Can the American Flag Once Again Lead Us Back to Unity?

 

Imagine a moment when the American flag, battered but resilient, stood as a beacon of unity. From the tragic ashes of 9/11 to moments of national triumph, this enduring emblem has symbolized resilience, hope and a shared identity. Today, as cultural divisions deepen, can the flag again inspire us to unite as one nation?

The U.S. State Department’s “One Flag Policy” mandates that only the American flag — except for specific instances, such as the POW/MIA flag — be flown at U.S. embassies around the world. To ensure a unified identity, this policy prohibits additional flags, including the Pride flag and the Black Lives Matter flag. 

While the policy invites debate, its purpose is clear: to promote unity over division. In an era when division permeates our culture and churches, this policy encourages us to reflect on unifying principles and the significance of raising one banner high.

Red, white and blue: symbols of freedom

Flags signify a common identity and set of values. The red in the American flag represents sacrifice, white denotes purity and blue signifies justice. Together, these colors capture the essence of liberty and unity.

From its adoption in 1777 to its iconic presence at Ground Zero after 9/11, the flag has brought Americans together during both crises and celebrations. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched under this banner, urging the nation toward justice and reconciliation grounded in biblical truth. He proclaimed, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

The “One Flag Policy” emphasizes unity over competing agendas, reflecting the Gospel’s call for oneness. Ephesians 2:14 reminds us that Jesus “has broken down the dividing wall of hostility.” Just as a flag unites a nation, the gospel unites believers, transcending the labels that divide us.

Time and truth

Recently, my wife and I celebrated our anniversary in Chicago and reflected on what we’d change if we could go back 20 to 30 years. Time tests ideas — some endure while others fade. Just as enduring symbols like the flag remind us of timeless values, the Gospel also points us to eternal truths.

As believers, we must focus on rhetoric rooted in Christ’s truth rather than chasing trends. The media generates significant noise, leading many astray. We should pause and ask: Is this grounded in biblical truth or merely a distraction? Like the Gospel, the American flag represents shared values that endure through time: liberty, unity and justice.

The dangers of division

The United States should continue to acknowledge the painful truths of its history, which have caused deep suffering for African Americans and other people of color. Understanding the past is essential; however, unity requires reconciliation and progress.

As the body of Christ, we cannot let diversity divide us; instead, we must allow it to unite us in His love. Dr. King’s reminder resonates here: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Critical Theory, which divides society into oppressors and the oppressed, often fuels division by emphasizing identity rather than shared humanity. This theory categorizes overlapping identities (e.g., gender, class, race) as either oppression or privilege. Movements like Black Lives Matter function within this framework.

While these movements raise important issues, they risk dividing us further by focusing on what separates us rather than what unites us. Dr. King’s vision emphasized reconciliation over division. He warned, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” Christianity teaches that all people are made in God’s image, hold equal value, and can find redemption in Christ.

While Black lives are undeniably important, the organization “Black Lives Matter” promotes principles that conflict with biblical teachings, such as undermining the nuclear family. These ideologies threaten unity by prioritizing group identities over shared values.

The Gospel: a superior banner

The Gospel provides the ultimate solution to division. While ideologies such as Critical Theory create fractures, the Gospel brings all people together under Christ. Ephesians 2:11–16 illustrates how Jesus reconciled Jews and Gentiles, forming “one new man.” This peace promotes justice and unity.

Dr. King’s vision aligns with biblical teachings such as Micah 6:8: “Do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Likewise, the One Flag Policy brings Americans together under one banner, steering clear of divisive ideologies. As Christians, we should raise Christ’s banner above worldly beliefs.

One nation under God

Christians should see the Gospel as the ultimate remedy for cultural divides. True freedom requires responsibility, which fosters unity, reconciliation, and shared values. Dr. King reminded us, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

Displaying the American flag reaffirms our commitment to unity and hope. As we reflect on the flag, let’s also contemplate the cross. The red, white and blue remind us of the sacrifices for freedom, the purity of hope and the pursuit of justice. Above all, we must elevate the Gospel that transforms lives and transcends divisions.

As followers of Christ, let’s take the first step toward unity — extending our love across divides, raising the banner of Christ above all, and living as one nation under God.

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Imagine What Republicans Could Achieve Without Undoing Democrats’ Failures

 

Each time you think Democrats have hit the bottom of stupid, they break out a shovel. Or a drill. Or a backhoe. It’s really something, considering they already start off in the Mariana Trench. But there is no bottom for them to hit. Like someone smoking through a trach hole or a junkie angry over being revived with Narcan, the left simply cannot quit being what they are. The residual damage done by Democrats is occupying much of the first month of the Trump administration and far too much of what the country has to do every time they are tossed out of office.

Taxes will go up if Republicans don’t make the Trump tax cuts from 2017 permanent. Were it not for Democrats and their lies about how federal revenue is collected, they would have been made permanent in the first place. 

On their way out the door, Joe Biden’s handlers imposed countless new regulations and tried to cram through spending on their pet causes and interest groups, all of which has to be found and stopped before it happens and the money is gone – which is why you get an executive order freezing so much spending. That leads to lawsuits because that’s what the left loves to do and how they get most of their political victories, which only gums up the works for getting more things done.

That’s why President Trump’s initial rush of actions is so important this term. Last term, Democrats flooded the zone with lawsuits, preventing the implementation of Trump’s agenda and catching them off-guard. This froze them and hampered them. 

This time, with Trump being the one flooding the zone, he is overwhelming the left’s ability to focus – they are not good multi-taskers – and find themselves reacting to everything, which makes their reaction to anything less impactful. They are firing wildly, without focus, at everything that moves. Sure, they may hit something here or there, but they’ll miss much more of it. 

The media can’t even report effectively on everything Republicans are doing; they’re too busy trying to figure it out for themselves.

It’s beautiful.

Donald Trump fired the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the left-wing activist organizations masquerading as a quasi-government agency. The whole thing should be dismantled, but until that is possible, cutting off its head is as good of a place to start as any.

It’s just the Trump administration or even Republicans plowing through the obstructions to liberty and prosperity Democrats build, it’s everyone. DEI is being ripped out of corporate American, root and branch. The biggest electricity company in Georgia is pushing to keep its coal burning plants because it’s the most effective way to meet the state’s energy demands. 

There is a rebellion, albeit minor, happening across the country. The progressive agenda, the parts that were imposed in city council meetings people weren’t attending, and pieces of state legislation no one read are being steamrolled, repealed, or ignored to the benefit of everyone. 

California’s devastating wildfires are now contained, and all it took was a new President pressuring and overriding their worthless Governor’s insane water re-direction orders that dumped hundreds of millions of gallons into the ocean. New President, a week and a half, and problem solved. 

None of this is lost on the American public, and none of it is lost on the left. It scares the hell out of them. That’s why you end up with stories in Political like, “How Trump Could Snatch a Third Term — Despite the 22nd Amendment.” 

Politico’s “legal editor,” demonstrating the fact that title means nothing, declares Trump may magically override the Constitution by one of these ways: repealing the 22nd Amendment, “exploit a little-noticed loophole in the amendment that might allow him to run for vice president and then immediately ascend back to the presidency,” simply run again assuming no one and nothing – including the Supreme Court – would object or stop him, or just refuse to leave office.

It’s so dumb of an idea you’d expect it from a high school newspaper. 

Democrats are melting down, unable to work at the speed of Trump that they’re lost. Republicans are getting things done, addressing the issues Americans really care about. Just imagine how far advanced we’d be if we didn’t have to waste time undoing all the damage Democrats created every time they’re in power.

Free at Last, Free at Last, Free of Climate and Energy Insanity at Last

 

This is what winning looks like!

In the past two weeks, first in the private sector, then in the public sector, climate and energy reality has begun to dawn on large institutions and the elites who run them.

A few weeks ago, every major bank in the United States withdrew from the UN-sponsored Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). The NZBA was a transglobal cabal of big banks attempting to control peoples’ freedom by controlling their access to banking services, capital, and by limiting loans only to projects that satisfied progressive climate fetishes. The banks had already been under pressure in various states with lawsuits claiming that by imposing climate preferences and politics on average people and private businesses, banks were violating anti-trust laws. The Heartland Institute discussed the dangers of the overlapping international climate banking organizations in our 2023 report “ESG Is a Threat to Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and the U.S. Economy.” It seems the world finally got clued into the truth of our message – certainly President Donald Trump understands it.

With Trump’s stated hostility to climate policies that place America at a competitive disadvantage while benefitting transglobal elites and technocrats, the bankers saw the writing on the wall. Wanting to play nice with Trump, within the space of a few weeks, days before Trump’s inauguration, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs withdrew from the NZBA.

To be clear, they have yet to eschew their individual net zero goals as stated in various public statements online, but that might be coming. Otherwise, the banks may be in for a bumpy ride for the next four years. In the end, the banks are on the wrong side of climate science, there is no climate crisis, and the wrong side of economics.

Climate policy is bad for everyone except politically connected business grifters, and their days of subsidies and access seem to be coming to an end.

The private banks are not alone, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) withdrew from the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), days before Trump’s inauguration. The Fed said it was pulling out of the NGFS because its work has increasingly broadened in scope, covering a wider range of issues that are outside of the Board’s statutory mandate. The NGFS is a transnational organization of central banks colluding to shape the world’s economy in ways that benefit the wealthy and powerful by directing development and financing funds to programs and projects that meet the elites’ standards of sustainability based on their supposed climate impact. Any country or major development project that didn’t subscribe to the climate concerns of the central banks was shut out.

In truth, the Federal Reserve should never have joined the NGFS because fighting climate change is not within its charter. With Trump now in office, the Fed is out of the global climate cabal and none too soon. 

Canadian bankers, it seems, got the message of the impending collapse of net zero mandates as well. In Canada, soon to be ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the biggest pusher of climate alarmism, imposing harmful climate policies on often resistant provincial governments and their people. Working with Canadian’s for Sensible Climate Policy and Friends of Science, I co-authored a publication, “Energy and Climate at a Glance: Canadian Edition,” which demonstrated the dangers from international net zero goals, developed with and embraced by Trudeau and his cronies. With Trudeau in retreat, and the dangers of climate mandates becoming ever more apparent to the public, five of Canada’s biggest banks, BMO, National Bank, TD Bank Group, CIBC, and Scotiabank, have announced a strategic withdrawal from the NZBA in the past two weeks.

Then there is the United States, where Trump is firmly at the helm once again. In lighting quick succession, Trump issued a flurry of executive orders (EO) signifying that any net zero pipedreams still held by the elites at the UN and Davos are effectively dead.

Trump’s EOs end climate lockdowns and unjustified, harmful mandates restricting personal freedom and consumer choice and imposing energy subservience to international bureaucrats, green-energy profiteers, power-hungry elites, and the Chinese Communist Party.

The first EO Trump signed rescinded 78 EOs, directives, and memorandums his predecessor, President Joe Biden, had enacted. The reversals included EOs wasting money and resources on “tackling the climate crisis at home and abroad” (his signature order initiating his “all-of-government approach” to climate change, making climate considerations a primary concern in every Cabinet agency and department); ending the climate change support offices and directives for climate financial risks and climate justice; halting Biden’s clean car initiative, which served as a justification for the Biden EPA’s EV mandate; ending restrictions on federal infrastructure, buildings, and repairs to ensure “sustainability” (which made cost and effectiveness secondary considerations) in contracting for projects, to boost the fortune of purportedly “green” developers and contractors; and reversing Biden’s offshore oil ban.

Trump also issued an EO blocking permits and consideration of new offshore wind industrial facilities. Trump calls them ugly. More importantly, they are expensive, unnecessary, and harm marine mammals, the commercial fishing industry, and tourism. There is no climate justification for offshore wind farms.

Trump’s National Energy Emergency EO may prove to be the most consequential order of all in the long term. Under national emergency orders, the president can waive many rules, regulations, studies, analyses, hearings, and public comment periods to expedite critical infrastructure. This allows Trump to hasten construction of pipelines and railways, avoiding the copious delays such projects typically face because of lawsuits by environmental groups. Trump specifically mentioned oil, gas, coal, uranium, and critical minerals, all things we have in abundance and can produce, develop, and use right here. Trump left off the list anything to do with wind and solar power because they are expensive and unreliable and China controls the market for the key elements that go into them.

 Trump also withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement (for the second time) on his first day in office.

 The Paris agreement has done, and in fact can do, nothing to prevent or slow climate change. As Trump rightly recognized, it put the United States at an economic and geopolitical disadvantage to China by throttling U.S. fossil fuel use, the lifeblood of the economy, while China increased its use of coal, oil, and natural gas.

 “We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said at his inauguration. Trump’s moves, combined with the other actions this month by banks and Trudeau’s fall in Canada, have put net zero and misanthropic global climate diktats firmly in retreat. Let’s hope the climate cult can’t revive this patient.

The Left’s Sin Is of Omission and Lost Opportunity

Over these first few days of the Trump administration, we’ve seen these bold measures. And it’s starting to incur a big backlash, or anger, or counter response from the Left.

And it runs something like this: well, yes, maybe this needed correcting, but it’s going to be so expensive, do you understand what you’re doing? You’re supposed to be cost-cutters and now you’re going to spend all this money to rectify something. It’s almost as if, well, the person who’s going a hundred miles drunk and when you pull him over the cost to arrest him, to bring him into the police station to arraign him, to indict him, to impound his car, is so much more than the damage he did by going a hundred miles and endangering people.

So, you don’t arrest him, in other words. So, here’s what I mean, we’re told, oh, Donald Trump is spending billions of dollars to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, does he have any idea—well, who emptied it? When he left office, there was about 650 million barrels. It got down to 340. It’s only 40—I mean, he took almost half of it.

And why did Joe Biden do that? He timed it right before the midterms and the general election. So he could lower the price of gas. There was no national emergency. There was no global tension, which the reserve was designed to preempt. So yes, it’s going to be expensive to fill it back up because Joe Biden drained it for his own political selfishness.

Another thing is about the wall. They’re saying, well, Donald Trump wants to build the wall. Does he have any idea what it’s going to cost?

Well, a couple of things. What was the cost of letting 12 million people in here? Twelve million people. We have no idea. What was the cost of allowing 80,000 to 100,000 people to die every year from cartel-imported fentanyl?

What was the cost of telling legal applicants, wait in line for six, seven years—with real talent, some of them—you can’t come in because we have to handle all of this? What was the cost to tell people, our own citizens who are in social service dependencies, I’m sorry, the doctor’s office is too crowded?

So, there was a cost. And it’s not—that cost was much greater than building the wall. We have 700 miles that are walled pretty well now. There’s gaps. The governor of Texas is helping. We have a 2,000-mile border. We need another 1,300 miles. Some of it is in rough terrain, some of it is on the banks of rivers, and we don’t know exactly, what can be walled and not.

But the wall is a reaction to the waste and expenditure of the Left, and it will save money in the long term. Now, finally, there’s also this question of DEI. Everybody’s saying, Donald Trump just ended DEI, and he’s giving them paid leave. So, Mr. Costcutter is telling people to go home and not do anything.

Well, no, he’s telling them, I’m not going to be sued right now. You’re going to get out right away because you’re doing damage every second. And the second—anytime you’re not on the job, even if we have to pay you for a while, we’re saving money because your sin is not just commission—in other words, you’re a, what, a Russian Soviet commissar who is overlooking every type of productive activity and say, no, you don’t. That person needs to not be in the pool.

I’m disturbed about that talented person because they’re the wrong race, or the wrong religion, or the wrong sex, or the wrong sexual orientation. But they also commit this sin of omission. While we spend all this money in these programs, we’re taking money away from other things. It’s been estimated—just to take one final example—in the National Institute of Health, $50 billion, maybe a fifth of that money is not on scientific research or medical studies to cure cancer or to cure viruses, but things like what is the race, sexual orientation, gender of this particular group, and were they treated fairly by this particular program?

So, maybe we’re going to look at—spend $5 million to look at how many people got chemotherapy and see if we can just find, just we hope, we can find there is some discrimination. That’s not going to get you a better chemotherapy.

And so there was a sin of omission: what we didn’t do because we were spending on DEI and commission. We were discriminating against people and robbing ourselves of talent. Bottom line is the corrective.

The remedy for this malady is going to be expensive, and that’s what the Left is glomming onto, but they’re forgetting that the malady itself that they cause was far more expensive than the cure.

The Harder the Change, the Tougher the Vote

 

We’re in a weekslong process of confirming nominees of the Donald Trump administration for these 13 Cabinet-level positions. And I think it may go on all the way through February, given the Democrats’ strategy to oppose, wherever possible, the confirmations.

There’s a general rule, though, that we can make sense that, I think, will apply—has applied to Pete Hegseth. It will apply to Kash Patel, especially, RFK Jr., and others.

And that is three things: The more important the Cabinet position is, the more controversial the vote; the more likely a Republican nominee is going to try to make fundamental and needed changes, the more controversial the vote; and the more that senators in swing states worry about being reelected, the more controversial vote.

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Put that all together, and on the Republican side, there’s usually going to be two to three votes that are going to be ambiguous: Susan Collins in Maine, Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, and here and there, Mitch McConnell. Take the Pete Hegseth recent nomination confirmation, that was only the second time in nomination history for a Cabinet post that the nominee was completely deadlocked and the vice president, in this case JD Vance, interceded to break the vote. That had only happened one time before, when Mike Pence came in and ensured that Betsy DeVos would be confirmed.

Why was that necessary? Because three senators obliterated the Republicans’ 53 Senate margin; Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and of course, Susan Collins. Looking back, we have to ask ourselves, do they really believe that Pete Hegseth is going to be a worse defense secretary than Lloyd Austin in retrospect? Lloyd Austin was AWOL for a week.

Lloyd Austin oversaw the worst catastrophe humiliation in U.S. history with the withdrawal from Kabul. Under Lloyd Austin, we had two theater-wide wars and we were very ambiguous, ourselves, on whether to support Israel fully or to give them necessary munitions. Or what was our position about Ukraine?

Give them enough to win, but not lose or just prolong that war, that cost 1 million lives? So, there’s a lot of inconsistency.

And now we look at the upcoming nominations, specifically RFK and Kash Patel. And I think it’s going to be very, very close again. I expect both Collins and Murkowski to vote against Kash Patel, to vote against RFK.

And it’ll depend on whether Mitch McConnell is there. A couple of other things I want to point out in the past as well, Betsy DeVos, who remember, she resigned early in anger at Donald Trump after Jan. 6. But I don’t think she remembers, fully, that when she was nominated, she was more controversial in 2017 than was Donald Trump.

She was the only Trump nominee that got the entire Democratic side against her. And again, Sen. Murkowski and Sen. Collins joined the Democrats. That said, after she was confirmed, she turned out to be, I think, a spectacular secretary of education. She went after the teachers union, she tried to make reforms with higher education, she looked at illicit donations from China to major university campuses.

And yet, she would not have been confirmed if it had been up to those two Republican senators. Contrast that with the most recent secretary of education, Miguel Cardona. I don’t think we’ve seen a worse secretary. He was in power during this outbreak of antisemitic, anti-Israel violence throughout the United States on major campuses, from Oct. 7, 2023, to Jan. 20, 2025.

He said nothing. He was pressed to say, “Do you condemn the antisemitism?” He would say nothing because he was a hard leftist. Nobody really knew who he was before he was selected as education secretary. And nobody knows who he is now after four years and no one knows—we’ll know where he’ll be in four years.

And yet, two Republican senators suggested that—I shouldn’t say suggested—they voted that he was more qualified than Betsy DeVos, whom they opposed. So, the Republican Party, once again, has a big problem that they don’t have the discipline and the solidarity that the Democrats do. And they have to count on JD Vance and these particular cases to save them from themselves.

Death Threats Come With the Job of a Public Figure

 

In this first two weeks of the Trump new tenure, there’s just been a flurry of news and disinformation. We’ve heard about all of these pardons, all of these yanking of security clearances, and now most recently, the end of security details for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former national security adviser John Bolton, and former Director of the [National] Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci.

And let’s cut through all of the hysteria and look at a few constant themes in all of these cases. Donald Trump said, when he was pressed about this, aren’t you worried that you may be culpable if any of them are harmed, since, supposedly, right-wingers don’t like Fauci and the Iranians are mad at Bolton and Pompeo?

And he said, “Do we give security details forever?”

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And then he pointed out in the case of John Bolton and Anthony Fauci that they’re quite wealthy people and they made a lot of wealth while they were in office. Anthony Fauci and his wife were probably the highest-paid couple in the federal workforce, perhaps nearing a million dollars in annual compensation.

John Bolton had his own political action committee that traditionally raised $7 million a year. And his blockbuster bestseller, a tell-all book, damning the person who hired him, made him a lot of money. It’s not true of Mike Pompeo. He did not cash in. There’s another thing to remember. Donald Trump will do more to keep Pompeo and Bolton safe by confronting Iran.

And he already has told Iran that they are going to be held responsible, not just for threatening Bolton’s life or Pompeo’s, but his life. And remember, the recent interview with the president of Iran, what did he say? He said, “I have no intention of starting a war. I have no intention of attacking Israel. I have no intention of assassinating a U.S. official.”

Why that change in attitude? It’s because Donald Trump has given them an ultimatum and that will ensure the safety of, not only, Bolton and Pompeo, but Trump himself. And then there’s the other question; Donald Trump was almost shot twice with, supposedly, the most impressive security detail in the world.

So, nobody can be completely protected. And so, let me get back to another point—in the case of Anthony Fauci, he has his own resources, as I said, to protect himself. His detail was scheduled to run out anyway at the end of his tenure. It was inaugurated by Joe Biden and paid for within the budget of [the Department of] Health and Human Services and the [National Institutes of Health].

So, it wasn’t Donald Trump that came in and said to Anthony Fauci, “I’m going to expose you to danger.” All of us in this public sphere, every pundit, every op-ed writer, college prep—all of us have received threats, existential threats. And I can attest that I have. And so, it’s part of the game when you get into the political arena.

There’s one other factor: Mike Pompeo, I think, is in a different category of John Bolton and Anthony Fauci. He had a longer tenure as a political appointee than Bolton did. He was very loyal to the president. But more importantly, he doesn’t have the individual means—the profit-making, during or after his tenure, that puts him in a financially secure position, as Fauci and Bolton.

Second, because his tenure was much longer and because he was much more high profile in opposing the Iran deal and being vocal about [Qasem] Soleimani, he is in some jeopardy, I think, to a greater degree than either Fauci or Bolton. And so, that’s something that we might want to re-examine, depending on the attitude of the Iranians.

But again, the best way to protect Bolton and Pompeo is to preemptively tell Iran that if anybody—Donald Trump, those two—anybody is in danger of an Iranian attack, the consequences will be existential for Iran. This all takes place in sort of a hysteria that Donald Trump is calling people to account in the Biden administration.

And it’s part and parcel of yanking the security clearances of 51 “intelligence authorities,” the pardons of the Biden family. My only advice to all of us is just take a deep breath. And when you hear these hysterical news accounts, understand that they have a political motivation behind them.