There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
Cleverly disguised as those who are offering truth, deceivers attempt to lead people away from the truth of Christ—and they’ve been doing so for over two thousand years. Using warnings from the apostle John, Alistair Begg reminds us that deceivers can be identified by their view of Christ and the diversion of their teaching from Christ. When we are firmly grounded in the truth of God’s Word, we will not so easily be led away.
In stark contrast to counterfeit religion, confessional Christianity is a direct response to God’s revelation in Scripture. Alistair Begg warns of the risk of being sidetracked from the truth and reminds us to continue in the faith on a path marked by righteousness. We are called to persevere, encouraging one another daily until Christ returns.
In the brief book of 2 John, the apostle John addressed a congregation under his pastoral care, of whom the encouraging report was given that they were walking in truth. Alistair Begg helps us to define biblical truth absolutely and objectively as it is interwoven with the love of God in Christ. When we make the truth of the Gospel our priority, we will conduct our lives with integrity and a compelling, authentic love.Scripture: 2 John 1-3
Preached: June 8, 2008
He that watereth shall be watered also himself.Proverbs 11:25
If I carefully consider others, God will consider me, and in some way or other He will recompense me. Let me consider the poor, and the Lord will consider me. Let me look after little children, and the Lord will treat me as His child. Let me feed His flock, and He will feed me. Let me water His garden, and He will make a watered garden of my soul. This is the Lord’s own promise; be it mine to fulfill the condition and then to expect its fulfillment.
I may care about myself till I grow morbid; I may watch over my own feelings till I feel nothing; and I may lament my own weakness till I grow almost too weak to lament. It will be far more profitable for me to become unselfish and out of love to my Lord Jesus begin to care for the souls of those around me. My tank is getting very low; no fresh rain comes to fill it; what shall I do? I will pull up the plug and let its contents run out to water the withering plants around me. What do I see? My cistern seems to fill as it flows. A secret spring is at work. While all was stagnant, the fresh spring was sealed; but as my stock Rows out to water others the Lord thinketh upon me. Hallelujah!
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1
Thoughts
Where can we go when all the walls fall and all the armies crumble and all hope is lost? To the eternal God, who is our Father. He preserved Israel through the most difficult of times, protected the Bible from those who would eradicate it, and has led his Church through troubles and triumphs through the centuries. He will do the same with us until he brings us home to himself.
Prayer:
My Rock, My Hope, and My Protector, I thank you for preserving my life. I thank you for hearing my cries for help and healing. I thank you for guiding my feet into ways that have been a blessing. Please, O God, stay close by as I face the stresses and challenges in my life. Through your Spirit, enable me to grow and be an example to others as I pass through life’s storm. Through Jesus I ask it. Amen.
“For I have given them the words you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.” John 17:6
Once, during a time of acute anxiety, I chose to confide in my doctor.
After listening to me, he wrote out a prescription and handed it to me. The only words on the paper were “Isaiah 41:10.”
He explained that the night before his final medical exams, panic had throttled him. He called friends for prayer. They gave him Isaiah 41:10,
“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
His panic receded as he let the message of this passage soak in. The next day he passed his exams.
When fear assaults, many feelings can flood in and obsess us. What spiritual machete can we use to hack through the tangle of terror to create a clearing for the reality that God is with us to strengthen and help us?
Is it admitting our need to other believers and asking for their prayers? Possibly. What about a command to ourselves to “Just stop it and have faith?” That could be effective. You can practice taking charge of your thoughts.
Would a cry to God for help work? Of course. Romans 8:26 says,
“The Spirit helps us in our weakness.”
He is the helper who comes alongside us to settle the panic.
The prescription my doctor gave me still is valid. I have discovered it helps to remember what God, Himself, declares in Isaiah 41:10 — that I should “Fear not, for I am with you.” It helps me to have, what I call, a stake-out on spiritual authority. I am following Jesus’ example when, in Matthew 4:10, he resisted evil in the wilderness by quoting Scripture. As it did with my doctor, soaking in a Bible verse that the Spirit recalls to me can calm the anxiety.
Stay with the Word of God. Never be embarrassed by how often you have to dismiss your feelings of doubt or dismay. Your job is to return to thinking of the truths God has given you.
Gracious God, help us to be willing to release our instinctive ways of reacting to crises. By Your Holy Spirit, remind us that you are right beside us. May we humbly accept your strength and your help in times of fear. Amen.
NATO’s Proposed “Military Schengen” Is A Thinly Disguised German Power Play Over Poland The liberal-globalist opposition coalition’s victory in last month’s Polish elections, which its Foreign Minister earlier accused Germany of meddling in, will likely result in former Prime Minister and European Council President Donald Tusk’s return to the premiership. In that event, this German-aligned politician could voluntarily subordinate his country to Berlin, thus resulting in Poland ceding its envisaged regional sphere of influence to that country and becoming its largest-ever vassal indefinitely.
What Are The Saudis Really Preparing For? It was announced the other day that Saudi Arabia and China are opening a $7 billion local currency swap line. The announcement of the swap lines is likely a pre-announcement of an Economic Hitman-style attack on Saudi Arabia by the US. It’s not really that difficult to foresee.
Inside The UN Plan To Control Speech Online A powerful United Nations agency has unveiled a plan to regulate social media and online communication while cracking down on what it describes as “false information” and “conspiracy theories,” sparking alarm among free-speech advocates and top U.S. lawmakers.
The Russia-Ukraine War Is Just About Over The United States controls how the war in the Ukraine proceeds and always has. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said it was the American side which scuttled any chance of peace in Ukraine as early as March 2022, soon after the war began. “The only people who could resolve the war over Ukraine are the Americans. During the peace talks in March 2022 in Istanbul, Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They had to coordinate everything they talked about with the Americans first.
Former Google Engineer Pardoned By Trump Reboots ‘AI Church’ Anthony Levandowski, … has made headlines again. This time, it’s not about groundbreaking tech advancements or legal battles, but something far more unorthodox: the resurrection of his AI-centric church, “Way of the Future.” It was an ambitious endeavor, aiming to merge technology and spirituality by fostering a “spiritual connection” with AI. Despite its closure a few years later, Levandowski’s renewed venture, as discussed on Bloomberg’s AI IRL podcast, has already attracted a “couple thousand people,” “Here we’re actually creating things that can see everything, be everywhere, know everything,
Israel raids put Damascus airport out of service again “Israeli warplanes on Sunday afternoon carried out a new raid targeting Damascus international airport … putting it out of service again,” said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It said the raid targeted the runways, and reported the sound of an explosion from the direction of a military airport elsewhere in the capital.
Be On Guard: The End Times Church Is One Inundated With Apostasy There is much talk going around these days about how unified, triumphant, and glorious the Church will be in the end times right before the return of Jesus. This pollyanna image of the Church is certainly attractive, but it does not correspond with what the Bible prophesies. The picture of the Church in the end times that is portrayed in the Bible is not a very pretty one.
Soldier: ‘My dog gave me the signal – get back!’ Oketz (K-9) Unit fighters and dogs from the Marom Special Operations Brigade exposed approximately 50 booby-trapped explosive devices and dozens of weapons stockpiles.
Min. of Defense: ‘Hezbollah will withdraw and Israel’s northern residents will go home’ Minister Gallant said: “Here, in the Lebanese eastern front, which also looks towards Syria, the forces are doing an excellent job. The result is the injury and elimination of over 100 Hezbollah terrorists and the destruction of dozens of observation posts, warehouses, bunkers, and headquarters. And the retreat of Hezbollah forces from the front, into the depth of the [Lebanese] territory.’ He continued: “These are very impressive results. The combination of all these tactical achievements will translate into a new situation, which will later enable the return of [Israeli] residents [to the northern communities] under completely different conditions than when we started this campaign.
Musk to visit Israel Monday, meet Netanyahu Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk will visit Israel on Monday and meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The X … owner met with Netanyahu in California in September to discuss artificial intelligence and investments in Israel.
Hamas Confirms Northern Brigade Head al-Ghandour, other Commanders Killed The terrorist organization Hamas announced on Sunday the deaths of four commanders, particularly the head of its Northern Gaza Brigade, before the ceasefire that went into effect on Friday morning. The Northern Gaza Brigade commander, Ahmed al-Ghandour, was also a member of the Hamas Military Council. The terrorist organization had denied previous reports of his death, as well as the assassinations of other senior leaders.
ZAKA360 Working With IDF To Scan Off Road Areas 50 days have passed since the October 7th massacre, and ZAKA360 teams are still working hard in the South to recover bodies. Even now, more remains are being found every day. ZAKA360 is working with the military in off-road areas, where many hid or were found and killed.
Netanyahu visits Gaza, is first Israeli PM to do so in two decades Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the first Israeli head of state to travel to Gaza in two decades when he visited IDF troops stationed there on Sunday and was shown Hamas tunnels. “We continue until the end – until victory,”
Palestinian terrorists brutally kill two suspected collaborators Palestinian terrorists in the Tulkarem refugee camp shot and killed two alleged collaborators with Israel early Saturday, Palestinian officials said. Mobs then kicked the bloodied corpses and dragged them through alleys before trying to tie them to an electrical tower.
Congress probes news outlets accused of knowing about planned Oct. 7 invasion Members of Congress are asking the Associated Press (AP) and UK’s Reuters news services what their front-line journalists knew about the October 7 Gaza terror attack on Israel, prior to the invasion, amid allegations photojournalists working for both outlets were aware of the planned attacks ahead of time. News reporters and photojournalists on-site at the early morning raid seem to indicate advance knowledge of the event, an investigative report found earlier this month.
Israeli-owned ship attacked by Iranian drone in Indian Ocean An Israeli-owned commercial vessel was attacked by an Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean on Friday, the Associated Press reported, citing a US defense official. The attack on the CMA CGM Symi container ship, which caused no injuries, came a week after Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels hijacked an Israeli-linked ship in the Red Sea.
Pope Francis describes Israel’s war on Hamas as genocidal “terrorism” A ruler who listens to lies, All his ministers will be wicked. Proverbs 30:12 the Pope met with families of hostages taken by Hamas. He also met with Palestinians whose relatives were security prisoners in Israeli jails or were in Gaza. No media representatives were present at the meetings but members of the Palestinian delegation told the media that the pope had described Israel’s actions as “genocide”.
Archaeologists discover ancient sling stone factory Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) research, … reported the earliest evidence for warfare and organized arming in the Southern Levant, specifically in the area of modern Israel yet discovered. The research revealed that the hundreds of sling stones were almost identical, indicating they were mass-produced.
Minnesota one of the worst states for education freedom, report says The report, which assesses states on criteria such as education choice, teacher freedom, transparency, and return on investment, highlights a decline for Minnesota in every category. In the second annual Education Freedom Report Card published by The Heritage Foundation, Minnesota found itself at 45th place in the overall rankings. “The state declined in every category, most notably a seven-spot drop in education choice,” the report card states.
Major lake-effect snow event expected in Great Lakes region, threatening road closures and power outages As Arctic air sweeps across the Great Lakes, meteorologists are warning of the season’s first significant lake-effect snow event, poised to cause travel disruptions and potentially feet of snow in some areas. This weather phenomenon, intensifying early next week, is expected to bring hazardous conditions, particularly along I-90 and in snow-prone regions of Michigan, Ohio, and New York.
Connecticut City Rejects 5G Citing Evidence of Health Risks The Board of Representatives in Stamford, Connecticut, earlier this month voted to reject a model agreement that would have allowed AT&T and Verizon to install 5G equipment on city-owned utility poles.
Elon Musk Sounds The Alarm: Is Microsoft Building A Real-Life Skynet? Elon Musk has sounded the alarm on Microsoft and its artificial intelligence plans. Microsoft’s new Maia A.I. chip is set to be the cornerstone of Microsoft’s A.I. infrastructure and aims to bring artificial generalized intelligence to “every facet” of our lives.
Rule 2.13 – Isolation And Quarantine Procedures The Appellate Division of the Fourth Judicial Department reversed the Borrello, Lawler, Tague, Uniting NYS v. Hochul ruling. Senator George Borrello, Assemblyman Chris Tague, Assemblyman (now, Congressman) Michael Lawler and the citizens’ organization, Uniting NYS had initially sued New York Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Department of Health over Rule 2.13 “Isolation and Quarantine Procedures.” What does this mean? The state can now force ANYONE into quarantine for any reason as this is not limited to the coronavirus.
Former Google Engineer Pardoned By Trump Reboots ‘AI Church’ …According to Levandowski, more sophisticated AI systems could help guide humans with moral, ethical or existential questions. “Here we’re actually creating things that can see everything, be everywhere, know everything, and maybe help us and guide us in a way that normally you would call God,” he said.
James Rickards: When the next financial crisis hits the elites are planning to freeze the financial system, worldwide During an interview in 2017, James Rickards revealed that there is a network of 189 people who are positioned in the world’s financial systems that hold the fate of the global financial system in their hands. They share one vision – One World Order, One World Taxation and One World Money – and have been working behind the scenes preparing to make that vision a reality.
“There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon real favours from Nation to Nation. ‘Tis an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.” —George Washington (1796)
Fellow Patriots, Thanksgiving has passed, but on this day in 1924, New York City hosted the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. It’s become an annual tradition, albeit now one soiled by the Rainbow Mafia. This year even featured some pro-Hamas protesters obstructing the route. Seems that more than a few people belong on Santa’s naughty list. —Mark Alexander
The president’s apology was disgraceful enough, but news of it came while Hamas’s hostages were finally being freed.
Nate Jackson
As Hamas finally released the first groups of its many hostages over the weekend, a news report says Joe Biden offered an apology — essentially to Hamas.
“I’m sorry. I’m disappointed in myself,” the president privately told a group of what The Washington Post called “five prominent Muslim Americans.” He added, “I will do better.”
Why was Biden apologizing? Because he correctly expressed doubt about Hamas’s casualty statistics last month. Speaking at an October press conference about the Gaza Health Ministry, run by Hamas, Biden said, “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed.” His comment came not long after Hamas falsely reported — and the American Leftmedia parroted — that Israel had killed 500 in a missile strike on a hospital.
As our Douglas Andrews aptly put it: “It wasn’t an airstrike, it didn’t hit a hospital, it didn’t kill hundreds, and Israel didn’t do it. But other than that, the reporting was accurate.”
Never mind the truth, though. The same Washington Post “fact-checked” Biden because Hamas actually “has a good track record on reporting death tolls.” (The Gaza Health Ministry now says more than 14,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military response. No one is saying how many of them were Hamas jihadists, and few media outlets bother to highlight how Hamas blurs the lines to increase civilian deaths — primarily for propaganda purposes.)
Beyond the media “fact-check,” Biden also no doubt got an earful from his astoundingly sizable Hamas-supporting Democrat base — including the several hundred government staffers who object to the administration’s stance supporting Israel.
Hence Biden’s apology now.
As for the hostages, just one American — a four-year-old girl with dual Israeli citizenship who witnessed both parents being murdered by Hamas on October 7 — was among the handful of people released by Hamas terrorists. We can’t imagine how traumatic it has been for these folks, and especially the children, during their seven weeks in captivity, though the Associated Press reported some distressing details. One woman hostage emerged to learn her husband had been killed seven weeks ago.
For all of the wailing among Hamas jihadists and their supporters about civilian casualties, they had no compunction about killing more than 1,200 in a surprise attack and then taking 240 hostages for leverage.
In exchange for a fraction of those hostages, Israel agreed to a temporary cease-fire and to release roughly three times as many Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were convicted of crimes. If Hamas releases 10 more hostages each day, Israel will continue to pause operations, though that would allow Hamas to regroup.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised, “We will return with full force to achieve our goals: The elimination of Hamas, ensuring that Gaza does not return to what it was; and of course the release of all our hostages.”
Israel has a very difficult needle to thread. Hamas builds fighting bases in hospitals, schools, and mosques, clearly hoping for civilian casualties to play on Western sympathies. Hamas exists to wipe Israel off the map, and indiscriminately kills Jews to reach that goal — largely with the support of the Palestinian people.
Israelis want to live in peace, but to do that, Hamas must be eliminated.
As for the 10 Americans still being held by Hamas, Biden’s weakness and moral equivocation certainly isn’t helping them. His feckless leadership has resulted in multiple crises around the world. To say we’re disappointed would be the understatement of the year.
The more we learn about the case of the cop who was convicted for George Floyd’s death, the more we’re convinced that it was a gross miscarriage of justice.
Douglas Andrews
It’s been an awful stretch of days for Derek Chauvin.
Chauvin, the Minneapolis cop who’s now serving a 22.5-year sentence for the death on May 25, 2020, of a drug-fueled noncompliant career criminal named George Floyd, was recently denied by the U.S. Supreme Court his appeal for a new trial and a new venue due to jury bias.
It wasn’t just jury bias that plagued the Chauvin case, though. As we noted last month, when a key witness says “the actual evidence doesn’t match up with the public narrative that everyone’s already decided on,” you know you have problems. How so? The chief medical examiner in the case says that Floyd had a severely enlarged heart; that the autopsy showed no physical signs of neck injury or strangulation; and that if Floyd had been found alone in an apartment building, his death would be certified as an overdose without a second thought due to the lethal level of methamphetamines in his system.
Adding injury to that constitutional insult, Chauvin was stabbed and gravely injured Friday afternoon by a fellow inmate at a federal prison in Arizona. As the Associated Press reports: “The attack happened at the Federal Correctional Institution, Tucson, a medium-security prison that has been plagued by security lapses and staffing shortages. … The Bureau of Prisons confirmed that an incarcerated person was assaulted [and] said responding employees contained the incident and performed ‘life-saving measures’ before the inmate, who it did not name, was taken to a hospital for further treatment and evaluation.”
Does it strike anyone else as reckless for the prison to have exposed a convict as notorious as Chauvin to the general population? Is there a prisoner in all the United States with a bigger bullseye on his back than this guy?
As for Chauvin’s case, if you haven’t yet seen the documentary film “The Fall of Minneapolis,” you’re doing the truth a disservice. Indeed, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
The film wasn’t produced by one of the major studios, wasn’t directed by one of Hollywood’s best and brightest. Instead, it’s a free-of-charge crowdfunded documentary from a committed local journalist. As the New York Post’s Miranda Devine writes, “‘The Fall of Minneapolis’ reveals a shocking tale of injustice and perfidy, and a ruthless political operation that contained the seeds of the January 6 Capitol riot eight months later and the consequent hyperbolic crackdown on Trump supporters.”
But perhaps before watching “The Fall,” you should first ask yourself why you’re only now hearing about so many of the facts of the case — only now, more than three years after the long hot summer of 2020 and the riots that spread outward from Minneapolis to urban centers nationwide, killing more than two dozen people, causing more than $2 billion in property damage, and fueling a Democrat-driven crime wave whose effects continue to plague us today.
The reason you haven’t heard of this documentary is because it tells an inconvenient truth: that Derek Chauvin was railroaded.
You haven’t heard of this film because Hollywood, and the mainstream media, and social media, and Big Tech more broadly, and Democrats all across the country — none of them want you to know about it. As Devine continues, “The film was produced by Liz Collin, a former anchor at a CBS affiliate in the Twin Cities who was taken off air during the riots and demoted because her husband, Bob Kroll, was the Minneapolis police union chief at the time.” Despite having had their home terrorized by The Mob, Collin drives the narrative matter-of-factly and with “shocking new evidence,” and she interviews Chauvin in prison, Chauvin’s mom, and many of the Minneapolis cops who’ve since resigned from the force.
“From false testimony in Chauvin’s trial,” writes Devine, “to police bodycam footage of Floyd’s arrest that was withheld for two months, to the autopsy report that was altered after the FBI got involved, Collin presents a damning forensic record that needs avenging.”
Among the film’s hardest-hitting moments is the disgraceful abandonment of the city’s Third Precinct police station by local Democrat leaders to rioters who eventually torched it. In a better America, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey would’ve been tarred and feathered for gross dereliction, and the city’s police would’ve had permission to use deadly force to defend their building.
As for the officers on the scene during Floyd’s arrest, who knew they called for an EMS ambulance just 36 seconds after they pulled an increasingly agitated and uncooperative Floyd out of their squad car and put him face down on the pavement?
Who knew that Floyd had a similar interaction with police a year earlier, in 2019 — an interaction in which he appeared agitated and uncooperative, and appeared to be eating drugs in order to keep them from being discovered by the officers.
During the film, one Minneapolis cop after another — black cops, white cops, male cops, female cops — agree that they were all taught the MRT, the maximal restraint technique that Officer Chauvin used on Floyd on May 25, 2020. And yet their own police chief, Medaria Arradondo, took the stand in Chauvin’s trial and claimed that he didn’t recognize the MRT and that “it was not” a trained technique within the Minneapolis Police Department. “Yes, I heard him say that,” said one incredulous officer. “It’s tough to hear people lie, just straight lie.”
The more we learn about the Chauvin case, the more troubling it becomes. And the more unavoidable is the conclusion that a white male police officer was sacrificed to the social justice mob as a means of appeasement. To hell with his Sixth Amendment rights.
“What’s been done is done,” says Chauvin in his interview with Collin. “I just hope, at the very least, people in the future keep an open mind and not let instances like this happen. Use my case as an example to not jump the gun, not knee jerk, not fall to this race bait, to the social media, to the media, and not let them get away with what they do.”
Macy’s parade meets pro-Hamas protesters, Holland’s “far-right” Wilders wins, PETA gets roasted, and more.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Macy’s parade meets pro-Hamas protesters: Clearly, the pro-Hamas crowd hasn’t read Dale Carnegie. Otherwise, they’d realize that they aren’t going to win friends and influence people by disrupting the most iconic of American events: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. But perhaps their intent is merely to alienate and intimidate people. As the New York Post reports: “Pro-Palestinian protesters were spotted handing out ‘Killed by Israel’ fliers as chaos erupted at the end of the [parade] on Thursday. A handful of people could be seen dishing out the posters to parade-goers as hundreds of protesters stormed the end of the annual family spectacular in Midtown Manhattan.” According to National Review, one large sign read, “Genocide Then Genocide Now,” “Free Palestine,” and “Land Back,” while the rabble chanted clever ditties such as: “Not another nickel, not another dime. No more money for Israel’s crimes.” The protest was, of course, an attempt to regain control of a narrative that has largely eluded Hamas since it launched a barbaric attack on Israel 51 days ago. Alas, more than 30 protesters were arrested, four were charged, and, we’d venture to guess, zero attendees of the parade had their minds changed by the mobbish disruption of the holiday gala that Macy’s first staged in 1924 and that NBC began televising in 1953.
Holland’s “far-right” Wilders wins: From last Sunday’s stunning victory in Argentina by pro-Trump nationalist Javier Milei to Wednesday’s big win in the Netherlands by longtime anti-immigration candidate Geert Wilders, people are fed up with leftist policies including unchecked immigration. As the leftists at CNN lament: “The Netherlands woke up Thursday to an unexpected victory for Dutch anti-EU far-right populist Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV) — a forecast win that has triggered shockwaves in the Netherlands and could have reverberations across Europe and beyond. The provisional outcome … showed the PVV had won 37 seats and will be the largest party in the House of Representatives.” The Heritage Foundation’s Nile Gardiner put it in context: “The Dutch people are saying they’ve had enough of this and the huge cultural changes which have come in as a result. … I think the Geert Wilders effect is going to spread across much of Europe, and I think his electoral victory is a massive game-changer.” Indeed, nationalist candidates in Sweden, Italy, and Spain have also scored victories recently, and in Ireland, as Sky News reports, more than 400 police officers clashed with enraged crowds over a stabbing near a primary school “which left a five-year-old schoolgirl in critical condition and a female teacher in her 30s in a very serious condition.” Authorities are refusing to release any information about the suspect who’s in custody, but the Irish appear to have drawn educated conclusions about his background.
Buttigieg “buddy” gets 30 years for child porn: Patrick Wojahn, the former mayor of College Park, Maryland, was sentenced to 30 years behind bars after he pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing child pornography. Joe Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Wojahn, both of whom are homosexuals, met at a U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, DC, back in 2015, when Buttigieg was still mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Evidently, they really hit it off, as Wojahn described it: “[Buttigieg] was assigned to be my buddy. I now serve in a leadership role as vice chair of city livability and bicycling in part due to his mentorship.” Wojahn, a longtime Democrat who has donated to the national party, has visited the White House multiple times since Biden took office. He resigned as mayor this past March after his pedophilia came to light.
Good news: saving babies’ lives: A recently released study published by the Institute of Labor Economics found that since the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the lives of more than 30,000 babies have been saved. “Our primary analysis indicates that in the first six months of 2023, births rose by an average of 2.3 percent in states enforcing total abortion bans compared to a control group of states where abortion rights remained protected, amounting to approximately 32,000 additional annual births resulting from abortion bans,” the researchers observed. This result is thanks to 14 conservative states having enacted limits and outright bans on abortion, which then saw “a 100% decrease [in abortions] during the study period.” The states seeing the biggest decline in abortions include Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.
PETA gets roasted: With an ill-advised meme, PETA sought to shame Americans for enjoying turkey on Thanksgiving. PETA’s meme posted on X featured a cartoon image of turkeys sitting around a table with a headless roasted human on a platter. The meme was captioned, “We’re lucky turkeys would never do this to us — you don’t have to do it to them, either.” Well, thanks to X’s community notes feature where readers can add context, PETA’s misinformation play was hilariously corrected, pronto. As the community note observed: “Turkeys are not vegetarians. Turkeys eat mice, lizards, frogs, and just about anything they can fit in their mouth. If turkeys were larger or had the technological means to farm and eat humans, their current diet reveals they likely would.” Seems the real turkeys here are PETA’s mindless gobblers.
Biden keeps sinking: If panic hasn’t set in yet at the Biden White House, then we’re not sure what will trigger it. Last month, in what may have come as a surprise to some, polls indicated that Donald Trump had overtaken Joe Biden in four of five battleground states in a potential head-to-head matchup. Those polls indicated that Biden had lost voters more than Trump had gained them. That is evidently changing now with the most recent polls. Biden is now falling further behind Trump and, to make matters worse for Biden, Trump’s average voter share in national polling is now rising. In other words, swing voters are swinging toward Trump, and this includes a surprise NBC News poll that found voters under 35 years of age now favor Trump over Biden 46% to 42%. What is clear is that Biden is in a downward spiral; what’s not clear is whether the old man can pull out of it. The question is: Are a majority of Americans simply done with the bumbling Biden?
An apparent anti-Arab hate crime in Vermont: In what was clearly a targeted attack, three men in their 20s and of Palestinian descent were shot early Saturday evening in Burlington, Vermont. Two of the men were wearing the traditional keffiyeh headscarf that former PLO boss Yasser Arafat used to wear and that has since come to symbolize Palestinian rights. As CBS News reports: “The three men were in Burlington visiting the home of one of the victim’s relatives for Thanksgiving … when an armed white man confronted them and, without speaking, allegedly discharged at least four rounds. … Two of the victims were shot in the torso while the third man was shot in his lower extremities, police said.” Two of them were listed in stable condition, while the third victim “sustained much more serious injuries.” Soon thereafter, police arrested a man who happens to be white. Joe Biden was briefed on the incident, as was Vermont socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, who condemned it as “shocking and deeply upsetting.” Biden and his handlers, meanwhile, have thus far remained curiously silent rather than trying to score cheap points with the Arab-American community.
Headlines
Israel and Hamas look open to extending truce on its final day, with one more hostage swap planned (AP) | Family members: Hostages ate poorly, slept on benches, waited up to two hours for bathroom (Breitbart)
The FBI released journal info from a “white shooter” within 48 hours of the crime and the media raced to report the attack “may have been racially motivated.” Funny how that works. (Not the Bee)
Lawmakers are ditching Congress at a record pace (Axios)
Elizabeth Warren acknowledges the ripple effects of ObamaCare’s consequences (Fox News)
New York retailers lost $4.4 billion due to organized shoplifting rings in 2022 (New York Post)
Lack of “affirmation” is child abuse: New Biden rule applies transgender standard to foster care (Daily Signal)
Catholic all-girls college will admit men who identify as “trans” (Daily Signal)
Menstrual product company launches “Tampons for Men” (National Review)
New York City enacts law barring discrimination based on weight (PM)
Progressives advocated pandemic school closures. Now they’re covering their tracks. (National Review)
Black Friday shoppers spent a record $9.8 billion in U.S. online sales, up 7.5% from last year (CNBC)
Humor: Musk to put Cybertruck’s bulletproof armor to ultimate test with trip through downtown Chicago (Babylon Bee)
The Leftmedia opinion-checker trots out an “explainer” label as it seeks to protect Joe Biden from negative press.
Thomas Gallatin
One of the worst creations of the modern mainstream media is the so-called “fact-checker.” We have repeatedly noted how these arms of the Leftmedia are little other than leftist opinion promoters dressed in the guise of self-appointed arbiters of truth. That might not be so bad except that they are also authoritative gatekeepers for Big Tech.
Ironically perhaps, these censorious journalistic jackboots are the answer to conservatives’ efforts to expose leftist bias across the mainstream media landscape. This army of “fact-checkers” includes the likes of PolitiFact, Lead Stories, FactCheck.org, NewsGuard, and Snopes — the latter being the subject of today’s lesson, which we’ll come back to after a little history.
Back in 1987, Brent Bozell founded the Media Research Center. The purpose of MRC was to serve as a media watchdog calling out the blatant leftist bias being pushed as objective journalism by the MSM. Later, the blog NewsBusters was created specifically to serve this purpose.
Eventually, the Left responded to MRC with conservative-turned-liberal David Brock creating Media Matters in 2004. The purpose of Media Matters was to act as a counter to MRC and the growing conservative media landscape. It didn’t take long for Leftmedia outlets to begin to treat Media Matters as an “objective” and “nonpartisan” source for journalism.
Media Matters sought to reinforce the lie that the MSM was not biased toward the Left. And out of this effort grew the “fact-checker” phenomenon. These supposedly objective, non-biased entities were painted as arbiters of truth, primarily of stories or claims made across social media.
Of course, the money sourcing the growing litany of these “fact-checker” outfits goes a long way to exposing the real motive for them, but ideologically they serve primarily as narrative reinforcement.
Now, back to Snopes, which demonstrated this in spades when it “fact-checked” a social media post from RNC Research. The post on X featured a 16-second video clip of Joe Biden with the caption, “BIDEN: ‘I love your ears.’”
Obviously, the RNC was having a little fun at the expense of Creepy Joe, who has a long history of rather bizarre behavior around young women and girls. Ask his daughter Ashley, whose diary recounts some of it.
Did Snopes ask Ashley for context? Nope.
That’s even though Snopes titled its fact-check with an apparently new feature: “Explainer.” Snopes used the moments immediately before and after the RNC video to explain that while the clip was accurate, it was being used by right-leaning media to smear Biden as “creepy.” Snopes then scolded that “any users who simply read these headlines but didn’t look further for context might not leave with the facts.”
No kidding. That’s been the reality of the MSM for as long as news media has published headlines — maybe especially ones that delve into politics.
Not only did this Snopes “explainer” not actually explain any real context, but a quick search of the Snopes site regarding the Leftmedia’s infamous lie about Donald Trump’s comments on the Charlottesville protests yields not a single “explainer.” How is that possible? Biden has repeatedly claimed that Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” statement that day was the main reason he decided to run for president.
Bias is exposed both by how the Leftmedia outlets and “fact-checkers” spin their reporting against conservatives and, often even more glaringly, by what they avoid reporting or “fact-checking” entirely. As commentator David Burge joked a few years back: “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.”
What Snopes is doing with this “explainer” feature is expanding its role of Leftmedia narrative reinforcer by going out of its way to protect the narrative from the facts or any context. In this instance, the RNC’s X post was indeed factual and its message was a justifiable insinuation given Biden’s history. The only party missing context was Snopes for failing to note any of Biden’s long history of creepy actions and comments toward children. That record went unexplained by Snopes on the way to smearing Republicans.
Increasingly, a lonely U.S. and the world at large need the return of a sane and powerful European co-partner.
Victor Davis Hanson
For the first time in a millennium, Europe no longer plays a critical role in promoting Western civilization nor in world history at large.
Ostensibly it should. Some 750 million people live on the European subcontinent.
Europe still remains the most popular tourist spot on earth. Its hallowed architecture, art, infrastructure, and natural beauty still remind millions of visitors of the world’s once most dynamic and grandiose civilization.
Even now, European nations, in and out of the Europe Union, still produce a combined gross domestic product of $24 trillion, second only to the United States.
Europe’s exports are among the world’s most coveted cars, sophisticated technology, and valued industrial goods.
Yet since World War II, Europe has played an increasingly reduced role in world affairs, despite its membership in the NATO alliance and the growth of the European Union.
Why?
The 20th-century traumas of World War I and II — in which some 70 million Europeans were killed — saw Europe commit near collective suicide. The ensuing Cold War hinged on protecting a relatively unarmed Europe from an aggressive nuclear Soviet empire on Europe’s borders.
But as World War II and the Cold War faded into memory, Europe did not snap back and assume its centuries-old role as a world leader and beacon of Western Civilization.
Instead, a weary Europe outsourced its security to the United States. It redefined itself as a postmodern, pacifist, socialist utopian project — most recently predicated on redistributionist entitlements, open borders, and radical green policies that have all inevitably ensured European decline.
Europeans grew louder and whinier the less relevant they became.
Although Europe has large sources of untapped hydroelectrical, nuclear, coal, and natural gas power, its green religion has all but shut down new nuclear and fossil fuel generation and closed existing plants. The result is that the cost of European energy is prohibitive for both the public and industry.
Recent economic growth was essentially zero throughout the Eurozone. The European cradle-to-grave social net and its hyper government regulations and restrictions on economic activity increasingly are unsustainable.
Few European nations spend even a mere two-percent of their GDP on defense. And the result is that both Europe at large and its NATO members cannot defend their continent without the assistance of the United States.
Nor can Europe project power beyond its shores to preempt dangerous threats on its own horizon or to its allies.
Europe is also shrinking and aging. Its collective fertility rate of 1.5 is far below the rate of replacement. Most young people in Europe — the ancient home of Christendom — express neither belief in God nor any faith in organized religions.
In many European countries, foreign-born emigrants comprise 20 percent of the population. Most of them have arrived poor, without education, in mass, illegally, with little desire to fully integrate, from inimical countries, and holding political and religious views hostile to Europe.
The other half of the West is in little better condition.
The United States is reeling under $33 trillion in national debt.
After embracing various bankrupt academic critical legal “theories,” major American cities are unsafe, unhealthy, and unsightly. The American southern border is wide open. Eight million illegal aliens have poured in just since January 2021, many of them hostile to the United States.
America is increasingly politically, racially, and tribally divided. It has mysteriously determined not to fully utilize its vast natural resources, especially gas, oil, and rare earth metals.
In this vacuum, the enemies of the West see only opportunity.
Russia invaded European Ukraine. Its ongoing aggression still terrifies frontline NATO nations.
China threatens periodically to storm Taiwan, as it bullies its neighbors, buzzes U.S. ships and planes, and manipulates currency, markets, and trade.
Iran has armed to the teeth anti-Western terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas.
Iran’s “Shiite Crescent” from Tehran to Damascus to Beirut to Palestine threatens both pro-Western Arab regimes and Israel.
Iran brags that its surrogates can destroy Israel and will soon be nuclear with a global reach to both the United States and Europe.
Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, presumably on the assumption that current generations of Westerners in Israel, the U.S., and Europe would not react too strongly to its precivilizational barbarity if it entailed a subsequent messy war.
In sum, the world is safe only when a strong America, alongside its European partner, secure their borders, protect the world’s sea and air spaces, support constitutional and pro-Western nations, and deter thuggish belligerents.
Perhaps as war clouds gather and enemies multiply, Europe will rediscover its heritage and reawaken to its historical role.
Increasingly, a lonely U.S. — and the world at large — need the return of a sane and powerful European co-partner, one that emerges from its self-induced slumber, and resumes its ancient role in preserving civilization from its multiplying enemies.
It’s often assumed on the Left that the “professionals” are the “progressives,” and the conservatives are a motley collection of partisan hacks.
Tim Graham
Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi is the most recent example of a journalist who sounds like his own colleagues are the “professionals” and the writers without the classic Old Media branding are the “non-pros,” people who don’t have standards.
Farhi began by tweeting: “Someone invented the phrase ‘citizen journalism’ a few years ago to describe amateurs doing the work of pros. Yes, it occasionally works, but probably no more often than ‘citizen cop,’ ‘citizen attorney’ or ‘citizen soldier.’”
This quickly became a Twitter beach ball for conservatives. In response to one reply, he qualified it a little: “I’d never argue that professional journalists are flawless. They’re not, of course. But they do try to adhere to a set of standards. Non-pros are under no such obligation, and frequently don’t bother.”
Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist pulled out the big “ahem” on this notion: The latest Gallup poll illustrates that almost 40% of Americans have zero trust in the fairness and accuracy of “professional journalists.”
She pointed out Farhi offered a similar take in 2016: “Is there any other profession in which more people think they can do the job better than the pros than journalism? Medicine? Teaching?”
The great divide in this debate isn’t really between professionals and amateurs. It’s between leftist media outlets and conservative media outlets. It’s often assumed on the Left that the “professionals” are the “progressives,” and the conservatives are a motley collection of partisan hacks. From my experience with Farhi, that’s not his point. But that’s where the fight is.
For conservatives, the fight can begin with the suppression of the New York Post in the closing weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign. The Post was doing original reporting out of an authentic source. The leftist “professionals” assembled an “intelligence community” warning it was all “Russian disinformation.” Then in 2022, Farhi’s Washington Post and The New York Times recognized the laptop was authentic.
At that point, which newspapers were right, and which were duped? The Democrat papers were too invested in the election outcome to investigate this story for themselves. They chose instead to suggest the Post was duped by the Bannons and the Giulianis. They played “consider the source.”
Hemingway returns to other big stories of the Trump years. The Post and the rest pounded away for years on the unproven (then disproven) thesis that Donald Trump was an illegitimate president who colluded with the Russians to steal the election from Hillary Clinton. Now these same “professionals” claim the conservatives are the “election deniers.”
Then there’s the sexual-assault allegations lobbed against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. In 2018, Farhi wrote an article titled “Kavanaugh supporters see a conspiracy afoot.” His then-boss Martin Baron harrumphed, “We aren’t colluding with anyone about anything,” which was transparently silly. If someone came forward and said Martin Baron tried to rape him/her, wouldn’t he see a conspiracy to ruin him?
Back then, the Post published a vicious allegation that Christine Blasey Ford claimed she was “corralled” by a “stumbling drunk” teenager Kavanaugh into a bedroom “one summer in the early 1980s … at a house in Montgomery County.” She didn’t have a date or a place. How on Earth was this enough detail to publish? It wasn’t.
Denying the obvious — that leftist journalists were trying to sink the Kavanaugh nomination, not just with Ford’s remarkably imprecise claims but with even less plausible accusers — is what makes people lose trust in the self-proclaimed “professionals.” Attempting to destroy reputations for political gain can damage your brand.
Braindead Children Think Osama bin Laden Was Right — The memory of the horrific tragedy of 9/11 has apparently faded so much from our collective psyche that children on TikTok now believe Osama bin Laden’s psychopathic manifesto actually made some good points.
It’s Finally Over for George Santos — After years of allegedly lying about his past, the infamous George Santos has finally been investigated by the House Ethics Committee, which found that Santos spent campaign money on Botox along with many other things.
‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Is a Fraud’ — Rep. Burgess Owens questioned witnesses on the incidents of Jewish hate on college campuses across the U.S. during a House Education Committee hearing.
Conservatism on the Rise Internationally — Heritage President Dr. Kevin Roberts joined “Fox News Sunday” to discuss Wilders’ win in the Netherlands and what it may imply for the American political Right.
Failing Their Way to Mars — The blinkered souls who saw SpaceX’s second Starship test as a failure are too dim to realize one of the fundamental laws of science and engineering. Failure is your friend, and the only true sin is making the same mistake twice.
“[Leftists’] sole purpose, following the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage, is to further false narratives that demonize anyone in this country who believes in biology, because people who believe in biology tend to vote the wrong way.” —Matt Walsh
Targeting Trump
“It seems Democrats’ strategy this time around has had the opposite effect. They have abused the law to set a legal trap for Trump in the belief that if he is convicted of a crime during the 2024 election season, he will lose. But what if they are wrong?” —Elizabeth Stauffer
Elections
“Objectively speaking, this makes it easier for bad actors to cheat in voting. So interesting to see which groups cheer on such things.” —Mollie Hemingway on the Pennsylvania court ruling permitting undated and late mail-in ballots
“A staggering 60% of likely voters nationwide consider election cheating a problem, according to Rasmussen Reports. Yet the Left denies it’s happening. The Washington Post calls it a ‘myth’ and a ‘fantasy offense.’ Worst of all, the federal government is suppressing the evidence and censoring anyone who complains about election cheating.” —Betsy McCaughey
For the Record
“Israel should continue to plow through Hamas until the group is annihilated. Then, there could be something better: an everlasting ceasefire in Gaza since a significant terror group is no more.” —Matt Vespa
“If people are shocked by the blatant antisemitism among college students and by the students’ clear lack of understanding of history, they haven’t been paying attention to the ethos of (supposedly) elite universities for at least two generations. Higher education, for decades, has been trending not liberal but radically left.” —Salena Zito
And Last
“Know how crazy cancel culture is? No one can have a toothbrush mustache anymore because one guy famous for it made a bunch of pro-Palestine statements.” —Frank J. Fleming
It’s the 4th day of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel and the ongoing release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th. Democrats continue to battle inside their party over the correct U.S. Policy on Israel, with Liberals wanting to set “conditions” on any new military aid. Amid the fighting in Gaza, there have also been clashes in the area known as the West Bank – the biblical Judea and Samaria including violent protests and gun battles during Israeli arrest raids. U.S. churches are closing their doors at an alarming rate. About 4,500 protestant churches closed in 2019, the most recent year on record and experts believe the rate of these closures accelerated since the pandemic.
Roni Krivoi, 25, managed to escape from terrorists who held him hostage in the Gaza Strip, but ordinary Gazans returned him to his captors, his aunt said on Monday.
Leading Democrats in the party’s progressive wing are warning they will oppose a $14 billion White House aid package to Israel if it does not put constraints on how the Israeli Defense Forces fight Hamas.
The divide among Democrats is said to be driven by not only Arab-American and Muslim voters, but by the generational split that has younger Democrats more opposed to helping Israel.
In an op-ed published by The New York Times, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wrote, “The United States must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship and that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law and our own sense of decency.”
JERUSALEM, Israel – Monday marks the fourth day of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, and the ongoing release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th. Israeli sources now report the ceasefire may be extended much longer to release more hostages.
For the past three days, heartwarming scenes have played out in Israel as families are being reunited for the first time after weeks of captivity, having been kidnapped by Hamas. Fourteen Israelis were released on Sunday, including four-year-old Avigail Edan, an Israeli-American. Hamas killed her parents in front of her during the massacre on October 7th.
“I just spoke with President (Joe) Biden with great excitement, of course, also about the little girl, Abigail. What a joy to see her with us. But, on the other hand, what a pity that she returns to the reality of not having parents. She has no parents – but she has a whole nation that embraces her, and we will take care of all her needs,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Former National Security Council official Richard Goldberg joined ‘FOX & Friends First’ to discuss the final day of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and the role Qatar plays with senior Hamas leaders. #FOXNews
The unelected globalists at the WHO will soon be rolling out their "Global Digital Health Certification Network"—in effect, a global vaccine passport network, soon to be connected to your digital ID, CBDCs, social credit score, etc.
Because NewsGuard worked with the Defense Department to test its technology, it seems likely the government had some input in determining what qualified as ‘disinformation.’
Truth2Freedom's Blog 
