Daily Archives: December 5, 2023

How Democrats And Their Media Allies Plan To Assassinate Trump’s Presidency, Again

President Donald J. Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md. Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020, and en route to Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, Pa. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)The 2024 election has Democrats and the media in a panic. They’re laying the groundwork for nullifying a second Trump term.

— Read on thefederalist.com/2023/12/05/how-democrats-and-their-media-allies-plan-to-assassinate-trumps-presidency-again/

Israeli Troops Advance in Southern Gaza | Jerusalem Dateline – December 5, 2023 – YouTube

Israel keeps the pressure on Hamas and University of Michigan students are asked to vote on an anti-Israel measure. Plus are U.S. imposed restrictions affecting Israel’s ability to defend itself? And faith fuels one Hamas hostage’s will to survive.

CBN News. Because Truth Matters™

— Read on www.youtube.com/watch

Finding Joy in Jesus: 12 Christmas Devotionals to Celebrate the Savior – David Jeremiah Blog

The following Christmas devotionals are designed to help you celebrate Jesus—our Savior, during the holiday season. This inspirational collection offers a blend of reflections, prayers, and insights, encouraging you to discover the many dimensions of joy found in Jesus. Let these words guide your heart through a season of thoughtful celebration and introspective joy in the Savior’s embrace.

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Joy Devo Separator 1

1. Celebrate God’s Great Gift

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

2 Corinthians 9:15

One thing that parents often struggle with is giving their children gifts that not only give joy but will also last beyond a short season in their lives. Even something worthwhile, like a book, is designed for a specific reading level and age, so it will soon lose its value in the life of a child. Along with the desire to give something that will last, part of the joy is seeing the delight of their children when they receive the gift—and that is true of the gift God has given us as well. And His gift is “indescribable”!

The Bible says that our Heavenly Father gives us the gift of eternal life (Romans 6:23); the gift of salvation by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8); and the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). James said, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Romans 4:17 says, He “gives life to the dead,” and Romans 8:11 promises life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells within us.

We serve a kind and gracious God who gives us good gifts, and the most indescribable gift is Jesus Christ Himself!

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Gracious God, thank You for the indescribable gift of Jesus Christ, which brings joy to our lives, far surpassing any earthly present. May I never forget my reason for true joy during this Christmas season.

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

How has the gift of Jesus Christ changed your life, and in what ways can you share this indescribable gift with others?

Joy Devo Separator 2

2. Celebrate in Song

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” 

Luke 2:13-15

Lip sync stands for lip synchronization, referring to people who pretend to be singing but are actually only moving their lips. Performers do this during dance numbers because of the lung exertion needed for physical activity. Vocalists use this method to preserve their voices. But many fans don’t want to pay money to see their favorite stars pretending to sing.

It’s easy for us to engage in a form of lip-syncing. We can “mouth” the words of Christmas carols without really thinking of the words or absorbing their meaning. How many of us have stood in church and sung while our minds were wandering far away? Or did we move our mouth without truly singing?

Not this Christmas! The wonder of Christmas—the birth of Christand the hope of salvation—leads us to express our joy through song, just as it was that first Christmas.

Express your joy through music today and sync your heart to heaven’s choirs.

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Heavenly Father, this Christmas, fill my heart with joy and let my songs of praise reflect the wonder of Your love toward us. Amen.

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

Which Christmas carol or song resonates most deeply with you, and why does it stir joy in your heart?

Joy Devo Separator 3

3. Celebrate the Friend We Have in Jesus

You are My friends . . . . I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 

John 15:14-15

In the early 1900s, William C. Poole, a Methodist pastor in Delaware, told preachers that a sermon should have enough humanity in it to get down on everyone’s level to touch elbows and hearts and enough divinity in it to lift people up. That’s good advice for every Christian teacher or preacher.

That’s the way the Word Himself was—Jesus Christ. He took upon Himself humanity and came down here to touch elbows and hearts with us. But being God, He is also able to lift us up.

Because Jesus is a man, He can sympathize with us. Because He is God, He can strengthen us. No matter what we’re experiencing in our life, we have a Savior who understands.

About the time William C. Poole was preaching sermons, John Sammis was writing hymns. One of them said: “Why should I charge my soul with care? The wealth of every mine belongs to Christ, God’s Son and Heir, and He’s a Friend of mine.”

He’s your Friend too!

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Heavenly Father, thank You for Jesus, our divine Friend who intimately understands our humanity. In Him, we find not only sympathy and strength but also unending joy, knowing we are never alone. Help me to embrace this joy daily, celebrating the friendship we have with Christ. Amen.

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

Reflect on a time when you felt Jesus’s friendship most vividly. How did it help you through a challenging moment?

Joy Devo Separator 4

4. Celebrate An Expanding Relationship

One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.

Psalm 27:4

It often happens over a holiday meal or when everyone is enjoying time together. Family members begin reminiscing, and before you know it, children are hearing stories about their parents and grandparents that they’ve never heard before. Or adult children begin sharing some of the exploits from their childhood, and their parents learn what the kids “got away with” while they weren’t looking.

It seems as though no matter how well we know someone, even our own family members, there’s always more to learn about them. The same is true for our relationship with our Heavenly Father. Some of us have been learning about God since before we can remember. But there’s always more for us to learn about Him. Like the psalmist David, we should desire to know our Father more and to become closer to Him. Begin studying a specific attribute of God or spend time slowly reading through the Gospels—seek to know Him better each day.

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Heavenly Father, as I learn more about my family and cherish our time together, inspire me also to deepen my understanding of You. Guide me to a deeper understanding of who You are, drawing me closer with each passing day. Amen.

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

What aspect of God’s character or nature are you eager to explore or understand better?

Joy Devo Separator 1

5. Celebrate Our Source of Joy

Then the angel said to [the shepherds], “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.”

Luke 2:10

All of us have had the experience of waiting on an outcome—a medical diagnosis, a job application, a missing child—and we wait with a sense of dread. Then the phone rings, or a person approaches, and says, “Good news! All is well!” When that good report comes, we have experienced what the Bible calls evangelism—the receipt of good news that brings joy and relief.

In Luke 2:10, the angel’s words, “I bring you good tidings of great joy,” contain the Greek word for evangelism—the announcing of good news. The shepherds were no doubt anxious when the angel of the Lord appeared. But they were soon put at ease by the angel’s words. Dread and fear were replaced by “great joy” at the announcement of the birth of the Savior in Bethlehem. And that is true of us as well. Fear may beset us in life, but the Good News of Christ can alleviate every worry.

This Christmas, let the reminder of Christ’s birth and life be a source of great joy for you.

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Heavenly Father, in moments of anxiety and waiting, remind me of the great joy that came with the birth of Jesus, our Savior. Let this Good News dissolve all fears and worries, filling my heart with lasting peace and happiness. Amen.

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

When have you experienced a moment of ‘great joy’ similar to the shepherds, and how does this shape your view of Christmas?

Joy Devo Separator 2

6. Celebrate God’s Mercy

All Your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces. 

Psalm 45:8

Our Lord had three encounters with bitter myrrh. In Matthew 2:11, the Wise Men brought it to honor His birth. On the Cross, the soldiers offered Jesus wine mingled with myrrh (Mark 15:23). And at Christ’s tomb, Nicodemus brought a hundred pounds of myrrh to wrap into His burial clothes (John 19:39).

The gift of myrrh brought to baby Jesus points to our Lord’s suffering on the Cross and to His death. For Him, it was a symbol of tragedy; for us, it is a reason for thanksgiving. Oh, how we should constantly remember to thank Christ for all He bore for us.

Our lives are so complicated and needy that we’re prone to become self-focused. What would happen if we lived Christ-focused lives, remembering the totality of His redemption? Because He was born and died and rose again, our every need is met in Him. We can shift our focus from ourselves!

His present blessings to us are based on His past suffering. His myrrh brought us mercy! This Christmas, take a moment of deepest gratitude for deepest grace!

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Lord, this Christmas, I am deeply grateful for the gift of Your son, Jesus, and the profound symbolism of myrrh in His life. Help me to focus on Christ, remembering His sacrifice and celebrating the mercy and grace it brings to our lives. Amen.

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

How can you show gratitude for Christ’s mercy in your interactions today?

Joy Devo Separator 3

7. Celebrate, Slowly

But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth hush and be silent before Him. 

Habakkuk 2:20 AMP

Lots of terms describe busyness—the rat race, the daily grind, the hamster cage, the treadmill, the vicious cycle. This time of year, we call it the Christmas rush. But let’s make time for the Christmas hush—contemplative, meaningful, quiet time when we can ponder the wonderful story of Jesus and write on our heart every word.

How can we do this amid the shopping, cooking, and entertaining that jumbles our schedule? Christmas is a perfect time to slow down—at least for a night or two, perhaps for a day or so. The lights, candles, and decorations provide a tender atmosphere. Soft music helps. All our electronic devices—even our phones—have off buttons. The covers of our Bibles still open, and so is the listening ear of our Lord.

In the busyness of the Christmas season, make room for Him in your schedule through prayer and time in His Word. That’s what makes the Christmas season truly meaningful. That’s the Christmas hush.

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Lord, this Christmas, guide me to find quiet moments to celebrate the joy of Jesus’ birth. In the stillness, let my heart rejoice in the true meaning of this season. Amen.

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

What practical steps can you take this season to create moments of ‘Christmas hush’ amidst the busyness?

Joy Devo Separator 4

8. Celebrate Life Without End

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.

John 6:47

Imagine your family’s response if you brought home a seven-foot-tall oak sapling—a thin trunk, a few scraggly limbs, brown, with no leaves as your Christmas tree this year. Their response would not be joyful! When the custom of decorating a tree for Christmas began in Europe in the sixteenth century, it was the dead of winter. The only green trees in the forests were conifers (evergreens): hemlock, spruce, fir, and the like.

The time of year for cutting a tree may have had something to do with the choice of evergreens, but there was likely a better reason. Christmas is the celebration of the life of God coming to earth in the Christ-Child and His promise of eternal life. Therefore, an evergreen tree, full of life year-round, was the obvious choice to use in a Christmas celebration. We have been decorating at Christmas ever since with evergreen trees, boughs, garlands, and wreaths. Christmas evergreens speak of the ever-living life of Christ in all who believe.

Don’t let the significance of the evergreen go unnoticed this Christmas. Rejoice that life in Christ never goes away—not now, not for eternity.

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Heavenly Father, as the evergreen reminds me of the unending life found in Christ, let my heart be filled with joy and gratitude this Christmas that You have gifted us through Jesus. May the evergreens remind me daily of Your presence and unchanging love. Amen

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

In what ways does the symbol of the evergreen tree remind you of eternal life in Christ, and how does this inspire your Christmas celebrations?

Joy Devo Separator 1

9. Celebrate! You Are Not forgotten!

Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.

Luke 1:13-14

The Nativity story begins with Zacharias and Elizabeth, an old couple in the Judean hills who had faithfully served God for years despite bearing an intense disappointment because of childlessness. They had prayed earnestly for a child, but God hadn’t answered, and their prayers on that subject had been marked as unanswered—or answered with a “No.” As the decades passed, their prayer for a child faded from their prayer lists.

But wait! One day, an angel appeared to Zacharias and said, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son” (Luke 1:13). In this way, John the Baptist came into the world as a forerunner of Jesus Christ.

Just as God answered the prayers of Zacharias and Elizabeth, He continues to answer our prayers for us. He does sometimes say, “No.” But often, the answer is, “Wait.” If you’re discouraged about an issue today, keep praying. God hasn’t forgotten you or your need. Trust His timing and persevere in prayer.

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Dear Lord, in celebrating the story of Zacharias and Elizabeth, I rejoice in the truth that You never forget us. Fill my heart with gratitude and joy, knowing that You hear and answer our prayers in Your perfect timing. Amen.

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

Can you recall a time when you felt heard by God after a period of waiting, and how did it strengthen your faith?

Joy Devo Separator 2

10. Celebrate the Heart Healer

He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted.

Isaiah 61:1

Self-help magazines often include an article in their December editions for those battling the Christmas blues. Despite the merriment of the season, many people feel left out, especially if they can’t be with loved ones. The gray weather and colder temperatures can make things worse, along with financial stresses. Too much food and drink can cause problems, and the poignant nostalgia of Christmas can leave us wistful and downcast.

Yet Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted! He came to heal you!

Isaiah predicted this aspect of Christ’s coming in Isaiah 61, and in His first known sermon following His baptism, Jesus quoted this verse with the claim it belonged to Him, that He was the fulfillment of Isaiah 61, and that He Himself had come to heal the brokenhearted.

What great news!

If you feel downcast today, imagine the Lord Jesus Christ, coming from heaven, taking on the form of a baby, growing up, and becoming the Savior whose mission was to encourage, uplift, undergird, and restore your spirits.

Jesus came down so that you might be cheered up. Welcome Him today!

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to heal and uplift the brokenhearted. In moments of sadness, remind me of Your comforting presence and the joy You bring. Amen.

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

Think of a time when Jesus healed your broken heart. How can you use this experience to comfort others?

Joy Devo Separator 3

11. Celebrate Surprises

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.

Micah 5:2

Isaiah 55:9 provides a guide for managing expectations: God’s ways and thoughts are higher than our ways and thoughts. Meaning, whenever we think we are certain of how and when God will act . . . watch out!

For example, when God prophesied through the prophet Micah where the Messiah would be born, everyone was surprised that it would be in Bethlehem, a small village “among the thousands of Judah.” But there was a reason: Bethlehem was the home of David, and the Messiah would be “the Son of David” (Matthew 21:9). But there was another reason: Bethlehem in Hebrew is bet lechem—“house of bread.” Jesus, born in “the house of bread,” declared Himself to be “the bread of life” (John 6:35, 48). This was a surprise—a shock, actually—to the religious leaders. Jesus said He was the new manna from heaven, replacing the “bread” that had sustained the Jews in the wilderness.

Let God surprise you. Trust Him to do that which is best for you in His timing and in His way.

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Lord, teach me to trust in Your surprising ways, just as You showed in Bethlehem. Fill my heart with joy and faith in Your perfect timing and plans. Amen.

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

What unexpected blessings have you received that reminded you of God’s surprising ways?

Joy Devo Separator 4

12. Celebrate the Presence of God

And they shall call His name “Immanuel”…“God with us.”

Matthew 1:23

The days around Christmas can be lonely for many people, but there are ways to instantly recognize the presence of God near us. After all, that’s the core of Christmas. God wanted fellowship with us, and He gave Jesus the heavenly name of Immanuel—“God with us.”

Here are seven ideas for letting the presence of Christ cheer you:

(1) Praise Him aloud, even if you don’t feel like it. Start talking to Him out loud, thanking Him for specific blessings you’ve experienced this year. (2) Listen to hymns and worship music. If the Christmas carols make you melancholy, play an upbeat version of “Blessed Assurance.” (3) Read through the book of Philippians, circling the words “joy” and “rejoice” every time they occur. (4) Confess your sins. Often our sense of God’s presence is hindered by something in our thoughts or behavior that we should confess. (5) Overhaul your prayer list, bringing it up to date. (6) Find a small task to do in Jesus’ Name. (7) Light a candle. The temple contained a lamp, and Jesus said He was the Light of the World.

Don’t let yourself become discouraged. Get up, get busy, and remember God is with you!

~ Today’s Prayer ~

Heavenly Father, in the spirit of Immanuel, “God with us,” fill my heart with the assurance of Your ever-present love this Christmas season. Help me find joy and peace in Your presence, banishing loneliness and reminding me that You are always near. Amen.

~ For Deeper Reflection ~

What personal practices help you feel God’s presence, especially during challenging times?

The post Finding Joy in Jesus: 12 Christmas Devotionals to Celebrate the Savior appeared first on David Jeremiah Blog.

— Read on davidjeremiah.blog/finding-joy-in-jesus-12-christmas-devotionals-to-celebrate-the-savior/

Offering Ourselves is the Ultimate Worship | Pastor Rich

Romans 12:1–2

Within the pages of the Bible lie two vital components: doctrine, unveiling what to believe, and practice, dictating how we should live.

The opening eleven chapters of the book of Romans enlighten us about the gospel’s essence, unveiling the extraordinary privilege of being Christian.

Contemplating God’s enduring kindness then raises a question: How do we respond to such overwhelming love?

Gone are the days of Old Testament sacrifices at the temple. Paul’s teachings bring us a beautiful new truth: we are the living sacrifice now.

Romans 12:1–2 crystallizes our mission: “I urge you, by God’s mercy, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice, pleasing and devoted to God. This is the true worship that you should offer. Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you can test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing, and perfect will.”

This is our charge: consecrate ourselves as a reverent thanksgiving to God. It’s about presenting our entire lives just as sacrificial animals once completely offered theirs. We become living sacrifices — our bodies, once enslaved to sin, now instruments of spiritual service and worship.

Practically, it means rejecting conformity to this world’s standards. We belong to God; our lives should echo this truth!

The world molds us toward its evils, but we are meant for God’s perfect standards. Transformation begins within our minds; daily, we set our thoughts on this divine path, an inner blessing beyond measure.

No substitute suffices for this consecration. This isn’t Christianity by proxy. It’s not about mere offerings; it’s about self-surrender to God.

Surrendering everything leads to an abundantly satisfying life. It’s not an obligated labor but a profound gratitude toward our Creator and Savior.

Christ and His Children | VCY

When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed.Isaiah 53:10

Our Lord Jesus has not died in vain. His death was sacrificial: He died as our substitute, because death was the penalty of our sins. Because His substitution was accepted of God, He has saved those for whom He made His soul a sacrifice. By death He became like the corn of wheat which bringeth forth much fruit. There must be a succession of children unto Jesus; He is “the Father of the everlasting age.” He shall say, “Behold, I and the children whom Thou hast given me.”

A man is honored in his sons, and Jesus hath His quiver full of these arrows of the mighty. A man is represented in his children, and so is the Christ in Christians. In his seed a man’s life seems to be prolonged and extended; and so is the life of Jesus continued in believers.

Jesus lives, for He sees His seed. He fixes His eye on us, He delights in us, He recognizes us as the fruit of His soul travail. Let us be glad that our Lord does not fail to enjoy the result of His dread sacrifice, and that He will never cease to feast His eyes upon the harvest of His death. Those eyes which once wept for us are now viewing us with pleasure. Yes, He looks upon those who are looking unto Him. Our eyes meet! What a joy is this!

Secret Power | Daily Thoughts about God.


There is something that can be in your life that is more powerful than the influences of the world. The world cannot overcome this power, but this power can overcome the world.

This power is available to every heart that believes. It is available to the poor and to the wealthy; to the laborer and to the business executive; to the unknown and to the famous; to the strong and to the weak; to those with much and to those with little; to those who abound and to those who are abased.

What is this power? It is the power of contentment! What power does contentment bring to your life? Contentment brings you the power of a quiet heart. With it, you can go through life with a heart that is restful and peaceful. Join contentment to godliness and you have a union that will bring you GREAT gain.

Contentment takes you to still waters, not to waves of covetousness; to satisfaction, not to dissatisfaction; to sufficiency, not to jealousy; to peace, not to striving. It helps to edify, rectify, and sanctify the soul. It harmonizes with the songs of heaven and echoes in your spirit the reassuring words, “Peace be still!”

And on what is contentment based? It is not based on your bank account, your paycheck, or your assets, because all of these can change in a moment of time. Contentment is based on this truth: “God is my provider and I trust in Him alone…He is faithful to His promises, He takes care of me, and He will never leave me nor forsake me.”

I’ve learned to be content in whatever situation I’m in. I know how to live in poverty or prosperity. No matter what the situation, I’ve learned the secret of how to live when I’m full or when I’m hungry, when I have too much or when I have too little. I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:11-13 (GW)

Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” 1 Timothy 6:6-8 (NKJV)

Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Hebrews 13:5 (NKJV)

by Roy Lessin
Used by Permission


Further Reading

• Secret of Contentment – by Phil Ware

• Peace and Contentment – A Poem to God by Margaret Mullings

• Contentment – by Idelette McVicker


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The post Secret Power can be found online at Daily Thoughts about God.

Choose Trust | Daily Thoughts about God.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”


I often refer to these verses because they are how I live my life. I have a devotion titled In God I Trust which is now in my book that talks about why Proverbs 3:5-6 are my life verses.

What does it mean to trust God with all your heart? According to the second part of verse five it means trusting in Him instead of ourselves. Do you think God knew we would instinctively try to handle everything on our own?

To trust Him is to take my questions about troubling circumstances and place my worries in His hands.

Choosing trust is to believe He is working in ways we cannot see and to understand His ways are higher than ours. (See Isaiah 55:8-9)

For me Choosing Trust has meant:

–   Trusting God’s plan for my life even though it included being raised in a home with an abusive father.
–  Trusting God through the death of a newborn baby who lived less than 48 hours.
–  Trusting God when both sisters died at an early age, one in a car crash with her husband on her birthday.

Trusting God is the choice I made instead of choosing anger and bitterness that a Sovereign God did not prevent any of these things from happening.

I am glad I chose trust because through it all I knew His love and comfort, His strength and healing.

Coming out of the abusive environment and starting a new life after high school, I experienced God’s love and healing and understood He had a plan and purpose for my life and I was not going to let holding on to pain and bitterness hold me back. I wanted His healing and freedom which He abundantly and freely gave.

After our baby died, the worst pain of my life, I could genuinely say there were moments and days I could feel God’s arms holding me and I knew a supernatural comfort that turned to healing.

After my sisters and brother-in-law died, I was once again reminded that our days are numbered by the Lord. I realized that while we are here on this earth we should live our best lives and I worked even harder to see my dream come true to have my book published. I saw God open doors to make a way and now the desire of my heart for my writing has come to pass.

A life of choosing trust is a life of trusting God with all your heart.

By Kathy Cheek
Used by Permission
http://www.kathycheek.com


Further Reading

• Trust Me – A Devotional by Alec Niemi

• How to Trust God  – by Gail Rodgers

• Take Your Cue from Fear and Trust God – by Kristi Huseby

The post Choose Trust can be found online at Daily Thoughts about God.

5 Dec 2023 News Briefing

IAF strikes Hezbollah terror sites in Lebanon
Israel Air Force fighter jets struck on Tuesday assets belonging to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon, in response to repeated attacks. The strikes targeted observation posts, weapons depots and other sites used by Hezbollah terrorists. Shortly thereafter, a “hostile” drone that entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon crashed near Moshav Margaliot.

Drone strikes hit Houthi military sites in Sanaa–report
Saudi TV channel Al-Hadath reported on Monday night that explosions were heard in the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital of Sanaa. Rashid Maarouf, an independent field journalist and military analyst in Yemen, also reported the explosions, tweeting that attack drones carried out five airstrikes on four Houthi military sites in Sanaa.

IDF, Shin Bet raid Hamas security headquarters in Jabalia
Israeli forces have surrounded Jabalia and are closing in on Khan Yunis in southern Gaza • Israeli Navy hits “dozens” of targets • IDF releases names of five more Gaza casualties.

Israel Investigates Possible Trading Knowledge Ahead of Oct. 7 Hamas Massacre
Research by law professors Robert Jackson Jr. from New York University and Joshua Mitts of Columbia University found significant short-selling of shares leading up to the attacks, which triggered a war nearly two months old. “Days before the attack, traders appeared to anticipate the events to come,” they wrote, citing short interest in the MSCI Israel Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) that “suddenly, and significantly, spiked” on Oct. 2 based on data from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). “And just before the attack, short selling of Israeli securities on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) increased dramatically,” they wrote in their 66-page report.

‘Israeli female soldiers shot in crotch, vagina, breasts on October 7’
“It was often impossible for families to be shown faces – and it seems as if mutilation of these women’s faces was an objective in their murders.” Expressions of agony survived their deaths, “These women arrived with their eyes opened, their mouths in grimaces, their fists clenched,” “The soldiers that we dealt with had expressions of agony on their faces still,”

Turkey’s Erdogan calls Netanyahu a ‘butcher,’ threatens to have him tried as ‘war criminal’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a “butcher” who would be tried as a “war criminal” over Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza, upping his anti-Israel rhetoric as relations between the two countries continued to decline.

260,000 people applied for gun licenses since October 7th
Itamar Ben Gvir, National Security Minister, reports that his department has received 260,000 requests to own firearms since October 7th. The massacre on October 7th pointed to weaknesses in general security measures and engendered in many a desire to take security into their own hands. Since the crisis, Ben Gvir has urged the easing of restrictions on gun ownership and fast-tracking those who have already been approved. In the process, Ben Gvir reports he has expanded the number of those who would be eligible for gun licenses “by tens of thousands.”

Movement to resettle Gaza gains support during Hamas war
‘Today, every citizen in the State of Israel knows that to restore security to the South…there is no choice but to reassert full control over Gaza.’ As the US, Arab nations and Israel discuss the future of Gaza after the war, there is a vocal movement that believes Israelis should return and settle the Gaza strip.

The Houthis: Who are they, and why are they messing with Israel?
They’ve managed to attack Saudi Arabian targets with cruise missiles, drones and mortars, causing damage to oil refineries and killing Saudi soldiers. The “Houthis” are a group of Shi’ite Muslims belonging to the Zaidi sect in Yemen officially known as Ansar Allah (“Supporters of God”). The United States designated the Houthi movement as a foreign terrorist organization in January 2021 at the end of the Trump administration, citing their destabilizing actions, ties to Iran and attacks on civilian infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Shin Bet head: ‘We’ll kill Hamas leaders in Qatar, Turkey’
“The Cabinet set us a goal. In the words of the street, it is to eliminate Hamas, and we are determined to do it. This is our ‘Munich,’ ” said Shin Bet director Ronen Bar, referring to “Operation Wrath of God,” which Israel launched against the terrorists responsible for the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. “They are marked for death,” he said. “The struggle is worldwide, both the terrorists in Gaza and those who fly in expensive planes.”

Israeli forces advance on Hamas stronghold in Jabaliya, heavy bombardment in Khan Younis
In the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army concentrates on the last strongholds of Hamas in Shuja’iyya and Jabaliya, while heavy airstrikes are preparing the ground for the Israeli army in the south. Israeli officials have confirmed that the next phase of the ground operation in the southern part of the Strip has begun without announcing a major ground incursion there yet.

Israel preparing option to pump seawater into Hamas tunnels, Wall Street Journal reports
The Israeli army has prepared a system of five large pumps at the Gaza coast as a potential option to deal with the vast network of terror tunnels built by Hamas, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. The pumps were installed and assembled at the coast near the al-Shati refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip in the middle of November and could pump seawater into the terror tunnels to destroy them and flush out terrorists.

Cardinal Müller says mass migration is being used to destroy national identities
Cardinal Müller also believes the elites are committing a ‘genocide’ by promoting abortion and euthanasia. The German cardinal said many globalists believe that there are ‘too many’ people on Earth who are causing ‘climate damage.’ “Mass immigration is not about helping people but about destroying national identity,” Müller said. “They say that national identity is nationalism, which has caused all the wars, so they say they are against nationalism, but they are really against the nation.” “If nationalism is the reason for wars, we must ask who is financing the wars and what interests are behind it.”

READ HERE: Opposition leader Lapid releases Gaza policy proposal for the ‘Day After’
former Prime Minister Yair Lapid released the following policy proposal regarding Israel’s strategy for the Gaza Strip when ground operations have been completed. Israel’s overarching goals are: The return of all the kidnapped, captives and missing persons, the eradication of Hamas in Gaza, and the restoration of security to the border settlements. Israel, in close coordination with the US and the international community, will work to eliminate the economic capabilities of Hamas and to create a financial stranglehold on the organization and its partners.

Skirmishes on Lebanese border continue with at least 10 attacks by Hezbollah
Three IDF soldiers were lightly wounded by mortar grenades that were fired at an IDF post near Shtula during the night, Israel Defense Forces announced on Monday morning. The army also stated that an Israeli Air Force fighter jets successfully intercepted a hostile aircraft approaching Israeli airspace from Lebanon late on Sunday night.

Senior Hamas official says future hostage negotiations will only take place after the war
The deputy head of the Hamas terror group’s political bureau told Al Jazeera on Saturday that further negotiations on the remaining hostages would only take place after the ongoing war with Israel. “The remaining prisoners in our hands are soldiers and former soldiers, and there will be no negotiations regarding them until the end of hostilities,”

ICC prosecutor condemns Hamas massacre as ‘crimes that shock the conscience of humanity’
Khan who personally visited the devastated border communities in southern Israel, condemned Hamas for its unprecedented war crimes. “The attacks against innocent Israeli civilians on 7 October represent some of the most serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity, crimes which the ICC was established to address,” Khan stated. Addressing the families of the Israeli victims, Khan vowed that his office would proceed “to hold those responsible to account.”

The Cult of False Prophets and The Church’s Islamization
In his provocative new book, Jakob Wiren, a confidant of the controversial Archbishop Antje Jackelen, boldly asserts that the Catholic Church should recognize Mohammed as a prophet.

Media Blackout: Erdoğan’s War on Christmas in Germany, Turkish-Controlled Imams Make a Mockery of Christian Holiday
While Germans are encouraged to adopt multiculturalism, Islam persistently strives to eliminate anything non-Islamic worldwide, raising the question of how the world would react if Christians were to control Ramadan in Germany or Iran, invoking Jesus as the Savior.

Severe floods and landslides hit Tanzania’s Hanang district, burying 100 homes and claiming at least 47 lives 
At least 57 people have been killed and 85 others injured in destructive floods and landslides caused by heavy rainfall in northern Tanzania on Saturday, December 2, 2023. The death toll is expected to rise.

Record rainfall in Chennai as Michaung intensifies into severe cyclonic storm, causes major disruptions
Tropical Cyclone “Michaung” has brought Chennai to a standstill, with continuous heavy rains since the early morning. The city has accumulated an alarming 460 mm (18.1 inches) of rainfall by 14:30 LT, surpassing its average December rainfall. Michaung is the 6th named storm of the 2023 North Indian Ocean cyclone season. It is forecasted to intensify and make landfall between Nellore and Machilipatnam, near Bapatla, during the forenoon of December 5.

UN Launches Gates-Funded Global Digital ID Program as Experts Warn of ‘Totalitarian Nightmare’
With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations (U.N.) this month launched an “ambitious-country-led campaign” to promote and accelerate the development of a global digital public infrastructure (DPI).

IDF Chief Of Staff: ‘Powerful’ Ground Op In Southern Gaza In Full Swing
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched the ground operation in southern Gaza, as combat against Hamas jihadists continues in the northern part of the Strip, Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi confirmed on Sunday.

Number of kids put on puberty blockers DOUBLES despite NHS promising to stop
The number of children placed on puberty blockers for ‘gender affirming care’ has doubled in the UK in a year despite the government run National Health Service saying it would stop the practice outside of clinical trials.

Pushing Israel Toward Policies That Would Ensure An Ongoing Cycle Of Terrorist Violence 
After the October 7th Hamas terror attacks, the Biden Administration and most congressional Democrats stood with Israel to a surprising degree. But today that resolve has begun to crack.

The Left Is Using Apocalyptic Language To Describe What Will Happen To America If Donald Trump Wins In 2024
We haven’t ever seen anything like this before.  As we approach the 2024 presidential election, I am extremely alarmed by the apocalyptic language that is being employed by many on the left.  They are making all sorts of outrageous claims about how Donald Trump is a “fascist” that will become dictator for life if he wins in 2024.

Moderna’s ‘disinformation department’ monitors 150 million websites for ‘anti-vaccine’ narratives
Moderna’s “disinformation department” partnered with an industry-backed non-profit, the Public Good Projects (PGP), to monitor and suppress dissenting voices on COVID-19 vaccine policy, according to a new report by investigative journalists Lee Fang and Jack Poulson published Monday in UnHerd.

Antisemitic Mob Descends on Israeli-Owned Restaurant in Philadelphia
An antisemitic mob of pro-Palestinian protesters descended on an Israeli-owned falafel restaurant in Philadelphia while reportedly shouting a litany of hateful chants on Sunday night.

Message from an African small-scale farmer to COP28: “Africa needs fossil fuels”
COP28 states it is “bringing the world together to Unite, Act and Deliver.”  This is not true according to one small-scale farmer from Kenya who does not agree with transitioning Africa to “renewable energy.” To you Western governments and environmental organisations preaching to us – climate change is not a problem in Africa, he said. “Africa needs fossil fuels.”

After 30 years of climate alarmism, a new book challenges the climate catastrophe doctrine 
At a time when the United Nations (“UN”), its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) and the world’s governments are demanding that trillions of dollars be invested in their “Net Zero” project, Joanne Marcotte believes that it is perfectly legitimate to press scientists and governments to provide more explanations on uncertainties and risks, and to challenge corporate media to offer more balanced coverage surrounding the UN, the IPCC and UNFCCC’s Conference of the Parties (“COP”) events.

Texas Attorney General sues Pfizer for misrepresenting the effectiveness of the company’s covid injections 
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Pfizer for spreading grossly misleading and inaccurate information regarding the efficacy of its covid “vaccine” in preventing infection and transmission.

Headlines – 12/5/2023

Kushner and Ivanka Trump organized meeting between Qatari PM, Jewish business figures – addressed Qatari efforts to secure the release of the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7

‘Humiliated’ hostage families demand to meet Netanyahu, say ‘any price’ for release

Britain’s Royal Air Force to fly spy planes over Gaza looking for hostages

Visiting Gaza, Red Cross chief says suffering ‘intolerable,’ ICRC must see hostages

Doctor treating freed Hamas hostages reveals unprecedented abuse: ‘We have to rewrite the textbooks’

‘We Had to Tell Them They Could Eat’: Hamas-held Child Hostages Subjected to ‘Terrible Psychological Abuse,’ Israeli Pediatrician Says, ‘These are the kind of stories I heard from my grandfather who was a Holocaust survivor’

US: Hamas not releasing female hostages so they won’t share ‘what happened to them’

US Official: Hamas Keeps Hostages to Hide Sexual Abuse

Gal Gadot blasts silence on Hamas’ sexual atrocities: ‘The world has failed the women of October 7th’

FM Cohen: UN Women’s condemnation of Hamas attacks ‘tepid and late,’ chief should quit

Panel at U.N. examines Hamas’ sexual violence against women

Israel-led UN special session condemns world silence on Hamas using rape as weapon of war

Greg Gutfeld: If the U.N. can’t call out sexual atrocity, what good are they?

Hamas planned sexual violence as weapon of war – Israeli campaigner

Pramila Jayapal downplays Hamas’ rape of civilian women, claims Israeli retaliation is ‘war crime’

White House says rape as a weapon is ‘reprehensible’ in response to Jayapal CNN exchange

Hamas may have reaped financial windfall betting against Israeli stocks ahead of Oct. 7 attack: report

UN official warns of ‘hellish’ aid scenario as IDF pushes into southern Gaza

Army denies telling WHO to empty aid warehouse in southern Gaza

Palestinians Are Running Out Of Places To Go In Gaza As Israel Orders Mass Evacuations

Dozens of tanks roll into southern Gaza as rockets target central Israel, Beersheba

Israel said to set up pumps in Gaza for flooding Hamas tunnels with seawater

IDF Destroys Hamas’s Lavish, Qatar-funded ‘Justice Palace’

IDF says troops raided Hamas’s general security HQ, are encircling Gaza’s Jabaliya

IDF officials: 2 civilian deaths for every 1 Hamas fighter killed in Gaza

More details unveiled of IDF intel on Oct. 7 plans, consults hours before Hamas attack

Report: 2 commando companies diverted to West Bank from Gaza border days before Oct. 7

Report: Hamas rocket hit IDF base thought to house nuclear-capable missiles on Oct 7

‘More than 11,500 rockets launched at Israel since Oct. 7’

Turkey warns of ‘serious consequences’ if Israel targets Hamas members on its soil

‘Hamas wants to finish the job’: event recalls expulsion of Jews from Middle East and North Africa

Emmanuel Macron says Israel must define more precisely its Gaza aims – French president says there is no lasting security for Israel if it comes at the cost of Palestinian lives

Dutch lawyers seek a civil court order to halt the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel

Senate Democrats upping efforts to condition US military aid to Israel

Sen. Bernie Sanders Opposes Unconditional Military Aid To Israel In Funding Bill

It’s a Death Cult: Israeli UN Ambassador Slams George Soros for Funding Hamas-Supporting NGOs with $15 Million

“We Are All Palestinians”: COP28 Activists Demand Ceasefire in Gaza, Defying Protest Restrictions

Israel issues severe travel warnings to dozens of countries amid rising antisemitism

Hanukkah Celebration Canceled as Jewish Symbols Removed in Towns

‘We are capitulating to terrorism’: Anger as Hanukkah celebration scrapped over vandalism fears

Reported cancellation of Virginia menorah lighting draws rebuke from governor

Jewish students at London university ‘taunted with Hitler jokes’

Pro-Palestine Mob Swarms Jewish-Owned Falafel Shop in Philly: ‘You Can’t Hide, We Charge You With Genocide!’ – Pennsylvania governor slams protest as ‘blatantly antisemitic’

White House condemns ‘antisemitic’ rally outside Philadelphia falafel shop

Near the Gaza border, Israeli sculptor turns Hamas ‘swords into plowshares’

260,000 firearm permits sought since Oct. 7, after Ben Gvir’s push to arm civilians

Erdogan: Netanyahu Will Be Tried as War Criminal

Netanyahu corruption trial resumes in spite of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza

Tory MP says the idea Israeli settlements prevent two-state solution is ‘utter tosh’

New neighborhood partly in East Jerusalem given final approval

Homes and EU-funded school in West Bank village wrecked after threats by settlers

IDF Clashes With Hezbollah Continue on ‘Low Boil’ Along Northern Border

Israel strikes Hezbollah operational HQ, terror infrastructure in Lebanon

Breaches by Iran-affiliated hackers spanned multiple U.S. states, federal agencies say

A US Navy warship had to gun down more threats as American forces get pulled deeper into fights being fueled by Israel’s war with Hamas

US, allies mull naval task force to protect shipping in Red Sea after Houthi attacks

Kash Patel: Biden Unfreezing $6B for Iran Funded Proxy Forces Attacking U.S. Ships, Troops

White House warns it is ‘out of money and nearly out of time’ to aid Ukraine – Government has already gone through $111bn in military aid for Ukraine and urges Congress to approve additional funding

Biden says Ukraine funding will run out by 2024, demands Congress hand over more money

Breakdown in Border Talks Threatens Ukraine, Israel Aid

Russia confirms death of seventh major general since invasion of Ukraine

Putin Views ‘Nuclear Button’ as Re-election Bid Nears

Cyber Attack: UK’s ‘most dangerous’ nuclear site ‘hacked by groups tied to Russia and China’ in major security breach

US Official Warns of ‘Interference’ in Taiwan Vote

Microsoft Inked Deals With Chinese Communist Party Propaganda Outlets, Documents Show

Gold bars discovered by federal agents in Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez’s residence as part of a high-profile bribery investigation can be traced to a violent robbery a decade ago

Ramaswamy calls George Santos ‘insane and pathological liar,’ but says expelling him from Congress was ‘wrong’

Hunter Biden Sent Direct Monthly Payments To Joe Biden From Bank Account For Chinese Money, Comer Reveals

Jordan: House moving forward with Biden impeachment inquiry vote ahead of possible court challenge

White House circulating 18-page memo pushing back on impeachment inquiry claims

Gingrich: Voting Against Biden Impeachment Will ‘Guarantee’ Primary Challenge for GOP Moderates

Gun Prosecutors Balk at Hunter Push for Trump Docs

Marsha Blackburn: Durbin Blocked My Request for Epstein Flight Logs

Judge Cannon Denies Jack Smith Request to Keep Some Documents Hidden in Trump Classified Docs Case

Trump Files Intent to Appeal Reinstated Gag Order

Christie: Trump ‘Won’t Be Able to Vote for Himself’ Next Year Because He’ll Be Convicted by Then

Leftist Outlets Stoke Fear of Second Trump Administration

Liz Cheney says ‘there’s no question’ Trump would refuse to leave office if elected again

Fox News Cuts Away from Trump Rally to Correct ‘Many Untruths’ and Report the Election ‘Was NOT Stolen’

Donald Trump’s Proposal to Monitor Voters Sparks Concerns

Could 2024 election cause society to collapse? Some preppers think so – and they’re ready.

The Gateway Pundit Sends Out Official Letter – Asks Speaker Johnson to Investigate Why One of America’s Top Conservative Outlets is Being Censored in Congress

GOP-Led States Demand Major Firms Stop Backing Efforts to ‘De-Bank’ Conservatives

Elon Musk was warned that AI could destroy human colony on Mars: report

Geomagnetic storm watch on Tuesday as Sun continues to send eruptions toward Earth

Earth’s magnetic field could completely flip soon – Physicist explains what that means

Philippine quake aftershocks force thousands to stay in evacuation centres

7.6 earthquake that sparked a tsunami warning leaves 1 dead amid widespread panic in Philippines

5.7 magnitude earthquake hits near Talisay, Philippines

5.6 magnitude earthquake hits near Las Khorey, Somalia

5.6 magnitude earthquake hits near Mindanao, Philippines

5.4 magnitude earthquake hits near Mindanao, Philippines

5.2 magnitude earthquake hits near Khuzdar, Pakistan

5.1 magnitude earthquake hits the Philippine Islands region

5.1 magnitude earthquake hits near Hawaii

5.1 magnitude earthquake hits near Marihatag, Philippines

5.0 magnitude earthquake hits near Marihatag, Philippines

Sabancaya volcano in Peru erupts to 29,000ft

Ruiz volcano in Colombia erupts to 20,000ft

Sangay volcano in Ecuador erupts to 20,000ft

Popocateptl volcano in Mexico erupts to 20,000ft

Fuego volcano in Guatemala erupts to 16,000ft

Santa Maria volcano in Guatemala erupts to 14,000ft

Reventador volcano in Ecuador erupts to 14,000ft

Semeru volcano in Indonesia erupts to 14,000ft

Merapi volcano in Indonesia erupts to 14,000ft

Iceland Volcano Update as Scientists Baffled as to What Happens Next

Mount Marapi: Ash-covered Indonesia volcano survivor asks mum for help

Record rainfall in Chennai as Michaung intensifies into severe cyclonic storm, causes major disruptions

Severe floods and landslides hit Tanzania’s Hanang district, burying 100 homes and claiming at least 47 lives

Destructive flash flood near Lake Toba in Indonesia buries homes, claims one life and leaves 11 missing

Strong atmospheric river to slam Northwest with over a half foot of rain, creating a significant flood threat

Storm drops a foot of snow in parts of New England, closing schools, leaving 40K without power

Hillary Clinton Raises Concern on Climate Change Body Count: ‘We are Beginning to Count and Record Climate-Related Deaths’

Kamala Harris Pledges $3 Billion in Taxpayer Funds to Poor Countries Fighting Climate Crisis

US joins in other nations in swearing off coal power to clean the climate

‘Beyond justification’: Record number of fossil fuel lobbyists attend COP28 climate talks in Dubai

Climate Summit Leader Tries to Calm Uproar Over a Remark on Fossil Fuels

Al Jaber says comments claiming there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels were ‘misinterpreted’ – Cop28 live

John Kerry Calls Himself a ‘Militant’ and Demands End to Coal Plants ‘Anywhere in the World’

US Signs New Climate Pact To Shut Down All Coal Plants

In Another Likely Rigged Election Venezuelan Marxist Leaders Cheer Referendum to Invade and Annex Neighboring Oil Rich Guyana

Concerns for future grow after video about the leader’s environmental beliefs of Argentinian president-elect goes viral: ‘I’m sure this’ll end well’

All Four “Pillars Of Civilization” Are Under Attack By An “Anti-Human Death-Cult”; Shellenberger, Carlson Unload On Global Elites

Cyber attack will leave you needing these ‘analogue’ items, says Oliver Dowden – Deputy Prime Minister says UK should prepare for digital attack and keep ‘resilient’ products like a battery-powered radio and torch to hand

DC police urge Canada Goose wearers to keep AirTags in pockets due to thefts – Via the coin-sized device, victims would be able to track their jackets in the event that they are stolen

Young juveniles in Minnesota increasingly committing serious crimes: report

Seattle breaks all-time high homicide record set in 1994

More Than 10,000 Illegal Aliens Flood Into U.S. Over Last 24 Hours on Joe Biden’s Open Border Invitation

Biden Border Crisis: Massive Group of Military-Age Men From China Invade US Border in California

Senator Dick Durbin Proposes Allowing Illegal Immigrants to Join U.S. Military as a Pathway to Citizenship

Joni Ernst: Biden’s Shipping Illegal Aliens to U.S. Cities Is Displacing American Military Families

Geert Wilders on his Dutch Coalition Must-Haves: “Stop Immigration and Give Our People their Money Back”

Christian community in Syria brought to its knees by ‘uncontrollable emigration’

Parents of 9-Year-Old Chiefs Fan Threaten to Sue Deadspin After Journalist Used Deceptive Photo to Smear Child as Racist

Top Tucker Carlson producer accused of sexually assaulting Fox staffer

Out of Control AI: Pornography Targeting Women Makes Up 98% of All Deepfake Images

A high school’s deepfake porn scandal is pushing US lawmakers into action

19 arrests, 2 rescued after human trafficking, child exploitation operation in Kings County

Senate fails to overturn Biden’s plan to withhold lunch aid from schools that don’t let boys use girls’ bathrooms

Christian parents complain after 11-year-old daughter forced to share bed with biological male on school trip – ‘Schools should never hide information from parents, yet that’s exactly what JCPS officials did here’

Father sues school district for refusing to display straight pride flag alongside Progress Pride flag

Leftist Politicians Demand Catholic School Teach Transgender Ideology

74 churches granted disaffiliation from UMC Florida Conference amid homosexuality schism

Nevada Spent Millions on Sex Changes and Trans Hormones, Including for Those Under 18

University of Utah Profs Cancel Classes, Host ‘Healing Circles’ over Detransitioner’s Speech on Campus

Commentary: Waking Up from Gender Surgery Finally Woke Me Up to the Truth

Nolte: Another Conspiracy Theory Proven True – Cosmopolitan Admits Abortion Is Satanic

Canadian statistics on government sponsored suicide mark cause of death as ailment patient suffered before they were euthanized

23andMe confirms hackers accessed data of 6.9 million users

Turkey prices are down. A deadly bird flu could change that

Slovakia Shocks the World: New Prime Minister Rejects Signing the WHO Pandemic Treaty – Prime Minister Robert Fico calls the WHO Pandemic Treaty “nonsense invented by greedy pharma companies.”

People Who Complied with COVID Restrictions More Likely to Suffer Mental Health Issues: Study

Prestigious science journals confirm censored views: masks at best don’t reduce COVID infection

U.K. government data reveals young people are dying of cancer at “explosive” rates, following COVID years and vaccine push

Hero Health Worker Turned Whistleblower Faces Court After He Exposes Shocking Number of Deaths Linked to COVID Vaccine

Paxton to Newsmax: Pfizer Tested Vaccine ‘On Us’

The Shocking Truth About “White Lung Disease”: Attorney Tom Renz – There appears to be a causal relationship between the mRNA (actually modRNA) vaccines and Mycoplasma pneumonia.

Dr. Peter McCullough: Mystery Chinese Pneumonia Strikes America

Outbreaks of Pneumonia Are Now Affecting Children in Multiple Countries

Source: http://trackingbibleprophecy.org/birthpangs.php

Mid-Day Snapshot · December 5, 2023

“From The Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)”.

THE FOUNDATION

“I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward. I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary for the public good, become honorable by being necessary.” —Nathan Hale (1776)

Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1933, the 21st Amendment was ratified, thereby ending Prohibition. That was back in the day when the nation had the sense to know the Constitution needed to be amended to do such things. —Mark Alexander

IN TODAY’S DIGEST

ON THE WEB

FEATURED ANALYSIS

The Great Trump Freakout Begins

Democrats are panicking and playing the “fear” card as they ponder Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House.

Douglas Andrews

Fear is all they’ve got. It’s all they ever had.

Last week, The Washington Post’s Robert Kagan unspooled a nearly 6,000-word essay on the looming threat of Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The essay’s title tells it all: “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.”

It wasn’t easy to slog through such a fearmongering polemic, but we read every word so you wouldn’t have to.

Kagan thinks Trump’s Republican Party nomination is a fait accompli, and that the American media are somehow split in their support for him. Get a load of this howler: “The American press corps will remain divided as it is today, between those organizations catering to Trump and his audience and those that do not.” Let’s analyze that “divide,” shall we? On the one side, we have ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and every leading newspaper in every major city in the United States. And on the other side, we have Fox News. Okay, and Newsmax. And we have talk radio.

Kagan says Trump has “declared the news media to be ‘enemies of the state,’” but that’s a lie. Trump drew an important distinction between the news media in its entirety and what he famously called the fake news media — and it was the latter that he dubbed the enemy of the people. And, frankly, who can deny that he’s right?

Kagan writes, “In a Trump presidency, the courage it will take to stand up for them will be no less than the courage it will take to stand up to Trump himself.”

More nonsense. In Trump’s first term, all sorts of people stood up to him and spoke out against him, from congressional Democrats to CNN and MSNBC reporters to private citizens. The idea that folks will be too gripped by fear to denounce Trump is laughable, ludicrous.

In order to stoke our fears of Trump’s looming despotism, Kagan invoked the names and deeds of past presidents: “Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, the Wilson administration shut down newspapers and magazines critical of the war; Franklin D. Roosevelt rounded up Japanese Americans and placed them in camps.”

Ooooh. Trump did nothing even remotely resembling these unconstitutional outrages in his first term, and — mark our words — he won’t do any such things his second time around.

Kagan says that in just a few short years, we’ve gone “from being relatively secure in our democracy to being a few short steps, and a matter of months, away from the possibility of dictatorship.” Anyone who thinks we’ve been “relatively secure in our democracy” under Joe Biden hasn’t been paying attention. Biden has been far more dictatorial than Trump.

In closing, Kagan turns the volume up to 11: “To shift metaphors,” he writes, “if we thought there was a 50 percent chance of an asteroid crashing into North America a year from now, would we be content to hope that it wouldn’t? Or would we be taking every conceivable measure to try to stop it?” Kagan continues:

At each point along the way, our political leaders, and we as voters, have let opportunities to stop Trump pass on the assumption that he would eventually meet some obstacle he could not overcome. Republicans could have stopped Trump from winning the nomination in 2016, but they didn’t. The voters could have elected Hillary Clinton, but they didn’t. Republican senators could have voted to convict Trump in either of his impeachment trials, which might have made his run for president much more difficult, but they didn’t.

Clearly, Kagan doesn’t understand the point he’s repeatedly making: they didn’t. Republican primary voters were free to choose Jeb Bush as the establishment standard-bearer in 2016, but they chose not to. The American people were free to elect the repugnant Hillary Clinton, but they chose not to. Republican senators were free to convict and remove Trump from office following his impeachment by the Democrat-controlled House, but they didn’t because they knew his persecutors were merely exercising a political vendetta rather than standing up for Rule of Law.

Kagan closes with his umpteenth warning that we “continue to drift toward dictatorship, still hoping for some intervention that will allow us to escape the consequences of our collective cowardice, our complacent, willful ignorance and, above all, our lack of any deep commitment to liberal democracy.”

Might it simply be that what he sees as “collective cowardice” is merely a growing preference among the American people for Donald Trump’s vigorous leadership and “America First” policies over Joe Biden’s undeniable weakness and ineptitude? Might it be that he mistakes complacency for quiet resolve, and willful ignorance for informed approval?

Kagan, though, isn’t the only Trump-deranged hysteric. Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney is another, and her historic electoral thumping back home in Wyoming last year didn’t cause her to reconsider the disgrace of her January 6 Committee collaboration, nor how woefully out of step she is with the new Republican Party and its standard-bearer.

Instead, Cheney continues her work as a useful idiot for the Democrats, calling the possibility of Trump’s reelection “an existential crisis,” and even admitting that she’d like to see the Republicans lose the House.

Early next year, in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina and Nevada, patriotic Americans will make a choice. And it’s our sense that they won’t be suckered by the Democrats’ fearmongering. Instead, they’ll reject the poisonous anti-Republican message of Liz Cheney and they’ll support the America First policies of Donald Trump.

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First Evidence of Joe Biden’s Direct Payment

Hunter Biden’s company Owasco PC directly paid Joe Biden with money originating in China.

Nate Jackson

“I’ve never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Joe Biden lied in September 2019. He told similar lies at least 16 times while he was swindling the American people from his basement to vote for him over Donald Trump.

Eighty-one million people* bought it and, as a result, we’ve faced three years of two-tiered justice, virulent political rancor, world chaos, and back-breaking inflation. But hey, we’re not bitter.

Anyway, back to Biden’s lies.

Joe Biden received at least three recurring payments of $1,380 totaling $4,140 from one of Hunter Biden’s many business entities in 2018. The money paid to Owasco PC and then to Joe Biden originated in Communist China. We know the president has advancing dementia, but even he could probably remember in 2019 that he received money from his son the year prior. And that he filled out an ACH Authorization Agreement complete with a voided check to make it happen.

Are we really to believe that just materialized with no discussion?

To be sure, $4,140 isn’t exactly big bucks, even before Biden devalued the currency. But it’s on top of another $40,000 House Republicans discovered the ChiComs had paid Joe, laundered through his brother James. It’s only the tip of the iceberg given the more than 20 shell companies owned by various Bidens and the $11 million Hunter made in China.

More importantly, it’s the most direct evidence yet that Joe Biden profited from his son’s overseas business dealings. It’s also, as House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) put it, “blatant corruption.”

“This wasn’t a payment from Hunter Biden’s personal account but an account for his corporation that received payments from China and other shady corners of the world,” Comer added in a video. “Hunter Biden is under an investigation by the Department of Justice for using Owasco PC for tax evasion and other serious crimes. And based on whistleblower testimony, [the DOJ] made a concerted effort to prevent investigators from asking questions about Joe Biden. I wonder why?”

The payments are yet more evidence of a pattern Comer made crystal clear: “Joe Biden knew about, participated in, and benefited from his family’s influence-peddling schemes.”

In some respects, this isn’t news at all. We’ve been writing about ChiCom Joe since he took office. We’ve known about his corruption since his son’s laptop was discovered and suppressed weeks prior to the 2020 election. We’ve know about Joe’s participation since Tony Bobulinski’s revelations and Devon Archer’s testimony about selling “the Biden brand.”

But the Left keeps pretending that the House GOP is on a fishing expedition with no evidence, and the White House keeps playing dumb. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment Monday, saying, “I have not seen that report, so I would have to refer you to my colleagues over at the White House counsel’s office.” She then walked away.

That’s almost humorous, especially in light of comments from constitutional law attorney Jonathan Turley: “Influence peddling is the favorite form of corruption in Washington but none of us have seen the likes of this.”

Turley added, “I can’t imagine how anyone would look at this evidence and not believe that a formal inquiry should begin.” That inquiry already has begun, though the entire House has yet to make it official. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan suggested yesterday that impeachment articles could be forthcoming in the first half of 2024.

Impeachment opens a whole new can of worms, such as whether Biden will even be the nominee and whether Republicans would actually be hurt by moving forward. That’s a discussion for another day. Today is just about hard evidence that Joe Biden is corrupt and he has been lying to the American people about it for years.

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Where’s the Beef?

The United Nations climate cultists want to end people’s eating of meat — to save the planet, of course.

Thomas Gallatin

The world of climate change cultists has gathered for its annual “sky is falling” United Nations conference otherwise known as COP28. This year, the conference’s controversial host country is the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. To make matters even more incongruent, the conference chair is Sultan Al Jabar, who just happens to be the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). In other words, Big Oil is hosting the annual confab of anti-fossil fuel zealots.

However, despite the apparent conflict of interest, COP28 has thus far followed the usual pearl-clutching prognosticating over a planet supposedly heating entirely because of mankind’s use of fossil fuels. UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who along with nearly every attendee depended on fossil fuel in order to travel to Dubai, offered this fearmongering social media post: “We can’t save a burning planet with a firehose of fossil fuels. We must accelerate a just, equitable transition to renewables. The science is clear: The 1.5°C warming limit is only possible if we stop burning fossil fuels. Not reduce. Not abate. Phase out.”

That statement is as thoughtless as the pronouncements of the Stop Oil Now extremists who apparently believe in the fairytale that our modern world can continue running unabated even after immediately stopping the use of all fossil fuels. That’s more than mere childish silliness; it’s the advocation of civilizational suicide.

Further demonstrating that COP28 is just as loony as prior years, trotted out this year was a new “non-binding” net-zero emissions plan that includes an agreement to end global meat eating. Vegans unite! In order to fight climate change, the UN is pushing a Food Systems and Agriculture Agenda that comes straight out of the Marxist anti-capitalism playbook.

Using one of the Left’s favorite buzzwords — “equity” — the UN proposes a “global food systems road map to 1.5ºC.” The UN asserts that controlling what food is produced in wealthy developed nations like the U.S. can help curb the impact on climate. As noted above, the biggest problem food is meat.

The UN’s plan will provide countries with direction and guidance on farming and food production. “The guidance on meat is intended to send a clear message to governments,” according to Bloomberg. “But politicians in richer nations typically shy away from policies aimed at influencing consumer behavior, especially where it involves cutting consumption of everyday items.”

The UN is looking at the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which focused on cutting fossil fuel emissions, as a template for its aim at influencing a nation’s food production.

So, not only must our energy usage be sacrificed to please Gaia, so too must our food. If this isn’t cultish ideology, then what is? Furthermore, it is telling that the UN is most focused on culling the big food industries of Western countries — those of dairy and beef production.

This nonsense from the climate cultists once again demonstrates that, at its core, climate change alarmism is anti-human. Ecofascists attack the cost-effective and expansive production of energy via fossil fuels as supposedly killing the planet, and now they attack the agricultural industry that has amazingly increased the production ability to efficiently feed the entire population of planet earth.

Apparently, these climate cultists would rather see millions of people freeze and starve to death if doing so would ensure the realization of their pipe dream of net-zero carbon emissions.

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Disney vs. The Daily Wire

Leftist entertainment vs. conservative entertainment at its finest.

Emmy Griffin

The Disney/Daily Wire dichotomy in the world of entertainment is shaping up to be an interesting retelling of the David and Goliath story. One company, Disney, has worn out the coattails of a once-storied entertainment company and sucked the heart and soul out of everything that made Walt Disney’s dream great. The other, The Daily Wire, is the new kid on the block and is looking to create that alternate in the entertainment economy where conservatives (and independents and liberals who aren’t woke) can again find common ground in the telling of good stories.

Goliath

Disney, in the role of Goliath, has been in a world of hurt. It has been in a death spiral since its disastrous betrayal of children and families by declaring its allegiance to the LGBTQ agenda and leftist culture war ideas. Disney’s stock has plummeted, its credibility among its core demographic is pot, and nothing it seems to do has worked to turn its image around.

Disney has been low-key politically progressive for a long time, but its egregious pandering has largely gone under the radar until the fatal mistake committed by former CEO Bob Chapek. He declared war against Florida’s parental rights bill. That effectively put a spotlight on the once-politically neutral company, and from March 2022 onward the company has been under a microscope and come up wanting.

Disney was stripped of its special status in the state of Florida and has been in a near-constant battle to gain back its power. A recent audit exposed the depths of corruption that The Walt Disney Company employed by running the local Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID). This audit will likely justify Governor Ron DeSantis’s earlier move to strip Disney of its special protected status.

The theme parks have also taken a massive hit. Parents don’t want to pay an arm and a leg to take their children to the most magical place on earth only to have men pretending to be women take care of their daughters or sons at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, or perhaps show up on a “Gay Day” without knowing.

Ardent lifelong Disney fans were disillusioned too, and what was once forgivable and tolerated wokeness took on a sinister tint. It’s as if the mirror cracked and they could finally see Disney for what it was and where it was going with its content. They don’t want to see woke “Marvels” and further finance the mundane feminist agenda. It’s interesting to note that Bob Iger, the current CEO of Disney, recently disparaged the director of the MCU flop, saying she didn’t have enough supervision because of COVID.

Many audiences refuse to go see anymore animated films because they no longer believe the company puts out content that will harmlessly entertain their children. “Wish,” Disney’s centennial homage to the beloved animated movies that put the company on the map, had even worse box office numbers post-opening weekend. It actually suffered a 64% drop in revenue, the worst since last’s year animated film “Strange World.”

Even beloved franchises like “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” (generally marketed toward an older audience) suffered box-office bombs. Disney, however, continues to double down on its stance and blames poor audience turnout on racism, sexism, and bigotry.

The Disney of today clearly hates its own intellectual property, but it’s also perfectly happy to “modernize” it and deprive it of its heart and soul. The latest example of this folly is the live-action remake of its 1937 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” They hired an actress to play the titular character who disdainfully declared: “I mean, you know, the original cartoon came out in 1937, and very evidently so. There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird! Weird. So we didn’t do that this time.”

Disney has since pushed the release date of that particular film to 2025.

Bob Iger is also facing an intense internal battle with investor Nelson Peltz. Along with billionaire Ike Perlmutter, Peltz is using the power of his company, Trian, to take over Disney’s board of directors. Peltz is a conservative who is on a mission to save Disney’s soul from the ravages of Iger and his woke infestation of employees.

Disney and its arrogant ideological executives are folding in on their own hubris like a house of cards.

David

By contrast, The Daily Wire, a conservative media outlet, is taking advantage of this gap in the economy to offer wholesome content for kids through its new app BentKey, as well as interesting and refreshing content for adults in the form of movies that aren’t woke.

The company has set itself the task of making meaningful content that most Hollywood studios won’t touch. In a direct attack against Disney’s wokeness, The Daily Wire has announced that it too will be doing a version of “Snow White” starring conservative podcaster and actress Brett Cooper.

The Wire also recently released a new comedy, “Lady Ballers.” This feature-length slapstick pointedly makes fun of the ridiculous notion that men can magically become women simply by declaring it so. It also points out the ridiculous unfairness of allowing men to compete in women’s sports. This script, in the hands of any Hollywood company, would be burned rather than given life because criticism of the Left’s religion, Marxist gender ideology, is taboo.

The film is actually quite funny. Though its humor is more directed at males, the message is universal. This author was pleasantly surprised.

The Daily Wire is representing the voices of conservatives in a culture that is rabidly against them. We now live in a time when girls’ basketball teams are banned from participating in their own sports tournaments for simply refusing to indulge in the whims of a gender-confused boy and his activist allies.

Even The Babylon Bee, a conservative satire site, experienced the two-tiered justice of being conservative in modern American. One of its actors, Siaka Massaquoi, was arrested at the airport by the FBI after attending the premier of “Lady Ballers,” in which he also plays a small part. Massaquoi, who was traveling with his pregnant wife, was brought in shackles on J6 charges before a federal judge. This is a developing story but is indicative of the second-class citizenship that the Biden administration and Democrats have sought to make for conservatives.

The Daily Wire is not alone in standing up to the Disney giant. Other companies (granted, not conservative ones) are trying to fill that gap in the entertainment market to resounding success. According to The Daily Wire, “Sony Pictures Animation, DreamWorks, and Illumination (the latter two owned by NBC Universal) have all seen massive hits in 2023 with ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ ($690 million), ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ ($484 million), and ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ ($1.3 billion), respectively.” This is in contrast to Pixar’s barely-able-to-recoup “Elemental” and Disney’s “The Marvels” and “Wish” flops. In other words, these Disney alternative companies have beaten the pants off Disney’s latest offerings.

As it turns out, making good, entertaining, non-political content is a winning strategy.

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Executive News Summary

Disney’s Florida power exposed, top- and bottom-tier justice, Burgum quits race, and more.

Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler

Cross-Examination

  • Disney’s Florida power exposed: A recently released independent audit of the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID) found that Disney had effectively engaged in a “bait and switch” with Florida with the creation of the self-governing district. The auditors noted that Disney leveraged the RCID to give itself “complete and unaccountable governmental power” to “maximize its profits” at “the expense of the public good.” The audit came after Governor Ron DeSantis led the Florida legislature in eliminating the Disney-controlled district, as he argued at the time that Disney should “live under the same laws as everybody else” because “allowing a corporation to control its own government is bad policy.” Indeed it was. “Hardly anyone outside of the special district knew about the scope and scale of the problems plaguing it,” the auditors found. “Complete and unaccountable governmental power was handed over to a private corporation, transforming a democratic institution into a private corporate monopoly.” Thankfully, DeSantis’s actions ended Disney’s abuses.
  • Nuclear pledges: While much of the UN’s annual climate conference in Dubai has amounted to little other than the same old climate change fearmongering, at least one rational and practical agreement came out of this year’s event. Twenty-two countries, including the U.S., pledged to triple their nuclear energy capacity by the year 2050. Going nuclear is the only practical means of even coming close to the loudly stated goal of net-zero carbon emissions, but up until this conference the climate alarmists had maddeningly rejected expanding nuclear energy as a means to do so. Now, along with the U.S., Canada, France, South Korea, Sweden, and the UK are among the 22 countries that signed the nuclear pledge, which will help reduce dependence on fossil fuels for energy generation. Even Joe Biden’s climate czar John Kerry timidly endorsed going nuclear, stating, “We are not making the argument to anybody that this is absolutely going to be the sweeping alternative to every other energy source — no, that’s not what brings us here,” but “you can’t get to net-zero 2050 without some nuclear.” Correction: You can’t get there without a lot of nuclear.
  • Top-tier justice for Wendy’s arsonists: Perhaps you remember the image from the long hot George Floyd summer of 2020: An Atlanta Wendy’s goes up in flames as Black Lives Matter thugs riot to protest the death of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks. Brooks had been shot and killed by an Atlanta cop the previous night after failing a breathalyzer test, resisting arrest, assaulting a cop, taking another cop’s taser, attempting to flee, and then turning and firing the taser at the pursuing cop. Those officers were shamefully charged for their actions but ultimately cleared of wrongdoing. But what of the BLM arsonists who torched the Wendy’s? As The Blaze reports, “For reducing the business to ash and rubble, Chisom Kingston and the woman whom Rayshard Brooks indicated was his ‘girlfriend,’ Natalie Hanna White, will have to pay a $500 fine and complete 150 hours of community service.” That’s it. No prison time and no restitution for their role in burning down a business. Apparently, a guilty plea gets you a wrist slap and five years of toothless probation. A third arsonist, John Wesley Wade, has been held in federal prison and is set to go to trial today. But the lesson of this utter lack of justice is clear: Being on the Left side of history means never having to say you’re sorry.
  • Bottom-tier justice for conservative actor: While BLM arsonists were getting the kid-glove treatment in Atlanta, a black conservative actor, activist, and Trump supporter was getting a dose of two-tiered justice from the FBI in Los Angeles. As RedState reports, Siaka Massaquoi, who writes for RedState and starred in various Babylon Bee skits and the recent Daily Wire film “Ladyballers,” “was arrested Thursday night at an LA airport on four misdemeanor charges related to his peaceful participation in protests in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021.” Is it a coincidence that he was arrested nearly three years after January 6 on his way home from that movie premiere? Massaquoi, who ran for the California State Assembly in 2022, currently serves as the first vice-chair of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County. We’re sure this is also purely a coincidence, though. Among the dire charges against him are trespassing, parading, and disorderly conduct — all of which apparently warranted separating him from his pregnant wife and taking him to jail for an overnight stay. Upon his release, Massaquoi said: “I’m so grateful to Jesus for being with me and my family throughout this unbelievable event. … It is heartbreaking and unfortunate for all that we are living in an America like this. We are at a fork in the road for our nation and its future.”
  • Hamas, Israeli women, and the Left’s shameful silence: The silence of the Left continues to deafen us in the wake of the increasingly well-documented sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli women during the murderous terrorist attack of October 7. Apparently, many of those on the Left are content to believe the words of a dismissive Hamas spokesman, who said that rape is forbidden and therefore couldn’t possibly have happened. At least one Democrat, though — New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand — couldn’t stomach the silence any longer. At the United Nations yesterday, she rightly denounced her colleagues: “When I saw the list of women’s rights organizations who have said nothing, I nearly choked. Where is the solidarity for women in this country and in this world?” Among those disgracefully silent leftist organizations are Planned Parenthood, Emily’s List, the World Health Organization, the Democratic Women’s Caucus, and the American Association of University Women. Further, for leftist women like Washington Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal to protest the loss of life in Gaza without calling out the depravity of Hamas toward Israeli women is — let’s face it — sickening.
  • A school trip turns into a transgender nightmare: Those who think the transgender cult is much ado about nothing should put themselves in the shoes of Christian parents Joe and Serena Wailes. As Fox News reports, they learned that their 11-year-old daughter, whom they entrusted to the Jefferson County Public Schools for a cross-country summer trip from their home in Colorado to Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, “said they discovered that JCPS had assigned their daughter to share a room with a biological male who identifies as a girl without notifying them or informing their daughter.” Apparently, their daughter only learned of her male bedmate’s identity because the student told her on the first night of the trip. The Alliance Defending Freedom has taken up the case, arguing: “It then took the girl and her parents multiple requests to get her moved to another room. And even then, chaperones told the girl to lie about the reason for her move because of the district’s overnight rooming policy — a policy that violates parental rights and student privacy.”
  • Gold Bar Bob: When federal agents searched New Jersey Democrat Senator Bob Menendez’s home back in September in the government’s high-profile bribery investigation, they found several gold bars. We’ve now learned that the gold bars that were found weren’t just any gold bars but were tied to a robbery a decade ago. Back in 2013, four armed men beat and robbed wealthy New Jersey real estate developer Fred Daibes at his apartment in Edgewater. Among the items the robbers stole were 22 gold bars. Serial numbers on four of the gold bars recovered at Menendez’s home match some of the ones stolen from Daibes, who just happens to be one of the individuals allegedly involved in the years-long bribery scheme for which Menendez has been indicted. Back in September following his indictment, Menendez maintained his innocence, claiming, “When all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jersey’s senior senator.” This latest evidence will be tough to explain away.
  • Burgum quits race, disappointing dozens: North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum is out of the Republican presidential primary race. On Monday, the largely unknown candidate who was polling at less than 1% nationally announced that he was ending his long-shot bid. Burgum, who made a fortune in Big Tech, focused on the economy and confronting China as the primary issues of his campaign. Burgum now joins several other higher-profile individuals such as Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott, and Larry Elder who dropped out of the race. As the field has shrunk, the fourth Republican debate will happen Wednesday in Alabama, and only four candidates will be on the stage: Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Chris Christie. Donald Trump will again be a no-show.

Headlines

  • World carbon dioxide emissions increase again, driven by China, India, and aviation (AP)
  • Israeli journalist doubles down on report linking UN’s Palestinian agency to Hamas hostage-taking (National Review)
  • Michelle Obama’s response when asked to condemn Hamas’ rapes of Israeli women won’t shock you (RedState)
  • Biden threatens to veto GOP bid to repeal income-driven repayment regulation (Washington Examiner)
  • Tuohy family claims Michael Oher tried to shake them down for millions, threatened family (Fox Sports)
  • Prestigious science journals confirm censored views: masks at best don’t reduce COVID infection (Just the News)
  • Ammunition and gunpowder prices are about to get even steeper in 2024 (RedState)
  • Math scores for U.S. students hit all-time low on international exam (Washington Post)
  • Satire: Public educators warn low literacy rates may prevent kids from reading about gay sex (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.

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How to Rein in the Regulatory State

A successful approach from the 1990s might hold the key to paring back today’s runaway bureaucracy.

Michael Swartz

If you’ve been paying attention for, oh, the last several decades, you’ve likely noticed that the regulatory state has become our primary means of lawmaking. Even when Congress passes a sweeping law like ObamaCare, it leaves much of the rulemaking to faceless bureaucrats holed up somewhere in the bowels of our nation’s capital.

Each year, as it tracks this bureaucratic shadow government, the Competitive Enterprise Institute publishes a snapshot of the regulatory state called “Ten Thousand Commandments.” Sadly, this year’s version is beginning to resemble the Federal Register that it tracks, weighing in at a whopping 143 pages of text, graphs, and charts. Collectively, it paints a grim picture of an out-of-control Beltway bureaucracy.

One paragraph from the report crystallizes the problem: “In January 2023, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated U.S. current-dollar GDP for 2022 at $25.46 trillion. The total regulatory cost figure of $1.939 trillion annually is equivalent to approximately 8 percent of that amount. Combining regulatory costs with federal FY 2022 outlays of $6.272 trillion, the federal government’s share of the economy stood at some $8.2 trillion in 2022, or roughly 32 percent of GDP. None of these metrics include state and local spending and regulation.”

Even worse, CEI admits this is a very incomplete assessment: “Just as the economic calculations necessary to enable central economic planning are impossible, so are regulatory costs impossible to calculate. Disclosure is an important part of regulatory reform, but an important caveat is that the best possible guess for overall regulatory costs is an ‘idiosyncratic guesstimate.’ For several years, this report had used a baseline for across-the-board costs of federal regulation intervention of roughly $1.9 trillion annually, encompassing compliance costs, economic and GDP losses, social costs, and other costs.” In other words, CEI researchers don’t really know, but we suspect they’re unintentionally lowballing the total costs.

While CEI does a fine job of outlining the problem and suggesting how to handle it (hint: Congress would have to get off its collective duff and upset a few bureaucrats), the editorialists at the Washington Examiner think we should borrow an idea from the 1990s — the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. They write:

If the massive, unwieldy, and oft-abusive regulatory state is to be brought under control, both the Administrative Procedure Act and civil service laws need drastic reform. Because this will require a huge number of changes that will upset many political fiefdoms, Congress is probably incapable of completing the task through its ordinary operations. A commission modeled on the base closure commission or, better yet, the markedly successful Social Security commission in the early 1980s should be appointed. It should propose comprehensive reforms to each, with an eye also on the interplay between administrative rules and the laws governing the employment of those who implement them.

BRAC was successful because it allowed the government to do its job, though congressmen who had to explain to their constituents why the local military installation closed could conveniently point to a ruthless commission. It did its unpopular task while saving face for those who would otherwise be chastised for a cut that a more-or-less impartial and disinterested body deemed necessary.

With the wholesale change needed to right-size government, and with Congress unwilling to do the necessary oversight, a BRAC-style commission may be the way to go. It won’t happen with the Biden administration, but because the Democrats and their media brethren seem to believe that Donald Trump’s reelection would herald an “irreversible descent into dictatorship,” that may be the time for him to resume the meat cleaver approach he took to excessive regulation the last time he was in office. Perhaps the media needs to focus like Trump did on the real dictatorship in DC for a change.

Wouldn’t it be a relief if the CEI’s annual regulatory report became obsolete? Paring that report back to the original number of commandments would be a fine step in the right direction.

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READER COMMENTS

Editor’s Note: Each week we receive hundreds of comments and correspondences — and we read every one of them. Click here for a few thought-provoking comments about specific articles. The views expressed therein don’t necessarily reflect those of The Patriot Post.

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BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion.

SHORT CUTS

Non Compos Mentis

“Mr. Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, had an unholy acceptance of Hamas as an enemy. … And he had this unholy acceptance because it benefited him … to have an enemy that would not agree to a two-state solution.” —Congressman Al Green (D-TX)

Useful Idiots

“We cannot say that one war crime deserves another. … I think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians.” —Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)

“I don’t think that’s true.” —Pramila Jayapal when told “a ceasefire would keep that brutal terrorist regime in place in Gaza”

“As Israel defends itself, it matters how. The United States is unequivocal: International humanitarian law must be respected.” —Vice President Kamala Harris

“Innocent civilian lives should not be intentionally targeted and … Israel must do more to protect innocent life in Gaza and innocent civilians in Gaza.” —Kamala Harris

“Our approach for post-conflict Gaza: No forceable displacement, no reoccupation, no siege or blockade, no reduction in territory.” —Kamala Harris

“We have to revitalize the Palestinian Authority.” —Kamala Harris

“There needs to be a permanent state for Palestinian people to live in. That is the way to undermine Hamas.” —Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison

For the Record

“Notice that Blinken and Biden don’t threaten consequences for Hamas or Iran if they fail to immediately release the hostages. Yet they constantly put pressure on Israel to not defend itself. Moral bankruptcy.” —Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR)

Hot Air

“We can’t save a burning planet with a firehose of fossil fuels. We must accelerate a just, equitable transition to renewables. The science is clear: The 1.5°C warming limit is only possible if we stop burning fossil fuels. Not reduce. Not abate. Phase out.” —UN Secretary-General António Guterres

“We’re seeing and beginning to pay attention and to count and record the deaths that are related to climate, and by far the biggest killer is extreme heat.” —former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

“Around the world there are those who seek to slow or stop our progress — leaders who deny climate science, delay climate action, and spread misinformation; corporations that greenwash climate inaction and lobby for billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies. In the face of their resistance … we must do more.” —Kamala Harris

“Under the president’s leadership, the U.S. is turbocharging the speed and scale of climate action, both at home and abroad.” —White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre

Swampthink

“Our challenge is just to let folks know who brung it to them. That’s a big part of our challenge. It’s all these individual accomplishments — they are very popular.” —Kamala Harris

“We’ve seen great progress and I think the American people know it on some level.” —Kamala Harris

Baghdad Bob

“We’re going to continue to do the work and talk to the American people. … His focus every day … is to make sure that we deliver on what the president was elected to do. … It’s very hard to break through the noise that we’re seeing right now.” —Karine Jean-Pierre

Theater of the Absurd

“If Congress fails to defend democracy … all because of border policies inspired by Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, the judgment of history will be harsh indeed.” —Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

The BIG Lies

“The president has made sure that he’s used enforcement, deterrence, and diplomacy to deal with [illegal immigration].” —Karine Jean-Pierre

“They have not, even their own witnesses that they’ve brought forward, been able to find a nexus between any of the allegations of Hunter Biden and the president, Joe Biden, or even when he was Vice President Joe Biden. There’s no nexus. There’s no ‘there’ there.” —U.S. Virgin Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D)

“I taught at the University of Pennsylvania for four years.” —Joe Biden

“We have [sic] more freedom up until this group [Republicans] came along. But what’s at stake now is freedom.” —Joe Biden

Belly Laugh of the Day

“The Democrats now … [are] the liberty party because we stand for liberty. We’re the progressive party because we stand for progress. We’re also the conservative party because we want to conserve the Constitution, the Bill of Rights… Everything they want to tear down is what we want to conserve. So at this point, if you’re for American democracy surviving, you’re for us.” —Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD)

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TODAY’S MEME

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For more of today’s memes, visit the Memesters Union.

TODAY’S CARTOON

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For more of today’s cartoons, visit the Cartoons archive.

“From The Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)”.

Sorry Catholics, Mary Has No Role in Salvation, and Believing Otherwise is Spiritual Suicide

“The concept of Mary as a distributor of grace or an intercessor with Christ finds no footing anywhere in the Scriptures. The role of Mary, as presented in the Bible, is one of humble obedience and servitude to God’s plan. She is a blessed figure, chosen to bear Jesus Christ, the God-Man, in the mystery of the hypostatic union—the union of Christ’s divine and human natures. Her role was uniquely important but not salvific.”

(The Dissenter) Throughout the entirety of Christian history, few figures have been as venerated and as controversial as Mary, the mother of Jesus. Her ascension to a position of near-divine stature within Roman Catholicism is a story steeped in centuries of tradition, theological evolution, and a departure from the biblical narrative.

This idolatry of Mary has reached a crescendo in modern times, with movements within the Catholic Church pushing for her recognition as “co-redemptrix,” a notion that would place her in an unprecedented role in the salvation narrative. However, a rigorous examination of Scripture presents a starkly different view, one that does not just challenge but outright refutes the notion of Mary playing any role in salvation. View article →

 

Research: Roman Catholicism

Source: Sorry Catholics, Mary Has No Role in Salvation, and Believing Otherwise is Spiritual Suicide

Zelensky is turning Ukraine into authoritarian state just like Russia, says Kyiv mayor in shocking interview

“At some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschkosaid said in a new interview with the German news outlet Der Spiegel.

Source: Zelensky is turning Ukraine into authoritarian state just like Russia, says Kyiv mayor in shocking interview

Rep. Donalds lists Joe Biden’s ‘lies’: ‘We have corruption sitting in the White House’

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., discusses the latest findings in the Biden family’s business investigation, Hunter Biden’s deposition as well as his request to subpoena Donald Trump.

Source: Rep. Donalds lists Joe Biden’s ‘lies’: ‘We have corruption sitting in the White House’

‘Blinking Lights Everywhere’: FBI Director Raises Alarm Over Terror Threat to US – Conservative Review

FBI director Christopher Wray raised alarm over terror threats to the United States at a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying there are “blinking lights everywhere.”

The post ‘Blinking Lights Everywhere’: FBI Director Raises Alarm Over Terror Threat to US appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

https://www.conservativereview.com/blinking-lights-everywhere-fbi-director-raises-alarm-over-terror-threat-to-us-2666452776.html

Rep. James Comer: Another example of the Biden White House using the loan card

On Tuesday’s “Wake Up America,” Rep. James Comer discusses the latest on Hunter Biden’s direct payments to President Biden and Hunter’s upcoming testimony on December 13th. Watch NEWSMAX, an independent news network with a conservative perspective, available in 100M+ U.S. homes.

Source: Rep. James Comer: Another example of the Biden White House using the loan card

White House Threatens to Ban African Journalist from Press Events: We ‘Warned You’ | The Western Journal.

The Biden White House will not tolerate disruptions during Propaganda Hour, otherwise known as the daily press briefing.

Monday on the social media platform X, journalist Simon Ateba of Today News Africa posted the full text of a letter he reportedly received from the office of White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — a letter threatening to restrict his access to all White House “press-related events.”

We “warned you of the consequences that could result” from your behavior, the letter read in part.

That behavior, of course — and White House officials’ general attitude toward speech and people they dislike — constitutes the story here.

First, there is the immediate context for the letter from Jean-Pierre’s office.

“As I mentioned earlier, she deliberately closed the press briefing on Thursday to claim that I disrupted it, which is entirely false,” Ateba wrote on X.

On Thursday, with Angola President João Lourenço visiting the White House that afternoon, Ateba tried to ask a question of National Security Counsel spokesman John Kirby. Jean-Pierre shut down Ateba’s question and, after some brief back-and-forth with the journalist, abruptly ended the press briefing.

Later on Thursday, Ateba took to social media to protest.

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“I am highly disappointed and even heartbroken that in the citadel of democracy, and in the most powerful house in the world, I’m being discriminated against for a year for trying to do my job while journalist colleagues remain silent. May God help me,” the journalist posted Thursday.

It’s a shame that @WhiteHouse @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre decided to abruptly end the press briefing rather than take a question from me after a year. Even when President Biden is hosting an African leader like the President of Angola today, the White House does not take a… pic.twitter.com/O8YfrzGa0L

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) November 30, 2023

That brings us to the history between Ateba and Jean-Pierre.

“Karine Jean-Pierre’s office sent me another warning letter and filed it in court, which was their objective in the first place,” Ateba posted Monday.

Why would the Cameroonian journalist, who founded Today News Africa, regard the press secretary’s move as calculated?

Well, for one thing, Ateba sued Jean-Pierre and the Secret Service in August for what his lawsuit described as “an unconstitutional attempt to arbitrarily restrict who qualifies as ‘the press,’” according to the New York Post.

In May, for the first time ever, the White House established rules for stripping journalists of press badges, called “hard passes.”

“The new rules serve as a warning and include vague standards to justify enforcement,” the Post reported at the time.

Having identified Ateba as a “disruptive” journalist who also happens to ask questions the White House dislikes, Jean-Pierre’s office set in motion a sequence of events clearly calculated to chill freedom of the press.

On X, Ateba referred to a first warning letter dated July 11. The second letter, filed in court, came on Monday.

“Her expectation is that the DC judge where I sued her will rule in her favor, as they discriminate against me, disregard the First Amendment, and spread false allegations against me,” Ateba posted in part.

Readers may view Ateba’s full post below, including the text of Jean-Pierre’s letter.

BREAKING: @WhiteHouse @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre’s office sent me another warning letter and filed it in court, which was their objective in the first place.

As I mentioned earlier, she deliberately closed the press briefing on Thursday to claim that I disrupted it, which is… pic.twitter.com/IZUTXxk8QJ

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) December 4, 2023

In short, Jean-Pierre’s office may try all it wants to cloak its obvious intentions. High-sounding phrases such as “professionalism” and “disruptive behavior” ring hollow from officials in this authoritarian administration.

President Joe Biden and his cronies have conspired to censor Americans’ speech. They have weaponized the federal government against their political opponents. And they have falsely imprisoned American citizens. They have done all these things in the name of “democracy.”

So it should not surprise us that they would go great lengths to rid themselves of inconvenient journalists.

The post White House Threatens to Ban African Journalist from Press Events: We ‘Warned You’ appeared first on The Western Journal.