, with trials expected in the Netherlands and Sweden. The other is a topical cream aimed at actinic keratosis, a precancerous skin condition with tens of millions of cases annually in the United States.Jason emphasized that the goal is not to replace oncologists but to help them. “We feel like we can be just one more tool in the toolbox of the oncologist, and that's what our ultimate goal is,” he said.Congratulations to NextGen Scientific LLC on ranking #46 on the 2026 PurposeBuilt100™ list! We're proud to recognize the company among America's fastest-growing mission-driven businesses, celebrating the connection between purpose, innovation, and growth. Meet the Class of 2026 — see the full list of winners →What I found especially compelling is the company's dual-path strategy. Drug development can be slow, expensive and risky. By building a supplement business alongside the pharmaceutical pipeline, NextGen has created revenue while continuing the long FDA-focused journey.That strategy emerged organically. In rural Kansas, word spread that the family was working with a tea tied to cancer wellness. People began asking for it. “By the end of the day, I think we were sending about 40 gallons of this tea out a week just to friends and family,” Jason said.NextGen Scientific is currently raising capital through a Regulation D offering for accredited investors, targeting just over $10 million. Jason said proceeds will help accelerate clinical trials, open new trial fronts and support marketing for the supplement business.It is exactly the kind of purpose-built growth story I love to celebrate.tl;dr:Jason West's team is translating an ancient Middle Eastern plant into cancer drugs and supplements.NextGen Scientific pairs Genzada Pharmaceuticals' clinical pipeline with Hyatt Life Sciences' wellness products.Small-town curiosity created unexpected demand, eventually reaching roughly 40 gallons of tea weekly.A Regulation D raise seeks just over $10 million from accredited investors to accelerate trials.Low-ego brilliance helps Jason keep hard conversations focused on data, kindness and learning.How to Develop Low-Ego Brilliance As a SuperpowerJason's superpower is Low-Ego Brilliance. He describes it as being among people with “big brains and small egos.” For Jason, the combination matters because “if we are high-impact, low-ego folks and we keep our eye on the ball, that's a recipe for success no matter what industry you're in.” He connects the idea to persistence, humility and disciplined focus: “You just have to keep on putting one foot in front of the other.” His advice is simple but powerful: “Take the phone call. Always take the phone call.”Jason shared a story about meeting with an exceptionally smart but highly skeptical person who seemed to have little patience for NextGen's science. Rather than taking offense or trying to win a personality contest, Jason and his team stayed calm and redirected the conversation to the data. A meeting scheduled for 15 or 20 minutes stretched to about two hours. By the end, the skeptic had become a friend. Jason summed up the lesson this way: “If you have the data on your side, you don't need to be too big for your britches.”Build teams with big brains and small egos; value impact over status.Keep your eye on the ball, especially when the work is long and difficult.Put one foot in front of the other rather than demanding instant success.When challenged, redirect the conversation to evidence instead of emotion.Be kind to skeptics; you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.Take the phone call when you can because there is almost always something to learn.Stay curious, not judgmental, especially when you assume a conversation will not matter.By following Jason's example and advice, you can make low-ego brilliance a skill. With practice and effort, you could make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!Guest ProfileJason West (he/him):Executive Vice President, NextGen ScientificAbout NextGen Scientific: NextGen Scientific is a biotechnology and life sciences company dedicated to advancing innovative oncology research and developing evidence-based therapeutic solutions. Focused on cancer research, tumor biology, precision therapeutics, and plant-based pharmaceutical and bioactive compounds, the company works to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and real-world healthcare impact. Through translational medicine, preclinical research, intellectual property development, and a disciplined, research-driven approach, NextGen Scientific is building novel, scalable solutions designed to advance the future of cancer care and therapeutic innovation.Operating at the intersection of biotechnology, healthcare innovation, and commercial strategy, NextGen Scientific has developed a dual-entity model that combines biotechnology development with a revenue-generating wellness platform. Alongside its oncology pipeline, the company brings science-backed nutraceutical and metabolic wellness products to market, creating a sustainable engine to support continued research and growth. As NextGen Scientific expands its oncology pipeline, patent portfolio, and commercialization strategy, it remains focused on translating promising science into safe, effective, and impactful health solutions.Website: investinnextgen.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/nextgen-scientificBiographical Information: Jason West is a seasoned executive and entrepreneur with extensive leadership experience across biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, chemicals, and business development. He currently serves as Executive Vice President of Genzada Pharmaceuticals and NextGen Scientific, while also serving as Chairman of Geo-Chemicals, LLC and Chief Executive Officer of Hyatt Life Sciences. His career reflects a strong combination of scientific knowledge, legal expertise, and executive leadership, with a focus on building and guiding organizations at the intersection of science, innovation, and commercial growth.Earlier in his career, Jason spent 15 years with Jacam Chemical Company, including more than seven years as President and seven years as Vice President and General Counsel. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Sterling College, a Juris Doctor from Vermont Law School, and an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. With experience spanning scientific research, law, corporate leadership, and strategic management, Jason brings a multidisciplinary perspective to advancing innovative businesses and life sciences initiatives.LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jason-west-b33b7a163Watch the Impact Stories on BIG Screen!Support Our SponsorsOur generous sponsors make our work possible, serving impact investors, social entrepreneurs, community builders and diverse founders. Today's advertisers include PurposeBuilt100™ Winners and supercrowd.tv. Learn more about advertising with us here.Max-Impact Members(We're grateful for every one of these community champions who make this work possible.)Brian Christie, Brainsy | Cameron Neil, Lend For Good | Carol Fineagan, Independent Consultant | Eric Coury, Arthia AI | Joey Hayes, thru | John Berlet, CORE Tax Deeds, LLC. | Justin Starbird, The Aebli Group | Ken Steele, Rotarian | Lory Moore, Lory Moore Law | Marcia Brinton, High Desert Gear | Mark Grimes, Networked Enterprise Development | Mike Babbit | Coledger Solutions | Mike Green, Envirosult | Nick Degnan, Unlimit Ventures | Paul Lovejoy, Stakeholder Enterprise | Pearl Wright, Global Changemaker | Scott Thorpe, Philanthropist | Sharon Samjitsingh, Health Care Originals | Add Your Name HereUpcoming SuperCrowd Event CalendarIf a location is not noted, the events below are virtual.Join the SuperCrowd Impact League! You can be recognized for making impact investments via Reg CF. See how your activity compares to your peers. It's free. Win valuable prizes. Start now!SuperCrowd Impact Member Networking Session: Impact (and, of course, Max-Impact) Members of the SuperCrowd are invited to a private networking session on September 8th at 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT. Mark your calendar. We'll send private emails to Impact Members with registration details. Upgrade to Impact Membership today!Apply for the Superpowers for Good Live Pitch: Are you raising capital through Regulation Crowdfunding? Apply by September 2 for the September 30 Superpowers for Good Live Pitch. Selected founders pitch free to investors and gain exposure through SuperCrowd.tv, e360tv, social media, and our 10,000-subscriber newsletter. We especially encourage social entrepreneurs, women and underrepresented entrepreneurs to apply.Visit Our Complete Community Event CalendarIf you would like to submit an event for us to share with the 10,000+ changemakers, investors and entrepreneurs who are members of the SuperCrowd, click here.Manage the volume of emails you receive from us by clicking here.We share educational information—not investment advice. Some links may generate compensation. See our full disclosure.We use AI to help us write compelling recaps of each episode. Get full access to Superpowers for Good at www.superpowers4good.com/subscribe
The September 3, 2026, broadcast of the *Closing Market Report*, hosted by Todd Gleason, covers commodity price movements, farm financial projections, federal data initiatives, and severe weather patterns affecting agriculture. Matt Bennett of AgMarket.net analyzes the day's market dynamics, highlighting how grain futures rebounded from early-session lows as speculative buying met profit-taking ahead of the three-day holiday weekend, while noting that late-season heat is rapidly advancing crop drydown without heavily damaging early-planted corn. Looking ahead to 2026 and 2027 budgets, University of Illinois agricultural economist Nick Paulson reports that while higher corn and soybean prices are driving positive projected net returns in Central and Northern Illinois, rising input costs—especially for fertilizer and fuel tied to Middle Eastern geopolitical conflict—continue to keep overall margins below long-term historical averages of $100 per acre. From the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, USDA Under Secretary Scott Hutchins details the agency's four-pillar data modernization initiative aimed at reducing survey burdens on farmers, utilizing satellite and NASA geospatial imagery for yield forecasts, eliminating cross-agency redundancy through AI and advanced analytics, and improving reporting transparency. Concluding the report, meteorologist Mike Tannura of Tstorm Weather warns of historic late-season heat running 8 to 10 degrees above normal across the U.S. Corn Belt, while pointing to an exceptionally strong El Niño pattern that is bringing unseasonable early rains to central Brazil and heavy precipitation to southern South American grain belts.01:50 Ag Markets with Matt Bennett, AgMarket.net07:12 farmodc 2027 Corn and Soybean Returns13:48 USDA Announces Data Modernization Plan16:22 Ag Weather with Mike Tannura, Tstorm Weather ★ Support this podcast ★
02 Sep 2026. Events season is under way, but what insurance do organisers need and what happens when a show is cancelled or postponed? Boyd Edmondson of Seven Insurance Brokers explains. We also speak to IATA’s Kashif Khalid as global air travel grows while Middle Eastern airlines remain nearly 10% down, checkin with Ras Al Khaimah’s property market with Cavendish Maxwell’s Ali Siddiqui, and speak with Innoventures Education CEO Poonam Bhojani as the group opens two new schools in Town Square and Sharjah. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Caption: 1890 Russian Black Sea FleetLIVE STREAMING OF THE MAKING OF THE JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW WITH EDMUND FITTON-BROWN AND SAMUEL BEN-UR OF FDD.ORGThis text provides a transcript of a broadcast featuring John Batchelor and Edmund Fitton Brown discussing the volatile geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. The speakers examine the global energy crisis, specifically focusing on the critical shortages in refined oil caused by military conflicts and infrastructure limits. A significant portion of the conversation details the suffering of the Iranian people under a repressive regime, using anecdotes from a firsthand account of life in Tehran. The dialogue also addresses the ongoing war in Gaza, the complexities of urban warfare, and the challenges of achieving peace through international organizations like the United Nations. Finally, the participants reflect on the political polarization surrounding Middle Eastern reporting and the difficulties of maintaining objectivity during conflict.
We examine China's space diplomacy across the Middle East and North Africa with the authors of their recent Texas National Security Review article, "Choosing Orbits: China's Space Diplomacy in the Middle East." The discussion analyzes how regional states—specifically Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran—utilize space partnerships with Beijing to serve distinct domestic, economic, and security imperatives . Our guests challenge assumptions that smaller powers are passive subjects in great power rivalry and detail how Middle Eastern states exercise strategic agency through hybrid alignment strategies . Guests Lawrence Rubin | Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, co-director of the GTDC Pathways to Policy program, and associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies . Lincoln Hines | Assistant Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Fellow with the Carnegie China Fellowship at the University of Maryland . Dayana Alagirova | PhD student at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Fulbright Scholar, and space policy researcher . Hosts: Sheena Chestnut Greitens Ryan Vest Producer: Jordan Morning
The September 1, 2026, edition of the Closing Market Report, hosted by Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason on Illinois Public Media, provides an in-depth review of key regulatory, market, agronomic, and weather developments impacting agriculture. Agricultural economist Scott Irwin discusses the EPA's decision to grant 1.8 billion gallons in small refinery exemptions (SREs) for 2025, explaining how the agency's supplemental rulemaking to reallocate 100% of those volumes into 2026 and 2027 mandates effectively neutralizes potential demand losses and supports the biodiesel and soy complex. Market analyst Naomi Blohm of Total Farm Marketing reviews the rally in soybean futures above $13 resistance, highlighting strong domestic demand, Chinese export sales, and the market impacts of geopolitical friction in the Black Sea and Middle East. Agricultural economist Nick Paulson explains how surging global sulfur prices—driven by Middle Eastern conflict and petroleum byproduct supply disruptions—are increasing the cost of MAP and DAP phosphate fertilizers ahead of fall applications. Finally, meteorologist Don Day of Day Weather breaks down the persistent, above-average heat across the Corn Belt and evaluates upcoming rainfall chances for early soybean planting in Brazil.01:05 Trump Admin's EPA SRE Announcement a Reallocation05:29 Ag Markets with Naomi Blohm, Total Farm Marketing10:27 Sulfur and Increasing Phosphate Fertilizer Prices20:20 Ag Weather with Don Day, Day Weather ★ Support this podcast ★
Roxana Saidi is the founder and CEO of Táche. However, before she founded her pistachio-milk brand, Saidi graduated with a degree in marketing and got her first job out of college in public relations in Los Angeles. She then founded a social media agency that eventually grew into a creative and brand strategy agency called Rx Social. She later moved to New York and transitioned into consulting, but while on a trip with her family, she was struck by an idea for a brand offering nut milk made from pistachios, which were a staple in her Middle Eastern household as a child. Her research proved that pistachio milk could be more sustainable than almond milk and more nutritious than oat milk, so she started Táche by experimenting in her kitchen and launched the brand in 2020. Táche quickly found its way into high-end cafés and grocery stores, such as Erewhon and Sprouts, and the brand recently entered Whole Foods with its three-ingredient pistachio milk.
GRAMMY® winner Janet Robin and David Vito Gregoli join forces for a bold, modern reimagining of Jeff Beck's iconic instrumental, “Beck's Bolero.” Their version goes live on all streaming media on Friday July 24 at 12:00 AM PT.Pre-save here https://lnk.dmsmusic.co/janetrobindavidvitogregoli_becksboleroThere's also a music video that features Robin, Gregoli, plus percussionist MB Gordy working on “Beck's Bolero” in the studio. This goes live also Friday at midnight, as well, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=fthUxd9Elyw.Vito says, “This is our homage to someone who constantly evolved, never rested on his fame or laurels. The song's unique beat — and the fact it was recorded with members of Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Yardbirds, The Stones — all make this a historic piece.”Though both artists are most recently recognized for their acoustic work within the music community, Robin and Gregoli have a lifetime of experience as virtuosic electric guitarists. They bring decades of musicianship, production experience, and artistic vision to this fresh exploration of one of rock guitar's most enduring compositions. Their version honors the mystery, tension, and cinematic power of the original while reshaping it through a contemporary, expressive instrumental lens.The Drum Motive & Why This Version TravelsThe recording's not‑so‑secret weapon is GRAMMY®‑winning drummer/percussionist MB Gordy, whose opening drum figure adds a brief jolt of energy — a deliberate ignition that sets the piece in motion. Vito describes it as “a take‑off on a James Brown beat, giving it urgency as it weaves in and out of the traditional Bolero pulse.”Gordy's blend of Middle Eastern dumbek, shakers, classic rock tambourine, and triangle creates a shifting rhythmic landscape that propels the performance forward. This interplay — drums sparking motion, guitars expanding texture — is what makes the interpretation travel: the piece evolves, opens, and moves through dynamic layers rather than staying fixed in a single emotional register.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.
Escaping the Beast's Trap (1) (audio) David Eells - 8/30/26 B. A. - 03/14/2012 (David's notes in red) (The foundation for this dream is that the D.S. is poisoning the food and water supply.) I dreamed I was walking down my lane, as the morning was dawning, to go up to the main road to the mailbox and get the newspaper. Just as I got to the road, I saw one of my neighbors getting into his truck. He drove up to me and said, “You'd better get to Walmart quickly; they are giving away free food, water, medicine, and gas”. (Trusting in the arm of the flesh. Psa.146:3 Put not your trust in princes, Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. Pro.3:5 Trust in Jehovah with all thy heart, And lean not upon thine own understanding. Heb.12:16 lest there be any fornication, or profane person, as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright. I said, “My husband is asleep, so I will have to wait until he wakes up”. My neighbor said, “Well, I wouldn't wait too long or you might miss out”. Then he left. I went on over to the mailbox and got the newspaper. I got halfway back down the lane when I heard a voice say to me, “It's a trap; it's a trap. Don't go”. Jer.17:5 Thus saith Jehovah: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from Jehovah. 6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. 7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in Jehovah, and whose trust Jehovah is. 8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat cometh, but its leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. I asked, “What's a trap?” The next thing I knew, I was standing in a Walmart parking lot. The lot was packed like it always is, so I asked what was wrong. I heard that same voice say, “Look at the people”. So I looked at the people. They were coming out of the store with grocery carts full of items and getting into their cars and leaving. I asked again, “What's wrong?” The voice said, “Look closer at the people”. So I zeroed in on the people, and all of a sudden I noticed they were all wearing dog tags. (Symbolizing trading needed free stuff for freedom.) Then I found myself inside the store. There was a long line on the left side of the store against the wall. They had it set up like at the airport with the roped lines, so the flow of people would be orderly. The store was full of products and people were shopping, so everything looked normal to the people in line. However, I noticed that the people shopping were wearing dog tags like the people in the parking lot. My oldest brother had been in the military years ago, so I knew what these dog tags were. I said to myself, “These are soldiers dressed up as civilians”. (Government giveaways are designed by the beast system to trap you into trusting in them until you are addicted in your mind. The flesh pots of Egypt were a government giveaway to the slaves to control them. The people who own the megastores are owned by the same people who own the government and military. Bondage to them is the spiritual mark of the beast. Pharaoh will rule the slaves.) All of a sudden, I was standing at the back of the store. The store manager was standing in front of a set of doors marked Personnel Only. I noticed he was wearing dog tags as well. (Government and big business are one in socialism.) He was telling the people that only four people at a time could go with him to be processed to get their vouchers for the free stuff. He had them line up two on the left and two on the right behind him. As they went through the first set of doors, there was a breezeway area, then another set of metal doors. He told them that when they went through the next set of doors, two women would be sitting at a desk, and they should go up to the desk and wait. As soon as these people got up to the desk and the second set of doors closed, four very large men (they looked like sumo wrestlers) came up behind these people, put their hands over their mouths and gave them some kind of a shot. (The giants of their own flesh will bring into bondage those who do not believe the promises but trust in men. Flee into the wilderness where God provides out of heaven through faith and the old man is dead at the Red Sea. Php.4:19 And my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.) Then these soldiers took their driver's license and car keys from them. (I believe the driver's license represents taking away their identity or place in Christ, and the car keys represent taking away their freedom; they NOW belong to the beast -- lock, stock and barrel!) (At first they will want your Social Security number and income to receive food; now it will be the Digital ID; then the Mark will make it easy for you. This gradualism is the way to harden one's conscience. Remember when they mandated the vaccinations, and you could not travel, go back into work, shop in stores, dine out, etc., unless you were vaccinated and everyone was forced to wear a face mask? This was a type of their ways to institute the Mark.) The two women sitting at the desk stamped these people on their right hands. (Representing the beastly works of flesh.) (Rev.13:16) And he causeth all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bond, that there be given them a mark on their right hand, or upon their forehead. I got closer so I could see what the stamp read; it read, Bus #1, Section A. Then these people were led out the back door onto a waiting bus. These people couldn't put up a fight, as the shot they were given made them like zombies and they could barely walk. (They stumbled out of the way, put to sleep by demons using the lusts of the flesh.) These people's, or victims', driver's licenses were placed in a box that read, Bus #1, Section A, as well. I'm sure this was so they could keep track of who they were and where they were taking them. Their car keys were given to some soldiers standing close by. (They are no longer individuals using cars but members of the collective riding buses; they are one in the beast body.) I decided to follow these soldiers with the keys to see what they were going to do. They found these people's cars and drove them off the parking lot. I then went back to the bus to see what was happening there. I noticed they started taking people to the back of the bus and working their way forward. When they would get two people in a seat, there was a large harness that came over these people's shoulders. Then the soldiers reached down and grabbed another harness that went through their legs, and it all joined together at their waist and locked. There was no way these people could get up. (They will be spiritually brought into bondage and few will escape. They will either deny the Lordship of Jesus over them and serve the collective or confess Jesus before men and lose their beastly life for their heavenly life.) Then, again, the next thing I knew, I was standing in a large field off a dirt road. This field was full of empty car carriers. I watched as the soldiers drove the people's cars onto the field and up onto the car carriers. When the car carriers were full, they drove away. I lost count of how many there were, as there were so many. I just stood there trying to digest everything I had just witnessed. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, I was back home on my lane. (Many will lose their individuality and freedom as the economy crumbles through mismanagement, war, natural catastrophes, and plots of the DS globalists. The so-called “Golden Age” does not fit with the Rev.13 mark of the beast.) I stood there thinking how clever that whole process was; they didn't have to go to the people. They devised such a clever way to have the people come to them without putting up a fight, like lambs to the slaughter. (It is natural for those who have no faith to gravitate to the beast for salvation in all forms, for they worship him.) Also, I thought to myself, they have been planning this for a long time. Walmart would be a very logical staging area, as they provide food, clothing, supplies, water, medicine and gas. They are always advertising it as a one-stop shop; now we know why! I took another look at Walmart. For some reason, I looked at it in reverse from the dash out, and it reads “Mart law”, or martial law! Then I woke up. (They will be the number one store under martial law. Mom-and-Pop stores will continue to die. Cheap Chinese labor and materials will win. An executive order was signed on March 16, 2012, giving the Executive Branch the power to control and allocate all energy, production, transportation, food and even water resources by decree. They have control over all food, farms, livestock, farm equipment, fertilizer and food production across America.) A secret behind Walmart's rapid expansion in the United States has been its extensive use of public money. This includes more than $1.2 billion in tax breaks, free land, infrastructure assistance, low-cost financing and outright grants from state and local governments around the country. “It's a Trap” Henry Jansen - 03/29/2012 (David's notes in red) I recently had a few interesting experiences, one of which involved David in a dream. Because of the common theme of “a trap or being trapped”, I thought I would share it. Here is some background: My work requires me to travel to our company's project sites once or twice a month. The trips can be a few hours long, so I normally listen to UBM teachings. One of the ladies who works for me (a Christian lady I will call “S”) sometimes travels with me to the site when she is required to discuss some things with the site staff to complete her work. As we are both Christians, I play UBM teachings during our trips, and “S” has listened to these with interest. Until recently, “S” was a smoker (with a bad cough and high blood pressure) and no amount of prodding from other staff to quit could convince her to do so. She has a twin sister who is also a Christian and her exhortations to “S” to quit smoking also bore no fruit. “S” tried to quit a few times in the two years that I have known her but always fell back into the habit again. I noticed this going on but didn't feel led to say or do anything about her smoking habit. About a month ago, I was planning to visit a site again, and “S” was going to travel with me. The night before the travel date, the Lord put it upon my heart to dig up an old UBM teaching from March 2008 on smoking and play it during our trip to the site, which is what I did. The Spirit brought a strong conviction upon her during the teaching, and about halfway through it, she took her cigarettes and lighter out of her handbag and handed them to me. She said she never knew the things about smoking that you taught and realized that she was in bondage to demons. She suddenly had a strong urge to be free from this bondage. We stopped at a town halfway to the site. I gave her the cigarettes and lighter, and she threw them both into a trash can. That was the last time she touched the stuff. When we returned to the office later that day, the Lord put it upon my heart to pray with her, commanding the spirits of bondage to leave her and not return. We also asked the Lord to deliver her from any withdrawals, and she didn't have any. The next day, she came to work with a bright, sunny face, saying she felt as if a weight had lifted from her. Through your teaching, the Lord has made her free from the bondage of smoking forever. Since then, she also started to listen to UBM Bible study teachings regularly. The Lord has also led her through various events recently to remind her of her deliverance and she is now ministering to bring others out of this bondage. One event she had was driving to a site in a car that was owned by a heavy smoker. Driving in the smoke-smelling car made her violently ill, and she had to stop to be sick along the way. The Lord has a sense of irony, doesn't He? Now for the next bit: About a week ago, “S” asked if we could have a meeting. She told me that she was awakened at around 3:00 am by a voice saying the words, “It's a Trap. It's a Trap”, repeated a few times. Because of the urgency of the voice and her anxiousness over it, she couldn't sleep and got up and listened to the latest UBM Bible study, which happened to include an interpretation of a dream received about being Trapped by the Beast. (The above revelation was an amazing confirmation that the same words were used in this dream as in “S”'s revelation: “It's a trap. It's a trap. Don't go”.) I thanked her for telling me and left it at that, thinking that I would listen to the UBM teaching she mentioned to hear what it was about. I have not listened to this teaching yet. Then, a few days ago, I had this dream: I was working for David Eells. David asked me to go to a meeting that he was scheduled to go to in town. He could no longer attend, as he had other commitments. (It appears as though I will not fall into a government sting operation.) I knew that the meeting was with government officials and that the meeting was about the government wanting to sell weapons to David. The meeting time was set for 8:30 am. (Praise the Lord that I don't want any of the world's weapons.) On the day of the meeting, I was at an office in a town, and I got there on my bicycle. While attending to my activities in town, I forgot about the meeting I was meant to attend on David's behalf that day. When my activities in town were completed, I got on my bicycle to ride back to the center of town. While riding on my bike, I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to attend that meeting for David. I looked anxiously at my watch and noticed that it was 8:10 am, so, fortunately, it was not too late yet. I then suddenly remembered (the following events actually happened ...) a meeting I had with one of my work colleagues, during which she told me that a voice woke her early one morning (about 3:00 am), saying the words, “It's a trap. It's a trap”, repeated a few times. Because of the urgency of the voice, she couldn't go back to sleep and instead decided to listen to the latest UBM Bible study teaching. It just happened to be the teaching Trapped by the Beast. She was so startled by the whole experience that she told me about it the next morning at work. As of the writing of this dream, I have not yet listened to that Bible study. In the dream, I remembered the meeting with my colleague and what she had said, and then it suddenly dawned on me that the meeting with the government was a “trap”. The government was trying to set a trap for David and this meeting was part of that trap. I suspected that the government was planning to set up a meeting with real arms dealers and then planned to arrest everyone who attended the meeting. (I have no need or desire for physical arms. It appears that the government will seek to try to trap church leaders into giving them proof that they were guilty of taking up arms against the government in order to imprison them.) No amount of explaining that the meeting was to be with government officials will matter. I then realized I had to let David know as soon as possible and cycled to what I thought was the center of town. I looked for a place to park my bicycle and noticed two separate sets of stairs (made from concrete or masonry) leading down from the level I was standing on to some other level of town far below me. I tried to take my bike down the first set of stairs but quickly realized it was very steep, with narrow steps and dangerous; if you stumbled, you could be severely hurt. I then took the second set, which had a gentler slope, to the bottom. When I got to the bottom, I tried to park my bicycle, but all the bicycle parking spots were full, and I couldn't leave my bike safely anywhere. No matter where I looked, I couldn't find a parking spot for my bicycle. They were all taken. This made me very frustrated. (A sign of there being many people in the underground Church.) I then cycled to David's place. When I got to where I thought David lived, I didn't see a house but noticed a shed, which I understood was a workshop. I also “knew” that David drove a car and his parking garage was underground. I remembered seeing the garage door open at some previous time. I knew the garage door hinged up out of the ground when it opened, and one had to drive into a hole in the ground to park the car. I couldn't see the garage door when I arrived and realized it must be closed because when the garage door was closed I couldn't see the garage at all, as it was covered with vegetation and level with the ground (camouflaged). I pushed my bike into the workshop to look for David and to find a place to park my bike. I noticed an old bike rack inside the workshop with some kids' bikes and an adult bike (similar to mine) taking up all the slots in the old bike rack. The bikes were covered with dust and looked like they hadn't been used for a long time. (Could it be that my spiritual children have outgrown their “kids' bikes”?) I couldn't find any room to park my bike. I saw a man whom I knew as “Newman” (“new man” in Christ) and asked him if he had seen David. He said he had seen him twice that day. Tribulation, Government, the Mark & Evangelism Sultana - 09/17/2007 (David's notes in red) The year before 9/11, I dreamed of four explosions. I told my husband that the World Trade Center was blown up and I saw an explosion on the ground, then I saw the Pentagon explode. (fulfilled) In 1998, God sat Kevin down and said, “The government will be altered in a way that it is not overthrown, but our freedoms will change. All the people who hated God's people will now have the ability to persecute them and even kill them like they could not in the past. (Update: Kevin did hate and kill God's people and died for it.) This was very similar to martial law; military police will evolve on a global scale. People will have to choose whether they will cooperate with this government or suffer without its benefit (the mark). Many professing Christians will give their allegiance to the new system of government in order to keep their freedoms and benefits in this world. In spite of the persecution of the body of Christ, personal evangelism and missions will thrive during this time. Finances will flow for missionaries and relief of suffering churches like never before (which does not make sense to me). (Father has already planned for this time and we will have every need met.) However, the compromising believers will receive a demonic guilt because they denied the Lord and their brothers in order to keep their comforts. They will not be able to repent of what they have done, nor will they escape the torment they will feel for denying Christ (reprobation from the mark). The pressure will be so great that you will not be able to prepare for it then. Now is the time to sell out for Christ and give your very all to Him. Preparing now is the grace to be ready for that time”. Escape from Walmart Cassandra – 8/17/2021 Dear brothers and sisters in Yahushua, I had a brief dream last night of escaping a Walmart. Others have mentioned that many of the Walmart stores have been [or will be] converted to FEMA camps, and I remember reading about that, Jade Helm, and even railroad tracks leading out of the Walmarts. Also, people being sprayed with something when entering, and the hand scanners for MOTB payment. Walmart/Martial Law. (That's what B.A saw too.) My dream was brief; my daughter and I were in a Walmart (which, in real life, I would never do; I stopped going to those places years ago; stay out of the Walmarts!) and as we went to leave, I noticed HEAVY MILITARY-TYPE SECURITY near the entrance and the checkout areas. It looked sort of like the riot police, except it was even more advanced. Black colored armor; maybe some were even robots or hybrids. Scary-looking, and there were 5-7 around each checkout area. Somehow we drove out the front door in a car, bypassing the checkout areas to escape. I took some different route as we left, in case I was being followed or tracked. Now that I think about it, I have had another dream of escaping a Walmart, but this one, I was just in the parking lot area and knew not to go in, but that I needed to escape the area. End of dream. Note: I had a strong feeling others were unable to get out or escape from Walmart. It could be that the military/security presence was there due to inflation and scarcity of items. I am not sure. It felt more ominous than that, but I have also read that as grocery prices inflate and food becomes more scarce, food trucks and grocery stores will need extra security. See related article: FEMA Rounding Up “Radical Christians” into Closed Walmarts 8/4/2017, Jennifer Schultz (link) Had another dream last night. It dealt with FEMA, Walmart, and Trump and Obama. It started out with FEMA buses coming into every town, rounding up the “radical Christians,” as the director told an agent who was rounding up the people. They were taken to Walmart. More stores started closing due to false “plumbing issues,” like the ones down south did. The UN and FEMA were working together. Pastors were ratting out people in their church who didn't vaccinate, who believed in the 2nd Amendment, and who were truly on fire for God. Then I saw Obama talking to “ISIS.” He threw down a picture of Trump and told the sniper/shooter, “I want him to be next.” There was a bullseye in the middle of his forehead. Before I woke up, I saw dark clouds coming across America along with bugs that were huge, and they had on armor with razor-sharp teeth. (The shots were found to cause cancer from bugs in the bloodstream.) When I woke up, I asked God if it was from Him. The verse about ‘what is hidden in darkness will come to light' came into my head. Luke 8:17 KJV For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. Almost Trapped In a 15-Minute City Cassandra -12/12/2013 The time this was received, 1:30 a.m., 130 in Strong's Greek, is shedding of blood. I had a dream I was riding a bicycle on a freeway leading into Minneapolis. Normally there are no bicycles on a freeway. All of a sudden, the road was closed. Those of us on bikes (I think bicycles may represent homelessness, or poor people) (or lack of gas or EMP) had to get off of them and leave them and go into a certain area while the road was being fixed, or so I thought at first. I tried calling my friends to drive and come and get me, but then realized they would be stuck there too. The area behind the construction reminded me of a bad area in Minneapolis. I soon realized that all of the apartment buildings looked vacant. Those of us who had been taken off the road were moved into a building. Others and I were forced off the freeway. There seemed to be a “nice woman” there showing us buckets of supplies. The buckets were from Trader Joe's, a local grocery chain, and I have seen these buildings going up with Trader Joe's and also a Lunds on the ground floor of these apartments. The buckets had a roll of toilet paper in them and not much else. I think at that point, it dawned on me that this was a 15-Minute City and they were trapping us. I lied in my dream, which I try not to do (forgive me, Father, for this), and told the “nice lady” my ride was there. She let me leave. I saw a few others escaping and quickly followed them. I saw our bikes and grabbed one, but the front wheel had been bent (intentionally, so we couldn't escape?). I grabbed another bike, and it worked. End of dream. These 15-Minute Cities are real, folks. I have seen several of these apartment buildings in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. They are easy to spot because they have grocery stores underneath. You do not want to move to or get trapped in these places. This ties in with a dream someone else had where, when you see the cities getting ready to be bombed, you have about half an hour to flee and get out. Those that get stuck there will be rounded up and moved somewhere. Those stuck in these cities will be forced to be a part of the beast system, or likely be sent to a FEMA camp for martyrdom. I just had an awful flashback; a real memory. Several years ago, I saw a huge truck carrying what looked like human-sized portable incinerators. I am also reminded of a recent story in the news of all the homeless in San Francisco disappearing the night before world leaders were coming in for a meeting. 11/11/23. This is coming to the US. Look at what they have allowed in Israel. B.N. is a war criminal. They know the areas of land they want and what their plans are. They will remove anyone standing in their way and have no regard for human life. These plans have been in place for a long time. Everything is in place. The good news is that Jesus is with us. He is with the poor. He will be with us in captivity and even in martyrdom. Are you ready if this is your fate? Are you ready to flee your home? There will be Goshen's or safe havens for some. Are you ready spiritually for all that is coming? Betrayal from your nearest and dearest? There have been so many messages warning to brace yourself and be ready. Pray for help on this; I do as well. Pre-trib rapture is a lie; repent if you have allowed yourself to be deceived by false prophets, teachers, and preachers. Wake up to the truth. Please heed the warnings given on this site, brethren…. Cassandra. So, how do we prepare to escape these traps and captivity? Escaping the Tribulation Mark Sandy Shaw - 11/08/2011 (David's notes in red) When I had this dream on November 8, 2011, I knew that we were already in the middle part of tribulation. They were already making it mandatory that everyone get the mark. We were still where we live now, but we were getting ready to move up on “the hill”. Michael (Meaning “who is like God”) had come through the side or sunroom door and I saw him. Then he said, “The last one is gone”. I'm not exactly sure what that meant, but at the time I felt that there was no one left at the school. (The first 3 1/2 years of the tribulation are for training, just as it was in Jesus' ministry before Acts. Then the disciples or Two Witnesses went forth two-by-two into every place Jesus was about to come.) I knew that we were preparing to go to “the hill” (representing escaping the mark in Zion). Then the Lord took me from this house to a room. In the room, there were a bunch of men in suits (stuffed shirts is what I used to call them) and you could tell that they had much money and were up to no good. They couldn't see me, though. (Invisibility, or the secret place of the Most High, will protect many from the Beast's plots.) They were talking about the barcodes that are on everything we buy. While listening to them talk about the barcodes, the mark that people took was linking them up to all kinds of things electronically, including the barcodes. They showed an instrument that couldn't have been more than 4” wide and 7” long. This machine had buttons to push and a little screen. They could tell, by pointing this machine at a house, who bought what and who lived there because of the codes and marks they had accepted. They also knew who did not buy items in your house; these items were either given or traded. This was how they found out who didn't have the mark. When they pointed this machine at a house and saw a bunch of store-bought stuff there, and no one in the house had accepted the mark, then the soldiers would go in there and take the people to the FEMA camps. The FEMA camps were changed from an earlier use to now house these prisoners who refuse the mark. It reminded me of the Nazi concentration camps of Hitler, where the Jews were sent to be slaughtered. After hearing these men talk about all this, I was at “the Hill”. I knew that we were already living at “the Hill”. There were many from the local UBM at “the Hill” and some other faces I hadn't seen yet. While we were up there, I was very upset. I kept hearing a man, as if he was standing next to me, crying out to God for help. I was standing in a room with David Eells, Michael Hare, another brother, and my husband. I was crying and telling them that I kept hearing this man crying out to God, and we needed to go back down and get him. I told them that I knew where the house was. I was pleading with them to go back down because it was dangerous times to do that. David, Michael, and I got into a small car that I had not seen before. We then drove to the house. The house and neighborhood around it were empty. Michael asked, “Are you sure this is the house? Because all of these look empty.” (The underground railroad will once again be in use to rescue others from the mark and beast. “Righteousness delivereth from death.”) I said, “No, this is the house. As we go in there will be a stairway. Behind this stairway is another hidden door leading down to another stairway. They are in the basement. I had only heard a man crying out, but I had a feeling that his family would be with him.” But there were even more people than I thought in the dream. It was him (the only male), his wife, and children. Then, there were two more women and their children (whose husbands had been killed). So, we all packed into this small car. Almost all the children were in the trunk, and we were all sitting in laps on top of laps. This was so we could all fit into the small car. I was driving the car. As we pulled out, we looked, and the soldiers were entering the house. But we kept going. When we had driven just a few miles, soldiers pulled us over. I told everyone in the car to be quiet and not to say a word, to let me do all the talking. No matter how long it took, to be quiet. I had some kind of papers, and I was showing them to the soldiers. The soldiers knew they needed to accept those papers, but they didn't want to. (So they all escaped to the Hill.) Who Will Escape to the Hill? Psa.15:1 Jehovah, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill (Zion)? 2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, And speaketh truth in his heart; 3 He that slandereth not with his tongue, Nor doeth evil to his friend, Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor; 4 In whose eyes a reprobate is despised, But who honoreth them that fear Jehovah; He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not; 5 He that putteth not out his money to interest, Nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved. Psa.24:1 The earth is Jehovah's, and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein. 2 For he hath founded it upon the seas, And established it upon the floods. 3 Who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; Who hath not lifted up his soul unto falsehood, And hath not sworn deceitfully. 5 He shall receive a blessing from Jehovah, And righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6 This is the generation of them that seek after him, That seek thy face, [even] Jacob. Psa.125:1 They that trust in Jehovah Are as mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abideth for ever. 2 As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, So Jehovah is round about his people From this time forth and for evermore. 3 For the sceptre of wickedness shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; That the righteous put not forth their hands unto iniquity. 4 Do good, O Jehovah, unto those that are good, And to them that are upright in their hearts. 5 But as for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, Jehovah will lead them forth with the workers of iniquity (the mark). Peace be upon Israel. Isa.43:1 But now thus saith Jehovah that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed thee; I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. 2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. 3 For I am Jehovah thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour; I have given Egypt as thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in thy stead. 4 Since thou hast been precious in my sight, [and] honorable, and I have loved thee; therefore will I give men in thy stead, and peoples instead of thy life. (Those who will take the mark.) 5 Fear not; for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; 6 I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the end of the earth (to the Holy Hill); 7 every one that is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yea, whom I have made. America in Darkness after Judgment David Eells – 8/26/26 In the morning when I was in the midst of waking up, I had a dream that turned into a vision. I believe it was about Christianity in the U.S. I was standing on a line between two visions of the near future. Part 1 was to my right and Part 2 was to my left and a result of Part 1. Part 1 was a large room representing the U.S. Many chandelier lights were hanging from the ceiling and were very bright. (I believe this may be the EBS revelation of all the criminality that has been done in darkness being revealed to the people. Also the Man-child reformers will be anointed to share truth, which will anger criminals of church and state.) While still standing on the line, I looked to the left or Part 2. It was the room, but the lights were gone including the fixtures. Then when I looked straight ahead down the line and just past the two rooms, I saw a tornado. (This is what I believe caused the darkness and represented judgments, probably the ones we have been discussing as coming soon: earthquakes and volcanic activity through the Ring of Fire. These judgments will destroy and plunder the new economy that the right wing is now creating. Of course, the left would blame the right for this and harden and change many minds. A tornado also represents wind turning around abruptly to go in the opposite direction. Winds of doctrine or teaching represent a change of mind, probably of the people in the U.S. For those who will be righteous, this will be a good change of mind, but for those who will be wicked, it will be a bad change of mind. There is a polarization happening in the U.S. and the world between left and right.) When I saw the tornado, I ducked behind the wall of the second time period and felt safe. Please remember that the people who considered themselves the people of God sided with the Roman Beast to persecute and kill the disciples of Jesus. Ecc.1:9 That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Mat.24:9 Then shall they deliver you up unto tribulation, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all the nations for my name's sake. Now let me share the following revelation: From: “REVIVAL List” Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 Subject: [revival] THE END of EMPIRE AMERICA - Robert Holmes NOTE from Mario Liu: On 16 October 2008, I was in a prayer meeting with Robert Holmes and Kurt Pfanstiel, who was visiting us from the USA. Robert shared with us a vision he had recently received. Robert had a vision of Alexander the Great standing victorious in the middle of the USA. We discussed Robert's vision in some details. Alexander the Great in the vision was a foreign looking man. He was surrounded by many US citizens, who seemed to welcome Alexander as their leader. I asked Robert whether there were any signs of violence and Robert said, no. I remembered God has given similar visions before about Alexander the Great conquering USA and we did not understand God's meaning then. Now that God repeated this vision, I felt that there is significance in this and asked God for more revelations, such as which country is conquering USA, who is Alexander, etc. But God did not give us any clear revelations apart from saying that “Alexander took Babylon without bloodshed.” After the US election, Robert recognized that the Alexander he saw was Obama. Then God revealed more information. These revelations are enclosed below... We need to pray. THE END of EMPIRE AMERICA by: Robert I Holmes (David's notes in red) This article will cover a range of issues which have been brewing for six to twelve months in my heart. History will judge America as an empire. That empire is coming to an end. The election of Barak Obama is a significant prophetic event, marking the sunset of that empire, and the rising of other powers in the earth who represent ancient powers and civilizations. (But few know that B.O. still sits at the top of his leftist empire pulling the strings. He recently proudly admitted to being Biden's head.) These ideas have consequences for believers living both in the US and the countries that rely on her (like Australia). … Barack Obama became President of DS ruled Babylonian America. Although he severely weakened America, he did not conquer her during his presidency. Hillary was to be Obama II and would have finished the job … but God used a modern-day Cyrus of the Media-Persian Empire to conquer Babylon America. Clearly, this is President Trump, who, as a Cyrus also discovered the “hidden treasures of Darkness” (in underground tunnels of darkness), spoken of in Isaiah 45. Using this and other reforms as a lure, President Trump has come to lead a mighty Alliance of Nations. Where he also set the people of God free from Babylon to rebuild the Kingdom of God and also bankrolled it with Babylon's stolen loot. No one else has followed in the steps of Cyrus but President Donald Trump. Keep in mind there are not two kingdoms involved here but three. Original Babylon ruled by the DS Obama, then Babylon under Cyrus/Trump, and then comes this Babylon conquered by Alexander the Great, whom Robert saw as Obama in his vision. It was reported by the military that Barack Obama was arrested for his crimes and taken to Gitmo. There he was given a monitoring boot and told to play his part under their direction, but he rebelled and they took him back to Gitmo and shot him. However, it was after this that the military began to discover clone-growing labs that were manufacturing copies of the important DS criminals like Obama. LATER they learned how to tell the difference between a clone and the original. I believe it is likely that the DS had their clone of Obama available when they took clone Obama back in and shot him. Obama is known to still be out there and calling the shots for the DS. Remember, Alexander did not come until AFTER the Media-Persians under Cyrus/Trump conquered Babylon. It was DS Obama Babylon, then Trump Media-Persia, then Alexander of the Grecian Empire. Obama is still in the third Empire as an Alexander to conquer Trump. Remember history must repeat. Ecc.1:9 That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. 10 Is there a thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been long ago, in the ages which were before us. We know the prophecies were manifest through history naturally as these three Kingdoms, but somehow these beast kingdoms must be repeated and we are watching it. Another thing that should not be forgotten: Obama was a figurehead for the DS and their 4th generation AI computer. Trump's steps came from a 5th generation AI computer that was programmed by the people pushing him. I take nothing from him; he is a genius. Alexander had political power back home holding down the fort. Revelation's seven-year Tribulation beasts, both the Dragon and then the Beast, had seven heads, not one. Nowhere in the bible does it describe one “antichrist beast.” See absolute Biblical proof in our book, Hidden Manna For The End Times. Jesus said there would be many antichrists. Only in parables of dreams, visions or types is a man described and sometimes a very big man, which identifies a corporate body head. Also, according to history repeating, Alexander is still coming to conquer the Medo-Persian/Cyrus/Trump/Empire. Back to Robert I Holmes: - Alexander Cometh! In 1999, as I prepared to travel to the US on ministry, the Lord gave me a very unusual prophetic word. He said that “In the days of Babylon, when her walls stood wide and her leaders stood tall, her defenses were strong and her campaigns victorious, (Babylon under the Trump Alliance of nations) Alexander the Great (Obama) came and defeated her. In the same way, my Alexander will stand in the very midst of the United States of America”. The phrase “in the same way” indicates that America's walls are wide, her leaders stand tall, her defenses are strong, her campaigns until now have been victorious. (This best describes Cyrus/Trumps Alliance campaigns) But a man like Alexander - someone God refers to as “my Alexander” will stand in her midst, victorious and defeat her. Alexander the Great, a Mediterranean Greek, defeated Darius the Mede in 331BC at the Battle of Gaugamela (Darius ruled Babylon due to Cyrus' victory), and the gates of Babylon swung open to him (Alexander/Obama) (when he was just 25 years old). He stood in the midst of the courtyard declaring himself king. He then spent considerable time and effort trying to restore Babylon to its former glory. (Which neither Alexander nor Obama are capable of, for God decreed its fall.) As I prayed in preparation for going to the US two weeks ago on ministry again, I had a vision of a map of America from high above. There, almost in the centre of it was a marketplace. I zoomed down toward the marketplace and saw a man standing there. I recognized by the Spirit that it was Alexander the Great, standing in a dusty, sandstone area, sword lifted high, victorious. I believe that God's “Alexander” is Barak Obama. (If so, and I don't doubt it, he would come after the Trump Alliance to conquer it. Trump has prepared everything for the beast. The one world order, the world economic system, complete control and knowledge of everyone's business through satellite and Artificial Intelligence. Cyrus/Trump will be good to give time for the reformers to mature the saints for when the beast makes war on them in the second half of the tribulation.) He has now stood in the middle of America and declared his victory speech in Grant Park in Chicago. There, he prophetically declared, “Change has come to America,” (6). Yes indeed, it has. Barak, apart from having the appearance of a Middle Eastern or African man, is also very young and inexperienced. Barak Obama has not even had a full year in his Senate position. I do not question the right of a 47-year-old to rule a nation, but his inexperience is not reduced by his amazing oratory skill. “Your sons will take the place of your fathers; you will make them princes throughout [in all] the earth,” (Psalm 45:16 NIV). He represents the end of empire America as we know it, and the opening of a new regime, one which, like Alexander, represents a conflagration of old powers (But Alexander/Obama? conquers Cyrus/Trump's America. The Alexander Grecian Empire came after the Cyrus/Trump Media-Persian Empire): European, Middle Eastern and Asian. He will try to restore America's glory, but in doing so relegate her to second position on the global scene. (Obama's job was to conquer America but failed to finish the job. He is still working as Alexander to conquer Trump's America.) The prophet Daniel, who wrote his book from 605 to 530 B.C., predicted Alexander would head a world power around 200 years before it happened (see Daniel 2, 7, 8 and 11). In Daniel 2, his empire is described as a belly and thighs of bronze (brass) in King Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2:31-32, 39). In Daniel 7, it is described as looking like …The leopard with wings. The Four Generals Will Conquer Alexander/Obama Eve Brast - 1/29/10 (David's notes in red) (I asked God to confirm my role in this dream as a watchman on the tower. Twice, I opened my Bible and put my finger down. The first was Eze.3:21 Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning; and thou hast delivered thy soul. And Isa.21:6 For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman: let him declare what he seeth.) (Eve represents those watchmen who are watching for the enemy attacks on the tower of Zion.) I dreamed I was a watchman standing on the roof of a tower made of logs crossed at the corners like a log cabin. The tower was coming up out of the Gulf waters off the northwest coast of Florida (where UBM began). (When I had this dream, I didn't connect it with UBM, but when I was told to send it to David, I realized that he had a dream or vision from the Lord that UBM was represented by a log tower like this [in the same area but on land].) (The tower is Zion or Jerusalem, “the tower of the flock”. Mic.4:8 And thou, O tower of the flock, the hill of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, yea, the former dominion shall come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. Micah 4 is indicative of how God will use the Bride/tower in the “latter days”. Also typed as the Bride in Rev.21:9-10 And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls, who were laden with the seven last plagues; and he spake with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb. 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.) This tower also simultaneously existed in the Mediterranean waters farther east off the shores of Israel. (Israel is a type of the Church. An elect Bride will be taken out of the Israel/Church. Esther was the Bride taken out of Israel as a type of the Church.) I was dressed in an Old Testament Israeli soldier's outfit and standing at the northeast corner of the tower. (The Israeli soldiers' outfit represents the true New Testament church, circumcised in heart, in its Ephesians 6 armor.) It was dark and the wind was gusting. I could feel rain or sea spray on my face, forearms and lower legs. I was keeping the night watch facing northeast. Suddenly, out of the darkness, Alexander the Great came down and stood to my left. (Obama rules from the northeast of the tower and has been likened to Alexander the Great in other dreams and revelations, indicating his ambition and ability to conquer and take what God is giving into his hands for chastening.) He said, “I want to show you something”. He then swung over the north side of the tower and went feet first inside of it through a 24x24 inch window where a golden light shone out. I followed him in the same way. (The golden light in the heart of the Bride/tower is Christ and the Word. Alexander/Obama on the left will conquer the flesh of Christianity in America. However, as the Assyrian Beast leader, Sennacherib, conquered all of Israel but lost 185,000 men and was assassinated when he tried and failed to conquer Jerusalem, the Bride/tower, and so it will be in some form in these coming days [2 Kings 19:30-37]. I saw a vision of America as Nineveh, the head of the Assyrian world Beast. As Assyria was conquering other parts of Israel, some of these fled to the safety of the tower. As this happens, the people will seek God and their capital city, the Bride Zion/tower.) Inside, there was a very bright, white light. When my eyes adjusted, I saw it was a laboratory of some sort with countertops and lab equipment all around. In front of the north window that we had entered, there was a double stainless-steel sink with a high faucet. Next to it on the countertop was a black microscope. Alexander pointed to the microscope and exclaimed, “Look!” I looked into it and was sucked through it into a spiritual realm that was dark, with black, choppy water everywhere. I was aware in my spirit that it wasn't black just because it was dark. When I got my bearings, I looked around and realized I was on one of four Greek vessels sailing east at a quick and steady pace. (Could these represent the four generals that divided up Alexander's kingdom after they poisoned him?) The white sails were missing (not powered by the Spirit; i.e., wind) and the masts were bare and there were no oars. (not powered by man). (These vessels of judgment have no power against the Bride, who is guiltless by God's grace.) I was standing on the deck of the third vessel to the right. (Pestilence and blood? Corexit brought blood disorders and destroys the immune system like the vax does now.) There was one more vessel to my right, making it the fourth. Alexander was standing next to me on the deck. (I asked the Lord what the four vessels represented and he gave me Ezekiel 5:16-17: four judgments of famine, evil beasts, pestilence and blood (third vessel), and the sword.) (Today these have all been judgments through the DS. i.e the Ohio, East Palestine Chemical Dioxin fiasco, and other environmental disasters and blood contamination through MRNA vaccines. Microscopes are used many times to look at harmful microorganisms, representing unseen biohazards in food, water, and air that cannot be otherwise detected.) I looked ahead to the east and saw a large, bright star bigger and brighter than any I've ever seen. I knew instantly that it was Christ. Suddenly, two giant branches of lightning struck out sideways to the north and south of the star through dark gray clouds, and a voice came out of the star that resonated through my whole being on a cellular level. It said, “Proceed no further, for truly these are the very end of days!” Then, only the vessel we were on began to break apart into many broken pieces of splintered wood planks. Immediately, I was caught up away from Alexander, who was still on the deck of the vessel, back through the microscope and into the tower. (In his war against the Church at that time of the Tribulation, he will “proceed no further” against the Bride in these “end of days” by the edict of the King. This was just as it was when Ahasuerus stopped Haman, who, like Sennacherib of Assyria, died for his attempt on Esther, the Bride. Alexander the Great is said by some historians to have been assassinated by poison as he drank a bowl of unmixed wine to Hercules in the palace of Babylon, the great eagle. There seems to be a common thread of death or assassination to those rulers who attack the Bride/tower. I would like to remind any who read this that a Christian could never do this, for the Word says, “If any man shall kill with the sword, with the sword must he be killed,” and “love your enemies,” and “Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the wrath [of God]: for it is written, Vengeance belongeth unto me; I will recompense, saith the Lord”.) I looked to my left where the sink was and noticed a reddish dyed tablet to the right of the drain in the right side of the sink, and there was a small stream of water running down onto the tablet, causing a red swirl that ran around the bottom of the sink clockwise before going down the drain. Then I woke up. (Because Jesus, the Word [water] poured out His blood [reddish tablet] unto death, the Bride will have life. If we take the tablet, or cure, we will have life. He said unless we ate His body, the bread and Word, and drank His blood, we would not have life.) The Eagle and the Serpents Michael Boldea (David's notes in red) (The Angel said, “This has been revealed to you, that you may know, the first bite (on the eagle of the U.S.) has been, the second is yet to come, and the third will be its destruction”.) Psalm 34:7-8, “The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him”. Upon my return to the United States in late August, I had a very vivid and troubling dream. I dreamt I was walking through a sparsely wooded forest, and suddenly my attention was drawn to an eagle (the U.S.) flying high above the tree line. It was a beautiful sight to behold as the eagle rode the thermals, flying in slow, lazy arcs across the blue sky. I began to quicken my pace and keep up with the eagle's flight, all the while keeping an eye on it, noticing that it was slowly descending toward the earth. (Becoming more corrupt) I followed it for a long time, its descent not being sudden but very gradual. Finally I came upon a small clearing, where there were no trees, just some bushes on the edges of the green grass. The eagle landed in the clearing and began to look around, not seeming to notice me. As I began to wonder what the relevance of this was, a man dressed in white, hands clasped in front of him, appeared beside me and said, “Be patient, in due time you will see the purpose”. I was silent as I watched the eagle, and was beginning to grow somewhat impatient, when suddenly (9/11 happened suddenly), it seemed out of nowhere a brown snake (the Muslims are a brown people and the Nazis wore brown shirts) lunged at the eagle, and bit down on its left wing. (In effect, 9/11 devastated the left wing and brought about a short-lived swing to the right as this nation's Christians prayed to their God to save their country.) The snake's strike was very quick and very precise. The eagle reacted without delay, clawing and pecking at the snake, cutting deep wounds in its underbelly, trying to defend itself and ward off the serpent. (USA, the great eagle is still pecking away at these enemies.) Just as it seemed the eagle was winning the battle, and the serpent was retreating, another serpent appeared, red and black diagonal stripes covering its body. (Red and white were the Obama's colors of choice for the election victory speech. Why red and black? Obama's associate for 20 years and mentor was Bill Ayers, who is an unrepentant terrorist, anarchist and Marxist who bombed his own country to bring about “change”, which is Obama's chief motto. Red and black are the colors of anarchists, socialists, left-wingers, communists, etc. Ayers told the New York Times on 9/11/01, “I don't regret setting bombs... I feel we didn't do enough.”) This serpent without hesitation struck out at the eagle's right wing, biting down, and refusing to release. (Many strikes have come from the left, false flags, plagues, assassinations, etc. These Satanists have never slowed down.) After a momentary tug of war, the serpent tore off flesh and feathers, leaving a large wound on the eagle's right wing. (Obama is purely a left-wing socialist who will use anything to tear a huge wound in the religious right of this land. Cheri Watson saw a vision of the Statue of Liberty sliced in two by a huge knife from right to left and the top half, or government, began to slide to the left and fall into the water. A line of leftist governments did much damage that President Trump has worked to reverse.) The second bite was much worse than the first, and for an instant the eagle was stunned. Then a serpent much larger than the previous two, made up of many colors came. (Leftist revolutionaries internally join with many enemy nations. Obama formed ISIS and gave billions to Iran to build underground cities to hide their missile and nuke program. Obama and Hillery sold our weapons to Saudi Arabia.), It slithered toward the eagle, opened its jaws and lunged, taking the whole of the eagle's head in its mouth before biting down. (The enemies take down the government and devastate the U.S., which brings revival.) The serpents retreated and the man (Jesus) who had been standing beside me walked to the eagle, knelt down, picked it up, and held it in his cupped hands. The look of grief on his face was beyond any I have seen in my life. Just seeing the look on the man's face broke your heart. The man continued to look down at the eagle, and with a pained voice said, “The true tragedy, is that at any moment it could have sought the safety of the above, it could have soared toward the heavens and would have found its protection. This has been revealed to you, that you may know, the first bite has been (9/11), the second is yet to come (leftist governments), and the third will be its destruction”. (In dreams we were shown the leftists have engineered many faults to magnify the destruction of coming earthquakes. This will cause the fall of the U.S. into wilderness tribulation.) A Gigantic Wave Coming Samuel Fire - 2/22/23 (David's notes in red) I saw Tianna, myself, and many other UBM brethren standing together on the beach as a group. (The Lord told Abraham that his seed would be as the sands of the seashore.) Behind us, spread all around, was a large crowd of different people that I didn't know. The place was completely full. From afar, I saw a gigantic wave coming. The wave was about 42 stories high. (The beast will persecute the saints for 42 months. Rev.13:4-5 and they worshipped the dragon, because he gave his authority unto the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? And who is able to war with him? 5 and there was given to him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and there was given to him authority to continue forty and two months.) All the people that I didn't know began freaking out. Some were screaming and crying and others were trying to run away. All those people were so scared and shocked. All the UBM Brethren were so joyful and excited for this wave to come. It was as if we all had been waiting for this wave. (For us, this wave will bring victory for the Kingdom of God in that it will separate the tares from the wheat, which will shine forth in the kingdom as a great revival. Mat.13:40-43 As therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire; so shall it be in the end of the world. 41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, 42 (notice the number) and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. (Notice what comes at the end of verse 42 as in 42 months.) 43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears, let him hear. For those who are dead to self, there is no fear of the Beast. The end of this 42 months is the end of the crucifixion of the saints and the coming of the Lord for His saints.) Some of the crowd kept trying to run away to save themselves. A few others fell on their knees in repentance, crying to God because they knew they couldn't save themselves or do anything. (God will bring repentance through judgment to His elect.) As the wave came, the brethren had special equipment for the water. They had experience and had been trained to ride the wave, so they were prepared and knew exactly what to do. When the wave came, we were gently lifted up, and we just surfed the wave, riding the wave, and some were just walking on the water. (1Th.4:13 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep.) Everyone else was wiped out from the wave, but all the brethren were calm, having fun and a great time. (Psa.37:18-20) Jehovah knoweth the days of the perfect; And their inheritance shall be for ever. 19 They shall not be put to shame in the time of evil; And in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. 20 But the wicked shall perish, And the enemies of Jehovah shall be as the fat of lambs: They shall consume; In smoke shall they consume away.) Two Visions of a Wave of Destruction Marie Kelton – 2/17/23 (David's notes in red) Vision #1: During our evening meeting, I had a vision of a city with a few tall buildings. I saw white cars that were parked in the city. (Representing the righteous who are in the rest.) I then saw a huge wave come in from the right and flood the city. (Judgment begins in the house of God to cleanse it and then the wicked are judged, as we will see. 1Pe.4:17 For the time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God: and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God?) Vision #2: Later on in the meeting, I had another vision of people in a city. The people were trying to run away from a huge wave of water that was coming towards them. (God is going to give His people a 3-year grace period during these times to work in Revival for His People and Kingdom. All provision will be given by Him.)
When Legends Turn Deadly is a nearly five-hour Terrifying & True true crime and folklore marathon featuring eight stories about monsters, cultural memory, Spiritualism, murder, extremist violence, and fatal belief. The Hat Man, the Deer Woman, Djinn, the Melonheads, the Fox sisters, the Greenbrier Ghost, the murder of Jeffrey Hall, and the exorcism of Anneliese Michel form one escalating journey from modern nightmare to documented human tragedy. The journey begins between dreaming and waking, where people across cultures report a faceless silhouette in a wide-brimmed hat. Science points to sleep paralysis and suggestion; folklore and online testimony have turned the figure into a modern legend. The Deer Woman then carries a living Indigenous warning about predation and consequence. From there, Djinn traditions reveal what is lost when ancient spiritual beings are reduced to evil genies, while the Melonheads show how regional rumor can transform illness, disability, and exclusion into a monster. The Fox sisters then turn unexplained knocks into modern Spiritualism. The second half crosses into true crime. In 1897 West Virginia, Mary Jane Heaster said the ghost of Zona Heaster Shue revealed her murder. In Riverside, California, a ten-year-old killed his neo-Nazi father, Jeffrey Hall, inside a home saturated with weapons, violence, and hate. In 1976 Bavaria, prolonged exorcisms and abandoned medical care ended with Anneliese Michel dead from malnutrition and dehydration. Together, these cases separate documented history from paranormal claim without draining the fear from either. They ask how stories can protect people, distort a culture, stigmatize outsiders, manipulate believers, expose a crime - or make ordinary warning signs disappear behind absolute certainty. Inside this episode: The Hat Man, sleep paralysis, and a modern nightmare shaped by shared testimony The Deer Woman as warning, consequence, and living Indigenous tradition The Djinn, their place in Middle Eastern and Islamic tradition, and their distortion into evil-genie stereotypes The Melonheads Curse and the way regional folklore transforms abandoned or abused children into monsters The Fox sisters, the Hydesville rappings, and the rise of Spiritualism The Greenbrier Ghost, Zona Heaster Shue, and a West Virginia murder trial The murder of Jeffrey Hall and the effects of racist extremist ideology inside a family home The exorcism and death of Anneliese Michel in Klingenberg, West GermanyDo monsters begin in the dark, or in the explanations we refuse to question?
Rory Johnston returns to Oil Ground Up with David Wech, Chief Economist at Vortexa, for a deep dive into one of the most complicated oil markets in recent memory. With crude and refined products moving through increasingly opaque trade routes, Rory and David examine what tanker data is actually telling us about oil on water, the Strait of Hormuz, Russian exports, diesel shortages, China and the changing global flow of barrels. David explains why the global market can simultaneously have plenty of theoretical crude supply while still experiencing severe regional shortages and logistical bottlenecks. They discuss declining U.S. crude exports, Ukrainian attacks on Russian refining and export infrastructure, and why diesel may currently be the tightest part of the entire oil complex. The conversation then turns to China, where rising refinery utilization and product exports could be bearish for diesel while increasing China's demand for crude. David also explains how the loss of Iranian barrels, competition for Russian crude, and reduced Atlantic Basin flows into Asia could create another period of significant crude tightness if Middle Eastern exports fail to recover as expected. Finally, Rory and David dig into the challenge of tracking “dark” tanker movements through Hormuz, why short-term transit estimates can be misleading, and the emergence of a shuttle-tanker system moving crude out of the Persian Gulf. David lays out his outlook for the coming months—including the possibility that renewed geopolitical escalation could collide with an Asian market increasingly positioned for higher Middle Eastern supply.
On today's episode of Iran: The Latest, Sophia Yan is joined by Middle East scholar Vali Nasr to assess the state of the conflict as it hits the six-month mark. They discuss why Washington's security umbrella in the Gulf is collapsing, how US naval exhaustion is forcing warships to retreat to Asia, and why China stands to emerge as the ultimate winner of the war.Plus, why Israel and Turkey could be heading toward a new frontline in Syria, and what will come of the diplomatic flurry occurring between Gulf countries, as the Qatari Prime Minister makes his way to Tehran for further talks? HighlightsDiplomatic Flurry: What will come of recent Iran, Oman, and Qatar negotiations? Great-Power Shift: How China wins from US exhaustionCONTRIBUTORS:Sophia Yan, senior foreign correspondent, @sophia_yanVali Nasr, scholar in Middle Eastern studies, Professor at Johns Hopkins-SAIS @vali_nasrWATCH US ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJnf_DDTfIVAif-vifC6F2aoPB8GIw6dkCONTENT REFERENCED:Winner Best News and Analysis Podcast - Publisher Podcast Awards 2026Nominated Podcast of the Year - Society of Editors News Podcasts Awards 2026Nominated Best News, Politics and Current Affairs - British Podcast Awards 2026The Telegraph, Winner Podcast Publisher of the Year 2026 - Publisher Podcast Awards 2026Audio Producer: David Dargahi Video Producer: Max BowerResearcher and Social Producer: Anna HindmarshStudio Operator: Andy WatsonExecutive Producer: Venetia Rainey ► Sign up to our most popular newsletter, From the Editor. Look forward to receiving free-thinking comment and the day's biggest stories, every morning. telegraph.co.uk/fromtheeditor► EMAIL US: Contact the team on battlelines@telegraph.co.uk► GET THE LATEST HEADLINES: Find all our latest Iran coverage here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/iran-war/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: Russia crosses a dangerous new threshold in Ukraine, deploying a fully autonomous, AI-guided drone that selected its final target without human approval in an attack that killed three civilians. Despite continuing hostilities between the United States and Iran, Washington prepares to return diplomats to Middle Eastern embassies evacuated during the war—a sign the administration does not expect full-scale fighting to resume soon. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Goldbelly: Impress your family and friends - get free shipping and 20% off your first order at https://GOLDBELLY.com with code PDB. Cardiff: Get fast business funding without bank delays—apply in minutes with Cardiff and access up to $500,000 in same‑day funding at https://Cardiff.co/PDB HomeServe: Protect your home systems from expensive repairs with https://HomeServe.com/dailybriefand get 50% off your first year of coverage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What better way to celebrate our 400th episode than having our old pal Fred Armisen (Portlandia, SNL) join us in studio to share laughs and some Middle Eastern puns, along with hot new singing sensations Twisted Teens performing "Florida Water Blues" from their new album of the same name. Support Office Hours, watch or listen to another hour of today's episode including another tune from Twisted Teens, Doug's Sub Pop game, and much more with OFFICE HOURS+. Try it FREE for seven days at patreon.com/officehoursliveBecome a member of The Onion with a year subscription plus a FREE tote bag of your choice at onionmembership.com/tim.Enjoy Marz the official soft and other kinds of drinks of Office Hours and get free shipping with discount code OFFICEHOURS at https://drinkmarz.comGet tickets to see On Cinema LIVE on the "Certified Five Bags of Popcorn Tour" this November at heinetwork.tv/eventsShop our merch store at officehours.merchtable.com and find the rest of our links at linktr.ee/officehoursliveSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In this Conflicted Conversation, Simon Sebag Montefiore returns to the show, this time to talk about his new book The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East. Simon explains: How Britain and France tried — and often failed — to shape the post-Ottoman Middle East Why Sykes–Picot is a misleading shorthand for the region's modern borders How Atatürk, Nasser and other Middle Eastern leaders remade the region through their own choices The violent shift from Ottoman pluralism to nationalist, more homogeneous states Why Nasser's charisma produced a powerful Arab myth but a disastrous authoritarian model Why traditional monarchies in Morocco, Jordan and the Gulf often outlasted revolutionary republics How America became the Middle East's dominant anti-imperial imperial power after Europe's retreat Why militias, parastates and insurgencies make “total victory” in today's Middle East so elusive Find Simon on X: x.com/simonmontefiore Visit Simon's website: www.simonsebagmontefiore.com Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. Produced and edited by Thomas Small . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Isabella Hughes is the cofounder and chief revenue officer of the sour-gummy brand Better Sour. However, before founding her candy company, Hughes, who was born and raised in Hawaii, began her career in the arts, curating and coordinating exhibitions for a variety of organizations in the United States and UAE. She always had an interest in entrepreneurship, so in 2014, she started her first company—a Middle Eastern–inspired ice cream brand called Lezzetli. Around the same time, she came up with the idea for her second business, a Hawaii-grown herbal iced tea brand called Shaka Tea, which was acquired in 2022. After the acquisition, Hughes and her lifelong best friend Semira Nikou cofounded Better Sour. As daughters of Iranian immigrants who both grew up in Hawaii, Hughes and Nikou used their shared cultural backgrounds to inspire their flavors. Today, Better Sour is in over 4000 stores, including Erewhon, Whole Foods, and Sprouts.
What happens when a dream is placed on hold—but never truly dies? On this episode of Between the Notes, Paisan Kapitan welcomes Edmond and Armond Stepanyan, better known as The Armenian Twins, for the remarkable story of their return to music after 25 years. Their journey began in 1994 with a small Yamaha keyboard, a cassette recorder and a dream. After Armenian record stores initially rejected their music, the twins and their father produced and distributed 1,000 copies themselves—and sold out within two days. Their groundbreaking work helped introduce rap to the Armenian music community. Edmond and Armond open up about their father's faith in them, stepping away from music to raise their families and why they finally decided to make their comeback. They also discuss blending Armenian culture with pop, rap and melody, connecting with listeners through meaningful lyrics and their emotional new song, “Du Es Im.” Also joining the show is professional Middle Eastern percussionist Gokor Simityan, whose musical journey began at just two years old with a pair of spoons and an empty water bottle. Gokor shares how he discovered the darbuka, developed his signature finger-split technique and turned a childhood passion into a career bringing energy and joy to weddings, concerts and cultural celebrations. Plus, don't miss Gokor's live in-studio performance and a hilarious rapid-fire bonus round featuring aliens, famous twins, casino disasters, Nutella—and one million-dollar offer the Armenian Twins immediately reject! Like, comment and subscribe for more Armenian music, culture and unforgettable conversations from Between the Notes, presented by Hye Jams Radio. FEATURED GUESTS The Armenian Twins — Edmond & Armond Stepanyan Instagram: @ArmenianTwins YouTube: @ArmenianTwins Gokor Simityan — Professional Percussionist Instagram: @gokorsimityan Facebook: @gokorsimityan HOST Paisan Kapitan Instagram: @paisankapitan PaisanKapitan.com ***Available for Hosting and Voice Over: paisan@hyejams.com HYE JAMS RADIO Instagram: @hyejams HyeJams.com Download the Hye Jams app and listen to contemporary Armenian hits 24/7. ━━━━━━━━━━━━
Sepideh Moafi wants you to get raw with your emotions.Season 2 of HBO Max's original series, The Pitt, brings a new doctor into the fold: Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi. An Iranian-Iraqi attending physician, she brings empathy and discipline into the chaotic ER that viewers have come to love. While she ruffled some feathers at first, her commitment to her fellow doctors and patients has made her a fan favorite.That's all thanks to Sepideh. Her performance as Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi has earned her an Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series. The nomination makes her the first Iranian woman and the first woman of Middle Eastern or SWANA - Southwest Asian, North African - descent to get nominated in the category.Sepideh joins the show to unpack how her journey as an opera singer and a human rights advocate led her to this historic moment.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show's perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy
Acclaimed University of Houston Africana Studies professor Dr. Gerald Horne returns to enlighten and empower our community. Dr. Horne will dive deep into today’s most urgent global issues—unpacking the crisis in Iran, Cuba’s resilience under siege, the rise of China, primary elections that shape our future, and the US crackdown on the Caribbean. He’ll also offer an exclusive preview of his latest book and connect the dots between sports and society in ways you won’t hear anywhere else. Before Dr. Horne takes the mic, hear from renowned Middle Eastern expert Matthew Hoh as he reveals how the Iran conflict is rippling across borders and why an end may not be in sight. The morning kicks off with Cultural Anthropologist and Garveyite leader Tomiko Shine, who brings you a front-row report from Baltimore’s historic UNIA-ACL international convention.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
TABLE OF CONTENTS THE JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW, 8-19-2026Rebecca Grant, Vice President of the Lexington Institute, discusses technological advancements on the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. She details the transition from traditional steam-powered catapults to modern electromagnetic aircraft launch systems (EMALS), which offer superior, adjustable torque to launch both lightweight drones and heavily armed fighter jets. Additionally, Grant highlights the ship's new electromagnetic advanced weapons elevators, which double the capacity of older Nimitz-class systems and move much faster to significantly improve sortie generation rates. However, a White House executive order directing a study to reconsider steam systems threatens to disrupt these advancements. Grant warns that backtracking to older technology on carriers currently in construction, like the CVN-81, could delay delivery by up to seven years, creating dangerous operational gaps as Chinese naval threats rise in the Pacific. (1)Rick Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center analyzes China's advancement in space and its competition with the United States. Fisher discusses China's Gandai constellation, a space debris monitoring satellite system controlled by the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which tracked a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster crashing near the moon's Einstein crater from over 380,000 kilometers away. He warns that this constellation can perform dual-use military targeting for space combat and missile defense. Fisher criticizes China's lack of transparency, noting its refusal to give advance notice for earthbound ICBM tests and its intention to let expendable propulsion stages crash into the lunar surface. Finally, he highlights the rapid progress of China's LandSpace with its liquid-fueled, methane-oxygen-powered reusable Zhuque-3 rocket, predicting that ten Chinese companies will offer cheap reusable launch services within five years and directly undercut Western competitors. (2)Greg Scarlatoiu, President and CEO of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, analyzes the multifaceted security threats posed by Pyongyang. Scarlatoiu describes North Korea as a post-communist, dynastic kleptocracy and a crime family masquerading as a nation-state. Under Kim Jong-un, the regime has consolidated its intelligence and police agencies while streamlining its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Scarlatoiu explains that North Korea's war economy exploits its people's human rights and security to fund weapons, which it now exports globally to Russia and Iran. The discussion, co-hosted by Gordon Chang, highlights active military provocations along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), including recent boundary crossings. Finally, Scarlatoiu and Chang evaluate how controversial remarks by the Trump administration praising Kim Jong-un have strained trust in extended deterrence and undermined relationships within the vital US-South Korea alliance. (3)Craig Unger, investigative reporter and author, explores President Donald Trump's unstable foreign policy toward Russia and Ukraine. Unger contends that Trump behaves as a Russian appeaser whose real estate-linked advisers take marching orders from Vladimir Putin. The discussion highlights how Ukrainian-manufactured drones have successfully targeted Russian oil refineries, causing severe fuel shortages and long gas lines across Russia. While these military successes initially impressed Trump, leading him to publicly promise Patriot missiles and production technology to President Zelenskyy, Unger reveals that Trump subsequently withheld this critical support. Unger cautions that as Putin faces an existential crisis and potential military defeat, he may launch a limited incursion into Baltic states like Estonia or Poland. This would trigger NATO's Article 5, which Unger warns Trump would likely refuse to honor, thereby destroying the Western alliance. (4)Caleb Weiss of the Bridgeway Foundation and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies examines the evolution of African jihadist movements. Weiss details the case of Jamal Chima, a Ugandan Guantanamo Bay alumnus who transitioned from Al-Qaeda to recruiting for the Islamic State Central African Province (ISCAP) in Kampala. Weiss explains that East African court systems frequently experience "catch and release" cycles due to strict evidentiary demands for terrorism cases. The segment also addresses the kidnapping of missionary Kevin Rideout by the Islamic State Sahel Province. Weiss describes how these groups raise funds through lucrative ransoms, utilizing regional coordination hubs like the Al-Furqan and Al-Karrar offices to move capital globally to active cells in regions like Afghanistan. Finally, he notes that eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar has leveraged anti-jihadist operations to secure Western backing. (5)Michael Bernstam of the Hoover Institution warns of a severe global crisis in refined petroleum products, especially diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel. Bernstam explains that the "crack spread"—the cost differential between crude oil and refined diesel—has reached an unprecedented historical peak of over $102 per barrel. This crisis stems from a fifty-year systemic failure, during which no major new refineries were built in the United States or Europe. Compounding this, sophisticated Ukrainian drone strikes have successfully knocked out 40% of Russia's refining capacity, forcing the major oil exporter to ban refined product exports and become an importer. Additionally, China has halted refined exports to meet its domestic demand. Bernstam warns that the resulting global diesel shortage directly threatens agricultural planting, harvesting, and regional food security, particularly for developing nations as winter approaches. (6)Peter Huessy of the Gold Institute for International Strategy critiques the Hollywood film House of Dynamite for its inaccurate depiction of US nuclear command and control. Huessy argues that the movie relies on flawed premises, such as the sudden, unexplained failure of Defense Support Program (DSP) tracking satellites and the total failure of US missile defense interceptors, to fabricate a helpless crisis scenario. He highlights that actual US missile defenses achieve 75% to 85% success in tests and up to 98% in combat scenarios like Israel's missile defense systems. Huessy strongly refutes the film's negative portrayal of military leadership as reckless warmongers and its central message that nuclear deterrence is ineffective. He asserts that the nuclear triad has successfully and perfectly preserved global peace for eighty years, keeping the country safe. (7)Simon Constable, writer for the Wall Street Journal, discusses European climate anomalies and their severe impact on global commodities. Speaking from the south of France, Constable reports temperatures reaching 35 degrees Celsius, contributing to low water levels in the Danube, Rhine, and Po rivers. These climate constraints, alongside maritime blockades of Ukrainian ports, have driven up prices for energy, wheat, and coffee. Turning to UK politics, Constable criticizes Prime Minister Keir Starmer for failing to spur house-building and notes that regional politicians like Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham lack an international profile. Finally, he reviews a longevity quiz from the Wall Street Journal, which highlights that the wealthiest Americans live fourteen years longer than the poorest. He notes that Japan leads the world in centenarians, emphasizing that geographic location and financial wealth are pivotal factors in determining an individual's healthy lifespan. (8)Andrea Stricker of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies examines Middle Eastern nuclear proliferation and the mystery surrounding legacy materials. Stricker details a positive, US-brokered development in which the post-AssadSyrian government agreed to cooperate and turn over legacy yellowcake uranium stored at a covert facility known as Site 99. This material was intended for a North Korean-built plutonium-producing reactor at Al-Kibar, which was destroyed by Israel in 2007. Despite long-standing Syrian secrecy and the site changing hands among various factions, environmental sampling by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed undeclared, man-made uranium particles at multiple locations. Stricker also raises concerns regarding Turkey's nuclear ambitions, highlighting its civilian programs' potential military purposes and Turkey's recent attempt to secure raw uranium contracts with the military regime in Niger. (9)Joel Kotkin, senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, examines California's economic and demographic challenges. Kotkin notes that California is on the verge of losing its population lead as middle-class families vote with their feet and move to states like Texas. He attributes this out-migration to exorbitant housing costs, a severe shortage of upwardly mobile middle-class jobs, and high electricity prices that hamper manufacturing and modern technology sectors like artificial intelligence. Furthermore, Kotkin highlights systemic social issues, including high teen unemployment, rising store break-ins, and a deteriorating public education system. These factors have depleted the state's middle class, leaving the tax base heavily dependent on a wealthy top one percent who can easily relocate to lower-tax states like Florida. Kotkin warns that this loss of middle-class families threatens California's future tax base and demographic vitality. (10)Corrections applied, several pending your confirmation: Bridgeway Foundation (transcribed as "Ridgeway," segment 5 — Weiss's actual affiliation), Al-Furqan and Al-Karrar offices (transcribed as "Al-Furkan and Al-Karr" — the standard renderings of the ISIS regional offices), LandSpace and Zhuque-3 (transcribed as "Land Space Corporation" and "Juk 3" — the Chinese firm and its rocket), Zelenskyy per house style, and "yellow cake" → yellowcake. One flag: "Gandaiconstellation" (segment 2) — I couldn't verify that name; the audio may be rendering a Chinese program name roughly, worth checking with the transcript or Fisher's notes. In segment 8, note the source describes Keir Starmer as PM and Andy Burnham as Manchester Mayor — this contradicts the recent batches where Burnham is PM. I've left it as the source has it since it's Constable's segment, but flag it if the summary tool garbled the timeline.R
Andrea Stricker of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies examines Middle Eastern nuclear proliferation and the mystery surrounding legacy materials. Stricker details a positive, US-brokered development in which the post-AssadSyrian government agreed to cooperate and turn over legacy yellowcake uranium stored at a covert facility known as Site 99. This material was intended for a North Korean-built plutonium-producing reactor at Al-Kibar, which was destroyed by Israel in 2007. Despite long-standing Syrian secrecy and the site changing hands among various factions, environmental sampling by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed undeclared, man-made uranium particles at multiple locations. Stricker also raises concerns regarding Turkey's nuclear ambitions, highlighting its civilian programs' potential military purposes and Turkey's recent attempt to secure raw uranium contracts with the military regime in Niger. (9)
Stijn Schmitz welcomes back Art Berman to the show. Art Berman is The Energy Realist. Berman explains that the initially feared catastrophic disruption from the Iran War has been partially offset, with production losses revised down to roughly 5 million barrels a day, though he stresses this remains a historically massive number. The absence of immediate global economic collapse is attributed to significant demand destruction, particularly in China, and the critical role of inventories. Using an analogy of a savings account versus a paycheck, he distinguishes between strategic and commercial reserves, noting that ample inventories have cushioned the market, preventing oil prices from spiking as they did during the Ukraine war when stocks were dangerously low. However, he warns that this cushion is finite and being drawn down at an alarming rate, with his comparative inventory model suggesting severe price pressures could materialize by November. The discussion highlights the profound risks associated with shut-in production, where wells may never return to prior output levels due to complex subsurface physics. Berman describes the situation as a permanent “phase shift,” arguing the global oil system is fragmenting into distinct geopolitical blocs and will never revert to its pre-war state. He emphasizes that alternative supplies are not a simple solution because crude oil quality varies dramatically; light U.S. shale oil cannot easily replace medium-grade Persian Gulf crude required by many refineries. Looking at the longer term, Berman frames oil as a mature, declining resource, stating that civilization must eventually adapt to the end of perpetual growth, a transition that will fundamentally reshape society. Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Introduction 00:00:44 – Iran War Energy Disruptions 00:03:00 – China Demand Destruction Analysis 00:05:24 – Diesel Prices Regional Impacts 00:06:52 – Stocks Versus Flows Distinction 00:09:04 – Savings Account Analogy 00:18:14 – Global Inventories Assessment 00:22:37 – Persian Gulf Production Losses 00:33:15 – Lost Production Focus 00:39:51 – Phase Shift Market Scenario 00:50:53 – Refinery Tightness Crack Spreads 00:59:03 – Comparative Inventory Tool 01:21:20 – Concluding Thoughts Guest Links: Website: https://artberman.com X: https://x.com/aeberman12 Art Berman isn’t your run-of-the-mill energy consultant; he’s a full-blown disruptor in a realm riddled with myths. With 40 years in petroleum geology and an intriguing twist – a degree in Middle Eastern history – Art slices through energy complexities with academic rigor and market savvy. Forget what you thought you knew. This man’s comparative inventory approach is a guiding light for traders, investors, and policymakers. And he doesn't just spend his time consulting. Art is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Houston, your go-to expert witness, and an electrifying keynote speaker who doesn’t mince words. In a sector awash with misinformation, Art’s your source for gut-punching, data-backed truths. His clientele spans from ambitious investors to globe-spanning corporations, all seeking decisions steeped in reality, not fantasy. Love him or hate him, one thing is certain: Art Berman is an undeniable force in the energy sector. Away from the charts and graphs, Art enjoys Baroque music and psychology and spending family time with his wife, kids, grandkids, and his dog, Lily. So, are you ready for the unvarnished truth? Look no further.
The lamestream media is obsessed with the supposedly "bad" conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in Middle Eastern waters. What's the real situation there? Our tough-talkin' host, Mike Slater, has the REAL scoop on this and more in a fiery all-time opener! Following that, Slater chats with Bruce Blakeman about his campaign to become the state of New York's next great Republican Governor! Tune in to find out why he's TOTALLY going to kick Kathy Hochul's butt in the November election! MAGA! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
President Trump has some of the worst approval ratings of any president in modern history, second only to Richard Nixon the week before he resigned. On this week's On the Media, what the polls say about Americans' perceptions of Trump and his policies. Plus, a look at the polarized propaganda being beamed into Iran. [01:00] Brooke Gladstone interviews G. Elliott Morris, journalist, statistician, and author of the data-driven news website Strength In Numbers, about public perceptions of President Trump and his policies, and what Trump's historic unpopularity could mean for the upcoming midterm elections. [19:14] Micah Loewinger speaks with Nancy Scola, a reporter covering tech, policy, and politics, about her recent profile of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, tracing his trajectory from “spectrum nerd,” to MAGA insider. [36:23] Micah sits down with Nahid Siamdoust, an assistant professor of media and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin, to discuss the state of the Iranian media landscape, and how a newer anti-regime channel, Iran International, is contributing to intense polarization among Iranians around the world. Further reading / watching: “What's behind Donald Trump's record-low approval rating?” By G. Elliott Morris “How Brendan Carr Became MAGA's Media Watchdog,” by Nancy Scola “Spreading Static,” by Nahid Siamdoust On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.