Casey Scharven

Husband and Father - 20 year Military Veteran - Graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary and University of Oklahoma - follower of Christ.

[Mike Netter @nettermike]

In April 1967, a 20-year-old farm boy from South Dakota did something that would change the Vietnam War—he fell off his ship.
Seaman Douglas Hegdahl was standing on the deck of the USS Canberra when the recoil from a five-inch gun knocked him overboard into the Gulf of Tonkin. He treaded water for five hours, then swam for seven more. When fishermen finally pulled him from the sea, they handed him to North Vietnamese forces.
The interrogators didn't believe his story. They thought he was a spy, a commando, someone important. They beat him and threw him into the Hanoi Hilton—the most notorious prison of the war.
But Hegdahl made a choice that would save hundreds of lives. He became "The Incredibly Stupid One."
He played up his country accent. He stared wide-eyed at things he'd never seen before. When they ordered him to write a confession, he claimed he couldn't read or write. The guards, used to illiterate peasants in their own country, believed him completely. They even assigned someone to teach him—who eventually gave up, convinced Hegdahl was hopeless.
What they didn't know was that Hegdahl had a photographic memory and the discipline of a soldier.
Because they thought he was harmless, the guards let him sweep the prison yards. He walked between cellblocks. He memorized the layout of the camp and the route into Hanoi. He even sabotaged enemy trucks by adding dirt to their fuel tanks.
But his real mission was gathering intelligence.
With the help of fellow prisoner Joe Crecca, Hegdahl set out to memorize something impossible: the names, ranks, Social Security numbers, and personal details of over 250 fellow American prisoners. How do you remember 250 names under torture, starvation, and the constant threat of death?
He used "Old MacDonald Had a Farm."
Every day, Hegdahl repeated the names to the tune of the children's song. Over and over. Names became melodies. Data became memory. While the guards laughed at the "stupid" American humming in the prison yard, he was conducting one of the most important intelligence operations of the war.
When North Vietnam offered early release as a propaganda tool, Hegdahl initially refused—prisoners had sworn an oath to leave together or not at all. But his commanding officer, Captain Dick Stratton, ordered him to go. "You're carrying the names," Stratton told him. "Their families need to know they're alive."
On August 5, 1969, Hegdahl walked out of the Hanoi Hilton.
When he returned to the United States, he recited every single name. Every rank. Every identifying detail. His memory transformed 250+ missing men into confirmed prisoners of war. At the Paris Peace Talks in 1970, he confronted North Vietnamese negotiators with firsthand accounts of torture—and the pressure he brought helped secure the eventual release of all American POWs.
That farm boy who "fell off a ship" had just freed an entire army.
Decades later, in 1998, Hegdahl stood before an audience of veterans and families at the Richard Nixon Library. Thirty years after his release, he stood and sang—to the tune of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm"—the names of 256 men he'd memorized in captivity.
Not one name forgotten.
Sometimes the most dangerous people are the ones your enemy thinks are harmless. Sometimes genius wears the mask of stupidity. And sometimes, a child's lullaby becomes the most powerful weapon of all.
Ever know anyone that smart that could play that dumb for that long?
Amazing!

[Good Morning America @GMA]

FULL INTERVIEW: Former NFL running back Chris Johnson reveals his ALS diagnosis at 39.

[Protestia @Protestia]

Vote is on!

[James E. Thorne @DrJStrategy]

For the record.

Friedrich Merz mocking Trump as “humiliated” by Iran while admitting Germany cannot defend itself is the perfect summary of modern Europe.
A continent that outsourced its security to America now lectures America on weakness.

That is not strategic insight. It is welfare-state geopolitics. Classic European arrogance.

Germany wants the moral authority of independence, the comfort of U.S. protection, and the budgetary convenience of not paying for either.
Merz is living in the fantasy world Pax Americana created: criticize the hegemon, depend on the hegemon, and pretend dependency is sophistication.

If America is humiliated, Europe is naked. And if Germany cannot defend itself, Merz has no business sneering at the country that still does.

[Azat @AzatAlsalim]

For those suffering from amnesia: a staggering... 2 months ago, the Islamic regime of Iran murdered more than 40,000 people, whose only crime was to protest for freedom.

[Vivid.🇮🇱 @VividProwess]

Bill Clinton: “Palestinians were offered a state on the entire West Bank and east Jerusalem as its capital. Israel accepted, but Palestinians refused. They did not care about a homeland for the Palestinians. All they wanted was to kill Israelis"

This must be shared every day.

[Brandon Gill @realBrandonGill]

To illustrate the total absurdity of Justice Jackson, she ruled last year that states *do not* have the right to ban child sex changes, but ruled today that states *do* have the right to ban counselors from telling boys they are not girls.

[Casey Scharven @scharven]

When a Reformed Baptist sees another Reformed Baptist vs when he sees a ... https://t.co/C5nRv8pp4y via @YouTube

[Helen Andrews @herandrews]

The ruling ideology is just race communism. Taking stuff from the bad class and giving it to the good class is its central purpose as much as it was for the Soviets. Who gets board seats, jobs, college spots, loans, housing—it’s all about the allocation of resources by race.

[Dhananjay Dhruv @dhananjay_dhruv]

@NBCOlympics

[Jeremy Rutherford @jprutherford]

After trading Nick Bjugstad, what’s next for the Blues after Olympic freeze? #stlblues https://t.co/MfEQEpqubs

[Brandi Kruse @BrandiKruse]

After 15 years covering the Washington State Legislature, I was just denied a press pass. Why? Because I have taken the public position that girls should not be forced to compete against boys.

I am one of the longest-serving political reporters in the state. I have never acted unprofessionally at the statehouse. I ask serious, well-informed questions and provide coverage for many Washingtonians who feel unrepresented in mainstream news coverage.

To make matters worse, legacy media representatives with the Capitol Correspondents Association conspired with Democrats in the House to weaponize an outdated policy to keep me (and other new media professionals) out.

Let me be clear: Legacy news reporters took the side of politicians over the public. Rather than help expand political coverage for all by welcoming independent media into the fold, they pushed for LESS press freedom, not more. They played gatekeeper. Not only to help their struggling outlets survive by keeping out the competition, but to help the Democratic Party in power keep out critical voices.

Yes, independent media in Washington state is overwhelmingly conservative. There is a reason for that. There is a reason more reporters are leaving legacy newsrooms to do what I did in 2021. Too many local newsrooms cover stories from a progressive worldview. They increasingly shut out 40% of the state and parrot the views of the party in power.

Offering my informed opinion on policies should not preclude me, or others, from having access to the spaces we need to be in to do our jobs for the citizens who depend on us. To shut us out is to shut them out.

I have advocated for a simple policy to govern press passes in Olympia – one based on decorum. If reporters can abide by reasonable decorum rules, they should be allowed a press pass. Podcasters. Bloggers. Columnists. YouTubers. Everyone.

I invite my friends (and enemies) in legacy news to show a united front and stand up for press freedom, as I have done consistently for years – even when it meant criticizing my own side.

If the goal is to hold elected leaders accountable, expanding old rules to welcome in more voices and more perspectives is the answer.

If the goal is to shut out anyone who might challenge Democratic leaders, then I guess the policy should stay the same.

[Nick shirley @nickshirleyy]

🚨 Here is the full 42 minutes of my crew and I exposing Minnesota fraud, this might be my most important work yet. We uncovered over $110,000,000 in ONE day. Like it and share it around like wildfire! Its time to hold these corrupt politicians and fraudsters accountable

We ALL work way too hard and pay too much in taxes for this to be happening, the fraud must be stopped.

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

Today, the European Commission fined Elon Musk’s X €140 million for, it says, breaking laws requiring social media transparency. Specifically, said the Commission, which is the executive branch of the European Union, X broke the law by making its blue checkmarks available to anyone, failing to make its advertising repository transparent, and failing to provide researchers with special access to its data. “Today’s decision has nothing to do with content moderation,” insisted the Commission’s spokesperson.

In truth, the Commission’s fine has everything to do with “content moderation,” which is censorship. The EU wants X to give its data to government-selected “researchers” so they can identify which posts and advertisements should be censored. This is a censorship-by-proxy strategy. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from 2020 to 2022, and Europe today, have authorized government-funded NGOs to demand censorship of social media platforms in an attempt to deceive the public.

As such, the European Commission is spreading disinformation in order to demand censorship, and is openly engaged in a deception campaign aimed at confusing the people of Europe and the United States about what it is doing.

Many Americans may rightly wonder why they should care about what the European government is doing. President Donald Trump shut down much of the US censorship industrial complex, including by the DHS.

The reason we should care is that the goal of the European Commission, like that of the governments of Britain, Brazil, and Australia, is to censor the American people. As Public was the first to report in October, a pro-censorship activist think tank, the Stanford Cyberpolicy Center, hosted a gathering of global censorship officials to censor American social media platforms and American citizens. The Stanford Cyberpolicy Center was home to the fake “researchers” who oversaw the DHS censorship-by-proxy effort from 2020 to 2022.

Moreover, the EU is now in direct violation of the NATO Treaty, under which the US is militarily obligated to defend Europe. The NATO Treaty requires member states to have free speech and free and fair elections. France and Germany are actively and illegally preventing political candidates from running for office for ideological reasons, namely their opposition to mass migration. And the Romanian high court, with the support of the European Commission, nullified election results under the thin and unproven pretext of Russian interference, after a nationalist and populist presidential candidate won.

The X fine comes in the wake of a renewed push for governments to break encryption and read private text messages, known as “Chat Control.” The ostensible goal of this is to combat child abuse, and yet there is little evidence that such a system is needed. The heads of Signal and Telegram have strongly opposed the effort as a violation of privacy and a backdoor that others could exploit.

And last month, the European Commission launched a “Democracy Shield” program consisting of more funding for NGOs and “fact checkers” to “ensure swift reactions to large-scale and potentially transnational information operations. An independent European Network of Fact-Checkers will be set up to boost fact-checking capacity in all EU official languages…” In the past, activist NGOs have demanded that social media companies censor content based on fact-checks, including false ones.

The European Digital Services Act (DSA) rests upon a model of censorship by proxy. The proxies are NGOs, law enforcement organizations, and industry groups designated “Trusted Flaggers.” Noted Lorcán Price of the Alliance Defending Freedom in his testimony to Congress in September of year, “When a Trusted Flagger speaks, the service provider must listen and prioritize the review of the flagged content before that of its regular users. The service provider must review the flagged content to determine whether it violates the law of an EU member state or the EU itself. If so, the service provider must remove or disable access to the content.”

Notably, the European Commission announced its X fine on the same day that the Trump administration released its new security strategy, which reads, “We will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies.” The document implicitly threatens US commitment to military security for Europe. “It is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.”

The European Constitution states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”

Why then is it now seeking to deny those rights?

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[Libertarianesque Person @libertarianesqu]

@CollinRugg

[Casey Scharven @scharven]

@trumpbarronw A

[Steadfast Women @Steadfast_Women]

To the Mormons blowing up my comments today:

Mormonism teaches a false gospel & those who believe it believe in a false Christ.

The most loving thing a Christian can do for Mormons is tell them that & share the BIBLICAL Gospel.❤️
👇🏼

[Creeds & Confessions @CreedConfession]

“A man with God is always in the majority.” - John Knox

[Ken @Ken_FiveSolas]

"If salvation was 99.99% Jesus and 0.01% us, we would all be damned." ~Paul Washer