Economist Jim O’Neil, who first coined the term BRICS in 2001, told Reuters the idea BRICS being a genuine global club is “out there with the fairies” and “not feasible.”

“The idea that the BRICS can be some genuine global economic club, it’s obviously a bit out there with the fairies in the same way that the G7 can be, and it’s very disturbing that they see themselves as some kind of alternative global thing, because it’s obviously not feasible,” O’Neill said.

BRICS was first formed in 2009 in the wake of the 2008 global recession and originally had four member states – Brazil, Russia, India, and China. It has grown substantially over the past 20 years, adding South Africa in 2010, and since then has grown to include Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Egypt.

According to O’Neil, BRICS as a group has not achieved much over the past 15 years, and added the alliance is more symbolic than anything.

“It seems to me basically to be a symbolic annual gathering where important emerging countries, particularly noisy ones like Russia, but also China, can basically get together and highlight how good it is to be part of something that doesn’t involve the U.S. and that global governance isn’t good enough,” O’Neil said.

The relationship between China and India – the two economic powerhouses of the group – has been mired with disputes over territory over recent years. O’Neil said he would take the alliance seriously when both countries are actually able to work together effectively.

“I will take the BRICS group seriously when I see signs that the two countries that really matter – China and India – are actually really trying to agree on things, rather than effectively trying to confront each other all the time,” O’Neil said.

Tensions could be beginning to ease between China and India, however, after China’s President Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to an agreement over the long-running border disputes on Wednesday.

According to the Associated Press, the two leaders met for the first time in five years and this could spell the end of a four-year standoff between their respective militaries along their shared Himylayan border, which China has laid claim to.

“It’s important for both sides to shoulder our international responsibilities, set an example for boosting the strength and unity of the developing countries, and contribute to promoting multi-polarization and democracy in international relations,” Xi said.

India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters the pact will have a positive impact on regional and global peace and prosperity. However, he did not detail how exactly the border dispute would be resolved, and if the tens of thousands of troops still stationed there would be pulled back.

“The two leaders affirmed that stable, predictable, and amicable bilateral relations between India and China, as two neighbors and the two largest nations on earth, will have a positive impact on regional and global peace and prosperity,” Misri said.

Met President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Kazan BRICS Summit.

India-China relations are important for the people of our countries, and for regional and global peace and stability.

Mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity will guide bilateral relations. pic.twitter.com/tXfudhAU4b

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 23, 2024

#WATCH | Prime Minister Narendra Modi holds a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit.

(Source: DD News/ANI) pic.twitter.com/WmGk1AlSwW

— ANI (@ANI) October 23, 2024

#WATCH | Kazan, Russia: During the bilateral meeting with PM Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping says, "It's my great pleasure to meet you in Kazan. It's the first time for us to have a formal meeting in five years time. Both the people in our two countries and the international… pic.twitter.com/NCUm2DVmQY

— ANI (@ANI) October 23, 2024

Russian President Valdimir Putin seemed confident BRICS would continue to expand, and stated on Wednesday there are over 30 countries currently wanting to join BRICS, according to a report from DP International.

“It would undoubtedly be wrong to ignore the unprecedented interest of the countries of the Global South and east in strengthening their contacts with BRICS,” Putin said.

The summit’s agenda is breaking away from Western-led financial institutions, reducing the reliance on the U.S. dollar and the influence of the SWIFT system. Putin reportedly wants stronger financial bonds between the members.

Putin said Wednesday the U.S. dollar is being used as a weapon, adding he does not reject using the dollar but feels forced to look for an alternative, because Russia is not able to work with U.S. dollars.

“The [U.S.] dollar is used as a weapon, it is true and we see that. I think it is a great mistake by those who do it, since the use of the dollar, which is still the most important tool in global finance, and its use as a political tool undermines trust in this currency, thereby reducing its capabilities. We are not the ones who do that. It’s others. We are not rejecting the dollar or fighting against it, but if they don’t let us work with it, what else should we do? We should seek other alternatives and this is exactly what we do,” Putin said.

JUST IN: Russian President Putin says it's a "great mistake" to use the US dollar as a weapon. pic.twitter.com/4J3KU1Z6U7

— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) October 23, 2024

Ulrich Schmid, professor of Russian studies at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, told France 24’s Eve Irvine the West should not overestimate the significance of the BRICS summit because the member states have clashing agendas, making any real progress slow.

“We do have very diverging agendas among the member states. So, for instance, Russia and Iran are extremely interested to create alternative trade platforms, alternative payment systems to evade the heavy sanctions they’re under … At the same time we have other countries who are just in favor of multilateral world orders, such as Brazil or India, and they at the same time want to continue to have very good relations also with Western countries, including the United States,” Schmid said.

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“Christians are not tremendous voters in terms of percentage,” Trump said Wednesday at a Believers and Ballots Faith Town Hall in Zebulon, Georgia. “If they were, we would never lose an election.”

The president was responding to a question about a recent survey by George Barna at Arizona Christian University which found that “as many as 104 million people of faith are unlikely to vote in this upcoming election – and among those, 32 million self-identified Christians who regularly attend church won’t cast their ballots.”

“I think we’ve really energized a lot of people this time because they’ve seen how bad it is. This last four years has been, it’s been a horror show, an absolute horror show.”

He continued: “I think we’re gonna see those numbers goes way up. I’m almost sure of it, and I’m even hearing that from, statistically, because you see what’s coming in. And by the way, record numbers of votes are coming in. That’s supposed to be a good thing for us. … We want to make it too big to rig.”

He indicated the current administration has been targeting Christians for persecution, with some groups especially hard hit.

“I don’t know what’s going on with Catholics. Why are they after Catholics? The Catholics are being persecuted. Schools boards are being persecuted, parents.”

Trump said Democrats in power are “not a nice group of people.”

“They’re vicious people,” he said. “People are being persecuted, people of religion. And you saw little bit of it during COVID, where you’d have a service outside, everybody’s five yards away and they’re coming and arresting people. It’s very bad. But I think you’re gonna see a big change. I think you’re gonna see it now.”

He indicated religion is “like the glue that holds it all together.”

In addition to Christians, Trump noted gun owners tend to avoid voting.

“People that own guns, they vote in a very small proportion. If they ever voted, you could never lose. And in fact, the Democrats, the radical left, used to fear them and now they don’t fear them any longer because they don’t vote to the extent that they should.”

Trump was thankful for the presence of God in his personal and family life, saying: “When you believe in God, it’s a big advantage over people that don’t have that.”

Follow Joe on Twitter @JoeKovacsNews

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“She couldn’t answer a direct question.”

But why?

Watch as he explains:

Last night, Kamala Harris once again refused to name a single policy difference between her and Joe Biden.

Does that sound like a new way forward to you? pic.twitter.com/VxJAzVOm71

— JD Vance (@JDVance) October 17, 2024

“What I saw was a person who not just didn’t have the skill to navigate a tough interview, but doesn’t know how to explain her record because her record is not possible to explain away to the American people,” he said.

Watch the entire interview:

A commentary at Twitchy added, “She didn’t answer one question, not one. Nope, she was far more concerned with ‘filibustering’ the interview so she could pretend she said something without really saying anything. His questions were fairly simple and basic, questions any presidential candidate should have been able to answer, but all she did was spin, deflect, bring up Trump, and spin some more. In other words, she imploded. If she can’t handle Bret Baier how on Earth does anyone believe she could handle Putin or Xi? C’mon.”

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“We are going to end all sanctuary cities immediately. We’re gonna end it,” Trump said during an all-women, town-hall meeting Wednesday in Cumming, Georgia, hosted by Harris Faulkner of Fox News.

He was answering a question from Nancy, a mother of a Georgia Bulldog college student who was on campus the day schoolmate Laken Riley was murdered by an illegal alien.

Mentioning the sanctuary city of Athens, Georgia, Nancy asked: “How quickly can you remove those threats to our society so our children can go out on a run as they rightfully should be able to do in a park in the daytime by themselves? It should not be like that.”

When Trump said he would put an and to all sanctuary cities, Faulkner asked: “Is that an executive order you do that with?”

Trump responded: “I can do it with an executive order. I’ll have to do it with an executive order. You can do it with the Aliens Act of 1798, we can do things in terms of moving people out. We can move them out of the sanctuary cities.

“You have some liberal crazy people that they fight – you know, normally you like to understand the opponent. Like in business, you want to understand what is the opposites, why do they want this? Why do they want open borders? Why do they want to do this? Why do they want sanctuary cities? Sanctuary cities are really meant for one thing. To protect criminals. That’s what they’ve become.

“We’re going to end all sanctuary cities in the United States and we’re gonna go back to normalcy. And we’re gonna have law and order.

#Trump: 'We are going to end all sanctuary cities immediately. We're gonna end it.'

'I'll have to do it with an executive order' #border #election2024 pic.twitter.com/S4t8b2VBe3

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) October 16, 2024

“We have to reinvigorate our police. We have great police. They’re not allowed to do their job. If they do their job with gusto, which is what we want. We want them to be fair. The sad thing is you will always have a bad apple. Hundreds and hundreds of arrests, one bad arrest, and it’s on the front page of every newspaper and these people are incredible. They want to do their job just like the Border Patrol.

“We’re gonna let them do their job and I’m gonna give them immunity. We’re gonna protect them because they do things and they end up getting sued. They lose their family, they lose their house, they lose their pension, they lose everything. The police officers in this country are law enforcement and sheriffs, everything else, they have to be given back their dignity. They want to do their job. But we’ve become so politically correct.

“You look at New York and Chicago and L.A. and every city. All run by Democrats, OK? Liberal, stupid Democrats — no, and our country — [cheers and applause] Our country has lost its way. It is a good question. In other words, we’re gonna have law and order.”

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It’s those with the Biden name, the Clinton name, and others, who have been unleashing startlingly anti-Harris comments recently.

And now former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has put into words what he believes is going on:

“We're in the early stages of watching her collapse,” says @newtgingrich of Kamala Harris. “It’s just my hunch …. that sometime in the last two weeks, Joe and Jill looked at each other and thought, you know, wouldn't it be a great legacy if Joe's the only guy ever to beat Trump?… pic.twitter.com/fPHLBTLThN

— 2WAY (@2waytvapp) October 11, 2024

He explains, “We’re in the early stages of watching her collapse. … It’s just my hunch … that sometime in the last two weeks, Joe and Jill looked at each other and thought, you know, wouldn’t it be a great legacy if Joe’s the only guy ever to beat Trump? And I think the stuff he’s done to undermine her in the last ten days is pretty amazing.”

It is a report at Revolver.news that has assembled a list of those incidents.

“To the casual onlooker, it’s clear that the old guard of the Democrat Party – people like the Bidens and the Clintons—have no love for Kamala Harris. In fact, if you’re paying even the slightest bit of attention, you’ll notice the old guard is actively sabotaging her. Whether intentional or not, their disdain for Kamala and the way she ‘rose to power’ is leading to some serious backstabbing,” the report said.

It cited Joe Biden’s decision just weeks ago to wear a MAGA hat, linked directly to President Donald Trump’s Make American Great Again campaign.

Then, while Harris is desperately trying to find some way to separate herself from the Biden-Harris administration failures, for which she was the “border czar” and responsible for the failed multi-billion dollar campaign to link rural America to the web, Biden is putting her resoundingly in his camp.

After all, he confirmed he and she are “singing from the same song sheet.”

Then she attacked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his actions following Hurricane Helene, and Biden defended and praised him.

“But Joe’s not the only one, folks. Bill Clinton is now shuffling around the campaign trail, and he’s made some eyebrow-raising moves to sabotage Kamala, just weeks away from Election Day. It’s hard to tell if these are the actions of senile men who don’t have a clue, or if they’re actually lucid, making well-calculated moves against a power-hungry woman who’s never earned anything on her own merits,” the report said.

Clinton recently confirmed what Republicans have said for years: Democrats want open borders and mass illegal immigrant actually to replace American voters:

Bill Clinton: "We got the lowest birthrate we’ve had in well over a hundred years, we’re not a replacement level, which means we’ve gotta have somebody come here if we want to grow the economy.”

Democrats want to replace American citizens with migrants.

pic.twitter.com/v79VE48rHB

— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) October 14, 2024

And he confirmed the Biden-Harris campaign to do that has brought misery to Americans, such as the family of Laken Riley, killed by an illegal alien. He said Riley probably would be alive had Harris, as Biden’s “border czar,” insisted that those entering the U.S. be properly vetted.

NEW: Former President Bill Clinton says Laken Riley would be alive if Kamala Harris and Joe Biden did proper vetting before letting illegals in.

Riley was k*lled by an illegal immigrant who illegally entered the United States in 2022 under Kamala Harris.

The comments came while… pic.twitter.com/Zu2V6oPiRR

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 14, 2024

The report explained while Biden is undermining Harris, “it’s Bill Clinton who’s really going full throttle in destroying Kamala. He’s plunging the dagger right into the heart of her flailing campaign. As we mentioned, he’s out on the trail for Team Kamala, and while he’s out there – looking like he’s been rode hard and put away wet – he’s also telling the country that Kamala Harris is pushing the Great Replacement Theory. That’s the theory that (correctly) claims globalists are letting their countries be overrun by migrants and illegals to create new demographics and voting blocs while erasing white people and the middle class.”

The report explained those seniors in the Democrat party “believe they know she led a soft coup against Joe Biden, and now they’re paying her back for the dirty work. From Biden contradicting her at every turn to Bill Clinton throwing out the truth bombs about her failed leadership and border disaster, it’s obvious they’re doing some sneaky stuff under the radar to make sure she never gets anywhere near the Oval Office.”

Harris’ “soft coup” happened when elites in the party decided to throw Biden under the bus and install Harris as the party’s candidate this year, without her ever winning a single primary vote.

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He was asked about the claims during an interview.

And he did not deny them.

It is the Daily Mail that now has updated its reporting on the man, who if Kamala Harris is elected, would be in the White House for four years.

It reported, “Doug Emhoff has dismissed bombshell stories that he slapped his ex-girlfriend and had an affair during his first marriage as a ‘distraction,’ but didn’t deny them. … Emhoff was asked by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Friday whether the allegations about his personal life ‘p—–‘ him off. The Morning Joe host didn’t question him over the details or ask whether DailyMail.com reports about his past were true. Scarborough even reduced them to being ‘tabloid’ stories being pushed by Donald Trump and Republican critics. But Emhoff avoided the chance to slap them down and instead brushed them off while he insisting he was focused on his wife’s presidential campaign.”

The results of the Daily Mail’s investigations already have been reported.

Those include that he “forcefully slapped” a former girlfriend allegedly for “flirting” with another man.

That report came from three “friends” who confirmed that Emhoff “assaulted his ex-girlfriend.”

“The Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, 59, allegedly struck the woman in the face so hard she spun around, while waiting in a valet line late at night after a May 2012 Cannes Film Festival event in France,” the report said. “One of her friends told DailyMail.com that the woman called him immediately after the incident, sobbing in her cab, and described the alleged assault.”

Earlier, it was reported that “Emhoff’s first marriage ended when he got his children’s nanny pregnant. The woman, Najen Naylor, 47, did not deny the story when approached by DailyMail.com at her home in the New York millionaires’ playground, The Hamptons,” the Daily Mail documented.

At that time, Emhoff said there had been “tough times” in his first marriage, because of “my actions.”

Finally, the newest report on Emhoff comes from interviews with former coworkers at California law firms where he worked.

He was considered “inappropriate” and “misogynistic” at the office, there were claims he hired an “unqualified” part-time model as legal secretary “because she was young … attractive,” and that he withdrew work benefits from women who didn’t flirt with him.

The Daily Mail also uncovered opinions that he was a foul-mouthed employee.

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After all, that administration is the same administration that effectively has weaponized the Department of Justice to attack Trump, for his comments about the 2020 election, for his handling of government documents, even for his business operations, as a related state agenda demanded.

Further, he’s been targeted by at least two assassination attempts in just the past few weeks, including one that left him wounded. And there have been multiple concerns and complaints that the Secret Service repeatedly denied him the level of protection his own campaign staff said was needed.

Now the situation has gotten worse.

A Fox News report explains that Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has documented reports from a whistleblower that Secret Service leaders are trying “to hide the level of protection given to former President Donald Trump.”

The chief of the agency already has quit in the wake of agents’ failures to protect Trump in that assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, a few weeks ago.

Hawley sent letters to the Secret Service chief Ronald Rowe and the Department of Homeland Security inspector general Joseph Cuffan, revealing that at this point government auditors are being denied access to some Trump campaign events in an effort “to hide these apparent protection shortfalls for the former president,” the report said.

“You of course have publicly stated that former President Trump is receiving ‘the highest level of Secret Service protection’ and that ‘he’s getting everything.’ This new whistleblower information troublingly contradicts your public statements,” Hawley told the bureaucrats.

Hawley charged, to Cuffan, that, “Secret Service headquarters blocked several of your auditors from accessing recent Trump campaign events.”

Hawley continued, “The Secret Service whistleblower alleges that the denial was in order to hide the fact that the former president is not receiving a consistent level of protective assets for all of his engagements. [Y]ou should be aware of these allegations, which indicate that the Secret Service is not in fact cooperating with your auditors and is instead painting a false picture.”

Hawley has been hearing from whistleblowers since that July 13 attempt on Trump’s life, when he was nicked in the ear by a bullet that likely would have killed him had he not turned his head to look at a poster display at just that second.

He’s given credit to God for saving his life.

Hawley already has released a lengthy report detailing a list of allegations against Washington’s bureaucracy.

“Hawley found a ‘compounding pattern of negligence, sloppiness, and gross incompetence that goes back years, all of which culminated in an assassination attempt that came inches from succeeding,'” Fox reported.

Trump, besides crediting a higher power for sparing his life, has commented on suspicions that outside enemies, including Iranian interests, are trying to take him out.

The Washington Examiner notes that Trump has charged that Biden should threaten to bomb Iran if those linked to the rogue Islamic empire try to assassinate him.

“Iran has an open threat out for me, and that’s bad. And Biden, if he were a real president, if he were the kind of guy he should be, he should say, ‘If anybody shoots a former president, who’s now the leading candidate, even though he’s leading against Democrats, we will bomb that country into oblivion.’ And it would stop.”

The report noted, “Iran has openly touted plans to assassinate Trump since his administration’s assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps leader Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.”

The two assassination attempts of Trump in July and September were not linked with the Iranian government.

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Yet how many actually read it? Two years ago, Christianity Today noted: “The data said roughly 26 million people had mostly or completely stopped reading the Bible in the last year.”

Meanwhile, as of this writing, the education department of the state of Oklahoma is planning to purchase 55,000 Bibles for the public schools. I’m sure the left is gnashing their teeth over such a plan.

But historically, the Bible was the reason education for the masses was developed in America in the first place. The Puritan forefathers created schools for the masses (a forerunner to the public schools), so that children could learn to read, so they could read the Bible for themselves.

Someone might argue, “Well, that was the Puritans. But surely the Founding Fathers didn’t agree with that.”

But actually, they did argue for that in 1787 and in 1789 when the founders adopted the Northwest Ordinance. As new territories became states in the newly formed United States, they were to follow the same basic template.

Here’s what Article III of the Northwest Ordinance had to say about schools, which were voluntary at that time and often run by churches: “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

The Bible was the chief textbook in one way or another for the first 200-300 years of America – and that’s when the children could read, because of it. It was the Bible that gave birth to Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown and so on.

It was only when the schools explicitly went against the Scriptures that American education went off the rails. Now there are major portions of society who can’t read, despite years of schooling.

Meanwhile, is there a correlation between reading the Scriptures and human flourishing?

Many social science studies have shown that church is good for society, that attending church on a regular basis lengthens your life (on average) and that attending church often improves the quality of your life as well. Dr. Byron Johnson of Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion has spent years assessing studies on the impact of applied religion (generally, Christianity) leading to positive personal and societal improvement. Dr. Johnson even wrote a book showing how Christian belief and practice helps lower criminal behavior. The book is appropriately titled, “More God, Less Crime.“

But what about Bible-reading? A recent study Dr. Johnson wrote, along with M. Bradshaw and S.J. Jang, is entitled, “Assessing the Link Between Bible Reading and Flourishing among Military Families.”

Before exploring their results (which were positive), the study mentions earlier related findings: “Previous research shows salutary associations between multiple dimensions of religiosity (including reading sacred texts) and different aspects of flourishing (e.g., physical health, psychological well-being, character and virtue, social connections and support).”

The abstract of the study noted: “Bible reading may promote overall mental, physical, and social well-being. Implications and limitations of these preliminary findings are discussed.”

The researchers list three of their findings on how the Bible fosters human flourishing: “First, Bible reading is likely to promote psychological well-being by helping individuals develop a close relationship with a loving and caring God who engages in the lives of individuals.”

They continue: “Second, Bible reading may facilitate feelings of divine control that help cope with stress. Third, positive and encouraging messages in the Bible may also promote purpose in life and guidance seeking, which may also enhance flourishing.”

When I started reading the Bible for myself as a young man I found that it was such a great source for knowledge, for wisdom, for direction, for personal relations, etc.

The Bible was important to great Americans like George Washington, whose writings and speeches are filled with biblical phrases, such as “And everyman shall rest under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make them afraid.” This was Washington’s vision for America.

Even Jefferson, wisely or unwisely, collected many of the teachings of Jesus (including a few miracles) in a document for Native-Americans, so they too (like us) could benefit from them. People mistakenly call this unpublished work “The Jefferson Bible.” But as Jefferson noted once, the morality of Jesus is the most sublime and greatest moral teaching of all time.

President Lincoln called the Scriptures, “the greatest gift the Savior gave the world.” Indeed, great Americans through the ages were very familiar with the Bible.

As Ronald Reagan once said of the holy book, “Inside its pages lie all the answers to all the problems that man has ever known.”

To promote human flourishing, spread the message of the Scriptures.

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