Are you growing your own garlic? Good for you! Come learn exactly when and how to harvest garlic, along with tips on how to cure and store homegrown garlic to make it last as long as possible. We’ll also explore a few ways to preserve garlic too. Harvesting garlic at the right time is key. If done too early, the cloves and protective skin may be underdeveloped and unable to be cured for long-term dry storage. (Thankfully, there are a lot of ways to use and preserve immature green garlic though.) If done too late, the overripe bulbs will start to break open and also not store well. Disclosure: Homestead and Chill is reader-supported. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. RELATED: Want more garlic tips? Don’t miss our guides on how to plant and grow garlic, how to make homemade garlic powder, or our easy fermented garlic honey recipe. When to Harvest Garlic Garlic takes a long time to grow! It is usually planted in the fall, and is ready to harvest in late spring to mid-summer the following year. The exact time depends in the variety and growing conditions, but is usually about 8 to 9 months after planting cloves in the fall. You’ll know your garlic is almost ready to harvest when the lower leaves start to turn yellow-brown. Don’t wait until the tops totally die back though! About one-third to half of the leafy tops should be yellow-brown come harvest time. If you gently explore below the soil, you should be able to feel good size garlic bulbs have developed and have obvious shoulders. The garlic stalks may even start to to tip over or lay down. For hardneck varieties, garlic is typically ready to harvest about a month after harvesting tender garlic scapes. If you didn’t harvest the scapes, they will straighten and point upward again once the bulbs are mature and ready. Still not sure? Test harvest a bulb or two and see how they look! If cut in half across the equator, individual cloves should be developed, full, and have their own papery wrapping (though they’ll still be wet at this time). Exploring below the soil to check bulb size and development. A test bulb harvest. Note how the leaves are turning yellow-brown and some of the stems are starting to lean in the background. Stop Watering Before Harvest Once it looks almost ready, stop watering garlic for a week or two prior to harvest. This signals the plants to put their final bits of energy into developing nice big cloves, and helps the bulbs begin drying out to cure. It also makes harvesting garlic easier and cleaner, as you’ll be able to simply brush or shake off dry soil from the bulbs and roots. Our DIY raised bed drip irrigation system has a shut-off valve at each bed, so we simply turn off the garlic bed for a couple weeks before we harvest. If you’re in a climate that gets routine summer rain, try to wait at least a few days after the last rain to harvest. Almost time to stop watering How to Harvest Garlic It’s best to harvest garlic by gently digging it up rather than pulling it out by the stem. If the green stalks accidentally break and separate from the bulb, they won’t cure and store well. Instead, use a small garden trowel to dig down alongside the garlic bulbs to loosen and pry them out of the soil. Be careful digging though! The bulbs will likely be several inches deep in the soil and wider than the stems. Take care not to puncture or bruise the bulbs, which will make them rot faster in storage. If you do happen to nick one, set it aside to use in the kitchen ASAP instead of cure. Do NOT wash the garlic or remove the roots or green tops yet! Leave those roots and tops on! Harvesting Garlic Scapes Garlic scapes are a long, tender, edible stem produced by hardneck garlic varieties as they near maturity. Scapes grow up out of the center of the garlic leaves, starting off small and straight and eventually curling back down. If left to grow, they eventually become a flower that produces seed. Softneck garlic doesn’t grow scapes. It’s best to harvest garlic scapes when they’re young and tender, once they’ve made a nice curl. To harvest, simply cut or snap the scapes off at the base where they emerge from the leaves. Scapes will become tough and woody if you wait too long to harvest, especially once they start to straighten and stand back up. Failing to harvest scapes in a timely manner can also negatively impact garlic bulb development, since the scape (and eventual flower/seeds) steals energy away from the bulb. Garlic scapes have a fresh green garlicky flavor, but are more mellow-tasting than garlic cloves. They can be sautéed, stir-fried, added to pesto, pasta, quiche, or any other meal where a hint of garlic is welcome! I like to think of them as a garlic-flavored green bean. Curing Garlic Don’t skip this essential step! Curing garlic is the process of drying garlic post-harvest to prepare it for long term storage. Without proper curing, garlic will rot and spoil much sooner. After harvesting garlic, keep the roots and leafy tops attached. The bulbs continue to draw energy and nutrients from them while they dry and cure! Again, avoid washing your garlic. Simply brush off the soil after it dries. Cure garlic in a dry, well-ventilated area away from direct sunlight for two to three weeks after harvest, such as in a basement, garage, temperate shed, shady covered porch, or other dry protected location. We’ve even hung garlic braids in our spare shower to cure! The ideal temperature for for curing garlic is 70-75°F. Lay garlic out in a single layer on a wire rack, screen, slotted shelving, or other breathable surface in a desirable curing location. If you’re feeling fancy, you can also braid and hang your garlic. Softneck varieties are easier to truly braid, but you can still tie hardneck varieties into a similar form. After a few weeks of curing, clean the garlic bulbs up for storage by removing the leaves and roots. Use scissors to cut off the roots, but leave the protective papery skins intact! On the other hand, you could keep the leafy tops attached to braid (or tie) and hang the garlic if you wish.  Curing garlic and onions in the shade under the canopy of a large oak tree Curing garlic in a spare bathroom at our old homestead How to Store Garlic For the maximum shelf-life, it’s best to store garlic at room temperature in a cool, dry, dark location such as a root cellar, pantry, basement, or spare closet. The optimum storage temperature for garlic is 50-60°F. Resist the urge to refrigerate garlic, as colder temperatures stimulates the garlic to break dormancy and start sprouting. Garlic sprouts rapidly between 40-50°F. Store garlic in an open container to promote good airflow and dry conditions, such as a mesh bag, woven basket, wire racks, or open cardboard box (but not in a deep pile). The time garlic lasts in storage depends on the type, variety, and storage conditions. Properly cured hardneck garlic should last about 3 to 4 months in storage, while softneck varieties can last 6 to 9 months. Routinely check on your stored bulbs and give them a squeeze. Make quick use of any that are going soft or starting to sprout. Yes, it’s okay to eat garlic that has sprouted – or plant it! I like to store our hardneck garlic separate from our softneck garlic varieties since they have varying shelf lives. That way, I can focus on using or otherwise preserving the hardneck garlic first. Even more, I recommend labelling and storing your garlic separated by variety if you hope to use the cloves as seed to plant in fall! Always plant your biggest, best cloves. I absolutely adore our new harvest storage rack (which lives in a cool spare closet) – and see an empty shelf ready and waiting for garlic! These bamboo trays are the perfect addition for onions and garlic. Ways to Preserve Garlic Whether you had to harvest your garlic too early, or your mature garlic is starting to go soft in storage, there are a number of easy ways to preserve garlic. One of our favorite ways is to dehydrate it and make homemade garlic powder. We also love honey fermented garlic, which is fantastic to have on hand during the cold and flu season! You can also freeze garlic or pickle it. We also like to add cloves of homegrown garlic to other preserves like quick pickled green beans, crunchy refrigerator dill pickles, easy roasted tomato sauce, fermented beets and more. All in all, I hope these tips help you enjoy your homegrown garlic to the full extent possible. Let us know if you have any questions in the comments below. If you found this information to be useful, please spread the love by pinning or sharing this post! Otherwise I hope to see you around, garlic breath. You may also enjoy: Roasted Two-Bite Garlic & Herb Smashed Potatoes Quick Pickled Red Onions (Easy Refrigerator Pickled Onions) Harvesting Butternut and Winter Squash: How to Harvest, Cure, Store Garlic & Herb Roasted Brussels Sprouts w/ Balsamic Vinegar Did you enjoy this article? Want to hear more? Stay in touch! Sign up below to receive weekly updates on new posts from Homestead and Chill. The post When to Harvest Garlic, Plus Curing and Storage Tips appeared first on Homestead and Chill.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Ferras Hamad, formerly an engineer with Meta’s machine learning team, claims he was wrongfully terminated due to his involvement with Palestine-related Instagram content. He alleges that Meta exhibited discriminatory practices and biased treatment against Palestinians. We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here. Hamad’s concerns began when he observed alleged irregularities in how Meta restricted content from Palestinian figures on Instagram, hindering their visibility in searches and feeds. A critical incident involved a video by Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, depicting a destroyed building in Gaza. The video was mistakenly flagged as pornographic, leading to conflicting instructions about Hamad’s authority to address the issue. Despite being informed in writing that resolving such problems was part of his duties, he was subjected to an investigation a month later. Following this, Hamad filed an internal discrimination complaint. Shortly after, he was dismissed, with the company citing a violation of its policy against employees working on issues involving accounts of people they know personally. Hamad, a Palestinian-American, denied having any personal connection to Azaiza. The lawsuit outlines several instances of Meta’s alleged discriminatory practices, including deleting posts mentioning Gaza airstrikes, Palestinian refugees, and UN Palestine Day, while allowing other nationality-based content. Hamad asserts that his efforts to address these issues were met with resistance and retaliation. The lawsuit further claims that Meta deleted internal discussions among employees about the deaths of relatives in Gaza and scrutinized those using the Palestinian flag emoji. In contrast, employees who posted Israeli or Ukrainian flags were not investigated similarly, the complaint alleges. Hamad’s termination came on February 2, 2024, just before his stock vesting date. Meta cited a violation of its User Data Access Policy, suggesting Hamad might personally know a high-profile Palestinian photojournalist. Hamad denies any personal connection and attributes his termination to Meta’s discriminatory practices. Hamad seeks general and special damages, including lost income and employment opportunities, as well as punitive damages. Meta is yet to comment. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Fired Meta Engineer Sues, Alleges He Was Fired for Pushing Back on Palestinian Content Censorship appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

80 Years Ago Today

Two More Boeing Whistleblowers Come Forward

A House bill seeks to stop the Biden Administration from continuing to spend taxpayer money to fund development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that will censor online content the government wants to dismiss as “disinformation.” H.R. 8519, sponsored by more than two dozen House Republicans, is an 83-word bill defunding the federal government’s online censorship research: A BILL To prohibit the obligation or expenditure of Federal funds for disinformation research grants, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. PROHIBITION. No Federal funds may be obligated or expended by any Federal department or agency for the following: (1) Disinformation research grants. (2) Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace grants. (3) Programs within the National Science Foundation’s Track F: Trust and Authenticity in Communications Systems. NSF’s Track F program is identified as a grave threat to online free speech in a report by the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The report details specific examples of how the program spends tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to fund development of ways AI can be used to censor online speech. “As the distributor of multi-million-dollar grants, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is a key player in the ‘censorship industrial complex,’” the report says: “In recent years, under the guise of combatting so-called misinformation, NSF has been funding AI-driven tools and other new technologies that can be used to censor or propagandize online speech.” As the report explains, the Biden Administration’s program is actually a purveyor of disinformation (emphasis added): “In March 2021, NSF introduced Track F: Trust & Authenticity in Communication Systems, allocating $21 million to the program. For Track F, NSF solicited proposals to address the manipulation or ‘unanticipated negative effects’ of communication systems—a departure from the Convergence Accelerator program’s other, more concrete research topics. “The euphemistic ‘trust and authenticity in communication systems,’ in fact, means combatting so-called ‘misinformation,’ i.e., censorship. In an early draft solicitation, NSF indicated that Track F projects will ‘address issues of trust and authenticity in communication systems, including predicting, preventing, detecting, correcting, and mitigating the spread of inaccurate information that harms people and society.’ As NSF’s Track F program manager, Michael Pozmantier, explained more plainly in a June 2021 email, Track F is the NSF ‘Accelerator track focused on combatting mis/disinformation.’” In particular, the grants have funded the research, development and use of AI tools to: Monitor 750,000 blogs and media articles daily as well and mine data from the major social media platforms. Help Big Tech handle and outsource the “responsibility of censorship” on social media. Help platform policy-makers with “externalizing the difficult responsibility of censorship.” Decide for social media platforms whether or not specific content is “true,” in order to aid in “a platform’s decision procedures.” Help social media platforms take “enforcement action against misinformation.” Determine what content is misinformation “that deserves enforcement.” Inform “misinformation interventions.” Grantees have also emphasized how their AI tools are used to monitor and respond to “common misinformation narratives,” such as those: “Undermining trust in mainstream media” or Providing “delegitimizing information” regarding “election integrity and vaccine efficacy” on social media. Like the Track F projects, the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, also defunded by the bill, focused on countering so-called “(mis/dis)information online.” "If a Member of Congress's account can be censored on the pretext of combatting 'misinformation', 'disinformation', or 'malinformation', it can be done to anyone's account," H.R. 8519 sponsor Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) warns in a press release announcing his introduction of the bill. “The government's censorship efforts even extended to accurate tweets I posted to my official congressional Twitter account," Rep. Massie says. Editor's Note:

While the liberal media have been trying to scare people into voting for President Biden by insisting Republicans were violent, anti-American terrorists looking to destroy democracy, CBS Mornings proved once again that politically motivated violence was (D)ifferent when it was coming from the left. In hyping a book about “black resistance,” the network elevated a far-left author; and together they tried to dismiss nonviolence as a way to get political change in a country. They were speaking with Professor Kellie Carter Jackson of Wellesley College about her new book We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance. Co-anchor Gayle King boasted that the book was “about hard conversations, not focused on right or wrong,” but “what works” in terms of getting results for an agenda. Carter Jackson admitted that she “wrote this book because [she] was mad” and “frustrated” that the Black Lives Matter riots weren’t “achieving the purpose that people had set out to accomplish when they wanted to reckon with all of this racial injustice.” “And so I think we have this very limited flat, like one-dimensional perspective. When we talk about protests, you know, the question is, are you going to be violent or are you going to be nonviolent? As those are the only options,” she huffed.     She also ridiculously seemed to suggest that white people had “never” experienced hate crimes: I think about the fact that we`ve never seen four little white girls killed in a church. We`ve never had a white man assassinated in his driveway. We`ve never had a black man be welcomed into a white church, and then him proceed to shoot it up. And so I really wanted to talk about these very skewed ways that we think about violence and how we don`t interrogate the violence of white supremacy enough. The network’s promotion of political violence became more obvious when co-anchor Vladimir Duthiers hyped a passage from the book denouncing how, “Our culture`s fixation on nonviolence has caused us to miss entire histories of Black responses to white supremacy. Nonviolence on its own is not at all expansive enough to rectify the harm that has been caused by racism.” Duthiers requested that she “set that in the context of the Haitian Revolution.” Carter Jackson obliged and proceeded to suggest the American Revolution was not a real revolution because slavery remained after we gained our independence: Well, when we think about revolution, I think we don`t have a proper understanding of it. Because for me, revolution is about replacing an unjust system with a just one. And so in Haiti, the whole purpose was not just to overthrow a colonial power, but to abolish the system of slavery. And that`s what was achieved in Haiti. We don`t have that in the United States, we have an American Revolution, but slavery persists almost for another hundred years after the American Revolution. Carter Jackson did say, "when we think about black resistance" it's not about choosing "between violence or nonviolence" and that there was an "array of tools." But she warned that one of the "limitations" of nonviolence was that it becomes “performative and not really achieve the goals that we set out to accomplish.” This whole exchange was eerily similar to when NBC’s Chuck Todd twice gave a platform to Antifa supporter Mark Bray in 2017; just two months after the Congressional Baseball Shooting carried out by a far-left MSNBC fan. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CBS Mornings June 6, 2024 8:18:02 a.m. Eastern (…) GAYLE KING: Wellesley Professor Kellie Carter Jackson highlights in her new book, it`s called We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance. And we`re very happy to tell you that she joins us first on CBS Mornings. Good morning to you, Professor. KELLIE CARTER JACKSON: Hi. KING: I learned so much, Professor Carter Jackson things I didn`t know it was -- it was eye opening to me. And you say in the book: We Refuse is a book about hard conversations, not focused on right or wrong, but what happens, what works when Black resistance and liberation is at the center to understand Black humanity in rage in pursuit of freedom. Wow. CARTER JACKSON: Yeah, yeah. I wrote this book because I was mad. I wrote this book because I was frustrated and because I had thought about everything that happened in 2020, not just the pandemic, but also this racial reckoning. And I didn`t feel like marches and protests and hashtags were sort of achieving the purpose that people had set out to accomplish when they wanted to reckon with all of this racial injustice. And so I think we have this very limited flat, like one-dimensional perspective. When we talk about protests, you know, the question is, are you going to be violent or are you going to be nonviolent? KING: Yes. Yes. CARTER JACKSON: As those are the only options. And when I think about the history of this country, you know, I think about the fact that we`ve never seen four little white girls killed in a church. We`ve never had a white man assassinated in his driveway. We`ve never had a black man be welcomed into a white church, and then him proceed to shoot it up. KING: Yes. CARTER JACKSON: And so I really wanted to talk about these very skewed ways that we think about violence and how we don`t interrogate the violence of white supremacy enough. VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: One of the things you write in the book, speaking of non-violence: Our culture`s fixation -- I`m quoting the book now -- on nonviolence has caused us to miss entire histories of Black responses to white supremacy. Nonviolence on its own is not at all expansive enough to rectify the harm that has been caused by racism. I want you to set that in the context of the Haitian Revolution. CARTER JACKSON: Yeah. DUTHIERS: Where we saw a revolution that was able, essentially to overthrow the shackles of slavery on what was then the world`s superpower. CARTER JACKSON: Yeah, yeah. Well, when we think about revolution, I think we don`t have a proper understanding of it. Because for me, revolution is about replacing an unjust system with a just one. And so in Haiti, the whole purpose was not just to overthrow a colonial power, but to abolish the system of slavery. And that`s what was achieved in Haiti. We don`t have that in the United States, we have an American Revolution, but slavery persists almost for another hundred years after the American Revolution. And so how should we think of revolutions? And what makes them revolutionary? What really shifts sort of the structures that we live in? And so -- KING: Because you say, they don`t require bloodshed, but they do require sacrifice? CARTER JACKSON: Absolutely. KING: And when you look at the cover of your book, We Refuse, it is a Black woman holding a gun. I thought, oh, Kellie is coming in hot. And you say, okay, everybody -- What is -- what is the message that you were really trying to send? Because I looked at it, you`re trying to highlight about black humanity. CARTER JACKSON: Yes. Yes. KING: Because so often, black people are seen through the lens of criminality. CARTER JACKSON: Yes. I wanted to push back on these ideas and say that when we think about black resistance, we have an array of tools in front of us and it is not just force and guns. I think about revolution, I think about protection. I have a whole chapter on flight and a chapter on joy. Joy, I see has been one of the most potent weapons that we have to fight against, sort of the erosion of white supremacy. And so I wanted us to have this expansive idea to understand that you don`t just have to choose between violence or nonviolence, that yes, there are certainly limitations to violence. We all understand that. KING: Yes. CARTER JACKSON: there`s also limitations to the use of nonviolence and how we think about how quickly it can become performative and not really achieve the goals that we set out to accomplish. (…)

On Tuesday, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel made a campaign ad for the Biden Campaign disguised as an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. On Thursday, he made it official as he announced that he is the latest night host that will be hosting a fundraiser for the campaign. Kimmel sent out the following text: Hi, it’s Jimmy Kimmel. I’m interviewing President Biden and President Barack Obama -- with special guests George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and more -- and you’re invited. Pitch in any amount and you will be entered to win a trip out to LA to meet a pair of presidents, two movie stars, and one ‘poorly rated’ talk show host. Trump will hate this, so let’s do it! Our country needs Joe and Kamala in the White House. Our democracy may not survive another four years of a Trump presidency. As our President might say, ‘That’s no joke, man.’ Trump wants to ban abortion nationwide, give Putin permission to do ‘whatever the hell he wants,’ and pardon the criminals who carried out January 6. He is protected by far-right mouthpieces and billionaire mega-donors who’d gladly eat crab cakes while the world burns if it means they’d pay less in taxes. That’s what Joe Biden up against, aid it’s what your $20 will help defeat. Chip in now to claim your entry in the Premiere Nights with the Presidents contest. The late night comedians appear to be in a race to see who can be the biggest Biden booster. In late February, NBC’s Seth Meyers conducted a softball interview with Biden only for CBS’s Stephen Colbert to conduct his own fundraiser with Biden, Obama, and Bill Clinton a month later. In late April, Colbert also announced he will be taking The Late Show on the road to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention, but not to Milwaukee for the RNC. Kimmel, meanwhile, announced a fundraiser for Biden and Harris the same week he interviewed the latter about many of the topics he mentioned in the text. In 2023, Kimmel was also the most partisan of all the late night hosts with 88 percent of his political jokes targeting right-leaning people or organizations. His style of comedy is firmly in the insult category, sacrificing cleverness for bitterness. Beyond Trump, Kimmel is known for his long-running feud with Sen. Ted Cruz and for being labeled by CNN as “America’s conscience” for his nasty attacks on Republican health care plans.

Grammy-winning Christian singer Mandisa died from complications related to obesity. More than a month after Mandisa was found deceased in her Nashville-area residence, the medical examiner's autopsy report showed that Mandisa's cause of death was complications from Class III obesity. 'She told me some time ago that she had gotten COVID-19, and she had been weak trying to get over that.' Class III obesity is defined as having a body mass index of 40 or higher "or a BMI of 35 or higher and is experiencing obesity-related health conditions," according to the Cleveland Clinic. Class III obesity used to be called "morbid obesity" because it produced serious health conditions known as "comorbidities." But the name was later changed, according to the Cleveland Clinic, because using "morbid" to describe obesity sends a "false and problematic societal" signal. Mandisa's manner of death was listed as "natural," according to People magazine. She was 47. The "American Idol" alumna talked publicly about her struggles with depression and weight after she lost a close friend. "[Emotional eating] is what I have done my entire life," she admitted in 2017. "After losing 120 pounds, which I talked about my first time here, I gained it all back and 75 more. I sunk into the deepest depression of my life after Kisha passed." — (@) At a celebration of life event, Mandisa's father, John Hundley, dispelled rumors that his daughter died by suicide and explained that she had been struggling from complications related to COVID-19. "She did not harm herself," he said. "As she said, Mandisa loved the Lord, and the Lord loved Mandisa. "There's one thing you may not have known: She told me some time ago that she had gotten COVID-19, and she had been weak trying to get over that. But she was trying to press through," Hundley explained. Hundley said his daughter was found on the floor next to her bed. He believes she fell but could not reach her phone to call for help. "Here's what I think happened," he said. "Mandisa fell down in her bedroom. They found her on the floor," he explained. "If you look from the rear of her bed, she was laying on the left side. It’s clear that's where she was laying, there was a couple of big rugs there and some clothes. On the right side of the bed, front, was this nightstand, and I found her phone on the right side of the bed. There was no way for Mandisa to get around the bed, go out there, and get a phone to call for help." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A California city has reportedly forbidden its volunteer police and fire chaplains to invoke the name of Jesus while praying with members of public agencies.Denny Cooper and his son J.C. Cooper have been ministering to residents in the City of Carlsbad, California, for years. Denny is a gym teacher and baseball coach who has been a volunteer chaplain with the city's fire department for 18 years. J.C. is an associate pastor at the Mission Church who has been volunteering as a chaplain for the Carlsbad Police Department for six years.Praying without mentioning the name of Jesus 'would be a denial of his Savior Jesus Christ, a violation of his conscience, and a sin.'However, Carlsbad city manager Scott Chadwick has apparently taken umbrage with the overtly Christian nature of their chaplaincy work. According to a letter from First Liberty Institute, a legal nonprofit dedicated to protecting religious liberties, Chadwick recently told J.C. and Police Chief Christie Calderwood that referencing the name of Jesus during a public-oriented prayer "was considered harassment, created a hostile work environment, and lifted one religion above another."A member of the Carlsbad City Council even complained after J.C. closed his prayer during the Carlsbad Police Department Awards Ceremony in the name of Jesus, the FLI letter claimed, though whether Chadwick was the complainant is unclear.Police Chief Calderwood has since ordered J.C. not to mention Jesus' name during his prayers with members of the police force. "[J.C.] could use any other name he wanted as long as it was not 'Jesus,'" she said, according to the letter.Fire Chief Mike Calderwood gave similar instructions to chaplain Denny Cooper. The fire chief reportedly claimed Chadwick issued the anti-Jesus directive. The Cooper men discussed the order, and with the help of his pastor, J.C. determined that praying without mentioning the name of Jesus "would be a denial of his Savior Jesus Christ, a violation of his conscience, and a sin," the letter said. He then declined an invitation to give the invocation for another recent police department event.With the letter, FLI hopes to remind Carlsbad officials that the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that public chaplains may invoke the name of Jesus. And in fact, this Jesus-free policy — which Chadwick allegedly implemented unilaterally, "without consideration or a vote by the City Council" — may even violate the Coopers' First Amendment rights to free speech.In the letter, FLI urged the city council to reconsider the decision "to censor the Chaplains' prayers" and instead "return its longstanding practice of inviting the Chaplains to pray freely in accordance with their sincere religious beliefs." FLI even offered to assist the city in crafting a prayer policy that accords with the Constitution so as not to deprive its officers and firefighters of "the solace and the spiritual strength" of "the Chaplains' volunteer ministry."Carlsbad officials did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Times or the Christian Post.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

President Joe Biden, 81, continued to show his advanced age while in France for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings during World War II, a stark reminder given that Biden had already been born when the historic operation was conducted.As has become common during public appearances, Biden walked slowly alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, appeared to be unsure where to go and stand, and was led by first lady Jill Biden away from the ceremony while Macron stayed behind to shake hands with D-Day veterans.Biden also used his speech to talk about how many Russians have been killed during the recent war in Ukraine.'You can see the Secret Service agents are clearly uncomfortable.' — (@) — (@) — (@) But more than just looking awkward when Biden lingered by the motorcade with the door open, it also posed a security risk."This is truly bad. The most dangerous time in protection is embarking or disembarking a motorcade. You want to get the protectee in or out ASAP," a source familiar with presidential security told Blaze News. "Most of the time you try to do a covered motorcade. This is called uncovered. You can see the Secret Service agents are clearly uncomfortable."The latest signs of aging come after an extensive report by the Wall Street Journal detailing how Biden is also slowing down in high-stakes meetings behind closed doors. While the story cited both Republicans and Democrats who have recently met with Biden, the report has been heavily criticized by Democrats, despite the fact that Biden shows his age in public as well."In my meetings with President Biden, I have found him to be in command and impressive in wielding influence to make progress on key bipartisan priorities," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said about the story. "But you don’t have to trust me; just look at his legislative results — which is why the GOP are trying so hard to discredit him."The Journal's story revealed the White House closely kept track of Democrats who were interviewed and pressured them to make sure they only said good things about Biden.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!