This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – Amid all the hullabaloo of a supposed hostage deal that never was between Israel and Hamas, the situation regarding Iran's increasing proximity to achieving its nuclear goals have until recently flown somewhat under the radar. However, over the last week or so, several stories have emerged about just how close Tehran is to revealing it, too, has joined the nuclear weapons club.

On Wednesday, foreign policy analyst Walter Russell Mead argued the next administration – whether Republican or Democrat – would likely need to confront a nuclear-armed Iran, or take steps to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons, according to the Jewish Insider.

"My guess is that the next president will likely face a nuclear Iran – or face the alternative of war with Iran or accepting a nuclear Iran," Mead said in remarks at the American Enterprise Institute. "I don't think either candidate really knows what they would do under those circumstances, but I think that is something they are very likely to face."

Other outlets including the Free Press and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies have similarly posited Tehran's acceleration toward confirming its development of nuclear weapons. The so-called civilized West has attempted with varying levels of success to either deal decisively or placate Iran's nuclear ambitions for more than two decades. In an article for Slate magazine in 2010, English-American polemicist Christopher Hitchens wrote the following:

"When the day comes that Tehran can announce its nuclear capability, every shred of international law will have been discarded. The mullahs have publicly sworn – to the United Nations and the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency – that they are not cheating. As they unmask their batteries, they will be jeering at the very idea of an 'international community.' How strange it is that those who usually fetishize the United Nations and its inspectors do not feel this shame more keenly."

It could cogently be argued the notion of "international law" has already been discarded, especially since the events of Oct. 7, although the overall point about Iran's clear intentions and their flouting of the rules governing the production of nuclear weapons still holds true.

Michael Rubin, director of policy at the Middle East Forum, responded to questions from WorldNetDaily saying it was "almost inevitable" Iran will get the bomb.

"The question is whether they believe they gain more by dragging out the process and the degree to which they fear isolation following a nuclear breakout. The strategic question is whether the United States can delay Iran's nuclear acquisition until after the regime falls. After all, the problem is less an Iranian nuclear bomb, than a nuclear bomb wielded by those embracing Ali Khamenei's ideology."

In a tantalizing response regarding Mead's contention about the next U.S. president having to contend one way or another with a nuclear Iran, Rubin said the parlous condition of the Islamic Republic, which he labeled "terminally ill," might cause the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, to simply throw caution to the wind and attempt to attack Israel with nuclear weapons.

"If the regime is collapsing anyway, what is to stop them doing that," he asked rhetorically.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, released two reports in late August regarding Iran's nuclear advances and non-compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT. The reports indicate "Tehran has added to key enriched uranium stockpiles and installed hundreds of fast uranium enrichment centrifuge machines. This provides the regime with the ability to rapidly make fuel for up to 15 nuclear weapons, according to new estimates issued by the Institute for Science and International Security," as reported in an FDD news brief.

The IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors met Monday to discuss Iran's continued failure to comply with the organization's censure resolution of June 2023. The resolution demanded that Iran "cooperate with the IAEA to resolve a multi-year investigation into the regime's nuclear weapons work, reinstate access for key agency inspectors, permit enhanced IAEA monitoring, and provide details on missing nuclear material and the construction of new nuclear facilities."

Meanwhile, neither the United States nor its European partners seem likely to censure Iran at the next IAEA meeting, i.e. they seem consigned to the reality of the worst global state sponsor of global terrorism being able to hold the world to ransom due its possession of nuclear weapons.

"Facts are stubborn," said FDD CEO Mark Dubowitz. "Most of Iran's nuclear weapons expansion has occurred since the election of Biden-Harris and their decision to abandon the pressure strategy of the previous administration."

None of this is conjecture, and recently translated Iranian parliamentary documents detail how Tehran is significantly expanding the funding and military pursuits of the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, known by its Farsi language–based acronym, SPND.

"While the new Iranian legislation doesn't specifically mention nuclear bomb development, it clearly states that SPND's mandate is to produce advanced and nonconventional weapons with no civilian oversight," according to the Free Press. "The legislation states that 'this organization focuses on managing and acquiring innovative, emerging, groundbreaking, high-risk, and superior technologies in response to new and emerging threats.'"

The SPND is home to nuclear scientists, at least six of whom Israel has been accused of assassinating. This includes Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, regarded as the chief of Iran's nuclear program, who was killed in a daring operation in November 2020, which seemed to leap straight from the pages of a spy novel. Israel allegedly attempted to take out a sixth scientist as well, although that operation was unsuccessful.

This is also not to forget Mossad agents exfiltrated a half-ton of documents from a Tehran warehouse, which Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used liberally in a presentation where he charged Iran with flat out lying about its nuclear ambitions – and he had the receipts to prove it. Rubin said Israel's purported actions had succeeded in delaying Iran's development of nuclear weapons, although he added the West's tendency to "kick the can down the road," does eventually lead into a cul-de-sac.

Indeed, even the U.S. is perturbed by Iran's seemingly brazen dash for the bomb. In July, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), a top intelligence body, released a report saying it could no longer verify Iran's nuclear pursuits were for strictly civilian purposes. This seems like an extraordinary admission that Iranian claims of the peaceful use of nuclear power were taken at face-value.

Is Iran using Middle East instability as a shield for nuclear development?

There are also concerns in Washington and Jerusalem in particular that Iran is using the current situation in the Middle East, which it has deliberately fostered, to create a smoke screen for its nuclear ambitions. And if it succeeds in manufacturing nuclear weapons, many of the options – including military – still just about on the table will immediately be swept from the board.

Ironically, the relative ease with which U.S., Israeli, French, British, and other coalition partners managed to knock its ballistic missiles out of the sky in its unprecedented April 13 assault on Israel, may have worked to focus minds on the nuclear option even more intensely.

Also, between the recent Iranian presidential election – called after the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a May helicopter crash – and the upcoming U.S. presidential election, nuclear diplomacy has largely been stalled. This does not mean, however, the stockpiling of highly enriched uranium, nor the refinement of fissile material has been similarly paused. Evidence would suggest quite the opposite. Senior U.S. officials now say Tehran could produce weapons-grade fuel in just a few weeks. Iran has also moved ahead with developing a potential delivery system for an atomic weapon: test-firing the long-range Simorgh carrier rocket in January, reported the Free Press.

The elevation of one or other of the U.S. presidential candidates will produce wildly different approaches to the Iran nuclear problem; a President Harris will seek, like her predecessors, to return to the negotiating table and reanimate the failed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Meanwhile, President Trump 2.0 will inevitably seek to reinstate his maximum pressure policy, immediately cutting off billions of dollars in petro-dollars and other revenue, which the Biden-Harris administration has with criminal alacrity given to Tehran. As Mead points out, by the time January comes around it might be too late to do anything about it anyway.

And what of Israel? Rubin is under no illusions as to how difficult taking out Iran's nuclear facilities would be: "The danger is that Israel can start such an operation but not finish it, simply because Iran is much larger than Iraq and Syria [Israeli fighter jets managed to take these out in one go], and its nuclear program much more dispersed. We're not talking a single sortie but rather well over a thousand, especially given the need to take out command-and-control, anti-air defenses, and enemy airfields."

However, he was unequivocal about what any Israeli leader would decide to do if Iran threatened the Jewish state. "Make no mistake, though. If Israel faces an existential threat, it will do what it needs to do; it is not simply going to acquiesce to its own destruction."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Amid the Democratic National Convention taking place in Chicago, there's legitimate excitement seeing a woman heading a major political party's ticket this year. Women are being encouraged to vote for Kamala Harris as a woman. But as a Christian, Iranian American woman, I will not be voting for Kamala because she represents exactly the values that endanger women in the Middle East and around the world. And neither should you.

For my first 33 years, I lived under the harsh rules of the extremist Iranian Islamic regime. I have countless scars of extremist Islam, including the torture and death of my husband, the breaking apart of my family, my arrest and imprisonment, misogyny in every aspect of life, and the execution of my closest friend.

I am very grateful to the United States, my adopted country and home, for providing me all the freedom as a woman, free from fear, persecution, and discrimination. I appreciate all my freedoms in America, and I always celebrate seeing women being empowered, flourishing, and attaining the highest leadership positions.

However, being a woman is not a good enough reason to vote for a candidate, especially when such a candidate does so much harm to the well-being of hundreds of millions of women around the world. There's no more vivid example of how Kamala Harris threatens women than by her support of the evil Islamic Republic regime, the enemy of women everywhere.

When I immigrated to the United States after being sentenced to death by hanging in Iran for the "crime" of converting to Christianity, I thought that in America I would be safe to be a Christian and express my faith freely. After a few years and completing two degrees, I was shocked and disappointed to see how some U.S. leaders endanger America's core Judeo-Christian values.

American leaders who have misguided policies of appeasing Iran's evil ayatollahs serve as useful idiots to the Islamic regime. Rather than holding the regime accountable, many politicians have empowered and strengthened them.

It is enraging to see that close advisers of some of our democratic leaders/politicians are agents of the evil ayatollahs who have infiltrated American society, politics, and media to threaten the United States from within.

Because I love America, it's urgent to warn Americans about the importance of preserving our freedoms and values and exposing the lies of the Islamic regime's agents in our midst, especially those embraced by people like Kamala.

Too many times, I have seen Kamala speaking at events standing next to and being embraced by well-known agents of the Islamic regime. Any average Iranian knows the truth that Americans who support Kamala must know: These agents pose a huge threat to America and the world, and of course women.

Through these events, and her actions and record, Kamala supports the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), hated by Iranians because of its treason to their people.

As a woman, how can Kamala be so indifferent to the suffering of Iranian women who have been persecuted, abused, and murdered because of not having a proper Islamic hijab or not being subservient to men? One prominent example is Mahsa Amini who was murdered in 2022. Another recent example is Arezoo Badri who was shot by the regime's "morality police" just a month ago and who is still fighting for her life. How can Kamala close her eyes to the women whose faces were scarred permanently because of radical Muslims throwing acid into their faces for not obeying the strict Islamic rules? How can she stand with exported agents of the Iranian regime in America, much less listen to their advice?

How can she stand with and appease the enemies of our allies? such as Hamas, which massacred and kidnapped many innocent Israelis and Americans. As a woman, how can her policies (much less who she associates with) not reflect the simple truth that the savage Islamic terrorists responsible for killing, kidnapping, raping, sexually mutilating, and dragging the bodies of innocent women through the streets of Gaza are the enemies of all women?

For decades, Iranians have been fighting against the Islamic regime. One reason that Iranians could not overthrow the regime is because of the betrayal of Obama and Biden, and now Kamala. By supporting the Islamic regime financially, and appeasing them diplomatically, they have emboldened it and its terrorist tentacles around the world, subjecting women to unspeakable horrors.

Radical Muslims have ruined the lives of many women in the Middle East including me. How can Kamala declare, "We will fight against anti-Muslim rhetoric. We are going to fight for our Muslim brothers and sisters," while standing with the members of NIAC who embrace it?

By fighting "against anti-Muslim rhetoric" it is clear who she is going to fight for and who she'll not fight for. She will not fight for America but for the Islamic regime and its agents. She will not fight for women who have suffered under Islamic rule, or for women in general.

Instead of fighting for our Judeo-Christian values, she's fighting for the dangerous misogynist Islamic values. A Harris presidency will empower radical Muslims to achieve their goal of dominating America and the whole world – to convert everyone to Islam through force.

Women who have been subjugated by misogynist Islamic rules and societies, who have been beaten, disfigured, imprisoned, and murdered, as women, do not care about the "right to choose." If America does not wake up to stop appeasing the Islamic regime and all it represents, these threats to women here are not far away, and the only choice will be what color hijab to wear. Maybe.

In a candid moment, Kamala described herself aptly. "As a woman, there is a balance to be struck between being tough and being a bitch," followed by her hysterical laughter. I appreciate her moment of honesty – because only a bitch can betray millions of oppressed women and stand with the enemies of her own country.

Women, and anyone who cares about our Judeo-Christian values, would be foolish to vote for her.

America needs a strong leader who will fight for America, and its core values on the right side of history, and preserve our future. Kamala Harris is not that person.

May God save our country from incompetent leaders whose eyes are only set on the worldly throne but not God's kingdom.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. Actually, he was pushed off the campaign by elites in the Democrat party, who quickly anointed Kamala Harris their Biden replacement amid publicly visible mental failings by Biden..

This all happened weeks ago, so as the Democrat convention gets under way this week in Chicago, amid fears of massive riots, it's not a surprise any longer.

But the party's platform, which will be considered and voted on during the course of the political maneuvers there, still talks about Biden's second presidential term.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

If the federal government could balance the budget and just move in the direction of paying the FIRST DOLLAR on the principal of the national debt, it would mean that a tectonic shift in attitude had occurred, and the madness and momentum of out-of-control government deficit spending will have reversed.

You were wise to be scared by last week's stock market "wobble."

This graph illustrates our impending, predictable economic disaster, our about-to-explode Debt Bomb (read that book description). It's taken from this excellent article: "Cowards in Congress blame others for our national debt. Just fix it, already."

Notice how the yearly budget deficit (orange) doesn't look so bad until you see the years of deficits piling up as total debt (red).

See our $35 TRILLION debt exploding on this National Debt Clock as it plunges us toward a preventable economic and societal cataclysm like a "cartoon snowball" gathering size and speed.

It was a mere $10 trillion in 2008, and $20 trillion as recently as 2017, 68% and 104% of GDP, respectively (GDP = Gross Domestic Product, the value of America's entire yearly economy; debt-to-GDP ratio explained here).

It's taken just seven years to go from $20 trillion to today's scary $35 trillion, a 57% increase and an amount that's 122.8% of GDP (currently $28.5 trillion). Our 2028 debt nightmare is estimated to be $46.7 trillion. That'll be a millstone on the U.S. economy at 147% of an estimated $31.6 trillion GDP!

This national debt crisis is a massive crime against our people because it causes an illegal "inflation tax" and "taxation without representation" on generations yet to be conceived.

Anyone who downplays this danger is a deceiver.

The next civil rights movement

Taking a stand on this issue will rank with the abolition movement leading to the end of slavery and passing/enforcing civil rights legislation. Whoever starts this much-needed conversation will make headlines and create a history-making political movement.

It's our "debt abolition movement"!

But how will paying the FIRST DOLLAR of principal ever happen when there is so little support for or interest in this issue? "We the People of the United States" are ignorant or in favor of this massive ticking Debt Bomb – or it wouldn't be happening! Most in public office aren't even lying about it except by omission.

Read this excellent article by President Trump's former chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney:

"As a leading Republican senator once told President Trump: 'No one in this town has ever lost his job for spending too much. People have lost for spending too little.' Candidates for office talk about what people want them to talk about … and right now, voters don't care about spending."

Another high-ranking Republican remarked, "Nobody votes for Scrooge."

In other words, dear reader, we are to blame.

The numbers in a historical and global context

The table on this page shows the national debt within 1 percentage point or having exceeded GDP since 2012.

The last time the U.S. had a balanced budget was during the Gingrich/Clinton era (1998-2001).

The last time the debt was reduced was 1956-57 (previous link).

Recent deficit spending has been massive, increasing the national debt by $9.5 TRILLION:

• 2020, $3.132 TRILLION;
• 2021, $2.772 TRILLION;
• 2022, $1.4 TRILLION;
• 2023, $2.2 TRILLION;
• 2024 projection, $1.9 TRILLION.

Our lopsided debt-to-GDP ratio will depress the economy, cause a severe recession or depression, and likely trigger a devastating worldwide depression because the rest of the world depends on America and has as bad or worse debt-to-GDP problems. Leading in the wrong direction, America is No. 1 for total debt.

But it gets worse …

Consider this "debt synergism":

1. Our current $35 trillion national debt compounded with
2. state and local government debt, totaling $3.7 trillion (top-right, red), and, frightfully, with
3. the federal unfunded pension and entitlement liabilities are estimated to be $218 trillion (lower-right corner).

Not counting No. 4, the total of all public debt is $38.7 trillion (No. 1 + 2) while our GDP is only $28 trillion. That's a 138% overall debt-to-GDP ratio, which is how America's debt debacle should be calculated.

Really scary is the $315 trillion global debt and 333% debt-to-GDP ratio. Don't look at this terrifying world debt clock.

'Unconstitutional' is how we got here

The Constitution doesn't authorize the opposite of the preamble's stated goals: "… to establish Justice, [and] insure domestic Tranquility. …" But across-the-board injustice and domestic disorder are exactly the predictable effects of massive deficit spending and the resultant inflation crime against humanity.

As in other cases, the Supreme Court invented something not in the Constitution, a power to "create money." Described as "evil" by Justice Stephen Johnson Field (below), it's an unchecked power, easily abused, resulting in massive injustice.

Like medieval alchemists, the federal "sorcerers" turn a negative, debt, into "money," a positive, albeit a counterfeit positive. Read at least the description (and click, "look inside") of money by Steve Forbes before reading this Federal Reserve hocus-pocus explanation.

This quotation is the concluding paragraph of Justice Field's lone dissenting opinion (8-1) in the last decision to uphold the 1871 Legal Tender cases, authorizing paper money. Prophetic about today's crisis, it's a great education about the nature of money and why the Constitution prohibits fiat currency, aka government-issued "blarney notes." Justice Field exposes the faux federal money-creating "power," that it's unconstitutional because it's as absurd as it is unjust:

"From the decision of the court, I see only evil likely to follow. There have been times within the memory of all of us when the legal tender notes of the United States were not exchangeable for more than one-half of their nominal value [during the Civil War]. The possibility of such depreciation will always affect paper money. This inborn infirmity no mere legislative declaration can cure. If Congress has the power to make the notes a legal tender and to pass as money or its equivalent, why should not a sufficient amount be issued to pay the bonds of the United States as they mature? Why pay interest on the millions of dollars of bonds now due, when Congress can in one day make the money to pay the principal? And why should there be any restraint upon unlimited appropriations by the government for all imaginary schemes of public improvement, if the printing press can furnish the money that is needed for them?" [Bracketed comment added.]

– Justice Stephen J. Field, Juilliard v. Greenman (1884), 100 U.S. 421, 470.

Our plan

Debt's HUGE constituency dooms us – unless we start a political movement and unite behind the moral goal of paying the FIRST DOLLAR on the principal of the national debt! Are you with me?

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The state of Colorado, far left, even extreme, based on its Democrat majority in the legislature and Democrat in the governor's office, has been on a tear in recent years to control what people say.

And it's been losing.

The latest case involves a man who wore a shirt while observing the state legislature. But the shirt had a message that state officials hated, so they threw him out.

Now those officials have had to backtrack, and say they were wrong, and to allow the man's shirt.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Donald Trump is erupting on Christopher Wray after the FBI director suggested to Congress this week the former president may not have been struck by a bullet.

"Concerning former President Trump, there's some question about whether or not it's a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear," Wray testified.

"I don't know right now whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have landed somewhere else," he added.

Late Thursday night, Trump reacted to Gray's suggestion, posting on Truth Social:

"FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasn't sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), but he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively "uneventful" – Wrong!

"That's why he knows nothing about the terrorists and other criminals pouring into our Country at record levels. His only focus is destroying J6 Patriots, Raiding Mar-a-Lago, and saving Radical Left Lunatics, like the ones now in D.C. burning American flags and spray painting over our great National Monuments – with zero retribution.

"No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a 'bullet wound to the ear,' and that is what it was. No wonder the once-storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!"

U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a former White House physician, got vocal about the matter, saying:

"Christopher Wray was COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE and OUT OF LINE to question if President Trump was hit by a bullet. All this rhetoric does is feed the fire of ASSASSINATION DENIERS and IDIOTS like Joy Reid and Keith Olbermann!

"I examined the bullet wound hours after he was shot. It was a bullet wound with ALL the hallmark signs that accompany a wound from a high-powered rifle. Not to mention, we ALL SAW IT with our own eyes!

"It's because of IDIOTIC and POLITICALLY MOTIVATED statements like this, that we don't have ANY confidence in the supposed #1 law enforcement agency in this country. We CAN'T TRUST THEM to run this investigation into the assassination attempt!"

In the wake of comments by Jackson, the FBI Friday issued its statement to Fox News Digital: "What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject's rifle."

Colin Rugg, co-owner of Trending Politics noted: "Why to believe your own eyes when you can listen to the media spoonfeed your lies?"

At the Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft wrote: "Chris Wray has single-handedly destroyed the reputation of the FBI, a once-respected law enforcement agency that is now the strong arm of the political left in destroying their political opponents."

He added Wray's "storied career at the FBI includes:

• Setting up innocent men in fake kidnapping plots
• Spying on Catholics at church
• Raiding the homes of peaceful pro-life activists and terrorizing J6 protesters
• Raiding the home of the former U.S. president on junk charges and allowing agents to sift through Melania Trump's underwear drawer
• Hid evidence that would have exonerated President Trump in his first bogus impeachment
• Doctoring evidence during the raid at President Trump's home
• Targeted parents at school-board meetings
• Hid evidence from the public on crackhead Hunter Biden's laptop in the run-up of the 2020 election."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Former President Trump's would-be assassin was a user of the popular social media site Gab.com, whose infrequent posts suggest he was a supporter of Joe Biden, says Gab CEO Andrew Torba.

"In the process of responding to an emergency disclosure request from a U.S. law enforcement agency, Gab learned that a pro-Biden/Harris account on the site was believed to have belonged to Thomas Matthew Crooks, who attempted to assassinate President Trump. After backing up the account, we notified the public," Torba said.

"Politicians like Eric Swalwell have tried to mislead the American people by claiming Crooks was a Republican."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Recently,  a U.S. Army anti-terrorism brief from Fort Liberty, North Carolina, identified various pro-life organizations as terrorist groups. Base officials have since denied this designation represents the Army's official position, but only after the incident was exposed on social media by independent journalist Sam Shoemate, or @samosaur on X.

In an official response, Fort Liberty officials released the following statement:

"After conducting a commander's inquiry, we determined that the slides presented on social media were not vetted by the appropriate approval authorities, and do not reflect the views of the XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Liberty, the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.

"These slides will no longer be used, and all future training products will be reviewed to ensure they align with the current DoD anti-terrorism guidance."

Shoemate has since posted on X of being "notified that the soldiers recently part of training on Fort Liberty (Bragg), who were told that certain pro-life groups are terrorists, are now under investigation."

Despite Fort Liberty's public disapproval, the source who provided the original image of the slide presentation to Shoemate told the Gateway Pundit, "The whole military is fundamentally and systematically infected with an ideology that is diametrically opposed to the fundamental mission of our armed forces: increasing lethality and winning wars."

Retired Army Public Affairs Officer Dr. Chase Spears agrees, telling WND, "The aggressively social justice-focused Army I recently departed after 20 years is not the combat-focused force I joined."

While conceding the slide presentation may have "gone rogue by not following the letter of the law," he said "it did not go rogue philosophically." In fact, says Spears, the incident aligns with what today's senior military leadership is willing to support. "They're only sorry that they got caught."

"You have to ask yourself: Are the measures put in place to keep this from happening not working, or are these really rogue individuals [who aren't following the rules] truly the ones responsible?" Spears asked. He added that there is another potential option: "Is this in fact what the military believes, and thus commanders are choosing not to discourage the addition of clearly leftist ideology into training materials?"

"Within the first 10 years I was in the Army," Spears told WND, "I would have been the devil's advocate, believing some guy or gal got overzealous and did something they weren't supposed to." However, in the last decade, he argues, "the military has gone through an extraordinary ideological transformation. This is not the first incident like this. It is not difficult to imagine that they're just saying the quiet part out loud."

The first time Spears attended a briefing he considered "clearly antithetical" to the U.S. military was in 2011, upon the repeal of the long-time "Don't ask, don't tell" policy in place regarding homosexual service members. From this point forward, he said, examples of blatant disdain and disregard for Christians and conservatives escalated.

"What's really embarrassing for the force is that they've been caught time and time again," Spears told WND. For example, in 2013, slides shared during a U.S. Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief labeled Christians as religious extremists, alongside the Ku Klux Klan, al-Qaida, Hamas and others. Later in 2013, former Army Secretary John McHugh ordered a halt to listing Christians as extremists, and even the ACLU applauded his decision.

That same year, Spears recalled, training slides created by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, or DEOMI, "categorized America's founders as holding to extreme ideologies in seeking independence from the British crown."

"What's the purpose celebrating of the 4th of July?" Spears asked. "What would be the purpose of the stars and stripes of the American flag and the oaths that we all take if DEOMI officially maintains that independence from Britain is actually an extremist ideology?"

"For any service member that believes this, I cannot trust that he or she has the best interest of American security in mind," he said. "I can't trust such a person to believe the Constitution and feel any kind of loyalty to it."

Spears also noted that last year officials at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, put out an "unofficial" message warning their airman not to attend a rally by Turning Point USA which helps advocate for conservative politics across the country's various education systems. "After this attempt at infringing on the rights of military members assigned there made the news," he said, "they walked it back."

Spears pointed out the common thread connecting the various examples of Christians and conservatives being depicted as extremists. "It's only when military officials get caught that they correct themselves, and fall back in line with the law," he explained, adding that "'ask for forgiveness, not permission' is a frequent refrain among mid-grade military decision makers."

"We're only seeing the tip of the iceberg, because most service members who attend these kinds of required training events are not going to speak out against or take pictures of it because they're terrified of retribution," he argued. "I promise you it's happening way more often than we realize."

"If we continue on the current trajectory, efforts to intimidate, stigmatize and silence Christians and conservatives in the force will become more brazen," Spears warned. "Too many military commanders today already ignore the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act and Department of Defense policy on convictional freedom, and they have gotten away with it," he told WND, adding: "A military that hates conservative values is one that will be incapable of its most basic purpose: to defend the nation."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

'They fear that if Donald Trump wins, he will follow through on a promise to close the border to asylum-seekers'

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A Milwaukee homeless man was shot dead blocks away from the Republican National Convention Tuesday, after he was seen wielding a knife during an altercation with another man in a local park.

Identified by family members as Samuel Sharpe, he had reportedly been living in a tent encampment in King Park less than a mile from the RNC convention. Alexi Worley, a spokesperson in the convention's joint command center said there was nothing to suggest the shooting was connected to the event.

According to an eyewitness, he had at least one knife on him when police officers ordered him to drop his weapon.

"My friends … got into an altercation," the eyewitness told WISN 12 News.

"One had, maybe a four-inch blade, the police were up in the thing, they came out, told him to drop the knife, drop the knife, and he turned around because he didn't realize they were there … and when he turned back around, they shot him … to me that was murder, I just witnessed a murder by the police," the eyewitness said.

Other eyewitnesses said Sharpe was experiencing a mental health crisis, and alleged multiple police officers were involved with the shooting, while others said Sharpe refused to drop the knife.

A group of community activists gathered at King Park, outraged that officers from outside were involved in the shooting. The Fraternal Order of Police President Brian Steel, confirmed Columbus Police Department officers were involved in the shooting.

Alan Chavoya from the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression told reporters the group had "warned" the city, Milwaukee Chief of Police Jeffrey Norman, and other officials, that "outside agitators" coming into the city for the convention, would cause a problem.

Fox News also reported a 21-year-old man was arrested wearing a ski mask and carrying an AK-47 pistol blocks away from the RNC event. The man was discovered by Homeland Security investigators and Capitol Police during a security sweep. As of this writing, charges were still pending.