Jerry Jr. is gone but not forgotten. ‘Liberty University, has announced it will be launching a full investigation after its President, Jerry Falwell Jr, was forced to resign.
To add insult to injury, Falwell not only left the institution his father started after sharing a photo to social media of himself and a woman with their pants unzipped, but at the same time, sensationally claimed that his wife, Becki, had been having an affair with a business associate of his.
“This past week challenged all of us to the core,” the Board of Trustees said in a statement. “While we had been willing to extend grace and understanding to Jerry Falwell, Jr. before, once the revelations about his past personal life came more fully to light, we acted swiftly and decisively to ask for his immediate resignation, which we received.
“Some may say that all the signs were there for a long time before last week. It’s certainly fair to say that there were questionable comments made, worrying behavior, and inappropriate social media posts, but all the signs were not there until the start of last week. While we still didn’t know the full scope of the matter, we have learned enough about the past to know that we had no choice but to take the leadership of Liberty University in a new direction.”
The university’s chairman, Dr. Jerry Prevo, has stepped into the role of acting President once Falwell stepped aside, pending an investigation.
“We are also committed to learning the consequences that have flowed from a lack of spiritual stewardship by our former president,” the Board stated, meaning Falwell will not be able to wander off quietly into the sunset with his reported $10.5 million pay-out.
“One of the leading forensic firms in the world has been retained by Liberty University’s Board of Trustees to conduct a thorough investigation into all facets of Liberty University operations during Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s tenure as President, including but not limited to financial, real estate, and legal matters.
“Throughout these past few weeks, we knew we were being lifted in prayer by the entire Liberty University community. For this we are especially grateful, as we know it was by the Lord’s grace that we were able to put aside emotion and make the decisions that were necessary and essential for bringing calm to the storm. We thank all those who extended prayerful support.
“Of course, moving forward, we are very mindful that we must seek leaders who demonstrate a full commitment to the spiritual mission of Liberty University by words, actions, and example. That is why, in addition to starting a search for a new president, we are also reviewing options to establish a new role in the top leadership of the University for someone who will serve as a spiritual coach, mentor, and guide to help ensure that every member of the University leadership fulfills his or her spiritual responsibility to live out the Christian walk expected of each and every one of us at Liberty.
“Lastly, we are charging Jerry Prevo to use the full range of his presidential authority to implement any changes necessary to improve the ongoing operations of the University, and to enrich the spiritual mission of Liberty University, not only for its students but also for every executive, administrator, faculty member, and the entire staff, and for a prospective new president, as well.”
The China virus has totally changed Australian society and politics. Patrick Morgan writes that ‘The Covid emergency has created two sides: the progressive Left want lockdown to continue, borders to remain closed, JobKeeper and JobSeeker to be continued, and the economy to remain weak, as continual growth is thought a Ponzi scheme. The Right proposes an opposite set of policies. Having insisted on a prolonged lockdown, the Left then took advantage of the resulting social vacuum to promote its own wide-ranging agendas, while insisting that society as a whole undertake a self-denying ordinance on activity. By endorsing the protest marches, which endangered the success of the lockdown, the Left was hypocritically breaking its own promises. The Left was most in favour of the lockdown and most in favour of the protesters breaking its rules.
Covid transmission is now predominantly by person-to-person contact, not from overseas returnees. The virus appears in the fourteen-day period after infection. Melbourne had a big spike in the fourteen days after the big march in June, with hot spots in the inner-north councils of Darebin, Brimbank and Moreland, which happen to be the heartland of the radical protesters. Investigative journalists who usually love drilling down into statistics suddenly went quiet on why the spike happened, and the authorities have adopted the attitude, “nothing to see here”, and then blamed the defenceless immigrant community. We have to work out our own explanations, as the Victorian government won’t provide any.
The lockdown caused disruptions on many fronts. With society in deep freeze, it should have been a time for maximum restraint and for postponing divisive public behaviour. But the George Floyd murder triggered a cascading series of protests around the world. Escalation and protest marches are now the default settings when anything goes wrong, an automatic response which permits unrelated issues to be caught up in a global torrent. It’s déjà vu, it’s back to the 1960s, the urgent need for an explosive issue is the constant. Aboriginal deaths in custody, colonialism and statue-toppling, refugee grievances and other issues were dragged into the mix to lambaste our society. High feelings, some legitimate, were ramped up to create an intoxicating atmosphere where considered rules and judgments don’t apply, a takeover move to advance an underlying agenda. Brendan O’Neill’s sober analysis in the Weekend Australian (June 13-14) revealed how inane but also dangerous this kind of behaviour is. O’Neill understood:
This no longer has anything to do with Floyd. Rather, we are witnessing nothing less than a power grab by the politically correct machine; an attempt by the new intolerant elites to export their eccentric ideologies into every street and square and corner of the public sphere. It really does echo the Cultural Revolution.
Recurring outbursts of frenzied public protest have become a feature of Western societies since the 1960s, when we were first exhorted to “let it all hang out”, a slogan which gave us inner permission to externalise feelings immediately we felt them. This revealed a deficient, thin-skinned emotional intelligence. We cast aside a natural tendency to scrutinise our reactions (Freud’s “instinctual renunciation”) before flaunting them publicly, and making them a burden on others. This was assisted by fear of being seen as “repressed”, or as a “young fogey” or “nerdy” in later iterations. What began as personal responses has now morphed into widespread public passions which periodically sweep through whole strata of society, a rollercoaster ride we can’t get off.
In the Covid lockdown emergency, those in the public sector such as academics, public servants and senior ABC staffers who do not have to worry about job security, favoured keeping the economy in deep freeze for longer. Compare them with those working in the private sector who have sustained large job losses, but who have no organised media voice. This is an inequitable situation: the well-off are arguing for policies which disadvantage the less secure—not a pretty sight. What happened to their much-touted sympathy for the disadvantaged?
A different embryonic split has developed between the federal and state spheres, with large powerful states like Victoria and New South Wales prepared to second-guess federal cabinet agreements. Covid now exists almost totally in the inner and middle rings of Melbourne and Sydney. As a result, state governments are the sphere where many crucial decisions are being made, on internal borders, health issues, control of public spaces and other matters. State governments have high debt; much recent employment growth has unfortunately been in public, not private sector jobs. A shift of focus to underperforming state bodies is a dangerous development for a balanced national economy.
We are in new territory, with outcomes on many fronts unclear. Polling and predictions should therefore be treated warily, but they have been constantly foregrounded. One poll found that women had been more disadvantaged than men during the emergency, another that two thirds of Australians suffer from unconscious racist bias. At the outset the Fairfax papers predicted up to 150,000 Australian deaths in a front-page story. Many predict that on the other side we are facing years of deficits and depression, but how would they know? What we notice about the predictions and polling is that their conclusions are pessimistic, and unsurprisingly come up with results that the pollsters/prophets/commentators agree with. The predictions are becoming self-confirming: if lockdown continues past its use-by date, which is what the pessimists want, the economy will tank, and their dire “predictions” will come to pass.
This is also the wrong time for an implosion leading to a changing of the guard in one of the two major parties. The ALP has historically been run by the majority Right, the only electable grouping. In the Victorian and federal branches of the party the Left is finally completing its long-term takeover of the party by purging the Right. Julia Gillard was its first left-wing federal leader, as the Left had the numbers in the parliamentary party. But the public was not quite ready to elect a radical federal government outfit; Gillard ran a minority show with the help of two outsiders. The branches are now strongly Green Left, and for the first time the parliamentary party and the federal executive are both in the hands of the Left, with Albanese replacing Shorten as leader.
In the Victorian branch something more radical has been happening. Daniel Andrews is the first Left Victorian ALP leader, and with support from the CFMEU hardly a moderate voice. Beyond Victoria he is the flag bearer of a loose, extra-parliamentary coalition of protesters, activists, media and academic sympathisers, radical unionists, greens and so on. It is a counter-government movement; it acts not as an opposition, but ignores accepted centres of authority and instead sets up its own authority system (all power to the soviets) which if accepted will accrue power to itself. Andrews acts in the new federal cabinet to sideline some of its agreements and to question its desired unanimity. He issues curt, ten-second sound grabs in a brush-off tone, to deflect queries rather than to defend his manoeuvres at length.
In addition, as Victoria loosens its links with the federal system, it has established formal links with the Chinese government by signing the Belt and Road agreement, and informal links through pro-Chinese activists, some of whom are the ALP’s and Andrews’s own staffers. The Victorian government seems on occasions as sympathetic to Beijing as it is to Canberra. At a time when China is exerting maximum external pressure, these internal connections raise worrying questions about Australia’s sovereignty.
In an emergency caused by China the culprit has not, as one would normally expect, acted to mitigate the worldwide problem it has caused. On the contrary China has gone on the offensive, taking advantage of the vulnerable position of frozen Western societies to exploit our new weakness. China has adopted a stand-off tone, as it now reprimands us in the way it does its recalcitrant provinces like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and the Xinjiang Uighurs. It now treats us as though we are already part of its far-flung co-prosperity sphere, which we should recognise, and whose orders we should obey. The Chinese ambassador in Canberra acts as a local satrap conveying Chinese Communist Party orders to us his subjects, and insisting on obedience and humility in his realm. This is the meaning of the Chinese Trade Minister refusing to answer Simon Birmingham’s phone calls—China is in the business of issuing warnings and demands, but not of treating others as separate sovereign entities it will freely negotiate with as equals.
Totalitarian regimes attempt to alter reality by imposing an ideological straitjacket on it. Of course at the moment this is an ambitious try-on, which can’t be enforced in reality, as China has few friends because of its recent gross behaviour, but its present gambit is more likely to become reality the more it is not resisted with resolute action.’https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/09/why-the-left-loves-the-lockdown/
This attack against Bible Christianity is occurring around the world.
‘It seems ads promoting religion in America are just too “sensitive” for Google and YouTube to handle.
A trailer for the upcoming documentary “America! America! God Shed His Grace on Thee!” was removed several times from Google and YouTube advertising. Centennial Institute, a part of Colorado Christian University (CCU), had bought ad space for the video and worked with Google to ensure that there was nothing wrong with the ad. However, the powers that be at Google and YouTube decided that the ad contained “sensitive events” and took it down. The ad was later restored.
“We are deeply disappointed that YouTube is censoring the challenges our nation is facing but more importantly the solution our nation needs to hear,” said Centennial Institute director Jeffrey Hunt. “We need to get back to the Bible for our country to thrive. Instead of censoring that message, it should be shouted from the rooftops!”
A Google spokesperson told the Media Research Center, “Our sensitive events policy was implemented at the start of the coronavirus outbreak to protect users from harmful advertiser behavior such as price-gouging. In this instance, our automated systems mistakenly overflagged the content as it includes mentions of COVID and imagery of face masks. We regret the error and the ads are now eligible to run. We enforce our policies consistently, regardless of political or religious affiliation, but have appeals processes in place specifically for circumstances like this. We have contacted the advertiser to resolve this issue and have reinstated the ads.”
The documentary will be released at the Western Conservative Summit, a virtual event taking place on October 10. “The new film aims to show how the Bible and Judeo-Christian values were deeply influential to the formation of the United States of America and how that influence has steadily eroded in the public square,” wrote Jubilee Cast. The documentary was directed by Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer director Nick Searcy, and Christopher Burgard.
Searcy stated, “YouTube wants to hide what is happening in America’s streets by branding it “shocking content” — but that is only because the riots aren’t polling well. If showing the riots would help their political agenda, they would be running 24/7.”
He continued: “The idea that, in America, YouTube can suppress or demonetize our trailer — which contains only 1) interviews with people about the importance of the Bible, 2) news footage of what is actually happening in America’s city streets, and 3) jokes by an International Film and Television Star — is the only thing truly ‘shocking’ about our content.”
The trailer shows prominent conservative figures like PragerU founder Dennis Prager, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, CCU president Dr. Donald Sweeting, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Rush Limbaugh producer James “Bo Snerdley” Golden, ACT! For America founder Brigitte Gabriel, acting director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, the late former presidential candidate Herman Cain, Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, and pro-life activist Dr. Alveda King.
“The death of religion in America is the death of America as we know it,” said Prager in the trailer.
“It appears as if YouTube just censored God. It didn’t work out too well for the Communists the last time they tried to eliminate God from society. It won’t this time, either,” said director Chris Burgard.
The trailer was rejected for three reasons: “shocking content,” “missing information,” and “sensitive events.” According to Google’s ad policies, content that is considered “dangerous or derogatory” is not allowed. “Shocking content” may include “Promotions containing violent language, gruesome or disgusting imagery, or graphic images or accounts of physical trauma,” “Promotions containing gratuitous portrayals of bodily fluids or waste,” “Promotions containing obscene or profane language,” or “Promotions that are likely to shock or scare.” None of these things can be found in the trailer.
My personal opinion of the whole Jerry Falwell Jr. thing is that he is a man who has no self control and too much money and seemingly too much time on his hands. Whether he is a true born again believer or not is a question that comes about because his life shows that he is not. If he is saved he is truly snubbing his nose at the Lord, certainly grieving the Holy Spirit that dwells within every individual believer and is showing total disregard to other believers. It also seems he could care less for those students who are seeking to get a ‘Christian’ education at the school which his father literally put his life into! The following is another piece by Julie Roys on the debauchery of Jerry Falwell Jr., family and employees.
‘For the past three weeks, the media has largely ignored the video Jerry Falwell Jr. posted from his now infamous “costume party,” and instead has focused on the racy picture of Falwell and his wife’s assistant with their pants unzipped. Yet the video, showing members of Falwell’s family—most of whom are employed by Liberty University, one at a very high level—may be even more shocking.
The video shows multiple Falwell family members dressed as characters from an extremely raunchy Canadian TV series called Trailer Park Boys (TPB). The show is riddled with profanity and drug use. And it features multiple forms of immorality—from group sex and pornography to homosexual affairs and prostitution.
This debauchery isn’t occasional. It’s frequent, as a scan through the episode titles show. Here are just a few. WARNING: they’re vile: “F**king’ F**ked Out of Our F**kin’ Minds’”; “Wh*re-aggedon”; “I Banged Lucy and Knocked Her Up… No Big Deal”; and “You Want the Lot Fees, Suck Them Out of the Tip of My C*ck.”
Yet the Falwells appear to be not merely casual watchers of TPB, but part of the show’s loyal cult following. The costumes donned by Falwell and his wife, his sons, daughter, daughters-in-law, and close assistants span several seasons of the program and reveal an intimate knowledge of the show.’ The rest of this article details the sordid shenanigans Falwell Jr. and others have gotten up to. The rest of the article may be read at https://julieroys.com/video-raunchy-falwell/?mc_cid=21cef7cb2b&mc_eid=b13d34ad49
Isn’t it sad when a professing Christian’s life arrives to the place where rumor and fact become indistinguishable. So it is with Jerry Falwell Jr. Here are THREE ARTICLES from secular sources on Falwell Jr. The first article is from a little over two years ago, the second from almost three years ago and the third is a very recent article. Falwell Jr. and Liberty University have a lot to answer for. This is the Good Ole Boys Club at work and Me thinks, most of it is fact.
From Rolling Stone we read ‘Falwell, 57, is the president of Lynchburg, Virginia’s Liberty University, one of the nation’s most prominent Christian colleges. More importantly, he’s President Trump’s principal liaison to evangelicals, the political involvement of which was fashioned largely by Falwell’s televangelist father, Reverend Jerry Falwell, Sr., who co-founded the Moral Majority movement in the ’80s. Falwell is not a pastor himself, but he’s taken on an overlarge role in the evangelical community after building Liberty University into a national powerhouse of Christian education.
Falwell’s profile has grown since he cozied up to Trump, who, according to Falwell, offered to install Falwell in his Cabinet as secretary of education, an offer he says he turned down. He has defended Trump unconditionally since publicly registering his support in the form an endorsement in January 2016, just before the Iowa caucuses. The endorsement was surprising not only because Trump embodied everything evangelicals detest, but because Falwell allegedly had already agreed to endorse Ted Cruz, to the point that Cruz’s campaign had written up a press release to announce the news, according to the Times. When Cruz’s campaign asked Falwell to make his support official, Falwell said he was not permitted to endorse primary candidates. Shortly thereafter, he endorsed Trump. “Clearly, something changed that led him to endorse Trump, and I would like to know what that was,’’ then-Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler told the Herald.
So what’s this about a “pool boy”?
In 2012, Falwell and his wife Becki visited the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. While there, they befriended a 21-year-old pool attendant named Giancarlo Granda. Granda soon began traveling with the Falwells, both to their home of Virginia to hike and water ski, according to the Times, and to the Cheeca Lodge in the Florida Keys, according to the Herald. The latter paper published photos of the trip to the Keys, with Granda smiling next to Falwell, the two looking like father and son. Just months after the friendship commenced, the Falwells offered to help Granda, who had practically no business experience, set up a venture in Miami. After consulting with his friend Jesus Fernandez Jr. and Fernandez’s father, they agreed to open a hostel. Falwell ponied up $1.8 million.
Why did Falwell (who was nearly 50 at the time) and his wife invite a 21-year-old hotel pool boy to travel with them on multiple occasions, and then put up seven figures for him to open up a hostel in Miami Beach that Politico described as a “cesspool of vice”?
Uhhhhh…
What about the salacious photos?
The relationship between the Fernandez family and the Falwells and Granda eventually went sour, and the Fernandezes sued, claiming they were being muscled out of a deal in which they were promised a controlling stake. The lawsuit, and many of the details of the Falwells’ relationship with Granda, were not know until Buzzfeed News reported on it in May 2018. Though it was not included in the lawsuit or Buzzfeed’s report, multiple compromising photos of the Falwells became a central element of the legal battle, according to the Times, which spoke to several people involved in the case.
Falwell has denied the existence of the photos — or at least that they’re of him — but the Herald reviewed three of them, which show Falwell’s “wife in various stages of undress.” When they were taken or by whom is not known, but, according to the Herald, two of them appear to have been taken at the Falwells’ farm in Virginia, and one at the Cheeca Lodge.
THEN THERE IS THIS ARTICLE by a graduate of Liberty who is also a homosexual. ‘”It’s actually that one,” our Uber driver said, pointing with one hand and shifting into reverse with the other. “Right here?” I asked, thinking he must have gotten the address wrong. All I saw was a liquor store.
“That’s it,” he said, crawling to a stop. Miami Hostel, 810 Alton Road, a dilapidated boarding house quietly hidden behind non-descript storefronts.
The trunk opened, and as my partner, Andy, pulled out our luggage, I took a deep breath and surveyed my temporary home away from home. This building in front of me, nestled quietly in a relatively rundownstretch of South Beach, contained three different businesses: an Italianrestaurant, a liquor store and a hostel.
As the Uber pulled away, Andy stood, slowly shaking his head. What had I gotten him into? “It’s probably not as terrible as it looks,” I told him. “Let’s go.”
The first thing I noticed was the almost eye-level gray gate with an odd, oval sign declaring that the hostel was—for lack of a better term—a safe space.
NO
SOLICITING
FUNDRAISING
POLITICS
SALESMEN
RELIGION
The “no religion” sign on the hostel’s front gate. | Brandon Ambrosino
“That’s weird, right?” Andy chuckled and opened the door. By then, he and I already knew, thanks to a tipster that the owner of the Miami Hostel was none other than Jerry Falwell III, better known as Trey, who purchased the property with financial help from his father, Jerry Falwell Jr., a man who pretty much embodies everything on that sign: the fusion of religion with politics, aggressive fundraising and a slick, salesman-like approach to public faith. It was Falwell Jr. whose early endorsement of Donald Trump in the 2016 primaries—he hailed him for living “a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught in the great commandment”—was seen as pivotal in helping Trump secure the evangelical vote.
At Liberty University, the Christian private school at which Falwell Jr. is the president and Trey is the vice president for university operations—and from which I graduated in 2011—all manner of vice is prohibited. Students, whether on campus or off, and whether school is in session or not—cannot consume alcohol or tobacco. Co-ed sleeping arrangements are verboten. And, in the words of “The Liberty Way,” the school’s student handbook, “homosexual conduct or the encouragement or advocacy of any form of sexual behavior that would undermine the Christian identity or faith mission of the University” are strictly prohibited. Any one of these transgressions could get you saddled with reprimands, financial repercussions, and even expulsion. And yet, here we were, in perhaps the gayest 6 square miles in the United States—South Beach, Miami—staying in Falwell’s gay-friendly flophouse with an on-site liquor store.
At least that’s the story I thought I was there to report. The more I dug into it, the larger and more byzantine the story became—and the more questions it raised. Though Liberty University officials declined to comment on the record for this story, senior-level sources at the university agreed to answer many of my questions. But rather than settling the matter, the answers they provided begat new and more serious inquiries that go beyond mere charges of hypocrisy over owning a hostel, and point to dubious behavior by Liberty University—actions which, according to several tax-law experts I consulted, could violate IRS rules.’https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/25/jerry-falwell-miami-hostel-liberty-university-trey-falwell-215528
THIS THIRD ARTICLE centers in on Falwell Jr’s wife. ‘A former Liberty University student says Becki Falwell, the wife of the university’s then-President Jerry Falwell Jr., jumped into bed with him and performed oral sex on him while he stayed over at the Falwell home after a band practice with her eldest son in 2008.
The student was 22 at the time of the encounter, near the start of Liberty’s fall semester. He said she initiated the act, and he went along with it.But despite his rejection of further advances, he said, Falwell continued pursuing him, offering him gifts and engaging in banter through Facebook messages.
How did all this continue for so long? I have spoken of the Good Ole Boys Club in several articles and this is exactly how it works. Whether it is Falwell Jr. and Liberty University or the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE) and missionary Dr. Donn Ketcham https://sadsaga.wordpress.com/ it is all a part of the way the Good Ole Boys Club works.
In my own opinion (which doesn’t carry much weight with some) Liberty University has never been what you might call a Biblically separated Baptist school of higher education. However, as far as I know Jerry Falwell Sr. never had a stain on his public reputation BUT that cannot be said for his son Jerry Falwell Jr. The following is from https://save71.org/ which is comprised of Liberty alumni which have been for some time advocating for reform at Liberty. They say ‘In the wake of Falwell’s resignation, the focus of Save71 is not on the salacious details of the most recent reporting on the Falwell family. Our focus is on improving our university, and for improvement to be possible, we must look beyond Falwell’s personal behavior and confront the failure of the university’s derelict Board of Trustees. Dramatic changes are necessary.
For years, Liberty’s Board of Trustees allowed Falwell to frequently, publicly harm Liberty’s reputation. The Board permitted Falwell and his family to run the school like a personal business at the expense of its faculty and students. Board members sat by while Falwell’s words and deeds disgraced the name of the Lord again and again.
The Board of Trustees is not a legitimate governing body. For years, Board meetings have been infrequent, brief, and filled with propaganda from Falwell and his staff. While some of its members, like Acting Chair Allen McFarland, take an active role at the university, many others do not. The Board is not qualified to determine who is best fit to lead Liberty, and its members should humbly recognize that.
After accepting Falwell’s permanent resignation, four things need to happen for Liberty to move in a positive direction. First, the Board of Trustees must permanently remove all the beneficiaries of Falwell’s inappropriate nepotism. Second, the Board should hire independent legal counsel to investigate the claims of financial corruption documented in previous reporting. Third, SACS, Liberty’s accreditor, should open an investigation into Liberty to determine whether its Board and executive leadership meet SACS’s principles of accreditation.’https://save71.org/
The Leftist Loony Lovies are still seeking to save the earth from the destructive hands of evil men. The supposedly conservative Australian Federal Government and the New South Wales supposedly conservative state government are both heading their citizens to the same energy demise as California and Biden’s future nightmare ‘BUILD BACK BETTER’. If only these Australian politicians would learn from the California experience.
‘Brief evening power blackouts that rolled across California cities and towns during an August 13-14 heat wave offer a warning glimpse of much more dire consequences we can absolutely count on occurring with enactment of the Biden campaign’s “Build Back Better” proposal to immediately eliminate fracking on all public lands, and virtually eliminate fossil-fueled power plants over the next 15 years.
In concert with the aspirational Green New Deal co-sponsored by his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., the plan calls for humongous expenditures in renewable energy, including installing 500 million solar panels and manufacturing 60,000 wind turbines.
Add to this that Biden proposes to have taxpayers finance a half-million electric car chargers all across America along with funding to help car makers convert their factories to electric vehicle (EV) production.
This, of course, will shift even greater energy demand from petroleum to the electrical power sector. Producing and recharging those EVs will require that sufficient energy be constantly available when the wind isn’t blowing and sunlight isn’t available.
That wasn’t the case on the evenings of Aug. 13 and 14 when the California Independent System Operator (Caiso), which manages the state’s power grid, declared a high-level emergency and ordered utilities to reduce power usage as demand outstripped supplies.
Although both orders were short-lived, the emergency measures exposed just how thin the grid’s margin for error had become.
PG&E, California’s largest utility, said the outages affected about 220,000 customers each night. Two other utilities, Edison International’s Southern California Edison and Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas & Electric, urged their customers to reduce power use but had fewer affected.
The August rolling blackouts were different from widespread intentional pre-emptive power shut-offs that left large populations in the dark last fall which PG&E and Southern California Edison each initiated when strong winds increased the risk of power lines sparking wildfires.
This emergency, and others certain to follow, are entirely avoidable as a Green New Deal harbinger of ill-wind to other states.
After all, most of the southwestern U.S. experienced the same heat wave, but managed to keep full power flowing.
Why couldn’t California manage to do the same?
The short answer is “politics.”
California Democrats have mandated that renewables account for 60% of state electricity by 2030, which has forced power providers to cut back on fossil fuel use and dramatically ramp up investments in intermittent “renewable”sources to meet that deadline.
In doing so, the state has almost eliminated coal-fired generation and has been reducing reliance on natural gas and nuclear power in favor of solar farms and, to a lesser extent, wind power, which now supply more than a third of its “typical” power needs.
But conditions aren’t always typical, and California energy policies are causing them to be increasingly less so.
During peak daylight hours California produces a surplus of solar energy, whereby power generators may be ordered or paid to cut back their production so the electric grid isn’t overloaded.
In fact during the August emergency Caiso reported that about 1,000 mega-watt hours (MWh) were curtailed — enough to power 30,000 homes.
About 1.3 million MWh of daytime power have been curtailed this year.
Evenings are a different matter entirely —times when solar energy plunges but power demand remains high. And that’s what happened in August as residents across the state were blasting their air-conditioning units while sheltering from the coronavirus at home.
Under “typical” circumstances, California has historically relied heavily during shortfalls on power imported from neighboring states as well as natural gas-fired plants capable of starting up quickly when needed. This time, however, neighboring Western states were also realizing rises in usage due to extreme heat, with less excess electricity to spare.
Meanwhile, state water regulations are also forcing the shutdown of natural gas-fired “peaker” plants along the coast that can quickly ramp up generation when the sun goes down. As a result, California’s Public Utilities Commission warned last year that the state could face an energy shortage as early as 2021 on hot summer evenings. They beat that forecast by a year.
Nevertheless, Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom cluelessly blamed the state’s grid operator and utility regulator in a letter for “failure to predict these shortages is unacceptable particularly given our state’s work to combat climate change.”
The charge added, “These blackouts, which occurred without prior warning or enough time for preparation, are unacceptable and unbefitting the nation’s largest and most innovative state.”
Tod Snitchler, chief executive of the Electric Power Supply Association, projects that “California, in many ways, is the canary in the coal mine. His trade group, representing power producers nationwide, urges, “Many of the natural gas units that some in California would like to see go away have been exactly what’s needed to keep the system operating.”
But that opportunity window appears to be closing as many natural gas and nuclear plants needed for 24/7 power have shut down in recent years because they can’t compete with heavily subsidized green energy.
A 10-year-old natural gas power plant in California’s Inland Empire is being decommissioned this year —20 to 30 years earlier than its planned lifespan.
While they can still get it, Californians already pay twice as much for electricity as Washingtonians and a third more than Nevadans.
Now their Sacramento Democratic leaders wish to share their overheated policy pain nationwide via a Joe Biden/Kamala Harris administration.
Before we allow that, take a close look at the condition of that canary in the abandoned California coal mine.
Numbers 32:23 …ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.
Some ‘professing’ Christians make out pretty good for the present when playing around in the pig pen of sin. In Lynchburg, VA ‘Liberty University is giving its former president, Jerry Falwell Jr., a $10.5 million severance package, despite numerous allegations of immorality and wrongdoing.
Falwell told The Washington Post that his contract entitled him to $2.5 million over 24 months—the equivalent of two years’ salary. During that time, Falwell reportedly has agreed not to work for a competing university. After two years, Falwell will receive around $8 million in retirement.
Falwell reportedly said the board gave him the severance because he is leaving Liberty without formally being accused of, or admitting, wrongdoing.
“The board was gracious not to challenge that,” Falwell told The Washington Post.
In Liberty’s statement yesterday, the university said that Falwell’s “severance compensation was dictated by the terms of his pre-existing employment agreement without any adjustment by the University or its Board.”
Falwell, however, has been accused not just of prurient behavior that violates the university’s own code of employee conduct, but of preying on Liberty University students.
Last night, Giancarlo Granda, the pool attendant who alleges he had sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell watched, tweeted a statement, saying: “The reality is Jerry Falwell is a predator. I know this because he sent me an image of a female Liberty University student exposing herself at their farm.”https://julieroys.com/liberty-falwell-10-5-million/?mc_cid=452087fbe0&mc_eid=b13d34ad49
Muslims in Australia seem to be a pampered and protected species. The city council of the western Sydney suburb of Blacktown HURT THE FEELINGS of many Muslims. Yes, their feelings were so hurt that explanations and ‘… apologies and reassurance were given by Blacktown City Council officials during a meeting with Muslim community leaders on Wednesday 19 August for the Council’s involvement in celebration of the founding of a temple, on the land of razed Babri mosque in India, held on Wednesday 5 August 2020 corresponding with 5 August 2019, the day Kashmir was stripped of its special status and placed under military lockdown since.
The Blacktown officials attending the meeting included the mayor, Councillor Tony Bleasdale, Ward 1 Councillor Moninder Singh and Mr Peter Filmer, Manger, Community Events and Sister Cities.
A petition (copied below) was submitted by the Muslim community leaders during the meeting signed by a number representatives of Muslim organisations in the Western Sydney area and beyond including Islamic Forum for Australian Muslims (IFAM), Australian National Imams Council (ANIC), Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC), Australian Forum for Kashmir (AFK), Stand with Kashmir and Islamic Association of Western Suburbs (IAWSS).
The petition questioned the Council in its role on the divisive celebration reportedly organised by the Hindu Council Australia that has hurt the feelings of Muslim community at large.
“A large section of the community in the Blacktown City Council area has serious concerns about the inauguration ceremony held on 5 August 2020 at Blacktown City Council to celebrate the Ram Mandir in India,” the petition read.
It was reported that the Hindu Council Australia installed a huge LCD screen in the Blacktown Council car park next to Civic Centre on Wednesday 5 August 2020 relaying the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, India by PM Modi.
The event was also attended by the Blacktown Mayor and Councillor Maninder Singh who both addressed the audience at the celebrations.
During the meeting Mr Peter Filmer strongly denied that the event was organised by the Blacktown Council and explained in detail as to how the organisers managed to hold the event without any formal permission.
“Initially the organisers wanted to set up lightings and hold a major gathering that the Council did not agree with and later asked for an EVM board to be set up. To our surprise we later found out that they had set up an LCD screen,” Mr Filmer explained.
The Mayor said that he agreed to say a few words at the gathering with the understanding that it was a religious celebration, admitting his ignorance of the historical background to the disputed site where the temple is going to be built. He formally apologised for his misjudgement regarding this matter during the meeting.
Councillor Maninder Singh also provided a detailed explanation leading to the holding of this event and denied any role in facilitating the celebrations.
“Let us clarify that Blacktown City Council did not provide the screen for the event on 05 August 2020. the screen was displayed by a private party and we sincerely apologise any offence caused,” Councillor Singh explained.
Mr Anjum Rafiqi from Stand With Kashmir, quizzed Councillor Singh reminding that him being of South Asian origins and of Sikh faith, he would have been privy to the dispute regarding Babri mosque/Ram mandir issue and the significance of the 5 August date in relation to Kashmir, but still failed to brief and advise on the issue to Blacktown Council officials.
Subsequently in a letter dated Wednesday 19 August, after the meeting Councillor Singh wrote to AFIC saying, I would like to extend through the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils my sincere apologies for any offence caused, this was never my, nor Council’s intention. I extend my hand in friendship to the Australian Muslim community and to all my constituents.”’https://www.amust.com.au/2020/08/blacktown-council-apologises-for-hindutva-celebrations/
