Raising the Banner of Christianity’s Decline

What is happening to Christianity and Judaism is another example of the most important principle of modern life: Whatever the Left touches, it destroys.

by Dennis Prager for American Greatness

On the front of one of the oldest and most beautiful churches in the country, the Church of the Covenant in Boston, hangs a large banner on which is written:

And God said…

Protect Abortion Access 4 All

Ensure Black Lives Matter

Honor Bodily Autonomy

Defend LGBTQ+ Rights

End Voter Suppression

Turn Guns into Plows

Abandon Fossil Fuels

Provide Sanctuary

Abolish Prisons

Disarm Hate

Speak Truth

Breathe

In other words . . .

Love

If you needed one example of how destructive leftism has been to mainstream Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, and to non-Orthodox Judaism, this banner would suffice.

God says, “Protect Abortion Access For All”? Where? Why? Terminating innocent life, that’s God’s will? Does this include abortions of viable babies undergone by healthy mothers? Is that, too, God’s will?

“Ensure black lives matter”? Blacks, like every other racial, ethnic, and national grouping of human beings, are created in God’s image. But if this banner implies support for the group Black Lives Matter, that is another matter. God abhors groups that affirm racism. Unlike the Left, the Bible knows that anyone, black or white, can be racist.

As regards LGBTQ+, the Bible goes out of its way to uphold divine distinctions such as good and evil, God and human, human and animal, and male and female. When God creates the human being, the Bible asserts this last distinction as clearly as possible: “Male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).

“Turn guns into plows” is, of course, taken from the Prophet Isaiah’s call to “Beat your swords into plows” (Isaiah 2:4). Unfortunately for the Church of the Covenant, another biblical prophet says the very opposite: “Beat your plows into swords . . . let the weak say, I am strong” (Joel 4:10). Unlike the Left, the Bible understands that while the ultimate dream is that human beings have no need for swords, until that messianic age, the weak must have swords.

As for abandoning fossil fuels, these ubiquitous sources of energy have been one of God’s gifts to humanity. Without them, the modern world would not have been possible. No hospitals, no reliable heat in the winter (to say nothing of air conditioning in the summer), no transportation beyond riding animals. No modern medicine. Nothing in the way of modern technology. Just a primitive life—and a short and painful one at that. God would say before abandoning these fuels, make sure you have a reliable substitute. (We do: nuclear power.) Until then, thank God for His gift of fossil fuels.

As regards sanctuary, if the meaning is sanctuaries for illegal aliens, on the basis of what biblical idea does the Church of the Covenant infer that God wants America—or any other country—to have open borders?

“Abolishing prisons” alone is an idea that should alienate any rational and moral human being from the Left. Abolishing prisons means allowing an enormous number of innocent people to be murdered and beaten, women to be raped, shops to be looted, and children to be molested. Nothing exemplifies the moral idiocy at the heart of leftism as well as “abolish prisons.”

Perhaps some prominent conservative Christian church should put up a banner addressing the same subjects:

God said . . .

Protect The Life Of Mothers—And Their Unborn Babies

Human Worth Is Not Related To Race

Honor Bodily Autonomy—End Vaccine Mandates

There Are Only Two Sexes: Male And Female

Protect Voting Integrity

Defend Yourself And Others—Get A Gun

I Have Blessed Mankind With Energy

Protect Your Citizens by Protecting Your Borders

Imprison the Guilty To Protect The Innocent

If You Love Me, Hate Evil (Psalms 97:10)

Speak Truth—Because There is Only One Truth

In other words . . .

Love

If a traditional church did put up such a banner, it would make national news and its leaders would be dismissed as right-wing religious zealots for putting words into God’s mouth. Only left-wing churches and synagogues are allowed to speak for the Almighty.

Of all the Ten Commandments, only one states that its violation cannot be forgiven. It is the Third Commandment: “Do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain because He will not forgive whoever takes His name in vain.”

Nearly everyone familiar with the Commandment thinks the Commandment prohibits saying the word “God” outside of prayer or Bible study. But it cannot mean that. What kind of God would forgive a murderer but not someone who said, “God, did I have a tough day at work today”?

Clearly, the Third Commandment must mean something else. And it does. As I explain in my Bible commentary, The Rational Bible, the Hebrew actually says, “Do not carry the name of the Lord thy God in vain . . .”

“Carry,” not “take.”

Doing evil in God’s name or attaching God’s name to false or immoral ideas is the one sin God will not forgive.

And that is the sin of left-wing churches and synagogues. They carry God’s name in vain. They desecrate it.

What is happening to Christianity and Judaism provides yet another example of the most important principle of modern life: Whatever the Left touches, it destroys.

X22, Christian Patriot News, and more- July 20

 

Quiet day. Here's tonight's news:

Joe Biden Appears to Say He Has Cancer During Speech in Sommerset, Massachusetts, (Video and Transcript)

Moments ago, while delivering a speech at a former coal-fired power plant in Somerset, Massachusetts, Joe Biden stated he has cancer.  I’m not sure if that is what he meant to say, but here is the video and transcript:

…”My mother drove us, and rather than us be able to walk, and guess what? The first frost, you know what was happening, you had to put on your windshield wipers to get literally the oil slick off the window. That’s why I, and so damned many other people I grew up with, have cancer; and why can’t for the longest time, Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation.”…

WATCH:

The West’s Radar Screens Are Tuned to Find Russian Bears and Very Little Else

Citizens of the West seem determined to stick our heads in 

the sand as the world moves further and further beyond us.

by Nicholas L. Waddy for American Greatness

This week brought news that will alter the global balance of power and the arc of world history, but few Americans will ever hear it because few American news editors will have the imagination to report on it. The United Nations reports that soon—next year, most likely—India will overtake China as the world’s most populous country. Both countries will have roughly 1.4 billion inhabitants, compared to just 330 million in the United States.

There are several reasons why this headline should fill Americans with equal parts awe and dread. One is that America, and the West more generally, are currently engaged in a bitter proxy war with Russia. Western media and security infrastructure are therefore predictably fixated on addressing threats, both real and imagined, that emanate from the regime of Vladimir Putin.

The simple fact, however, is that Russia has a population of just 147 million. Its economy, even measured according to the more generous purchasing power parity (PPP) methodology, is less than 20 percent the size of America’s. 

If one were to compare Russia to the combined population, wealth, and industrial resources of NATO, Russia is a pipsqueak. No surprise, then, that the Russian military is struggling to wrestle even a minor power like Ukraine into submission.

The first lesson here is that the only way Russia could ever win a conflict with NATO would be if NATO countries were too cowardly to fight back (a depressingly realistic prospect). The second lesson is that Russia is completely incapable of sustaining the role of long-term strategic rival to any of the world’s current first-rate powers, including the United States. Russia is a loose cannon, yes, but it is an obsolete, undersized, poorly aimed cannon, more likely to explode in Putin’s face than in ours.

The pusillanimity of the Western elite in the face of China’s rise, and despite China’s brazen disrespect for international law and global norms, is  by now well known. Joe Biden’s mumbled assurances to Taiwan aside, there is little evidence that any Western country has the moxie to upbraid China verbally, much less to take the hard-headed decisions that would be necessary to contain China militarily, diplomatically, and economically. 

Are we ready, then, to tackle the Chinese dragon, should it rear its ugly head in the mid-21st century? Not remotely.

What’s more disheartening, however, is that India has plotted a similar ascent, and Western academics, corporate leaders, journalists, and politicians have barely noticed. 

India’s progress since the early 1990s has been extraordinary, increasing the per capita income of Indians in PPP terms roughly eightfold. India’s GDP is nowaround $12 trillion, half that of the United States and climbing quickly. India, moreover, is a functioning democracy with a history of conflict with Communist China—seemingly, therefore, an ideal candidate for an alliance with the West aimed at containing future Chinese aggression. 

India, however, has seen little reason to hitch its wagon to the West’s fading star. In fact, as NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine has dragged on, India has actuallystrengthened its economic ties with Russia—sensing that there is money to be made in the short term. There is also no discernible Western appetite for butting heads, beyond the current fashion for arms shipments and virtue signaling vis-à-vis Ukraine. India seems to realize that the West’s bark is vastly worse than its bite.

This leaves the United States in a depressingly isolated and steadily weakening position. Two rising great powers, China and India, and one decaying 20th century superpower, Russia, are circling coyly around one another, trying to decide the constellation of forces, friendships, and feuds that will decide the fate of the world in the 21st century. The West, meanwhile, mired in its ossified, Cold War mentality, seems hell-bent on projecting its own dwindling might into Eastern Europe, so it can contain an expected Russian armored thrust into Central Europe that seemed plausible in 1949, but looks, to any rational observer, downright fanciful in 2022.

Or, to put it another way, we in the West seem determined to stick our heads in the sand, as the world moves further and further beyond us, and as new powers rise and flex their muscles, some of which we barely recognize, and none of which our bumbling schoolchildren could find on a map.

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that, as the West fades into self-imposed irrelevance, the world might actually be better off. That’s because at least a few of the powers and leaders that usurp us might have the good sense to see the world for what it is, instead of what the Western ruling elite wishes it to be.

Pranksters Trick Stephen King Into Thinking He's Talking to Zelensky, Then He Shows How Twisted Leftists Are in Ukraine Cult

Nick Arama reporting for RedState 

I think it’s safe to say that horror author Stephen King is a rabid liberal.

He embraces all the Democratic narratives, and is always attacking Republicans as well.

But a recent prank showed just how twisted the cult of Ukraine can get, in the minds of some on the left like King.

King was allegedly called by two Russian comedic pranksters, Vovan and Lexus, who managed to convince King that he was talking with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. They appear to get King to offer the fake Zelensky the movie role of “Pennywise,” the horrible killer clown, in King’s new movie.

But that wasn’t all.

“Zelensky” then began speaking about Stepan Bandera. Bandera was a Ukrainian nationalist leader who collaborated with the Nazis, and whose group is linked to the massacres and ethnic cleansings of Poles and Jews during World War II. He is regarded by some in Ukraine as a hero because he also helped to fight for independence. “Zelensky” asked King what he thought of Bandera.

“He was in the Second World War, and he fought against the Soviet Union,” the prankster continued. “But, yeah, he had some crimes, but it’s not so big crimes. It’s of course [accidental], [they were] were crimes against Jews. [….]

“Well yes, I mean there are always… you can always find things against people to pull them down,” replied King. “Washington and Jefferson were slave owners. That doesn’t mean they didn’t do many good things for the United States of America.”

“There are always people who have flaws – we’re human,” King continued. “There are things that we do that are bad choices, and there are things that we do that are great choices. So, on the whole, Bandera is a great man and you’re a great man. And Viva Ukraine.”

Yikes, seriously? How did anyone ever take this guy seriously? Um, Stephen? Massacres and ethnic cleansing aren’t just little character flaws. The pranksters even gave you a tip-off and told you who he was, when they said “crimes against Jews.” Yet, if this is accurate, King still defended him, calling him a “great man.”

How could King not know he was being pranked? Frankly, the guy’s “Zelensky” didn’t sound anything like him. But it also says something about what King and others on the left would go along with, if they think it fits with the current Democratic mantra about Ukraine. They’ll support it, wear hats like King, or have a Ukrainian flag in their Twitter profiles because it’s the mantra–without truly knowing or understanding the players or what’s going on.

Donald Trump is evil to King, and Jesus isn’t on your side, he said last year. But Bandera is a great man. That’s some twisted take.

Biden Energy Security Official Says Administration Cannot and Will Not Accept or Approve Long-Term Oil and Gas Development

This guy popped up after the trip to Saudi Arabia and has been spouting hypocrisies ever since.  In this first segment, White House senior energy adviser Amos Hochstein, in charge of U.S. energy security, says the administration cannot accept or approve any long-term oil and gas development that undermines the urgency of the crisis they are exploiting.

Instead, Hochstein says U.S. energy producers should invest in oil and gas development that turns an immediate profit. [Pro-tip, that doesn’t exist.]  Keeping the oil and gas industry in a state of perpetual state of shortage, overcapacity and expense, allows the “transition” to windmills and solar to remain urgent.  Put another way, the energy crisis is part of the plan. WATCH:

Mr. Hochstein also appeared on Fox News this afternoon to claim that coal is the worst of the worst and must never be used again.  When asked about Germany going back to coal to replace Russian gas, Hochstein says that’s a terrible plan.  However, Hochstein was never confronted over the stupid part of his anxiety.

Germany is being forced to use coal because Biden/Hochstein have triggered energy sanctions against Russia that stopped the flow of natural gas.  Germany is being forced to use the horrible coal because Biden/Hochstein is forcing them to.

In order for ideologues to retain their insane ideological positions, they must pretend not to know things.  Unfortunately, we do not have a media that is capable of calling them out on the hypocrisy and challenging the weakness of their positions.  Thus, the great pretending continues….

Funeral for Ivana Trump underway in New York City

 The funeral for Ivana Trump, former President Donald Trump's first wife, is underway at St. Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church in New York City. Ivana's three children are attending along with former President Trump.  

The Gospel According to Kamala

A Christian seeking religious advice from Kamala Harris is 

as insane as seeking culinary tips from Jeffrey Dahmer

posted by Dianny at Patriot Retort 

According to Kamala Harris, there is nothing in Christian doctrine that prevents the faithful from supporting the murder of the unborn.

Thank heaven!

I mean, here I was listening to my conscience, the Bible, my pastor, and the teachings of the church when I should have consulted the Gospel According to Kamala Harris.

I feel so ashamed.

While speaking at the 113th NAACP National Convention in New Jersey yesterday, Kamala told the audience:

“And, you know, on this subject, it’s important to note that to support a woman’s ability — not her government, but her — to make that decision does not require anyone to abandon their faith or their beliefs. It just requires us to agree the government shouldn’t be making that decision for her.”

I have to admit, I didn’t have “Kamala Gives Religious Instruction to the Faithful” on my Bingo card.

Does this mean if a woman decides to murder her toddler, it wouldn’t require me to abandon my faith to agree that nobody should get in the way of her making that decision?

Would God be okay with that?

Well, according to Kamala, probably.

Kamala routinely forgets that there are two people affected by the “woman’s ability” to “make that decision” and one of those two doesn’t get out of that decision alive.

When I saw a clip of this on Twitter yesterday, I knew without being told that the Reverend Kamala was speaking to a predominantly black audience because her voice took on that faux black preacher cadence she likes to use when talking to black people.

As if she wasn’t raised in an affluent neighborhood in Montreal by her Indian mother.

Ugh, those misplaced pauses, the nodding. It’s just ridiculous.

Democrats do have a problem with their embrace of wholesale, unrestricted abortion. Many black Americans, especially those who are deeply religious, aren’t on board with abortion on demand during all nine months of pregnancy.

Neither are Catholic Hispanics.

In fact, only about 10 to 12 percent of the population supports Kamala’s position.

(I know what you’re doing right now. You’re making jokes in your head about “Kamala’s position.” I won’t stop you.)

But to have Kamala Harris presume to give religious guidance to the faithful in the name of the unfettered killing of the unborn isn’t just incredibly inappropriate; it’s ghoulish and sacrilegious.

What sane Christian would seek spiritual guidance on abortion from Kamala freaking Harris?

That’d be like seeking culinary tips from Jeffrey Dahmer.

You know, I said a while ago that the Biden administration’s decision to make Kamala its point-person on abortion tickled me to no end.

It was always going to be a train wreck just like everything else she’s put her hand to.

(Okay, You’re doing it again with the “she’s put her hand to” part, aren’t you?)

The train wreck was built in because that’s what happens when your point-person is someone who thinks the United States is made up entirely of leftwing activists working at well-funded nonprofits.

Kamala has no idea there’s an entire country outside of the Acela Corridor.

This is why her 2020 presidential campaign sputtered out like a wet fart two months before Iowa. When your view of America comes solely from left-wing think tanks and activist groups, you won’t have a single clue how to connect to regular Americans.

Her job as the point-person on abortion is going to fail just as spectacularly as her presidential campaign.

And her presentation of the Gospel According to Kamala is all the proof you need.

Biden Has No Right To Declare A ‘National Climate Emergency’

The real emergency is that we have a lawless party in power.

by David Harsanyi for The Federalist

The Washington Post reported Monday night that President Joe Biden is “considering declaring a national climate emergency” to “salvage his environmental agenda in the wake of stalled talks on Capitol Hill.” A few hours later, the Associated Press reported that the administration would “hold off” on the announcement as he, presumably, lays the political groundwork to move forward.

There’s no “It’s Summer” clause in the Constitution, empowering the president to ignore the will of Congress and unilaterally govern when it gets hot. The rejection of the president’s “agenda” by the lawmaking branch of government isn’t a justification for executive action, it’s the opposite. The Senate has unambiguously declined to implement Biden’s climate plan.

Though you have to marvel at the utter shamelessness of Democrats, incessantly warning that “democracy” is on the precipice of extinction, now urging the president to act like a petty dictator. It’s been less than a month since the Supreme Court rejected the Environmental Protection Agency’s claim that bureaucrats could govern without Congress to regulate carbon (which is to say, the entire economy). What makes anyone believe that the president—who, incidentally, just got back from begging Saudi theocrats to pump more oil—is imbued with the power to enact a new regulatory regime or funding by fiat?

We now have senators like Jeff Merkley, who told reporters on Monday that Biden’s emergency edict “unchains the president from waiting for Congress to act,” openly undermining their oath to the Constitution by attacking the institution they represent. Congress may have spent decades abdicating its responsibilities—which, despite conventional wisdom, isn’t to rubber stamp the Democrats’ agenda—but its members rarely advocated openly for executive abuse. I guess they’re evolving.

Bloomberg reports that a emergency declaration would “unlock” the president’s power to “redirect federal funding to clean-energy construction.” When Donald Trump enacted an emergency declaration to reallocate funding earmarked for military projects to build a wall on the U.S. Southern border—“a clear attempt to circumvent the legislative branch and one that I hope leads to the Supreme Court overturning the abused National Emergencies Act,” I wrote at the time, so save your emails—the entire establishment melted down. “Declaring a National Emergency Could Give Trump Authoritarian Powers,” a columnist at New York claimed. “A Win For Trump’s Authoritarian Agenda,” wrote another in Forbes. And so on. It’s worth remembering the border is within the purview of the federal government. Trying to control the weather is not.

Which brings us to another small problem: There is no emergency. Politicians might treat every hurricane, tornado, and flood as an apocalyptic event—and then conveniently blame their political opponents for failing to reign in nature—but by every quantifiable measure humankind is less affected by climate than ever before. Despite the massive expansion of fossil fuel use, despite the explosion of the world’s population, far fewer people die from the climate.

Our ability to adapt to the vagaries of weather and acclimatize to the realities of climate change—whatever they may be—is far cheaper than state-compelled dismantling of the Constitution (and modernity). You may vigorously disagree. And that is a political debate about policy that belongs in Congress among representatives of the people. If every hurricane, heat wave, or flood is a justification for unilateral federal executive governance, we will be in a perpetual emergency. Regulating carbon emissions is an open-ended invitation to regulate the entire economy. Which is the point.

And just as historically high gas prices—driven, in part, by the administration’s efforts to create fossil fuels scarcity—are slightly ebbing, Democrats want Biden “to halt crude oil exports, limit oil and gas drilling in federal waters, and direct agencies including the Federal Emergency Management Agency to boost renewable-energy sources.” Even if there was an emergency, the notion that diverting some money to prop up unreliable energy sources or subsidize more electric cars production is going to do anything to change the trajectory of the climate is a risible claim. The real emergency is that we have a lawless party pushing lawlessness.

Watch: Armed ATF Agents Show up at Gun Owner's Home Unannounced, to Inspect Lawfully Purchased Guns

Jim Thompson reporting for RedState 

Remember the claim from the ATF — that no one is coming for your weapons and no one is keeping track of your weapons? Meh, maybe they are.

Apparently, there are several parts of the Gun Control Act of 1968 that allow the ATF to show up at your door unannounced, and without a warrant, ask to see the weapons you just bought. I knew of the allowance for unannounced inspection of National Firearms Act of 1934 NFA licensees (ATF can show up without a warrant, once a year, for inspection of business premises), but beyond that, the feds require a reason and that reason needs to be in a warrant signed by a judge. Apparently you still have 4th Amendment rights, even with an NFT. The Gun Control Act applies, of course, to a Federal Firearms Licensee FFLs, but inspection of records or firearms or premises do not apply to private residences. That, presumably, requires a warrant.

Nonetheless, ATF can, and apparently will, show up at private residences of firearm owners, announced, and ask to see your firearms. If this seems out of a dystopian novel or the fevered dreams of Biden nominees, you’d be wrong. It happened in Delaware, according to an exclusive report and video by Armed American News. Anytime guys with badges and guns ask you questions, most law-abiding people get flustered. Even getting stopped for a broken taillight can rattle people, but if a half-dozen armed men show up at your door and ask to see your weapons, you might feel intimidated.

A man in Delaware had the local cops and agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms show up at his front door recently. He’s a law abiding gun owner, not a suspected criminal. The cops and agents were all armed, of course. ATF wanted to see his weapons. The man owned several guns, and he had made a number of purchases since 2020. ATF didn’t have a warrant; they just had a list of his firearm purchases, and they wanted to see the guns he purchased.

You can watch it here or at the Twitter link below.

I didn’t know that this process was part the Gun Control Act, but it is. If, for instance, you decide to buy two handguns at the same time, the FFL is required to submit a form informing ATF of that purchase. You’re then on a list, and the ATF might show up at your door with a list, asking to see your weapons. There are (apparently) three reasons for ATF to show demanding to see your recent purchases.

1. Tracing: If your legally purchased gun is later stolen, and then used in a crime, the ATF will show up asking questions. This seems perfectly reasonable.
2. Investigating multiple gun purchases. That is what happened in Delaware. The owner purchased his guns, the FFL filed out the paperwork, and AFT showed up at his door.
3. Conducting a welfare check. If you thought “Red Flags” were new, they are not.

Assuming ATF shows up with local cops in tow, do you have to let them in your home? No, not without a warrant. And if they have a warrant, they are required to hand you a copy. Do you have to show them the weapons you purchased? No, not without a warrant, and there has to be specificity in the warrant allowing for that.

The Delaware owner took the “I have nothing to hide” route and for him, it was the right route to take. The agents were respectful and didn’t demand to see more than one weapon. They didn’t demand to enter the residence, and they left, satisfied.

Bottom line, if you purchase more than one gun at a time, don’t be surprised if ATF shows up at your door.

EU told to prepare for Russian gas shut-off

 

The European Commission has urged countries across the bloc to cut their gas use by 15% until March amid fears Russia could halt supplies.

It says the target is voluntary but will become legally binding if Moscow turns off the taps this summer.

The key Nordstream 1 pipeline from Russia to Germany has been offline for maintenance for 10 days and is due to be turned back on this Thursday.

But there are concerns Moscow will not follow through on its promise.

Russia supplied Europe with 40% of its natural gas last year, with Germany the continent's largest importer in 2020, followed by Italy.

But European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said a Europe-wide cut-off was a "likely scenario".

"Russia is blackmailing us. Russia is using energy as a weapon," she said. "Therefore, in any event, whether it's a partial, major cut-off of Russian gas or a total cut-off of Russian gas, Europe needs to be ready."

Since Russia invaded Ukraine it has cut supplies to a number of countries which have rejected its demand for payment for gas in roubles, including Poland, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Finland.  

It has also been accused of reducing supplies to make it more difficult for EU countries to build up reserves ahead of the winter.

The UK gets less than 5% of its gas from Russia, but its gas prices are affected by fluctuations in global markets.

Energy 'as a weapon'

The Commission said a full cut-off during winter could have a major impact on EU economies, reducing growth by up to 1.5%.

The International Monetary Fund last week warned it would plunge European economies into recession, heightening an energy crisis that has sent consumer bills soaring.

European countries have been trying to build up gas storage ahead of winter, to build a buffer in case Moscow further restricts supplies.

The proposed 15% reduction is compared with average consumption in the same period from 2016 to 2021.

The gas that is saved would be put into storage, Ms von der Leyen tweeted.

"This is a big ask for the whole of the EU - but it is necessary to protect us," she said.

She said that some member states are "more vulnerable" to gas supply disruption, and that EU states "all need to be ready to share gas".

The plan has hit resistance from Poland, which has filled its gas storage to 98% of capacity and does not feel it needs to curb its use.

Other countries have less stored - Hungary, for example, is at 47% of capacity.  

The European Commission suggested measures governments could take to curb gas use, including compensating industries that use less and limiting heating and cooling temperatures in public buildings.

Governments should also decide the order in which they would force industries to shut down in the event of a supply emergency.

Households are classed as "protected consumers" under EU rules and would be shielded from such curbs.

EU member states will vote on the Council's rationing plan at a meeting of energy ministers on 26 July.

Germany has already been taking steps towards gas rationing. In June the country triggered the "alarm" stage ofan emergency gas plan to deal with shortages.  

On Monday the International Energy Agency (IEA) called on European countries to further reduce gas consumption, saying Russia's latest moves to restrict gas flows, along with other supply disruptions, are a "red alert" to the EU.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said that despite efforts to reduce reliance on Russian gas, it hasn't been enough to prevent Europe "finding itself in an incredibly precarious position today", adding that the next few months were "critical".  

 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62230201