Author, columnist, speaker
The Ethics of Shamelessness
By Robert Knight
If you have no capacity for shame, you have no conscience.
In Jeremiah 8:12, the prophet describes hypocrites who sin openly and yet still expect to be blessed:
“Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.”
Hunter Biden has come out with his own cryptocurrency meme coin that he dubbed—wait for it—$LAPTOP.
We need not go into the whole sordid history, just a quick refresher.
The real laptop was full of shocking evidence about Hunter’s escapades with drugs, prostitutes and shady business deals, and it could have implicated his father, Joe Biden.
The FBI under James Comey had the laptop for months before the New York Post broke the story. America’s Democrat-controlled legacy and social media stuffed the news down a black hole less than a month before the 2020 election.
Surveys indicate that if the laptop’s contents had been widely known, this could well have changed the outcome of the presidential race.
Anyone with a scintilla of conscience who did the things on the laptop would want it buried forever. But not Hunter Biden.
He thought he would make a splash by naming his crypto coin $LAPTOP as a big obscene gesture to law-abiding Americans.
And why not? With a presidential pardon in hand, and the fact that Democrats almost never pay a price for criminality, it seemed like a good idea.
He obviously felt that America’s culture has become so debased that he could cash in on the moral depravity.
There is a silver lining if you like poetic justice. The price of his crypto coin debuted at $200 to $300 and lost about 99 percent of its value within 24 hours. As of Sept. 10, it was down to about 60 cents.
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, jurors cited postpartum blues to resist finding Lindsay Clancy guilty of strangling her three young children. Some of the ladies took to the media and trashed the juror who thought the facts outweighed reasonable doubt.
His holding out led to a mistrial instead of an exoneration of sorts.
These women even trashed the prosecutors as being mean for accusing Ms. Clancy of culpability for killing her own kids.
They also lavishly praised her defense attorney, who should be disbarred for trying to dox the holdout juror.
Jim Treacher, a political comedy writer who does a razor-sharp daily podcast called Cue the Crickets, made these comments:
“I guess it makes sense that crazy people think a crazy person should get away with murder. Imagine being stuck in a room with these freaks, and they all hate you because you won’t let someone get away with murder. Literally.”
Hordes of women in pink rallied to support Ms. Clancy and raised $1 million for her defense. The case may or may not be retried.
Once again, Mr. Treacher has his finger on the pulse:
“Now the tough part’s going to be finding 12 jurors in Massachusetts who aren’t insane.
“That state is infamous for witch hunts, and now they’re giving us a witch hunt in reverse. Instead of coercing people into condemning an innocent woman, they’re trying to free a guilty one.”
Postpartum depression is no small thing, and women who suffer from it deserve our sympathy and support. But turning a killer of her own children into a heroine goes far beyond that. You might say it is shameful.
While we’re on the topic of shame or lack thereof, news broke that socialist/Islamist podcaster Hasan Piker has once again parsed his remarks from 2019 about the 9/11 terror attacks.
He had famously said that America “deserved” 9/11. Later, he said he could have phrased it better. Recently, he denied ever saying that he hated America, even as video clips have surfaced.
In one, he declares, “I say I hate America all the time.” In another, he says, along with some f-words, “People will be like 'Hasan, you hate America.' I'm like, 'Yeah, I do. I do hate America.'"
Mr. Piker has campaigned with Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and a dozen other Democrats.
Last month during his live podcast tour, Mr. Piker told an audience with a dismissive wave, "America does not deserve 9/11. That's my new thing now."
Translation: “Yeah, I’ve got to say stuff like this so I won’t hurt the Democrats. But take it with a grain of salt, folks.”
The crowd erupted into booing and jeers. Like their idol, they really do hate this country and cheer for our enemies.
Whenever you see these frauds interviewed, they launch into virtue signaling to show their superiority.
Democratic Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico excels at this. A self-professed Christian, he badly mangles Scripture and portrays Jesus as a rainbow-sporting free love guru from Portlandia.
The apostle Paul warned us about people like Mr. Talarico in 1 Timothy 4:1-2:
“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.”
It would be a shame if Texas voters do not resoundingly end Mr. Talarico’s political career in November.
Photo: Rep. James Talarico in Dallas on Sept. 09, 2026. AP in The Washington Times.
Beware of the Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
By Robert Knight
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear appears to be readying for a presidential run in 2028.
The telegenic Democrat was on a speaking tour last year in early primary state South Carolina. In September, he has a book coming out entitled, “Go and Do Likewise: How We Heal a Broken Country,” a reference to Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan.
His publisher summarizes it this way: “By regrounding faith in compassion and kindness, he believes we can start to heal as a country.”
Compassion and kindness are God-given, but I thought we were in the midst of healing from the nightmare of the Biden years, with its promotion of atheism, illegal immigration, sexual anarchy, and attacks on Catholics and pro-lifers.
Mr. Beshear, like Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, identifies as a Christian and a moderate and gets priceless media cover while supporting the Democratic Party’s radical social and economic agenda.
In 2023, for instance, he tried to block a state bill protecting minors from “gender affirming care.”
The law prohibits doctors from subjecting gender-confused teens to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible, disfiguring surgeries.
The law also bans males from competing on girls’ sports teams. Most people think this makes sense.
Beshear insisted that such a law “would hurt kids and their families” and violate “parental rights.”
He claimed there was no evidence of widespread harm. To which I would say one butchered child is too many and that evidence of harm is voluminous, including the growing number of suicides and trans-related violence.
On the same day of Mr. Beshear’s veto, both houses of Kentucky’s Republican-controlled legislature overrode it. Naturally, a federal judge, Rebecca Grady Jennings, issued an immediate injunction halting enforcement. The case is still in litigation.
A year earlier, Ms. Jennings, one of President Donald Trump’s few clunker appointees, struck down a Kentucky law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks and requiring medical oversight for abortion pills.
Gov. Beshear also vetoed that bill, and the legislature overrode him.
In South Carolina, which went for Mr. Trump by 30 points, Mr. Beshear emphasized his Christian faith while boasting that he was “a proud, pro-LGBTQ+ governor.”
This is a stance that ignores Jesus Christ’s clear restating of God’s creation of male and female and God’s marriage-based sexual morality from Genesis.
According to the Washington Post, Mr. Beshear said, “My faith teaches me that all children are children of God, and I didn’t want people picking on those kids.” How about protecting them from quacks who sterilize them and turn them into lifetime medical cases?
By the way, politicians love to haul out the term “children of God” like a magic amulet. The Bible says we’re all created in the image of God, but that we’re not children of God unless we believe in Him and submit to God’s authority. Until then, we’re on the other team, and I don’t mean the New Jersey Devils.
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name,” John 1:12 says. If we’re automatically children of God, we wouldn’t need to be, as Jesus said, born again.
Anyway, Mr. Beshear is not the only wolf in sheep’s clothing. Democrats have become quite adept at using Christianese and buzzwords to fool people. President Barack Obama often gave biblical scholars heartburn over his misappropriating Jesus’s words to justify sexual sin and confiscatory redistribution of wealth.
In Texas, state Rep. James Talarico is battling hard-left U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the Democratic nomination for U.S. senator. Like Mr. Beshear, Mr. Talarico touts his Christian faith while cleaving to a radical agenda.
“He delivers left-wing orthodoxy in centrist packaging and fights Christian nationalism with Scripture,” the Wall Street Journal explains.
If you’re a patriotic Christian, he’s talking about you and your family as a threat to America.
Much of his rhetoric revolves around Marxist class envy, such as, “Make billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.”
During remarks opposing a bill protecting kids from transgender treatments, he said, “Jesus never once condemned transgender people.”
Well, Jesus didn’t need to, and He welcomed all repentant sinners. The Hebrew Scriptures are crystal clear on sexual morality. Sexual confusion is the province of paganism, which historically often involved child sacrifice as well.
Any comparison to the pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ Democratic Party inferred by readers at this juncture may not be coincidental.
In a 2024 interview with MSNBC, Mr. Talarico said, “Christian nationalism is dangerous. … When politicians use the Bible to push division and hate, they’re not following Jesus; they’re using His name for their own agenda.”
This is classic projection, accusing your opponents of exactly what you’re doing.
Illustration by Alexander Hunter / The Washington Times.