BOMBSHELL: The Pentagon Raised Israel's Counterintelligence Threat Level To The Highest Possible Designation Of "CRITICAL" Over Concerns Israel Is Aggressively Spying On Top U.S. Officials
While Paine's Common Sense profoundly influenced the push for independence (and many Founders admired that work), his later religious critiques alienated several key figures. Benjamin Franklin warned him against publishing it, and orthodox Christian Founders like Elias Boudinot publicly rebutted him. Note that Boudinot founded and became the first president of the American Bible Society (bible distributors). The reason Franklin opposed much of Paine's work was superficial. He thought Christianity would bring about a level of "good social value." He further likely used Christianity, despite his thoughts on deism (paganism and deism do overlap with certain ideas), in the colonies to "maintain unity."
The First Amendment's no-establishment clause reflected a deliberate rejection of a national church, even as the cultural backdrop remained broadly Christian.
Today's Pentagon policy under Hegseth streamlining religious codes with a heavy Christian emphasis, reflects ongoing tensions in American public life between secular/liberal traditions (echoing Paine) and the country's historically Christian-majority heritage. It's a reminder that the Founding era contained competing impulses rather than a single, unified ideology. Currently, the US military reflects this: about 70% of active-duty service members identify as Christian. The larger and more significant question is why is the US military and America in general being brought back into Christianity?
The defense secretary has spent most of his tenure drifting from one culture war priority to another. Evidently, he hasn’t gotten to the end of his list.
June 5, 2026 | By Steve Benen
To a degree without modern precedent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has used his powerful office to advance a Christian nationalist agenda. In recent months, Americans have seen him lead Christian prayer services in the Pentagon’s auditorium, invite radical Christian nationalist figures to speak at official prayer services, use social media to promote messages that suggest his faith should dominate other religious traditions and even argue during an official press briefing that Americans should take a knee and pray "in the name of Jesus Christ."
Since the war in Iran began, the former Fox News host has intensified these efforts. The New York Times reported in March, "More than any top American military leader in recent history, Mr. Hegseth has framed U.S. military operations in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America as bigger than politics or foreign policy. Often he has imbued these actions with a Christian moral underpinning that suggests they are divinely sanctioned."
Soon after, Hegseth explicitly likened the rescue of a missing American airman shot down over Iran to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The week after that, the Pentagon chief started equating journalists he doesn't like with "pharisees."
This week, however, a related problem emerged, though in an unexpected way: Instead of seeing Hegseth's Defense Department take steps to elevate one faith tradition, Americans are seeing the Pentagon demote other faith traditions. The Religion News Service reported:
Please go to MS Now to continue reading.
Let's see if we understand this correctly. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin was instrumental in creating the state of Israel and today America is Israel's protectorate. Now we see Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has reduced officially recognized religious affiliation codes from over 200 to 31 for "administrative streamlining" while the US and Israel militaries are being integrated. The updated list heavily favors Christian denominations while dropping categories such as Atheist, Humanist, Pagan, and Wiccan. This move marginalizes non-Christians and promotes favoritism of Christianity over other beliefs. America is an Abrahamic nation and is largely controlled by powerful Israel-related interests. This is a very dangerous precedent being set again.
The irony here has not been lost. Thomas Paine was a radical deist who fiercely opposed organized Christianity. In The Age of Reason (written between 1794–95 and was a major attack on Christianity), he attacked the Bible, miracles, and core Christian doctrines as "fables" and "impositions," advocating "reason over revelation." Maybe Paine realized something most Christians do not understand today? Those fables and impositions were created by Jewish scribes who rewrote earlier texts from ancient Greek to forge their history? Many non-Christians today outright reject the idea that America is a "Judeo-Christian" nation. Virtually all major American "Founding Fathers" were influenced by Thomas Paine, particularly by his 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies and shifted colonial opinion toward full independence from Britain (today it's British-Zionism). Today, we constantly see Christian apologists going up against Paine's thinking to sabotage his work.
While Paine's Common Sense profoundly influenced the push for independence (and many Founders admired that work), his later religious critiques alienated several key figures. Benjamin Franklin warned him against publishing it, and orthodox Christian Founders like Elias Boudinot publicly rebutted him. Note that Boudinot founded and became the first president of the American Bible Society (bible distributors). The reason Franklin opposed much of Paine's work was superficial. He thought Christianity would bring about a level of "good social value." He further likely used Christianity, despite his thoughts on deism (paganism and deism do overlap with certain ideas), in the colonies to "maintain unity."
The broader Founding generation was religiously diverse: many were Christians (often Protestant) of varying orthodoxy, while central figures like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison leaned toward Enlightenment-influenced deism or "theistic rationalism." They believed in a Creator and moral order but were skeptical of religious dogma and institutional religion.
The First Amendment's no-establishment clause reflected a deliberate rejection of a national church, even as the cultural backdrop remained broadly Christian.
Today's Pentagon policy under Hegseth streamlining religious codes with a heavy Christian emphasis, reflects ongoing tensions in American public life between secular/liberal traditions (echoing Paine) and the country's historically Christian-majority heritage. It's a reminder that the Founding era contained competing impulses rather than a single, unified ideology. Currently, the US military reflects this: about 70% of active-duty service members identify as Christian. The larger and more significant question is why is the US military and America in general being brought back into Christianity?
________
Hegseth's Pentagon slashes the number of religious faiths it officially recognizes
The defense secretary has spent most of his tenure drifting from one culture war priority to another. Evidently, he hasn’t gotten to the end of his list.
June 5, 2026 | By Steve Benen
To a degree without modern precedent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has used his powerful office to advance a Christian nationalist agenda. In recent months, Americans have seen him lead Christian prayer services in the Pentagon’s auditorium, invite radical Christian nationalist figures to speak at official prayer services, use social media to promote messages that suggest his faith should dominate other religious traditions and even argue during an official press briefing that Americans should take a knee and pray "in the name of Jesus Christ."
Since the war in Iran began, the former Fox News host has intensified these efforts. The New York Times reported in March, "More than any top American military leader in recent history, Mr. Hegseth has framed U.S. military operations in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America as bigger than politics or foreign policy. Often he has imbued these actions with a Christian moral underpinning that suggests they are divinely sanctioned."
Soon after, Hegseth explicitly likened the rescue of a missing American airman shot down over Iran to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The week after that, the Pentagon chief started equating journalists he doesn't like with "pharisees."
This week, however, a related problem emerged, though in an unexpected way: Instead of seeing Hegseth's Defense Department take steps to elevate one faith tradition, Americans are seeing the Pentagon demote other faith traditions. The Religion News Service reported:
The Department of Defense is substantially reducing the number of religions it officially recognizes, reportedly excluding atheists, pagans, humanists and New Age faiths, an independent military-focused news website reports.The Military.com report was based on a memorandum issued by Anthony Tata on May 20. (Tata, the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, is perhaps best known for his record of anti-Muslim rhetoric and bonkers condemnations of Barack Obama, whom Tata described as a "terrorist leader." Last year, Senate Republicans confirmed him anyway.)
The reduction of recognized faith groups represents the first time the military has revised the list since 2017, when it vastly expanded the list of recognized faith groups to about 211. The new list includes 31 recognized faiths, as first reported by Military.com on Thursday (June 4).
Please go to MS Now to continue reading.
________
"It was if the holy spirit just honed me in..."
In a "Christian" nation Somalians don't belong in America, apparently, this is according to Trump:
Of course they are going to refuse. It would be too incriminating and might even show how Israel was ambushed on Oct. 7?
Israeli authorities refuse to return massive trove of Oct 7 video. What are they hiding?
Israeli authorities refuse to return massive trove of Oct 7 video. What are they hiding?
What else is going on in the Middle East related to Israel with America as its protectorate:
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