Mat18v34 Truth about interrogation

Mat 18:34 KJV  And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.

The Truth About Interrogation | The Weekly Standard http://tws.io/1EEMDH1

The enhanced techniques work.

"The Central Intelligence Agency repeatedly tortured suspected terrorists, regularly lied about it to Congress and the White House, and, for all the pain and trouble this caused the agency and the United States, didn’t end up extracting a single piece of valuable information not readily available by other means." - Michael Hayden meets the press, January 2009.

That, at least, is the conclusion of the forthcoming Feinstein report, a long and, in certain quarters, much-anticipated review of the CIA’s detainee and interrogation programs during the Bush administration. A steady stream of leaks in news stories over several months has provided the public a preview of its contents.

The goal of those leaks, and the report itself, is not hard to discern: to ensure that the coming debate over enhanced interrogation isn’t so much a debate but a public condemnation of those who conceived and participated in the program.

There are certainly parts of the program that deserve criticism. There were major problems with the way it was conceived, approved, and carried out. There were troubling abuses in the early years, and later some misleading briefings about the enhanced interrogation techniques used. There were conflicts of interest and questionable accounting practices. Some of the public claims about the intelligence derived from enhanced techniques were clearly exaggerated, and at least one of those claims was patently false.

Such matters should be subject to tough, dispassionate, fact-based investigation. Actual failings should be condemned by both Republicans and Democrats, by supporters of the program as well as opponents.

That’s not what happened here.

Instead, the report was produced by the Democratic staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by Dianne Feinstein. Republicans declined to participate.

Feinstein required former CIA directors and deputy directors to sign nondisclosure agreements in order even to see the accusations made against them. Despite the fact that virtually all of the 500-plus-page report has been declassified for release, the Feinstein committee also imposed, as a condition of access to the report, severe restrictions on what those officials may say in their own defense. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, told The Weekly Standard: “Based on the nondisclosure agreement I signed, I cannot talk to you about the details of the Feinstein report, the Republican rebuttal, or the agency response—all as a condition of my being able to see it.”

In the clearest evidence that the committee was interested in blame rather than truth, the staffers did not seek to interview those involved in the interrogations.

Now, for the first time, one of the lead interrogators is attempting to tell the other side of the story. Writing under the pseudonym Jason Beale, he has produced a provocative 39-page document in an effort to counter the narrative pushed by Democrats and amplified by journalists eager to discredit the program. The document—which Beale says was reviewed, redacted, and cleared by a U.S. government agency—does not reveal Beale’s precise role in the program. A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency would not confirm that the CIA was the agency that reviewed Beale’s document. And in an email interview, Beale refused even to acknowledge that he conducted interrogations in the CIA program. “The opinions I expressed on interrogations in the document I sent you,” he wrote, “are representative of the insight I’ve gained during my career as an interrogator. While I am aware that you and others may draw some inference from the approved portion of the text as to the basis of my arguments regarding enhanced techniques, I am not presently in a position to elaborate on how I formed those opinions.”

Sources familiar with the program independently confirm that Beale served as a senior interrogator beginning in 2004.

Beale’s document covers many aspects of the debate over enhanced interrogation—the morality of enhanced interrogation techniques, the use of EITs on U.S. servicemen and women during their survival training, the hypocrisy of public officials who approved the program and later pretended that they opposed it, the unearned authority of several top critics of the program, and, most important, the effectiveness of the techniques.

page 2

News accounts of the forthcoming Feinstein report make clear that a central claim of that narrative will be its most contentious: The techniques didn’t work. Beale challenges that contention on the basis of his experience in the U.S. military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) course taken by intelligence and military personnel exposed to a high risk of capture. Tens of thousands of Americans have been subjected to EITs as part of their SERE training. Beale participated in the course first as a student, then as an interrogator.

As a student, I learned that I could resist, and occasionally manipulate, a talented interrogator during my numerous “soft-sell” interrogations—the rapport-building, we-know-all, pride-and-ego up/down, do-the-right-thing approaches. I had my story relatively straight, and I simply stuck to it, regardless of how ridiculous or implausible the interrogator made it sound. He wasn’t doing anything to me—there was no consequence to my lies, no matter how transparent.

I then learned the difference between “soft-sell” and “hard-sell” by way of a large interrogator who applied enhanced techniques promptly upon the uttering of my first lie. I learned that it was infinitely more difficult for me to remember my lies and keep my story straight under pressure. I learned that it became difficult to repeat a lie if I received immediate and uncomfortable consequences for each iteration. It made me have to make snap decisions under intense pressure in real time—and fumble and stumble through rapid-fire follow-up questions designed to poke massive holes in my story.

I learned that I needed to practically live my lie if I were to be questioned under duress, as the unrehearsed details are the wild-cards that bite you in the ass. I learned that I would rather sit across from the most talented interrogator on earth doing a soft-sell than any interrogator on earth doing a hard-sell—the information I had would be safer because the only consequences to my lies come in the form of words. I could handle words. Anyone could.

Ask any SERE Level C graduate which method was more effective on him or her—their answer should tell you something about the effectiveness of enhanced techniques, whether you agree with them or not. In my case, I learned that enhanced techniques made me want to tell the truth to make it stop—not to compound my situation with more lies. The only thing that kept me from telling the truth was the knowledge that at some point it had to end—that there were more students to interrogate and only so many hours in a day. Absent that knowledge, I would have caved.

As a TDY [temporary duty] interrogator in the SERE course, I learned that the toughest, meanest, most professional special operations soldiers on earth had a breaking point. Every one of them. And of all the soldiers I interrogated, all of the “breaks” came during hard-sell interrogations—using as many enhanced techniques as necessary to convince the soldier that continuing to lie would result in immediate consequences. It worked—time and again, it worked.

The techniques were effective, Beale claims, not only with U.S. soldiers being prepared for what they might encounter if captured by an enemy, but also with senior al Qaeda prisoners. Defenders of EITs point to the extraction of important information on al Qaeda’s couriers to make their case. The information on one courier in particular—Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti—led to the location of Osama bin Laden’s safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

In a heavily redacted section of his document, Beale writes that the EITs were essential to obtaining that information. Others have reported that two high-value detainees subject to enhanced interrogation—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libi—went to great lengths to conceal information about the courier. That they did so after providing a steady stream of accurate and valuable information suggested to interrogators and analysts that the information about al-Kuwaiti was important. Beale writes:

That high-level detainee would no more have voluntarily sat down across from a debriefer and provided his list of Al Qaeda couriers without having been conditioned to do so than he would have walked ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ and asked to speak to the CIA debriefer. It simply would not have happened without incentive, and his incentive was to not go back to enhanced techniques. Period. Love it or hate it, that’s the way it worked.

page 3

Beale believes that Barack Obama and others briefed on the use of EITs understand that they worked. In support of this view, he notes a subtle but telling change in Obama’s language:

Go back and take a look at the difference between Candidate Obama’s characterization of the efficacy of the interrogation program versus President Obama’s version. Candidate Obama repeatedly stated that enhanced interrogation was not only immoral and un-American, but it didn’t work. People will say anything to make it stop. Every leading interrogator and intelligence professional will tell you that “torture” never works—it produces bad intelligence. That was Candidate Obama.

President Obama told a slightly different story. During his [100th]-day press conference in April 2009, President Obama used an entirely different construct when responding to a question about shutting down the interrogation program: “I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do—not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.”

He went on to say, “But here’s what I can tell you—that the public reports and the public justifications for these techniques—which is that we got information from these individuals that were subjected to these techniques—doesn’t answer the core question, which is: Could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques? And it doesn’t answer the broader question: Are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques?”

Finally, this: “And so I will do whatever is required to keep the American people safe, but I am absolutely convinced that the best way I can do that is to make sure that we are not taking shortcuts that undermine who we are.”

Note the difference—it’s important. After being briefed by serious people using actual intelligence information gained from the EIT interrogation program, President Obama knew that he could not continue with the “it never works” campaign rhetoric as President—to do so would have been insulting and objectionable to the national security team who briefed him, and would be a lie. So .  .  . “we don’t know if we could have collected the same information using standard techniques” became the talking point for every administration official on the subject of EITs.

I know. I know that we couldn’t have collected the same information using standard techniques because I was an expert in using standard techniques—I used them thousands of times over two decades—and the notion that I could have convinced the detainees ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ to provide closely-held information (or any information at all) without the use of EITs is laughable. There is zero chance. Zero.

In an interview, I pointed out that much of the coming debate will be about the effectiveness of the techniques and asked Beale directly: Were they effective? He made a simple point that he hadn’t made in his document. He noted that those subject to enhanced interrogation haven’t boasted about their ability to withstand the techniques and to withhold valuable information.

That is probably a question best asked of the former detainees—did Abu Zubaydah, Abu Faraj al-Libi, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramsi bin al-Shib, Hambali, Nashiri, or any of their brethren give up protected information during their time in the custody of CIA? If they didn’t they should be proud of their ability to withstand such torturous tactics—I would think they would mock the feeble and misguided efforts of the CIA interrogators to get them to talk, or to make a mistake, rather than claim that such treatment made them say things they later regret. That’s the point of enhanced interrogation—at least from my perspective as a former TDY SERE interrogator—you hope that they say things they will later regret.

Beale wrote his document “to remind the American public that there are two sides to every story” and to make clear “that the upcoming [Senate] report should be read with an understanding that the outcome was predetermined by the political and ideological leanings of the majority, which produced the report.”

He is concerned that the documentation included in the summary report was selected to make the argument that Senate Democrats wanted to make and that information complicating that narrative was deliberately excluded.

“I believe an objective reading of the documents would show that the program was effective,” he wrote, “and I would urge the declassification and release of the entire report and all associated documents so that the American people can make their own decision.”

Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.

[Ed. Note: You can read the document here.]

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Exo36v2 Our bandwidth

Exo 36:2 NKJV  Then Moses called Bezalel and Aholiab, and every gifted artisan in whose heart the LORD had put wisdom, everyone whose heart was stirred, to come and do the work.

Give Me Bandwidth . . . | The Weekly Standard http://tws.io/148Mb8Z

No one to root for in the net neutrality debate.

FINDING IT HARD TO UNDERSTAND the "net neutrality" debate? On one side are the hip, cool, billionaire web service companies like Google, eBay, Yahoo, and even Microsoft. Net neutrality is their rallying cry. Despite the fact that they are basically schlocky ad salesmen on a grand scale, they're pushing this quaint, self-serving '60s notion that the Internet is a town square--all for one and one for them, or something like that. Everyone should be allowed to hang out in the town square and use it as they please, one low price, eat all you want at the buffet.

On the other side are the monopolist plumbers like Verizon and AT&T and Comcast. These are the folks who laid the pipe that delivers the Internet--the blogs and pirated movies and photos of Shiloh Brangelina--to your house or office. They think the Internet is more like a giant shopping mall, and they're the mall owners. You the customer can walk around as if you were in the town square, but the tenants (see billionaire web service companies above) are going to have to pay for the upkeep of the premises. If they're one of the anchor stores, they might pay a lot.

In an effort to skim their own fees off the Google crowd, lobbyists and Congress have also taken up the fight. So far, the telcos are winning--a bid to add net neutrality language to a telecommunications bill was shot down 269-152 by the House on June 8--but this is one of those bizarre issues where both sides are off their rocker.

If Congress doesn't act, does this mean Apple might pay 10 cents per iTunes download to Bellsouth? Will Google have to pay 5 percent of ad revenue to AT&T for speedy delivery of your search results? Will we pay $1 per video played in your browser to Comcast? Silly, right? Well, not so fast, and that's the problem.

Telcos and cable companies have no choice but to lobby for legislation that bars neutrality. Because without the ability to extract money from the webbies for the use of their not-so-fast Alexander Graham Bell-era wires (forget that you and I already overpay for this), AT&T or Verizon might not have any business model going forward. With no real competition, they'd rather keep U.S. telecommunications in the Flintstone era and overcharge for calls to Grandma than upgrade their networks. Since 1998, telecommunications companies have outspent computer and Internet firms on politicians $231 million to $71 million, just to keep the status quo.

Hate to break the news, but your "fast" DSL Internet access is no longer considered high speed. In parts of the world, cell phones are faster. Have you wondered why Internet video doesn't fill your computer monitor and look like a DVD, but instead is pixelated dreck in a tiny one or two inch square? Well, Comcast is dragging its heels, too. With better video over the Internet, who would want E!, let alone the Style Network? Because of this Fred and Wilma thinking, the United States is 16th in the world in broadband use (behind Liechtenstein!) with East Timor catching up fast. The French may burn Citroëns, but they get 10 megabits for 10 euros--50 times your "fast" Internet access for half the price. That's just not right.

We'll never get 10 megabits to our homes, let alone the multiples of that speed that are possible and affordable today if these telco Goliaths keep covering up their crown jewels. As Dean Wormer might put it: Fat, drunk (on profits), and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

But the answer is not regulations imposing net neutrality. You can already smell the mandates and the loopholes once Congress gets involved. Think special, high-speed priority for campaign commercials or educational videos about global warming. Or roadblocks--like requiring emergency 911 service--to try to kill off free Internet telephone services such as Skype. And who knows what else? Network neutrality won't be the laissez-faire sandbox its supporters think, but more like used kitty litter. We all know that regulations beget more lobbyists. I'd rather let the market sort these things out.

But what market? Phone lines, cable, and cellular--i.e., the means of Internet access--are all regulated; their operators are quasi-monopolies. Even if you end the monopolies, the incumbents have the advantage of a huge head start. Broadcasters own valuable spectrum and feed us cretinous shows like Wife Swap and The Bachelor. Cable has a lock on our homes via local franchise bribes, er, fees, so we get Lifetime and Animal Planet that no one watches. Satellite TV is content to charge just a hair under cable's pricing umbrella. For phone companies, too much Internet bandwidth would threaten their bread and butter--overpriced $25 per month (it's worth no more than $1) phone service and hot innovations like call waiting.

page 2

No one to root for in the net neutrality debate.

So how do we fix this? Are we stuck in telco hell? Silicon Valley can ignite a political arms race and spend more on lobbyists, but why play an old man's game? Instead, these webbies should get creative, change the rules. Bam-Bam, not Barney Rubble is the future. Take the telcos and cable companies out at the knees.

Here's an idea: Start screaming like a madman and using four letter words--like K-E-L-O. And fancier words like "eminent domain." I know, I know. This sounds wrong. These are privately owned wires hanging on poles. But so what? The government-mandated owners have been neglecting them for years--we are left with slums in need of redevelopment. Horse-drawn trolleys ruled cities, too, but had to be destroyed to make way for progress. How do we rip the telco's trolley tracks out and enable something modern and real competition?

Forget the argument that telcos need to be guaranteed a return on investment or they won't upgrade our bandwidth. No one guarantees Intel a return before they spend billions in R&D on their next Pentium chip to beat their competitors at AMD. No one guarantees Cisco a return on their investment before they deploy their next router to beat Juniper. In real, competitive markets, the market provides access to capital.

Without even being paid by the hour, I read through the Supreme Court's Kelo v. City of New London eminent domain rulings. Surely there exists some clever Silicon Valley counsel to twist the wording of the precedent. The telcos may want to treat the Internet like a shopping mall that they own, but the premises are looking awfully sketchy. So start with this line: "Economic underdevelopment and stagnation are also threats to the public sufficient to make their removal cognizable as a public purpose."

Sure, property rights are important, but that doesn't mean we can't shake a cattle prod at our stagnant monopolists and say "update or get out of the way." The mantra should be "megabits to phones and gigabits to homes." We'll only get there via competition. Regulations--even regulations that look friendly to the Googles and Yahoos and hostile to the telcos--will just freeze us where we are today.

IN THE LONG RUN, technology doesn't sleep. You can't keep competitive King Kong in chains. But why wait a decade while lobbyists run interference? If Congress does nothing, we will probably end up paying more for a fast network optimized for Internet phone calls and video and shopping. But this may not be the only possible outcome. Maybe the incumbent network providers--the Verizons, Comcasts, AT&Ts--can be made to compete; threatening to seize their stagnating networks via eminent domain is just one creative idea to get them to do this. A truly competitive, non-neutral network could work, but only if we know its real economic value. If telcos or cable charge too much, someone should be in a position to steal the customer. Maybe then we'd see useful services and a better Internet. Sounds like capitalism.

What new things? It's not just more bandwidth and better Internet video--how about no more phone numbers, just a name and the service finds you? How about subscribing to a channel and being able to watch it when and where you want, on your TV, iPod, or laptop? How about a baby monitor you can view through your cell phone? Something worth paying for. And that's just the easy stuff.

We don't even know what new things are possible. Bandwidth is like putty in the hands of entrepreneurs--new regulations are cement. We don't want a town square or a dilapidated mall--we want a vibrant metropolis. Net neutrality is already the boring old status quo. But don't give in to the cable/telco status quo either. Far better to have competition, as long as it's real, than let Congress shape the coming communications chaos and creativity.

Andy Kessler is a former hedge fund manager turned author. His next book, The End of Medicine: How Silicon Valley (and Naked Mice) Will Reboot Your Doctor, is out in July.

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Gen2v24 Defend the family

Gen 2:24 NKJV  Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

The Leftist and Islamic War on the Family | FrontPage Magazine http://bit.ly/1EralYZ

[(by Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.)]

The greatest threat to the totalitarian state is the family. In Nazi Germany, in the Soviet Union and in the Islamic State, children were split apart from their families, subjected to ruthless indoctrination and taught to turn on their parents at the slightest hint of dissent.

In our more enlightened liberal society where the family is being displaced by the state, children are merely taught to view their parents as ignorant, racist, sexist, homophobic and outdated. The classroom and popular cultural inflate the self-esteem of the next generation by assuring them of their moral superiority to their parents and offering them independence from the authority and values of their parents in exchange for accepting the values and authority of the benevolent liberal state.

It’s a system that is less overtly cruel, but equally determined to replace the family unit with detached citizens cut off from being able to maintain and pass on a set of values opposed to those of the state.

The War on the Family ends with children, but begins by disrupting the relationships between men and women.

While liberalism’s War on Women meme and the sexism of Islamic law may seem like two opposites, they are actually mirror images of each other. Muslims teach men to hate and fear women. Liberals teach women to hate and fear men. Liberalism promotes paranoia about the intentions of men while Islam teaches men to be paranoid about the intentions of women.

Liberalism treats masculinity as a pathology. Islam treats femininity as the root of all evil. Both ideologies insist that one gender and everything related to it is inherently tainted and that the only way to maintain a good society is to purge that gender and everything it represents from the public square.

Liberalism and Islam both seek to create conditions of divisiveness that make trust between the sexes impossible. Even when men and women do connect, both ideologies work to create power imbalances, social, religious and legal, that make family life inherently unstable. Their goal is to prevent the family from becoming the center of human life. Instead the family is transformed into an alien condition that can and does end at any moment by preying on the fears and weaknesses of its participants.

Islam drives women out of public spaces by encouraging predatory male behavior. Liberalism encourages predatory male behavior by disrupting the moral values that keep it in check and then profits from the chaos that it has caused by promoting paranoia about predatory male behavior.

The unspoken truth of the War on Women is that the breakup of the family has made life more dangerous for women and men. It’s a statistical fact that crime rates increase for children from single parent households. Sixty percent of rapists grew up in single parent households. The real War on Women began with the War on the Family. That is also where it ends.

Unlike liberalism, Islam does not seek to eliminate the family, but to maintain its functionality at the purely mechanical level without allowing for healthy relationships. The members of the Islamic family are alienated from each other. The women learn to fear their husbands, fathers and brothers. The men know to distrust their mothers, sisters and daughters. A misstep can easily end in an honor killing.

Both genders view each other as dangerously unpredictable and predatory. Normal human relationships collapse under the weight of mutual distrust. The Muslim family is outwardly intact, but inwardly broken. Its members are united only by an even deeper suspicion and hostility toward the outside world. Muslim men know that women on the outside are even more immoral and untrustworthy than their female relations and Muslim women expect men outside the family to be even more dangerous.

The sex grooming scandals in the UK are an interaction between two networks of broken families. On one side are Muslim men who have been taught that women are barely human. On the other side are the young casualties of a nanny state that killed the family and replaced it with apathetic social workers and callous cops. The same phenomenon is taking place in Western cities across the world.

Islam destroys the family to create men with nothing to live for. The Muslim terrorist does not die for his family. The idea of dying to protect his wife and children has no emotional resonance for him. He can use women and children as human shields because they matter less than he does. It is his own honor that moves him far more than the lives of his family. Kill his children and he may forget. Humiliate him and he will never forgive. Promise him paradise and he will willingly die for a better world than this one.

The Muslim Jihadist does not submit to Allah. He submits to his own ego and kills in its name.

Liberalism however destroys the family to create helpless individuals looking for the next handout. The protégé of the nanny state is a coward. He is eager to join mobs, but does nothing as an individual. He creates nothing, and therefore has nothing to lose except his material possessions which he uses as gateways to the ‘fun’ that consumes his life. He is capable of violence, but only when he has numbers on his side. Family is a means of sharing resources, but not responsibilities. Like his children, it is disposable.

When families die, human beings begin reverting to a feral state. The inability to sustain family leads to the collapse of civilization. Liberalism and Islam both feed off the social failures that they manufacture.

The violent gangs of Jihadists that can pop up anywhere are symptoms of a society with large numbers of feral men. The rapists and killers of ISIS are animated by a profoundly different ideology, but behave similarly to gangs in Latin America and the United States. Islam and liberalism both produce large numbers of feral young men with no meaningful human relationships who derive their sense of identity from gang membership.

It is why Islam spreads so effectively in prison. The penal system is the ideal Islamic environment. It is a world without family and without choice where the only attribute is honor. It is also the inevitable consequence of liberalism. Liberalism kills the family producing young men destined for prison. Islam sweeps in to pick up the pieces and gives them purpose and meaning by turning them into killers.

Islam is a religion of the clan, not of the family. Liberalism organizes people along the lines of the group. Islam militarizes the clan into an expansionist force through conflict with other clans. Liberalism militarizes group identity into a struggle with every other group. Both promote conflict and isolation, uniting combatants through paranoia and hate, while dividing them so that they cannot make peace.

Liberalism and Islam both perpetuate the crises that keep them going through dysfunction. They can only thrive by maintaining a constant supply of unhappy people who have lost the ability to live fulfilling and meaningful lives. The biggest threat to their empires and caliphates of dysfunction is a strong family.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.  [/] Subscribe to Frontpage’s TV show, The Glazov Gang, and LIKE it on Facebook. [/] About Daniel Greenfield [/] Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

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1Ti2v1to2 GOP Congress Agenda

1Ti 2:1-2 NKJV  Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men,  (2)  for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

John Boehner and Mitch McConnell: Now We Can Get Congress Going - WSJ - http://on.wsj.com/1skh4MM

Reform the tax code, redefine ‘full time’ as working 40 hours a week, move on the Keystone XL pipeline—there are plenty of tasks ahead. [/] [Photo caption:]  Sunrise on Capitol Hill. [/] Nov. 5, 2014 7:12 p.m. ET

Americans have entrusted Republicans with control of both the House and Senate. We are humbled by this opportunity to help struggling middle-class Americans who are clearly frustrated by an increasing lack of opportunity, the stagnation of wages, and a government that seems incapable of performing even basic tasks.

Looking ahead to the next Congress, we will honor the voters’ trust by focusing, first, on jobs and the economy. Among other things, that means a renewed effort to debate and vote on the many bills that passed the Republican-led House in recent years with bipartisan support, but were never even brought to a vote by the Democratic Senate majority. It also means renewing our commitment to repeal ObamaCare, which is hurting the job market along with Americans’ health care.

For years, the House did its job and produced a steady stream of bills that would remove barriers to job creation and lower energy costs for families. Many passed with bipartisan support—only to gather dust in a Democratic-controlled Senate that kept them from ever reaching the president’s desk. Senate Republicans also offered legislation that was denied consideration despite bipartisan support and benefits for American families and jobs.

These bills provide an obvious and potentially bipartisan starting point for the new Congress—and, for President Obama , a chance to begin the final years of his presidency by taking some steps toward a stronger economy.

These bills include measures authorizing the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which will mean lower energy costs for families and more jobs for American workers; the Hire More Heroes Act, legislation encouraging employers to hire more of our nation’s veterans; and a proposal to restore the traditional 40-hour definition of full-time employment, removing an arbitrary and destructive government barrier to more hours and better pay created by the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

We’ll also consider legislation to help protect and expand America’s emerging energy boom and to support innovative charter schools around the country.

Enacting such measures early in the new session will signal that the logjam in Washington has been broken, and help to establish a foundation of certainty and stability that both parties can build upon.

At a time of growing anxiety for the American people, with household incomes stubbornly flat and the nation facing rising threats on multiple fronts, this is vital work.

Will these bills single-handedly turn around the economy? No. But taking up bipartisan bills aimed at helping the economy that have already passed the House is a sensible and obvious first step.

More good ideas aimed at helping the American middle class will follow. And as we work to persuade others of their merit, we won’t repeat the mistakes made when a different majority ran Congress in the first years of Barack Obama’s presidency, attempting to reshape large chunks of the nation’s economy with massive bills that few Americans have read and fewer understand.

Instead, we will restore an era in which committees in both the House and Senate conduct meaningful oversight of federal agencies and develop and debate legislation; and where members of the minority party in both chambers are given the opportunity to participate in the process of governing.

We will oversee a legislature in which “bigger” isn’t automatically equated with “better” when it comes to writing and passing bills.

Our priorities in the 114th Congress will be your priorities. That means addressing head-on many of the most pressing challenges facing the country, including:

• The insanely complex tax code that is driving American jobs overseas;

• Health costs that continue to rise under a hopelessly flawed law that Americans have never supported;

• A savage global terrorist threat that seeks to wage war on every American;

• An education system that denies choice to parents and denies a good education to too many children;

• Excessive regulations and frivolous lawsuits that are driving up costs for families and preventing the economy from growing;

• An antiquated government bureaucracy ill-equipped to serve a citizenry facing 21st-century challenges, from disease control to caring for veterans;

• A national debt that has Americans stealing from their children and grandchildren, robbing them of benefits that they will never see and leaving them with burdens that will be nearly impossible to repay.

January will bring the opportunity to begin anew. Republicans will return the focus to the issues at the top of your priority list. Your concerns will be our concerns. That’s our pledge.

The skeptics say nothing will be accomplished in the next two years. As elected servants of the people, we will make it our job to prove the skeptics wrong.

Mr. Boehner (R., Ohio), is the House speaker; Mr. McConnell (R., Ky.) is currently the Senate minority leader.

Related Notes

GOP: Obama's war on coal kills jobs by Andrew Malcolm - Investors.com Posted 09:22 AM ET Michael Ramirez Rep. Larry Bucshon gives the Republican Party's Weekly Remarks Hello, I’m Dr. Larry Bucshon, proudly serving I...

Top 10 reasons to vote Obama out of office - Conservative News By: Human Events 10/27/2012 05:58 AM RESIZE: AAA Bring this list to the attention of undecided voters to help them make up their mind that it is, indeed, tim...

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1Sa28v18 Rush stop O

1Sa 28:18 NKJV  Because you did not obey the voice of the LORD nor execute His fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore the LORD has done this thing to you this day.

The Mandate: Republicans Were Elected to Stop Barack Obama, Not to Work with Him - The Rush Limbaugh Show http://bit.ly/1oozJeb [/] November 05, 2014 [/] BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: What I want to do here is cut to the chase. The result yesterday is exactly what I said it would be. The Republican Party now has one of the most important and unquestionable mandates a political party has ever had at its junction with American history, especially a political party which did not run on a national agenda. The Republican Party purposely stood mute nationally.

Now, if you go into the races, the House and Senate raises all over the country, you will find that many Republican candidates ran specifically against Obamacare, and that is an important note to make and an important thing for you to remember. Individual Republican candidates won, and they won big. They won in a wave landslide running against Obamacare. The national Republican brand or image didn't say a word, which makes the mandate that they have all the more incredible.

It is rare that a political party running for office in a midterm election not standing for anything ends up with a mandate, and they have one, and it is the biggest and perhaps the most important mandate a political party has had in the recent era, and it is very simple what that mandate is. It is to stop Barack Obama. It is to stop the Democrats. There is no other reason why Republicans were elected yesterday. Republicans were not elected to govern.

How can you govern with a president that disobeys the Constitution? How can you govern with a president that is demonstrably lawless when he thinks he has to be? The Republican Party was not elected to fix a broken system or to make it work. The Republican Party was not elected to compromise. The Republican Party was not elected to sit down and work together with the Democrats. The Republican Party was not elected to slow down the speed the country is headed to the cliff and go over it slowly.

The Republican Party was elected to stop before we get to the cliff. And that's the mandate: to stop Obamacare; to stop amnesty; to stop the open borders policy of Obama and the Democrats; to stop the Big Government assault on the free enterprise economy; to stop national security policies that have allowed terrorist networks all over the world to pop up and fill a vacuum created by the absence of the world's lone superpower on the world stage. That must be stopped.

The Republican Party was elected to stop the run-up of a debt greater than all previous presidents combined have created. The Republican Party was elected to stop efforts by this administration to use the IRS and other agencies of government, in violation of manners and law, in attacking political opponents. The Republican Party was elected to put an end to this incessant and divisive lie that is the War on Women. Yesterday's result cannot in any way mean that voters want Republicans to work with Democrats. And anybody who tells you that and anybody who thinks that could not be more dangerously wrong.

You do not have election results like we had yesterday with the intent being that the voters intend the winners to work with the losers. This election was about stopping the losers, in this case the Democrats. There can be no other correct analysis of what this election was about. They were not elected to "fix a broken system."

They were elected to stop the people who are breaking the system.

The results do not mean that voters want Republicans to govern. The election does also not mean that the country's become conservative. It can't be said that there was an ideological component to the mandate, because the Republicans did not run on ideology. The Republicans ran everywhere to stop Obama, and that's what the mandate is. Now, whether they want to accept the mandate or not, that's another question.

Whether they are even aware of the mandate is an even bigger question. As I listen to the wizards of smart -- all the analysts of both parties, all movements on TV last night and today -- the thing I'm hearing from everybody is that what the voters want is for Washington to compromise and people to work together. That's not what they said.

That is not what the voters said. They didn't say it in the exit polls. They didn't say it in the election results. This was a skunking of the Democrat Party. This was the people of America "standing athwart history and yelling, 'Stop!'" There's only one entity that can do that, and that's the Republican Party. They were not elected to "get along." They were not elected to "reach across the aisle."

They were not elected to "compromise." They were not elected to "end gridlock." They were elected to stop the policies of Barack Obama and the Democrat Party. Too much damage has been done to too many people. Because of a president of the United States, people are having their jobs converted from full time to part time. The American people didn't think that was on the table.

They didn't think the president, when he was promoting Obamacare, meant that they were gonna get fewer hours to work. They didn't think it meant that they were gonna lose their health care. They didn't think it meant that their premiums were gonna skyrocket. The American people showed up yesterday and voted in numbers and voices with one message: "Stop this!" There is no legitimate alternative analysis.

I don't even know how you come up with the idea or the conclusion that the message in the vote yesterday is, "Yeah, they want us to cross the aisle and work with the Democrats." If they wanted you to work with the Democrats, you wouldn't have won. If they wanted the Republicans to work with the Democrats and to help the Democrats accomplish more, they would have just elected the Democrats!

"Yeah, well, they want us to work together. They want us to fix things. They want to stop gridlock." No, no, no. They want as much gridlock as it takes to stop what's going on. The country is careening out of control. All of the public opinion shows show it. Right track/wrong track? Two-thirds of America says: Wrong track. The number was increasing as we got closer to the election.

The mandate the Republicans have is to stop Barack Obama, to stop the further implementation of Obamacare, to stop government policies that are destroying the private, free-enterprise economy. Voters across this country know this is not how this country is supposed to be. They know that this is not what they were electing in 2008 and 2012.

So they have shown up here; they have thrown Democrats out of office all over this country. They have thrown Democrats out. Even the polling data could not have been more wrong in several key races, and that's a subject for later on in the program. But there is no confusion about the message the voters sent yesterday.

It may be the myth or the dream of the establishment types from both parties in Washington that what all this means is, "Ah, they want us to work together to get things done. They want us compromise and like each other and stop all the arguing and stop all the acrimony. They just want everybody have fun, go-along-to-get-along and get things done."

That's not what this vote was about. This vote was about stopping Barack Obama. It can't be that it was about anything else. Now, how do we do this? How do you go about stopping Barack Obama when you've taken impeachment off the table? Well, let's listen to Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz was on Fox this morning about 12:40.

He was interviewed by Bret Baier. Baier said, "One of the messages of this election could be that America wants to see Washington work. Some people said compromise would be a good thing. What's your thought on that sometimes evil word, 'compromise,' in Washington?"

CRUZ: It is incumbent on Republicans to stand up and lead. It is incumbent on us to deliver that bold, positive, optimistic agenda. You know, the fact that the people rose up and voted the Democrats out of power doesn't necessarily mean they trust the Republicans. They've given us another chance. But we've got to earn that trust, and the way to earn that trust is to listen to the priorities of the people.

And I hope come January Republicans stand united, we stand as one, and we systematically -- one after the other -- vote on positive, pro-growth ideas. We vote on tax reform. We vote on regulatory reform. We vote on embracing the American energy renaissance. We vote on going after and stopping Obamacare. We deliver on the promises that Republicans campaigned on.

RUSH: Bret Baier then says, "Well, you bring up Obamacare. You have a Democrat president. His name's on the legislation. He's gonna veto whatever you send up there. So how do you do it?"

CRUZ: With Obamacare, I think we should start by using reconciliation to pass complete and total repeal. Now, you're right: The president will, in all likelihood, veto that. If that happens, we should then systematically repeal the most onerous parts of Obamacare. We should pass legislation saying, you can't have your health insurance canceled because of Obamacare.

We should pass legislation saying, you can't be forced into part-time work like so many people, especially single moms have been. We should pass legislation saying, no bailouts for insurance companies under Obamacare. And force the president to pace those single, rifle-shot repeals and decide whether he's gonna listen to the American people or just remain an absolute partisan. And, you know, if he vetoes those bills, I think there's a real chance we might be able to get the votes to override those vetoes.

RUSH: That's how you do it. That's how you start. That's how you use the ammunition you have in your arsenal. But you must understand. They, the Republican Party, must understand that they have one objective. There was one lesson that was being taught last night, one message being sent: "Stop Obama. Stop this. Stop this country careening out of control and being transformed into something it was never founded nor intended to be.

"Stop the Democrat Party. Stop Barack Obama." The Democrat Party part of that has been dealt with in the Senate and the House. Make no mistake: If voters wanted Republicans to work with Democrats, they wouldn't have seen to it that so many Democrats got creamed last night. The country is tired of Democrats. The country is worn out with Democrats.

The country's depressed because of Democrats. The country is out of work because of Democrats. The country is feeling aimless because of Democrats. The country is not optimistic about its future because of Democrats! There is no way the vote yesterday was a signal to work with them. They have had six years of unstoppable destruction, and the American people -- and I, by the way -- want it stopped.

Related Notes

The Republicans Have a Huge Mandate -- Whether They Know It or Not November 03, 2014 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Let me be as blunt as I can. I am not... Even if this Politico piece is true, even though i...

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C Rev1v9to11 God commissions book

_ God commissions John to write what he sees in a book and to send it to the seven assemblies located in Asia.

Rev 1:9-11 NKJV  I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.  (10)  I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet,  (11)  saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last," and, "What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea."

_ It seemed best to add a fair amount of interpretation in the translation below instead of being overly literal.  Most of the additions and changes to traditional translation make implied meanings obvious in English. Brackets are used to designate unfamiliar or novel choices in translation and interpretation. Comments below attempt to explain rather than prove choices, particularly those bracketed.

Rev 1:9-11 jba  I, your brother John, am a partner in the tribulation, and kingdom and endurance of Christ Jesus. I was in the island called Patmos for the Word of God, and for the witness of Jesus Christ.  (10)  I was in [ a special spiritual state] on [a Lordian Day.] And I heard behind me a great voice, sounding like a trumpet.  (11)  The voice said, [] "What you see, write in a scroll, and send it to seven assemblies [], to those at Ephesus, at Smyrna, at Pergamos, at Thyatira, at Sardis, at Philadelphia, and at Laodicea."

1:9.1  I, your brother John, The use of "brother" to address Gentile Christians is interesting. In those epistles directed toward Jewish assemblies and in parts of Romans (see Rom 7.1) fellow descendants of Jacob is often meant. But our Lord has broken down the wall of separation (see Eph 2.11-22). And begotten again Gentile Christians are now members of the Body of Jesus Christ, a Jew, the root and branch of Israel, as well as of Jesse.

1:9.2  am a partner in the tribulation, and kingdom and endurance of Christ Jesus. Three aspects of our Lord and of His Body, the Assembly, are in view. The three are: Suffering Servant, King of Israel, and Son of God. A fourth aspect, Son of Man, is missing although it is a focus of the books of Luke and Paul, and is represented by the third cherub of Rev 4.7. "Partner" here primarily refers to John's office as the last of the Twelve, those who continued our Lord's office as Apostle to Israel during the first forty years of the Assembly.

1:9.3  I was in the island called Patmos  Tradition tells us that John had been exiled by Roman officials. God had provided this man with a closeness to our Lord (John 13.23-24) and His mother (John 19.26-27), an important apostolic ministry, a long life, and a probable enforced semi-retirement so that he would be a fully fit channel for the recording of this book of Revelation.

1:9.4  for the Word of God, and for the witness of Jesus Christ.  This is the overall aim of God working through John to accomplish His purpose. See Rom 1.9; 8.28; Eph 2.10. Our Lord is viewed in this book as the LORD God Almighty (Rev 1.8). His spoken words as recorded by John may be considered both the words of God and the testimony of the Faithful Witness.

1:10.1  I was in [a special spiritual state] on a [Lordian Day]. John's spiritual state is similar to the special meditative psychological states of modern science. But being in the Last Adam, John is more a life giving spirit than a living soul or psyche. See 1 Cor 15.45, John 7.38.

1:10.2  And I heard behind me a great voice, sounding like a trumpet.  The speaker seems to be our Lord. In 1 Thess 4.16 there is a similar description of our Lord's voice when He returns to take His Assembly to heaven.  Important transitions are also announced in a great voice like a trumpet in two places in this book. Here, Rev 1.10, the completion of Scripture is commissioned. In Rev 4.1 the end of the apostolic era is about to take place. There is a parallel between these three trumpet like voice announcements during the time of the Assembly on earth and the seven trumpets during the time of Israel's revivification during the Tribulation. See Rev 8:2-11:15

1:11.1  The voice said, [] "What you [perceive], write in a scroll,  A Revelation is given spiritually by God to Christ, to both Head and Body. See Rev 1.1. John, a member of that Body, perceives that Revelation spiritually, in a special spiritual state, with an inner spiritual eye and an inner spiritual ear. John's written record serves as a guide to other members of the Body so that they too may spiritually perceive what is freely available to them in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The omitted phrases are not found here in the Byzantine form text. They are important and are found elsewhere in the book in places which make their meaning clearer. See Rev 1.8; 21.6; 22.13.

1:11.2  and send it to seven assemblies [], Another unneeded duplication is omitted in the Byzantine form text.

1:11.3  to those at Ephesus, at Smyrna, at Pergamos, at Thyatira, at Sardis, at Philadelphia, and at Laodicea."  In this book "assembly" seems to primarily have the sense of all the begotten again Christians in a community. The word also has the sense of a regular meeting of begotten again Christians. See Rom 16.5; Col 4:15; etc.  A messenger taking the scroll to the seven assemblies could land at Ephesus and proceed along a road to the other six communities in the order given. Interestingly, Colossae is the next town on the road after Laodicea. This is perhaps a hint that there is special post-apostolic application in Paul's epistle to that assembly.

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C Rev1v4to8 To all assemblies

_ The seven assemblies located in Asia (a Roman province in Asia Minor) are prominent in the first chapters of the book of Revelation.  The seven represent all Christian assemblies. Seven is the number representing earthly completeness as twelve represents heavenly completeness. All members of the universal Assembly who do not gather regularly in local assembly meetings are also included. There is an eternal spiritual connection with our Lord, the Head of the Body. Like the ancient civil assemblies of the citizens of the Greek city states, Christian assemblies and the universal Assembly are properly composed of citizens, those properly recorded in Heaven as citizens there. See Heb 12.23.  The Christian assembly meetings include others. Distinction is not made. Even when there is voluntary and/or disciplinary separation.  The tares and wheat grow together until the harvest. See Matt 13.24-30,36-43.

Rev 1:4-8 NKJV  John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne,  (5)  and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,  (6)  and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.  (7)  Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.  (8)  "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End," says the Lord, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."

_ It seemed best to add a fair amount of interpretation in the translation below instead of being overly literal.  Most of the additions and changes to traditional translation make implied meanings obvious in English. Brackets are used to designate unfamiliar or novel choices in translation and interpretation. Comments below attempt to explain rather than prove choices, particularly those bracketed.

Rev 1:4-8 jba  John to the seven assemblies located in Asia: Grace to you, and peace, from [God, the King] who is, and who was, [even the One] coming, and from the seven spirits which are before His throne;  (5)  [even] from Jesus Christ the Faithful Witness, the First-born from the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. To [the One] [loving] us [who washes] us from our sins [by] His blood,  (6)  and made us kings and priests to God, even His Father. To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever! Amen!  (7)  "Behold! He is coming with clouds!" and "Every eye will see Him, even those who pierced" Him, and all the tribes of the earth "will wail on account of Him." Yes! Amen! Dan. 7:13; Zech. 12:10  (8)  "[I AM] the Alpha and the Omega []," says, "the LORD God, [the One] who is, and who was, even the One coming, the Almighty."

1:4.1  John to the seven assemblies located in Asia: Grace to you, and peace, The names of the seven and the command to write are in Rev 1:11. "Grace" and "peace" were common greetings among Gentiles and Jews, respectively. The combination is common in biblical epistles. The rest of this five verse epistle heading is uncommon. The Temple is viewed as destroyed and now the way into the holiest place in the heavenly tabernacle is manifest. The spiritual environment of the Assembly has become radically different. See Heb 9:8; Rev 1:10-20- versus Rev 4.

1:4.2  from [God, the King] who is, and who was, [even the One] coming, The Son is clearly in view here. The Byzantine form text has "God" without the article. (See John 1:1: "the Word was God".) The "is - was - coming" phrase is repeated in Rev 4:8 where it is applied to the One on the throne.

1:4.3  and from the seven spirits which are before His throne; The seven are seen before the throne in Rev 4:5. They may be viewed as a spiritual connection between Christ and His Assembly. See also Rev 1.12-13,20; 5.6.

1:5.1  [even] from Jesus Christ the Faithful Witness, the First-born from the dead, "Even" is a frequent translation of the Greek word. Greene uses it here in his LITV on free E-Sword. Rev 1.2 tells us that the book contains testimony from this "Fathful Witness". Heb 12.23 tells us that those in Christ are the Assembly of the first born ones, who have a spiritual presence in heaven and whose names are registered there. As first born ones, they have a double inheritance. They are part of the new creation both here in the old one (1 Cor 5.17) and in the creation to come.

1:5.2  and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. This affirms the translation in Rev 1.4 .2 above and is amplified in 1 Tim 6.15 and later in this book.

1:5.3  To [the One] [loving] us [who washes] us from our sins [by] His blood, The Greek present participle is translated as an English present participle. The Greek aorist participle is translated as a present indicative. These seem to be good default practices. The Greek "in" with the dative is translated in an instrumental rather than a locative sense. This seems appropriate here. See 1 John 1.7.

1:6.1  and who made us kings and priests to God, even His Father.  We read about being priests in 1 Peter 2.5 and elsewhere. Being kings is new, although it is predicted in Rom 5.17 And Heb 12.28. The Father served as God to the Son during His incarnation and to a lesser extent afterwards. The Father is also, in different senses, Father and God to those in Christ. See John 20.17.

1:6.2  To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever! Amen!  This verse has two, and the next verse four, exclamatory statements. They are so marked. Those placed in responsible offices ascribe proper glory and power to the One who placed them there. The statement is akin to "Holiness to the LORD," as inscribed on the gold plate on the turban of the high priest in the Temple.  See Exo 28.36-38.  This praise is also the proper response to the continual love He provides and the continual cleansing from the effects of sin by His blood. See 1:5.3 above.

1:7.1  "Behold! He is coming with clouds!" Old testament passages are quoted in this verse. References are at the end of the verse, 1:7.4 below. "Behold!" is an interjection that frequently, as here, has the meaning, "Look with an inner spiritual eye and discern". The clouds that accompanied His coming at the time of writing (and that continue to obscure His new post-apostolic spiritual presence amongst us) are transparent to the inner spiritual eye that is "single" or "simple". (Or perhaps mercifully translucent when the believer's discernment is obscured by tradition.) See Luke 11.34-35; John 14.23.

1:7.2  and "Every eye will see Him, even those who pierced" Him, This verse portion and the next seem to primarily refer to the still future event predicted in Rev 6.15-17. All men are guilty of piercing Him. All are sinners. All are predisposed to judge as the High Priest and Pilate did. And to follow proper crucifixion military procedure as the soldier did. But "eye" is singular. And there is an application of "see" to those with a begotten again spiritual eye that pierces the clouds accompanying His spiritual return.

1:7.3  and all the tribes of the earth "will wail on account of Him."  John uses "tribes" instead of "nations". The latter word is often used to mean "Gentiles". Here Israel is included.

1:7.4  Yes! Amen! Dan. 7:13; Zech. 12:10  The dual exclamations that begin and end this verse are testimony to its importance. The quoted prophecies are modified in this verse to give them a new application in a still future wailing of desperation - Rev 6:15-17. As unmodified, the wailing is one of mourning and a fulfillment is in John 19.34 with Luke 23.48. In both cases, the sincere repentance of some seems indicated.

1:8.1  "[I AM] the Alpha and the Omega [],"  John is recording the testimony of Jesus, the Faithful Witness. See Rev 1.2,5; 21.6; 22.13. Jesus is proclaiming the completeness and fullness of his office as the Word of God. He is vouching for the accuracy of each letter of inspired writing at the time of the completion of scripture. Jesus speaks in terms of New Testament Greek letters here. He spoke of Old Testament Hebrew and Aramaic letters in Matt 5.18. See also In Two Cities: [Rom 3:1-2] Inspiration of Bible http://bit.ly/1u7yX7N  "I AM" is all caps to show that our Lord is using the sacred Name often rendered Jehovah and also represented in scripture as: "LORD", "GOD", and "I AM THAT I AM". See our Lord's prior use of "I AM" in Mark 14.61-65; John 14.6; 18.6. (The beginning and ending phrase is not in the Byzantine form text.)

1:8.2  says, the LORD God,  John again applies the sacred Name to Jesus in a phrase frequent in the Old Testament. The preceding and succeeding verse portions affirm that the Son is in view.

1:8.3  "[the One] who is, and who was, even the One coming, The statements in this verse portion are identical to those in the Rev 1.4 .2 portion above where the attribution to the Son is clear.

1:8.4  the Almighty."  Another common title of the God of the Old Testament is here applied to our Lord. The Rev 1.8 Name and titles of portions .2 and .4 are joined in verses Rev 4.8; 15.3; 16.7; 21.22. Gen 17.1 contains the Name and titles and also "I am" ("I AM" in the Septuagint.).

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C Rev1v1to3 Our book

Rev 1:1-3 NKJV  The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants--things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John,  (2)  who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw.  (3)  Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.

_ It seemed best to add a fair amount of interpretation in the translation below instead of being overly literal.  Most of the additions and changes to traditional translation make implied meanings obvious in English. Brackets are used to designate unfamiliar or novel choices in translation and interpretation. Comments below attempt to explain rather than prove choices, particularly those bracketed.

Rev 1:1-3 jba  A revelation [belonging to] Jesus Christ. God gave it to Jesus [in order that His Body might] show to His [servant Israel] [certain] things which must soon occur. [God] explained [these things]. He sends [instruction] by His [selected angels] to His servant, John.  (2)  John herein records what he heard, including the spoken word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. John also records descriptions of the many things that he saw.  (3)  Happy is the one publicly reading and those hearing the words of this prophecy, and remembering the things written in it; for the time is near.

1:1.1 A revelation [belonging to] Jesus Christ. The next phrase shows that the sense of the usual "of" is ownership, not source or description. God gave a revelation to Jesus.

1:1.2 God gave it to Jesus [in order that His Body might] show  Paul tells us that Christian believers are members of the Body of Christ. John, through the visions recorded in this book shows us that believers are members of the Body of Christ. (In Rev 1:13-17 Head and Body of Christ are clearly differentiated. Rev 12:5 does not distinguish between the Christ child and the Assembly as caught up to God.) The Body receives a revelation given by God to Jesus spiritually as well as through John’s description. Rev 1.3 describes how the Body "shows" this revelation.

1:1.3 to His [servant Israel] John is one of the Twelve. He is an apostle to Israel, particularly to the faithful remnant. The urgent message in this book is to those begotten again under the law. The Temple is about to be destroyed and Jews killed and scattered. The time of valid testimony under the law is ending. It is time for those of faithful Israel to fully accept the Gospel. This book is particularly directed at faithful Jews who are in contact with the Assembly. (The Gentiles, as usual, receive the crumbs which fall from the table and the food which the children rejected.) The term "servants" does not seem to be applied to the generality of Christians during the first forty years of the Assembly. Scripture does apply it to "Israel, my servant".

1:1.4 [certain] things which must soon occur.  The "certain things" are those which are explained to John by "selected angels". Rev 17:10 establishes the urgency. The writing of the book and the destruction of the Temple occur during the reign of Vespasian. The end of the apostolic era, and of valid testimony under the law and the death of John, appear to take place with the death of the Emperor Titus. At this later time the beginning of the post-apostolic era takes place as depicted in Rev 21:9-22:11. The urgency of full acceptance of the Gospel before this time is made plain. A sovereign God will convert the faithful remnant in time. John is a chief instrument in this.

1:1.5 [God] explained [these things]. The Greek verb does not have an object. Tradition has inserted "it" for smoothness and has, without valid reason, thus made the explaining refer to this book as a whole. A plural object is equally acceptable to Greek grammar and makes a lot more sense. The awkwardness of a revelation given from God to Our Lord to an angel to John ought to warn us that tradition may well have obscured the Word.

1:1.6 He sends [instruction] by His [selected angels] The Greek word translated "sends" is related to the word "apostle". It is not just a simple sending. It includes the commissioning of a particular messenger. "Angel" is singular in the Greek and it is possible that one angel is in view. But it seems better to view the construction as the method by which God explains, and two angels seems to make a better fit.

1:1.7 to His servant, John.  Apostles and others appointed to special offices by God are generally referred to as His servants. The generality of Christians in the first forty years are not.

1:2.1 John herein records what he heard, including the spoken word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. This translation makes explicit much that is implied. Both God and Jesus clearly speak many times during the visions.

1:2.2 John also records descriptions of the many things that he saw. John provides a written record of this revelation. But members of the Body of Christ also see and hear spiritually a revelation given to Christ by God.

1:3.1 Happy is the one publicly reading, and those hearing the words of this prophecy, The primary meaning is the reading of John’s communication in the local assembly. The later repeating of the words is also in view.

1:3.2 and remembering the things written in it; Tradition is often captive to the error of the Galatians and translates (or interprets) "guard" or "keep" as "do" or "obey". We are to first remember the words of God. Then repeat, meditate on, and/or memorize them. The spirit of the life that is in Christ Jesus accomplishes the rest. See Joshua 1:8, Romans 8:1-4.

1:3.3 for the time is near. The need for an urgent response is peculiar to the faithful remnant of Israel. But the transition from apostolic to post-apostolic times is an enormous blessing to the entire Assembly. The availability of the complete Bible to almost all believers is so common a blessing today that it escapes notice. We no longer know in part and prophecy in part. We grow into the Head. Etc.

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