"Obamanomics"

This week President Obama kicked-off his new talking points venture with a rousing speech designed to...what? Bore us silly?

Talk about your summer reruns.

For most of 2012 (and 2008, for that matter) we heard (over and over and over again) how he was going to fix everything via:

• job creation
• repairing our aging infrastructure
• giving us affordable healthcare
• reforming immigration
• (and our personal favorite) end climate change

So what's the hold up?

"Washington has taken its eye off the ball," the President said.

Huh? But we thought he was Washington...ohhhhh...he means the Republicans. With all due respect, Mr. O, we've heard that song before: The Blame Game.

Here we are five years in and what have we got?

• a healthcare bill so poorly written and packed with problems and loopholes, even its champions no longer want it
• one out of every four Americans on some sort of government assistance
• an unemployment number that isn't projected to hit 2007 levels for another 11 months (if all goes well)
• five years worth of quantitative easings, a "last resort" that goes on and on, putting our economy at greater and greater risk of eventual sky-high inflation rates

So, what's the President's plan?

Give more speeches! No kidding. He pledged to spend the next several weeks touring the country, telling us how there's no way:

   "I will allow gridlock, inaction, or willful indifference to get in our way."

Okay, so how does that create jobs? Isn't he wasting time telling us how he's not gonna be wasting time? Or as Republican National Committee Communications Director Sean Spice tweeted, "More jobs will be created thru the announcement of the royal baby than thru the latest version of this speech."

Or could it be he's trying to butter us up for the coming debt ceiling debates and possible government shutdown this fall just before the midterm elections?

Obamanomics (which means: Big Government + Big Spending = Big Taxes) may make for a good speech, but a good economy? Not so much.

A wise man once said: "Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary."  -- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody" (Romans 12:17).

News: 

• CNBC: IRS, in charge of Obamacare, asks to be exempt from it
• USA Watchdog: Former President Jimmy Carter said last week: "The U.S. has no functioning democracy at this moment."
• NBC: Kansas slammed with baseball-sized hail in several counties
• Breitbart: Christian military chaplain censored for writing an article with the title "No Atheists in Foxholes." Atheists call for punishment.
• Times of Israel: Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister says PM Benjemen Netanyahu preparing to give away 86% of West Bank to create sovereign Palestinian state.

"Why is No One Covering This?"

While most of us are being bombarded day and night with the Trayvon Martin aftermath, a dangerous drama is being played out in Russia's Far East. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for a 'snap-drill' designed to plunge his nation's military into a state of 'full combat readiness' at a moment's notice.

The largest Russian military exercise since the Cold War is being simulated this week in response to a "hypothetical attack by Japanese and US forces." The impromptu war games are a massive show of force which includes:

• 130 combat aircraft
• 70 ships
• 5,000 tanks
• 160,000 troops
• 320 tons of equipment

Moscow-based military analyst Alexander Khramchikhin claims, "The land part of the exercise is directed at China, while the sea and island part of it is aimed at Japan."

Really? With the U.S. and Russia on the verge of a proxy war in Syria? And come to think of it, wasn't Putin a little ticked off by the Israeli bombing of Russian weapons supplies earlier this month?

H-m-m-m...you've got to wonder people, if maybe the tensions between them are starting to simmer.

Let's not forget the Russian's have been pressing the pedal to the metal in regards to accelerating their military build-up in recent years.

While the U.S. cut military spending by 15% in 2013, Russia has increased their's by a whopping 60%, the largest military build-up since the Cold War. And while America is calling for a reduction in nuclear weapons, Russia is busy working on a new generation of nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles which Kremlin officials say, "will be able to penetrate U.S. missile defenses."

So where's the media? M.I.A.

The Bible predicts Russia (aka Gog) will attack Israel along with Iran and a coalition of Muslim nations (Ezekiel 38). Maybe somebody should let the White House know this isn't exactly a good time to be cutting back on military spending. Just sayin'...

A wise man once said:  "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse." John Stuart Hill

"For I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like Me. Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done."  Isaiah 46: 9, 10

News:

• Detroit News: Detroit declares bankruptcy; largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history
• CNN: Jesse Jackson calls Florida an "apartheid state" in a reference to the Trayvon Martin case
• Capitalism Institute.org: House votes to delay Obamacare mandates for individuals for one year; last week's vote delayed mandates for institutions.

"Feast Day Eclipses in 2014-15: What Do They Mean?"

Back in 2008, prophecy buffs went nuts over a new "Blood Moon" theory. Speculation, ranging from the Second Coming to the rapture of the church, was rampant.

It all began when Pastor Mark Biltz of el Shaddai Ministries discovered a rare string of lunar and solar eclipses on NASA's website and connected them to the Jewish calendar. Four lunar eclipses (known as "Blood Moons" for their reddish color) will occur on God's annual Holy days of Passover and Sukkot in the years 2014 and 2015. Two solar eclipses will also take place during that same 12-month period, one on Nisan 1 (the Jewish New Year) and the other during the Feast of Trumpets (aka Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the seventh Hebrew month). Yeah, so what's the big deal?

Apparently, this unusual phenomenon of four consecutive total lunar eclipses, known as a tetrad, falling on Jewish feast days is quite rare. So rare, in fact, that it's only happened seven other times in history, and won't happen again for about a thousand years.

And get this--each of the seven times a tetrad fell on Jewish feast days in the past, it marked a major event in Jewish history.

Biltz, intrigued by Scriptures connecting the coming of the Messiah with signs in the heavens, (particularly those describing the sun going dark and a Blood Red moon) has been the target of much criticism. People accuse him of being a 'date-setter'. He defends himself by declaring, "The only dates I am giving is the dates NASA gives us for eclipses and the dates God gives us on His calendar and then I bring in the connection. You can do whatever you want according to your own theology with this information."

Fair enough.

But with 2014/2015 fast approaching, the end-time speculation is bound to go into overdrive again.

What should our approach be?

While we're all hoping for the soon return of Christ, let's not jump to any conclusions. In the past, tetrads that fell on Jewish feast days marked an event in Jewish history. The coming tetrad could signal something similar or nothing at all. Venturing more than that will only fuel speculation. For an interesting example of how some are interpreting these eclipses, click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QXc6BdRlOQ

"The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."  Joel 2:31, 32

A wise man once said: "Creation's design points to the Master Designer." -- Dave Branon, author

News:

• CNN.com: Scientists have developed iris-scanning technology to be deployed at schools, airports and banks. The software is being rolled out at some schools this fall.
• Pentagon: Espionage fuels China's fast-paced military build-up; U.S. defense official worries over China's lack of transparency about its military intentions.
• Reuters: Fed Chief Ben Bernanke reassures markets stimulus (quantitative easing) will continue into 2014.

"Is God Trying to Warn Us?"

When you blog about prophecy, people send you every freaky thing you can imagine. If we can’t verify it—-we don’t touch it. This week one of our sources sent us something particularly weird, a video showing blood red bodies of water around the globe.

Our first thought? Photoshop. Only it wasn't. This time it turned out to be true: The world is seeing a whole lot of red these days. Red rivers, red lakes, red waterfalls, red streams, red ponds, and red reservoirs. And it’s been happening everywhere with regularity for several years now.

India and Sri Lanka stunned meteorologists when rare red rain showers fell for over 15 minutes. Tourists in Australia were treated to a sight resembling a horror flick when the water at several popular beaches transformed into apparent blood. Pink snow shrouded the ground in Russia and red frost fouled the plants in Sewanagala.

And that’s not all, folks.

Starting in 2011, we were able to verify:

o   December 17—Jian River in China—turned red

o   February 16—Lebanon’s Beirut River—turned blood red

o   June 3—200 tons of sardines died in Ohara, Japan as a result of—you guessed it—the sea turning crimson

o   July 29—Azou Sea in Russia/Ukraine—turned red

o   August 10—The Camargue in the Rhone Delta—went a hideous tomato soup color

o   August 4—Lake Retba in Senegal—went red

o   September 7—Yangtze River in China—flowed blood red

In 2012:

o   Alaska

o   Antarctica

o   Australia

o   Bulgaria

o   Canadian Rockies

o   China

o   Iran

o   Iraq

o   Memphis, Tennessee

o   Ohio

o   Texas

…all reported the strange phenomenon of blood red waters and lots of dead fish. 

We know what you’re thinking: Doesn’t the Bible say something about turning water into blood?

Why, yes it does. The 2^nd and 3^rd “Bowl Judgments” in the Book of Revelation says:

“Then the 2^nd angel poured out his bowl on the sea and it became blood as of a dead man; and…every living creature in the sea died” (Rev. 16:3).

“Then the 3^rd angel poured out his bowl on the rivers, and springs of water, and they became blood” (Rev. 16:4).

So, is all this red water a fulfillment of Bible prophecy as some claim?

Nope. These prophecies will not be fulfilled until the 7 years of tribulation begins after the church age is over. The most likely causes of this red water phenomenon are: man-made pollutants, algae, dye, zoo-plankton blooms (red tide), or some other less-than-supernatural cause.

Could God be trying to remind the world that life on this planet, as we now know it, won’t last forever?

We think it’s possible. One spin around the internet in regards to this growing spectacle will tell you people are jumping to that conclusion. After all, God frequently uses “natural” phenomena to get our attention. To see for yourself, click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e_nlAswAEG0

A wise man once said: “God gives us loving warnings in His Word to protect and preserve us”—Dennis Fisher, Our Daily Bread

“And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work” (Rev. 22:12).

News: 

• Debkafile: Egyptian military coup sweeps president out of office.
• Drudge Report: ObamaCare employer mandate delayed until after 2014 midterm elections.
• Reuters.com: Obama, Merkel agree to surveillance talks; European allies upset over U.S. spying allegations.