Praying for Our Leaders in Government
Executive Branch: Pray for the President and his Administration
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States is coordinating with the Taliban to secure additional direct flights from Kabul for the people seeking to leave the country. The State Department says they have been working closely with Taliban leaders to facilitate additional evacuations for an estimated 100 U.S. citizens who still want to exit Afghanistan.
The Justice Department said that law enforcement personnel within the agency will begin wearing body cameras. The devices are to be worn during “pre-planned law enforcement operations,” beginning with agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The Drug Enforcement Agency and FBI will begin their parts of the program within the next few weeks. The department said it plans to “rely upon Congress to secure the necessary funding to equip agents nationwide.”
Pray for wisdom for the Cabinet secretaries and their top advisers as they respond to rapidly changing situations.
Legislative Branch: Pray for Senators and Representatives in Congress
Representative Jerry Nadler of New York, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has called on the Justice Department to “use the full force of the department” to combat the new Texas law banning abortions beyond the sixth week of pregnancy. He and others on the committee said the DOJ is “fully empowered to prosecute” anyone who blocks a woman from obtaining an abortion.
Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming was named vice-chair of the House Select Committee investigating the events surrounding the events of January 6 at the Capitol. Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi is the committee’s chairman.
Pray for members of Congress dealing with division that seems to grow deeper as new issues come before them.
Judicial Branch: Pray for Supreme Court Justices and Federal Judges
A federal district judge in Arizona ruled that 76 percent of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ 40,000 determinations on water rules were non-jurisdictional. The decision, which overturned the Waters of the United States rule of the previous administration, will impact virtually all who own land which may have a stream running through it. Landowners in the west will be especially impacted by the judge’s decision as intermittent and ephemeral streams may possibly be determined to have an impact on the waters they flow into.
The Northern California U.S. District Court ruled (for a second time) that a user who has accepted a website’s privacy policy has consented to have his information collected. Based on the principle that “consent is generally limited to the specific conduct authorized,” this ruling may encourage website hosts and online companies to write their policies as broadly as possible to give themselves leeway to argue that their visitors had consented.
Pray for the Supreme Court justices as they continue to formulate their fall schedule which will begin in October.
