This is an adapted excerpt from Gary Meredith’s recent book “Bibles and Ballots: Ten Biblical Reasons Christians Must Engage in Politics,” released July 11 from Gramercy Press.  “Do not add to his words, or He will rebuke you and prove you a liar.” (Proverbs 30:6)  The whole Bible encourages and equips Christians for political involvement.  Not one verse opposes it—just the opposite, as great Christians throughout history have affirmed. Claiming otherwise violates the Scripture, “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6), creating needless division and guilt in the body of Christ, along with the sharp moral decline of modern civilizations.  The Bible and subsequent history show that God has always placed his people in government, including in evil and pagan nations, as “salt” and “light” to glorify Him and bless all people.   That’s because government is not a “necessary evil”—another modern error—but rather God’s good design. Just as bad spouses don’t nullify God’s good design for marriage, bad officials don’t nullify his good design for government. God created all nations, and all government officials, knowingly or not, are God’s servants with his authority for their legitimate duties.   Today’s moral decay is tied to Christians shunning politics, letting others choose who governs us. As stewards of the right to choose our government leaders, we are accountable to God for doing all we can to ensure they use their authority, and our taxes, only for good, not evil.  Believers who exempt themselves from that civic duty as “citizens of heaven” forget they are dual citizens of this world and the next. Like Paul, we expect the benefits of earthly citizenship—police, fire and ambulance services, safe roads and airports, ethical banks and shops, honest judges and lawyers, reliable utilities, a strong military, and more. Many Christians provide those vital services. It is our sacred duty to select moral, competent officials to lead them.  The many benefits of earthly citizenship come with responsibilities. Some Christians pray for good government leaders, yet do nothing to obtain them, contrary to biblical teaching to pray and then act in accordance with our prayers.  Finally, ask yourself: Does Satan want Christians IN or OUT of politics? History provides the stark, undeniable answer.  There is nothing in this world that is not God’s. Politics isn’t forbidden territory for Christians to disdain, it’s God’s turf for his people to claim!  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

Americans are familiar with using a vending machine to get a drink, a snack, even live bait. But in Southwest Virginia, one school district is using such machines to deliver food for thought: books. Henry County Public Schools recently unveiled vending machines that will be available in all nine of its elementary schools and will be stocked with books that students can keep. Students earn tokens by being well-behaved and can exchange them for reading material. “This is one step that we can take to make reading more fun, to make reading more accessible, and to just instill that lifelong love of reading and learning,” Henry County Superintendent Amy Blake-Lewis told WDBJ. The district’s students will be able to use the vending machines when they return to classes this week. Statewide, Virginians can participate in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. The program promises to provide a free book every month from birth until age 5, when a child starts kindergarten. A 2024 state law established a statewide program, but it has taken some time to get it up and running. “Any time you do anything that involves government, it is not the fastest moving thing,” then-Republican Del. Carrie Coyner told VPM last year. “At this moment, our friends at Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, our local affiliates and our state department of education are still working out all the details of that underlying mechanism by which we put that statewide plan into place.” Local districts and organizations are stepping up to support the concept. Recently, the Junior League of the Roanoke Valley teamed up with Roanoke’s school system and Vinton Baptist Church to unveil an Imagination Library program. “The best way to ensure long-term literacy is to make sure that kids get a great, early start,” the Junior League’s Courtney Watson told WFXR. “The earlier you can develop that passion for reading and that interest in reading, the more likely they are later on in their education to pursue it on their own.” There are almost 100 locally managed Imagination Library programs across the Commonwealth. In Hampton Roads, REACH bills itself as the area’s “food bank of books.” The program was founded in 1998 and has expanded to partner with more than 180 teachers, programs, and agencies to provide age-appropriate reading material for students through high school. “Our program, The Big Free Bookstore, is the only one in the U.S. that distributes new books, school supplies, and hosts activities at no cost, serving thousands of families annually,” REACH says on its website. The summer break also meant many reading programs were underway in Virginia. Even though school starts soon in many districts, some of these programs run through the month or even into September. Virginia students lost ground on reading tests during COVID-19. However, they are making a strong comeback. The Commonwealth ranked 10th among all states in reading recovery on this year’s Education Scorecard. However, there is still a long way to go. The report found that the average student in Virginia performs about 0.4 grade equivalents lower than the 2022 level in reading and around 0.68 grade equivalents lower than the 2019 level in reading. “In this report, we highlight the work of a small group of state leaders who have started digging out by changing how students learn to read, and 108 local school districts that are finding ways to get students learning again,” Tom Kane, the head of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, told WRIC. Virginia’s innovative approaches may help students speed their recovery.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes the “Make America Healthy Again” movement will play a pivotal role in the upcoming November midterm elections. Kennedy has toured the country touting President Donald Trump’s MAHA accomplishments, visiting Danville, Virginia; Goldsboro, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Lexington, Kentucky; and Atlanta, Georgia, this week alone. “Everywhere we go, we’re seeing incredible enthusiasm from the MAHA movement for this administration,” Kennedy told the Daily Signal in an exclusive interview, “so I think it’s going to be an important factor.” The MAHA movement has already played a significant role in the midterm primaries. For instance, MAHA PAC-endorsed candidate Rep. Julia Letlow defeated incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, in the Louisiana Republican Senate primary. Zach Lahn, endorsed by MAHA PAC for Iowa governor, beat Trump-endorsed candidate Rep. Randy Feenstra in the recent primary. He ran on opposing liability shields for pesticide companies and reducing the nitrate load in the water supply. MAHA PAC in March launched a $100 million fundraising campaign to bolster Trump-endorsed “Make America Healthy Again” candidates, the Daily Signal first reported. Some members of the MAHA base want to see more from Kennedy, including an overhaul of the childhood vaccine program. The Wall Street Journal reported on Trump’s frustrations that Kennedy isn’t doing more to probe the alleged connection between vaccines and autism. However, his agency’s new childhood vaccine schedule was blocked in federal court, and an appeal of the preliminary injunction remains pending. The new schedule recommended fewer vaccines overall for children to give parents more flexibility, and grouped vaccines in categories including immunizations recommended for all children, for children in high-risk groups, and for children based on shared clinical decision-making. When asked what he can do in light of the injunction, Kennedy told the Daily Signal he’s confident the administration will win the lawsuit. “I think that ultimately the changes [to the childhood vaccine schedule] have to be made by the ACIP panel,” he said. “and we’re confident that we’re going to win this lawsuit and be able to get those changes, be able to make sure that we have high quality science, not only on efficacy but on vaccine safety as well, which has been lacking in the past.” Other MAHA voters are disappointed that the administration has been too friendly to the pesticide industry after Trump signed an executive order prioritizing production of the pesticide glyphosate. The order cited the need to maintain a strong food supply system in the event of a national security emergency. Mark Gorton, co-president of the MAHA Institute, said most MAHA voters understand that policies cannot change all at once, and that despite their concerns, MAHA voters will turn out for Republicans in the midterms because of Kennedy’s record. “Anyone who has any experience with our system and the complexity of it will see just how much has been done in a limited time,” he told the Daily Signal. MAHA voters are “perhaps one of the largest groups of potential swing voters in the country,” Gorton said. “I know a lot of people for whom this is their number one issue, and this is what they’re choosing to vote on,” he said. “I really see this as a meaningful force in the American political landscape.”

Just two years ago, the United Nations secretary general announced, “Global warming has ended … The era of global boiling has arrived!”  “[We were] warned about this,” said a “Daily Show” host, “by every scientist for the last 50 years!”  His audience applauded.    Wow. Every scientist agreed!    But here’s the thing. They didn’t.  My new video covers how many of the scaremongers’ claims are just wrong.  Yes, the climate is warming. People burning fossil fuels adds to that.  But there’s little agreement about apocalyptic claims that environmental groups make.   “Global warming is driving polar bears towards extinction,” headlined The New York Times. It’s just not true.   “Polar bears have increased their populations,” explains Heartland Institute fellow Linnea Lueken.  Estimates from the 1960s placed polar bear populations at around 17,000-19,000. Today, there are about 26,000.  OK, maybe polar bears aren’t going extinct, but we’re told we might.  Former President Barack Obama announced, “Our changing climate is already making it more difficult to produce food!”  But agricultural output keeps setting record highs.  So alarmist media and environmental groups move on to other scares:  “Climate change is making droughts worse,” writes Earthjustice.  “Droughts are absolutely not getting worse,” says Lueken. “The media love to share stories when there is a drought somewhere, some specific location. They completely ignore previous years with record low amounts of drought.”  Globally, there’s been no increase in drought.  Climate alarmists have a better argument when they say rising sea levels will cause floods.    But the media’s claims are silly.  In 2004, The Guardian claimed a “secret report” said: “European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas … by 2020.”  Yes, six years ago.  The “experts” also predicted rising seas will “completely cover” the Maldives. But since then, the islands have grown in size. They are even building new airports.     “Sea level rise is absolutely occurring, but it’s been slow,” says Lueken. “About an inch a decade. There is no way people wouldn’t be able to adapt.”  More than 100 million people already live below sea level in places like Holland. Dikes hold back water.  Climate change may cause real problems. But we can adapt, rather than get hysterical about mythical threats.  Like the claim that coral reefs are disappearing.  “Great Barrier Reef headed for ‘massive death,'” claimed CNN.  “The Great Barrier Reef is doing fine,” says Lueken. “2024 actually saw record coverage for the Great Barrier Reef … Corals thrive in tropical conditions.”  Environmental groups claimed bees were dying out. They called it “bee-pocalypse!”  “Thirty percent of the honeybees disappearing!” claimed actress Angelina Jolie.  Yes, 20 years ago, there was a drop in some bee populations. No one is certain why. But nature and beekeepers adjusted. Now there are 31% more bee colonies.  “We’re not in any way facing an apocalypse involving bees,” says science writer Jon Entine. “Things have never been better in terms of the numbers of bees globally.”  Even as the numbers of bees increased, reports of their death continue. “Bee population is in decline!” headlined CNN.  Environmental groups push these myths to get your money.  “Scares drive donations,” says Entine. “The oxygen for these organizations is money donated by people who think they’re doing good.”  We think of environmental groups as little guys—fighting big polluters. But today environmental groups are big guys spending millions on lawsuits that block progress.  Greenpeace pulls in more than $400 million a year.  Your donations to the World Wildlife Fund pay for its elegant 250,000-square-foot headquarters.   The Natural Resources Defense Council funnels your hard-earned dollars into extravagant, star-studded galas.  Climate change may cause real problems. But we can adapt.   Don’t let scammers like Natural Resource Defense Council squander your money.  COPYRIGHT 2026 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal. 

The Left’s perennial scolds of CBS News churned out barrels of umbrage over hiring conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat as part of the new team of correspondents at “60 Minutes.” They suggested this was some sort of “desperate” lurch to the right, an obstreperous overthrow of Pelleyesque arrogance on 57th Street.   But that created a vacancy at the Times that may prove challenging to fill. Douthat has often been pitched as the “thoughtful liberal’s favorite conservative,” as if “thoughtful liberals” can stand being in the same room as a conservative.   After all, take a look at the opinion lineup on the Times homepage. The remaining columnists are from left to center-left: Jamelle Bouie, Maureen Dowd, David French, Thomas Friedman, M. (formerly Masha) Gessen, Michelle Goldberg, Ezra Klein, Nicholas Kristof, Carlos Lozada, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Lydia Polgreen, and Bret Stephens.  French and Stephens came to the Times from conservative salons, but like David Brooks before them, quickly became raging haters of Donald Trump, pleasing their new masters. Both men also endorsed Kamala Harris for president in 2024. French laughably argued, “To save conservatism from itself, I’m voting for Harris.” It’s simply implausible to claim to be conservative and then vote for the current reigning ideology among the Democrats.    The Times team routinely claims Trump is an existential threat to democracy, but this argument is losing all its plausibility as the Democrats are being taken over by a socialist faction that explicitly wants to abolish the Senate, the Supreme Court and the presidency. That is easily defined as an existential threat to democracy, even if Democrats try to claim they’re merely organizing a “big tent.” Democrats from Kamala Harris on down eagerly start their list of “reforms” with ending the Electoral College and expanding the Supreme Court with four more (leftist) seats.  The Left loves describing itself as bravely “transgressive,” but all it does is impose strict limits and boundaries on expression. One can never “normalize” Trump by treating him like a legitimately elected president.   No one should expect the Times to hire a new columnist who writes positive words about Trump. Remember that their opinion editor James Bennet was forced out by the newspaper’s internal wokeness caucus for the grave sin of soliciting and publishing an op-ed by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton in June 2020 arguing in that if police were overwhelmed by rioters, the president could invoke the Insurrection Act and send in the military to restore order.   The Times never put the Cotton op-ed in the printed newspaper, but the damage was done. To assuage the Left, it appended the article with a long, confessional Editor’s Note with paragraphs of apologies and regrets. What self-respecting conservative could observe this imbroglio and discern that this is a workplace that would tolerate his or her free expression of oppositional opinion?   None of these media elitists recognize the irony in their hardened position—that Trump is such an authoritarian threat that these troubled times demand complete anti-Trump unanimity—no internal democracy allowed. Debating that internal orthodoxy, that Trump might express a good idea or engage in a noble action on any matter, sounds like it would be immediate grounds for dismissal.   Unless a columnist has the goal of entering an impossible situation with a plan to write a juicy tell-all memoir about just how intolerant they are at the Times, I would advise any self-respecting conservative opinionator to politely decline any offer.   COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.