What is going on with California’s elections? Its primary elections took place Tuesday, yet here we are on Friday, and the counting continues. Current totals have the candidates neck and neck. We still have no idea who won.

• Primaries included races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, every state congressional seat, all U.S. House of Representatives seats, mayors of Los Angeles and other cities, and lower state offices. The top two candidates in each, regardless of party, will face off in November.

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What’s the problem? The system was designed this way:

• Every registered voter in California receives a mail-in ballot automatically. Ballots postmarked by Election Day are valid even if they arrive a week later.
• County officials then have up to 30 days to complete their counts, with final statewide results not due to the secretary of state until July 3, a month after the election.
• Officials then cure ballots with missing or mismatched signatures, and the secretary of state doesn’t actually certify the result until July 10.

The fact that California elections often can’t be resolved for weeks is kind of insane. … “It’s going to take us several weeks to tell you who won the election” is failed state [behavior] and should be much more stigmatized.
—Nate Silver, political data analyst

“This is normal,” said California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat. A Democratic strategist went further, defending weekslong delays as being “in service of maximizing turnout and access.”

• The question is, who benefits from a system that floods the state with unmonitored ballots, permits late arrivals, enables post-election curing operations, and drags the count out for a month? California’s leadership has been Democrat-dominated for years.

Florida, which also has a large population, overhauled its election system after 2000 and has had few problems producing quick, accurate results ever since. California has chosen a different path, and not by accident.

• It follows the template of the stolen 2020 election. Stacey Abrams and others changed rules on the fly in 2020, and illegally, because they wanted to flood the nation with ballots. California has made it permanent.

Voting is the one and only way in which American citizens control their government. The California vote shows that cheating is still alive and well in Donald Trump’s America.

• It makes you appreciate just what a miracle it was that Trump won in 2024. But it also shows man’s utter incapability of ruling himself without God’s Word as His guide.

President Trump’s election has not saved America. It will take more miracles from God to do that. America’s only hope is not in Donald Trump but in repentance, as my father shows in his free book America Under Attack.

Iran War Update

• President Donald Trump will restart active fighting with Iran only “if Tehran kills American troops,” the Wall Street Journal reported on June 3. Yesterday, the president told journalists, “In that part of the world, ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”
• Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire on Wednesday, as mediated by the U.S. Yesterday, Hezbollah rejected the ceasefire. Israel responded by saying Hezbollah wasn’t party to the talks and the ceasefire was more about getting the Lebanese government further involved in disarming Hezbollah.
• Melanie Phillips has an excellent analysis of President Trump’s dispute with Benjamin Netanyahu and his compromising with evil in “President Trump: A Second Obama?”

America’s Depleted Oil Reserves

President Donald Trump has drained 12 percent of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep gasoline prices down while the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. The reserve currently holds 365 million barrels, down from 413 million barrels at the start of the year.

• In the 1970s, after OPEC embargoed oil sales to the U.S., the government established a reserve with a maximum capacity of 714 million barrels. It took a decade to fill it up past 400 million barrels. Once it passed that benchmark, no president allowed it to dip below it—until Joe Biden.
• After Russia invaded Ukraine and the Biden administration released about 180 million barrels from the reserve, its levels dropped to a 40-year low in July 2023.
• The reserve increased by 47 million barrels over the next 19 months. But after Iran closed Hormuz in early March, President Trump has been draining it again by about 1.4 million barrels per day. At this rate, it will hit a new all-time low around Independence Day.
• The U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum, but it still needs robust reserves to prevent shocks to its system. Back-to-back disruptions from the wars in Ukraine and Iran have drained the reserve faster than it can be replenished.

Bible prophecy shows more shocks are coming.

• Deuteronomy 28:52 prophesies of U.S. will be besieged “in all its gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down.” The closure of Hormuz is just a small foretaste of what this siege will be like if the American people do not turn back to God and His law.

The precipitous decline in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is indicative of a precipitous increase in overall U.S. strategic vulnerability.

Trump’s Planned NATO Cuts Exposed

A secret list of military capabilities the Trump administration wants to divert from nato as it enhances forces in the Indo-Pacific was published by German news outlet Bild yesterday.

• The planned reductions reportedly include significant cuts to fighter aircraft, surveillance and combat drones, maritime patrol aircraft, surface warships, and one of two carrier strike groups.

Cuts to America’s presence in Europe—which was designed for rapid response against Russia—will inflame doubts about America’s security guarantees. This will add urgency to Europe’s push for an independent military.

• Bundestag member Thomas Erndl responded to the news by saying that “the focus must be on an action plan that will make us visibly more capable of defending ourselves by 2029.”

Germany will have to rise up to fill the void left by American withdrawals. As Germany’s military capability grows, so too will its resentment against America. That is a dangerous combination that Bible prophecy warns will have calamitous results for the United States.

Teen Social Media Addiction Is Big Business

Social media companies deliberately worked to recruit and addict teens, the New York Times reported yesterday, citing internal documents from social media companies uncovered in recent court cases.

• Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta paid “teen ambassadors” to promote their products and hand out gifts at school.
• Snapchat sent out alerts to teens during school hours, encouraging them to post about what was happening in the classroom.
• TikTok parent company ByteDance sponsored school events about online safety. This wasn’t to help but to “positively raise ByteDance’s profile among parents,” the internal documents stated.
• TikTok also decided against disabling notifications during school hours, while Snapchat discussed how best to use “under the desk” time when students were discreetly looking at their phones instead of paying attention to their teachers.

“The outcry, long focused on social media’s harm to mental health, has now shifted to its upending of the classroom,” wrote the New York Times. “Many school districts are banning smartphones, and some are reevaluating their reliance on devices like Chromebooks, the inexpensive laptops made by YouTube’s parent company, Google.”

As teachers and parents struggled with the epidemic of distracted and influenced students, app makers actively worked against them.

• In 2012, Snapchat cofounder Evan Spiegel said he was “thrilled to hear” that most of their users “were high school students who were using Snapchat as a new way to pass notes in class.”

An Alabama school superintendent summed up what was happening in a note to parents:

Snapchat is the No. 1 cause of drama in school-aged children. If you want to protect your child, make them delete it.

Social employees alerted their bosses to the danger. One was told, “If we assume teens are going to do this anyway, we’d rather them be here on TikTok.”

“By designing a fire hose of addictive content that entered through kids’ eyes and ears, and by displacing physical play and in-person socializing, these companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale.”
—Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

• These internal documents give us a good look at how intentional this process was. Teens weren’t accidentally swept up as social media marketed itself to more mature adults. They were the target.

Ephesians 5:16 warns us that we must be “[r]edeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Yet in these most evil days, we have the most addictive time-wasters.

Free yourself from them. The May-June Philadelphia Trumpet can help: Read our infographic “Social Media Destroys Young Minds” and article “The Quiet Gains of Logging Off.”

IN OTHER NEWS

Ukraine strikes St. Petersburg with Putin present: President Vladimir Putin vowed Thursday to bolster Russia’s air defenses after a wave of Ukrainian drones struck deep inside the nation, disrupting the atmosphere around a flagship economic forum in his home city of St. Petersburg. Hours before the event opened, Ukrainian drones hit an oil terminal and a naval base in the city, sending up thick columns of smoke that overshadowed the forum. In remarks to international media executives, Putin conceded that the attacks had caused damage and said, “Russia has an air defense system: We need to improve it, strengthen it, and we will do that.” Putin added that Russia would defeat Ukraine militarily if needed, but that his nation is also “willing to reach an agreement with Ukraine through peaceful means.” We should not expect this biblically prophesied warlord to sheathe his sword. Prophecy shows him to be an aggressor who remains fixated on conquest and will cause far larger conflicts ahead.

EU wants to expand faster in the Balkans: Yesterday, European Council President Antonio Costa called enlargement, “namely to the Western Balkans,” the European Union’s “most important geopolitical investment” and a “geostrategic necessity.” The EU-Balkans summit begins today, which, according to Costa, would involve discussion of speeding up the process of EU membership. Germany, for decades, often through the EU, has fought for control of the Western Balkans. If more nations in this region become EU members or partners, they would become subservient to Germany.

Ireland to advance EU defense agenda: On Wednesday, Irish Defense Minister Helen McEntee said her nation would advance the European Union’s “security and defense agenda” when it assumes the EU presidency in July. During a meeting with French counterpart Catherine Vautrin, McEntee also noted that Ireland and France will deepen their defense cooperation. In The United States and Britain in Prophecy, the late Herbert W. Armstrong proved that the U.S. and the British Commonwealth descended from the biblical patriarch Joseph; France descended from Joseph’s brother Reuben; the Jews, from Judah; the Irish and Danes, from Dan. Ireland and France’s commitment to the EU defense agenda points to a time when Dan and Reuben will again betray Joseph.

German foreign minister’s visit to Mexico emphasizes Catholic ties: German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City yesterday to begin his two-day visit and received a blessing from a priest. He then met with Mexican counterpart Roberto Velasco, and together they cochaired a meeting of the German-Mexican Binational Commission. The relationship between Europe and Mexico is built on a foundation of shared religion, and Bible prophecy reveals that this will unite the two against America.

Ultra-Orthodox protesters riot outside Israeli justice’s home: On Wednesday, dozens of Ultra-Orthodox Israelis participated in what has been called a “violent riot” outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg in a West Bank settlement. Authorities arrested 65 people. Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the legislature’s exemption of Ultra-Orthodox Jews from military conscription was illegal. Since then, the Ultra-Orthodox and their representative political parties have tried repeatedly to get the exemption legalized, including pulling their support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and forcing the dissolution of the legislature and early elections. Thousands of other Ultra-Orthodox protesters this week blocked roads and faced off against police in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. The latest attack signals Israel’s political dysfunction.

Canada introduces AI strategy: Canada released its “AI for All” government strategy yesterday, which aims to cut reliance on American technology and champion Canada as a global AI leader. It calls for educating citizens on the technology, developing an AI supercomputer, and partnering with countries such as Germany to build AI platforms independent of the United States.

Appeals court rules transgender military ban likely illegal: A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Monday that President Donald Trump’s executive order excluding transgender people from military service likely violates their constitutional rights. In a 2-1 decision, the court largely upheld a lower court’s preliminary injunction blocking the removal of current active-duty servicemembers who claim they are the opposite sex, but it allows the ban to apply to new recruits. In January 2025, Trump issued an executive order stating that such people harm military readiness and conflict with standards of an honorable, truthful, disciplined lifestyle, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy excluding transgenders from military service. Despite this D.C. appellate court decision, there is no constitutional right guaranteeing anyone acceptance into the U.S. military.

John Bolton to plead guilty to retaining classified information: Former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton will plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information. A grand jury indicted Bolton on 18 counts in October, but the Justice Department has offered him a plea deal that could allow him to avoid jail time in exchange for paying a $2.25 million fine. After President Donald Trump fired Bolton in 2019, Bolton published a memoir about his time in the Trump administration that federal authorities say contains classified intelligence. Bolton, who clashed with the president over nato, Iran, Russia and other foreign-policy matters, became one of Trump’s most vocal critics after leaving the administration.