Mark Armstrong on Supreme Court Nomination, Facebook, Iran, the Trade War and Immigration to the EU

Mark Armstrong, leader of the Intercontinental Church of God, son of Garner Ted Armstrong, grandson of Herbert Armstrong, has released another weekly update (July 27, 2018). Let us see what he has to say this time.

This week Mark Armstrong boasts about his preferred president being able to appoint right wing judges to the Supreme Court; scare mongering about Iran; and once again complaining about immigrants.

Greetings from Tyler, 

It seems we're caught in something of a whirlwind. The press slavering for something, ANYTHING that might bring the Trump agenda to a screeching halt.  All but one mainstream network has been trying and convicting the president of every conceivable evil motive, perpetual lying, conspiracy and probable obstruction of justice. 

News programs on television networks cannot try or convict anyone of criminal offenses. That role is fulfilled by the judicial authorities, not TV news programs.

After this Mark Armstrong hysterically insists that should the government enforce laws he claims contradict his religion then it is usurping the power of God.

But we've seen our religious liberties reaffirmed by the current administration and by the Supreme Court.  For a while it looked like anybody, or any business could be baited into refusing to provide service in violation of their conscience.  Who do you want to be in trouble with, the STATE or God?  The STATE seemed to think it had replaced God.  Forget all that racist, bigoted, anti-gay stuff in the Bible.  No, the demonstrators know better.  They've decided what our values are, or what they should be, and the demand that the STATE not only adhere to their “progressive” (as they call them) “values” or prepare to be sued out of existence.  No wonder they're freaking out.  That may no longer be possible.

Mark Armstrong rubbishes the law of the land for contradicting his hostility against the LGBT community.

The fact that Constitutionalists are being appointed to the Supreme Court, means we're not going to see the kind of rulings that legalized and sought to MANDATE cooperation with every perversity, or else!  “It's the law of the land!”  How often were we lectured about “respect” for gay marriage?  As we noted many times over recent years, any law that contradicts the Laws of nature, God's Laws, is no law at all.

Mark Armstrong then exploits the recent fall in the stock market price of Facebook to insist that right wingers are skillfully putting pressure on Facebook for supposedly marginalizing right wing commentators.

Chances are we're going to see cases before the Supreme Court in the months and years ahead that won't go the way they'd been going for the last thirty some odd years.  These involve some of the most crucial national sins, having become not only legal, but nearly impossible to criticize. The social media phenomenon became an enforcer, and is to this day.  Maybe that's why Facebook  lost $100 billion dollars in two days this week. Their technical explanations about algorithms being to blame for banning conservative ideas didn't wash.  The notion that these mysterious algorithms have a mind of their own, and accidentally banish content that doesn't square with political correctness would be like saying CNN is the most trusted name in news.  Everybody, except the most committed of angry socialists, sees exactly what is going on.

Mark Armstrong's preferred president has initiated trade wars with the European Union and China. It is hard to know how this could disrupt the world economy. Americans will have to pay more for goods from these nations and get less profits exporting to them as well. No one wins a trade war. This will probably reduce the income for the COGs including the Intercontinental Church of God. But Mark Armstrong, receiver of the tithes, seems unworried. If anything he seems content to condemn anyone badmouthing his preferred president.

He also mischaracterizes an investigation seeking to uncover possible criminal activity as a "coup attempt to topple a presidency".

We've got scandals, corruption, and a (so far) failed coup attempt to topple a presidency that is projecting American success.  Whether internal dealings in economic matters, such as the rollback in the mandate-happy regulatory bureaucracy, or international relations with foes like North Korea, China, Russia and Iran, or allies like the the EU, France, Germany, the UK and Canada, the status quo has been turned on its head.  We heard not only the mainstream news but some of the most revered conservative voices scream bloody murder.  They said friendly nations are being punished by tariffs that will lead to a full-blown trade war, and that it is the American consumer who will pay.  But, as seen with this week's visit of the EU's Junker, tariffs, or the threat of them, may be a ploy to bring them to the negotiating table, and that looks to be what is happening. 

And just after talking about the trade war with the European Union he suddenly muses that Americans are quite focused on internal affairs.

Maybe we can be forgiven for being wrapped up in domestic drama. Much of the rest of the world is watching it closely and are wrapped up in it too. After all, the stakes are massive with implications for everything you can imagine. But there are other matters that scarcely make mainstream mention, even with round the clock news coverage.  

Mark Armstrong then scare mongers about Iran by mentioning Saudi Arabia's decision to avoid sending ships past war torn Yemen following an attack by the Houthis against Saudi shipping. Curiously he makes no connection between Saudi Arabia's involvement in fighting the Houthis and how that would give an incentive to the Houthis to attack Saudi shipping.

Saudi tankers were just attacked, apparently from Yemen, at the southern most strait of the Red Sea. For years there has been concern about the Straits of Hormuz, where oil shipments exit the Persian Gulf. But now Saudi Arabia has said it's curtailing shipments through the Bab al-Mandeb strait. How long might this go on, and with what effect on oil prices worldwide?  Yemen is in the midst of a years' long civil war, with Iran believed to be deeply involved. Needless to say, Saudi Arabia and Iran are enemies. 

Mark Armstrong then scare mongers about Iran as he has often done.

President Trump warned Iran this week about their penchant for threats against the United States and dire, apocalyptic  predictions if they are hindered in any way. Now they've threatened Trump's personal holdings, hinting they will use terrorism to “destroy everything you own.”  This should get good. Iran's leaders have been talking through their turbans (to put it kindly) for nearly forty years.  This time they just might get their bluff called.  They talk in terms of “the Iranian people.”  But the Iranian people are hostage to a troubled and brutal theocracy with tens of thousands (maybe more) in revolt. The leadership, however is involved in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and the results are pretty clear. You wouldn't want to vacation at any of those destinations. No doubt President Trump would be open to some kind of diplomatic deal, but chances of that are waning.

He then switches his attention to scare mongering about the European Union. He scare mongers that the arrival of immigrants has created a rise in crime but this is unlikely to be true. Generally immigrants are so busy trying to establish themselves that they tend to stay away from criminal activities in order to be allowed to stay where they are.

Europe is in political and economic turmoil. Angela Merkel is barely afloat in Germany and nobody seems to know what to do next about the mass migration she welcomed into all of Europe. Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal are economic basket cases and the whole thing is held together with baling wire and chewing gum. European news is so convoluted as to be exhausting in its complexity. The immigrant problem with its resulting crime has become a massive political issue, with some nations pulling the plug regardless of EU mandates.

He praises Prime Minister May for making a joke while trying to negotiate Britain's withdrawal from the European Union.

Two years later, since the British voted to get out from under EU rule, everybody's still arguing and there seems to have been very little progress if any.  President Trump, it has emerged, suggested that Prime Minister sue the EU, which she related to an interviewer with good-natured levity.  It's good to see the she has retained her sense of humor in the whole mess. Everybody else seems to have lost theirs. 

He ends his missive by implying that these events point to Christ's return in the future.

It is a unique time, not only in the United States but in Europe, the Middle East and pretty much everywhere else. We know the outlines of Bible prophecy, and the table is not yet set.  However, you can clearly see that Europe is in economic and political tumult, as is the Middle East, and the onslaught of North African and Middle Eastern immigrants is just liable to upend the status quo, just as it has here in the United States. They're not sending their best. 

Mark

And so Mark Armstrong's weekly denunciation of the world outside of right wing America ends. He does not tend to vary his topics that often.

It is to be wondered if the income for his organization should just happen to go down in the near future would he realize that it could be because of the trade war initiated by his preferred president?