There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
2:21 to this you have been called … leaving you an example. Suffering is a part of the Christian’s calling (2 Tim. 3:12) because it was first part of Christ’s (John 15:18–20). Christians are united with Christ in His sufferings as well as His resurrection (2 Cor. 1:5; 4:10; Phil. 3:10, 11), and the example of Christ provides a pattern by which Christians are to understand their own lives.[1]
2:21example The Greek word used here, hypogrammos, occurs only here in the nt. The word technically refers to a pattern or model for copying in writing or drawing, but it came to be used figuratively to describe a model for behavior.[2]
2:21 Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice in which he gave his life for sinners is unique, and yet those he has saved may follow Christ’s example when they suffer unjustly, even though their sufferings do not atone for sin.[3]
2:21 you have been called. The “call,” as always in the NT epistles, is the efficacious call to salvation (v. 9; 5:10; Ro 8:30). Peter’s point is that a person called to salvation will, sometimes at least, have to endure unfair treatment. Commendable behavior on the part of the believer in the midst of such trials results in the strengthening and perfecting of the Christian on earth (5:10; cf. Jas 1:2–4), and his increased eternal capacity to glorify God (cf. Mt 20:21–23; 2Co 4:17, 18; 2Ti 2:12). for this purpose. Patient endurance (v. 20). leaving you an example. The word “example” lit. means “writing under.” It was writing put under a piece of paper on which to trace letters, thus a pattern. Christ is the pattern for Christians to follow in suffering with perfect patience. His death was efficacious, primarily, as an atonement for sin (2Co 5:21); but it was also exemplary, as a model of endurance in unjust suffering.[4]
2:21 — … Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps .…
Jesus is our example in all things, even in suffering. He did not willingly suffer merely for suffering’s sake (John 18:23), but He eagerly accepted it when He saw it as God’s will for Him (Luke 22:42).[5]
2:21For to this you were called: Part of being a Christian is the privilege of serving God faithfully when we encounter undeserved judgment (Phil. 1:29). leaving us an example: Observing how Christ handled unjust punishment gives us insight as to how we also may endure such trials.[6]
2:21. Peter next explains why (for) we should have a good attitude when suffering. Though called likely refers to salvation, here it includes the idea of “life calling” or “spiritual vocation.” Patient suffering is a part of the spiritual world into which Christians are born when they are born again! Jesus’ experience serves as an example to be imitated by Christians. Christ’s suffering is the model on how to respond to injustice.[7]
2:21 The thought of believers’ suffering for righteousness’ sake leads inevitably to this sublime passage on our great example, the Lord Jesus. No one was ever treated as unjustly as He, or bore it as patiently.
We have been called to act as He acted, suffering for the wrongs of others. The word used here for example carries the idea of a copybook that contains flawless penmanship. The pupil seeks to reproduce the original as closely as possible. When he copies the model carefully, his writing is quite good. But the further he moves away from it, the more the copy worsens. Our safety is in staying close to the Original.[8]
[2] Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., Whitehead, M. M., Grigoni, M. R., & Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (1 Pe 2:21). Lexham Press.
And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering: and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.Leviticus 1:4
If by that laying on of his hand the bullock became the offerer’s sacrifice, how much more shall Jesus become ours by the laying on of the hand of faith?
My faith doth lay her hand On that dear head of Thine, While like a penitent I stand, And there confess my sin.
If a bullock could be accepted for him to make atonement for him, how much more shall the Lord Jesus be our full and all-sufficient propitiation? Some quarrel with the great truth of substitution; but as for us, it is our hope, our joy, our boast, our all. Jesus is accepted for us to make atonement for us, and we are “accepted in the Beloved.” Let the reader take care at once to lay his hand on the Lord’s completed sacrifice, that by accepting it he may obtain the benefit of it. If he has done so once, let him do it again. If he has never done so, let him put out his hand without a moment’s delay. Jesus is yours now if you will have Him. Lean on Him—lean hard on Him—and He is yours beyond all question; you are reconciled to God, your sins are blotted out, and you are the Lord’s.
A tear glistened in the corner of her eye. She had never been told God’s love was for her personally.
Oh how she wanted to believe God loved her. But she felt she had no right to ask Him anything. She had never acknowledged Him before. And life had been hard. Choices of others and her own choices had left deep pain and scars on her heart. Oh, very few knew and she held it all together in an amazing way. But she knew it was often by a thin thread… and she longed to feel that love and acceptance by God; that peace. But she felt so undeserving… so separated from His love. She didn’t know God’s Word, the Bible, actually addressed that very feeling. It told her that nothing could separate her from God’s love. It was for her too!!
“Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:39
Do you feel separated from God’s love? No matter what has happened in your life up to this moment, remember that there is no dimension, no action, no power, no place out of His reach; there is nothing that is a barrier to God’s love for you. Believe it. It is the first step to understanding who you really are. It is the first step to hope and to healing. Believe it! Hear Him call your name!
Prayer: Father in Heaven, Thank you that you love me! Thank you that you have seen my life from the beginning to this very moment and there is nothing hidden from you. Through all the good days and all the bad days you have been there, loving me and waiting for me to accept your love. No matter how unworthy I feel today, help me to believe that nothing separates me from your love. Help me to grow in understanding your love and learn to accept myself as loved by You! Teach me to see myself as you see me! In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” (Jesus Christ) Luke 6:35
If you want to get a little taste of what God is like, try loving your enemies, lending money to those you know won’t pay you back, and then try being kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. What does this do to one’s sense of justice and fairness? What could this possibly be about? Jesus can’t be serious about this, can he?
Here’s what I think. I think Jesus is getting us to think this way because he wants us to see something important about ourselves.
After all, what are we thinking here… that we are God’s friends, that we always pay back what we borrow, and that we are most certainly grateful and holy, and that’s why it’s so hard for us to understand why God would ask us, the holy ones, to be kind to all these wicked and ungrateful folks? Gee, somehow we’re going to have to find it in ourselves to love these awful people. But I suppose that if God can do it, we can too. It will be a stretch, but we will try… Is that what this is about?
Hardly. Here’s what I think it means:
There is relatively little difference between the most ungrateful, wicked people I can think of and me, and I had better be deeply grateful that God is, in fact, “unfair” in this way, because otherwise there would be no hope for me. I know this is what Jesus is saying because the very next verse is:
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful [to you].”
And that is followed up with:
“Do not judge and you will not be judged.“
See where He’s going with this?
When you look at it this way, it changes the whole picture.
Love your enemies and be kind to those who, like you, have received the kindness of God when you didn’t deserve it. And if you are ever tempted to think of God as being unfair, then go all the way and rejoice in the glorious inequity of grace that has made unlikely room for you and me, and in that same spirit of “unfairness,” make room in your heart for others.
Diminutive and mysterious, the Pentagon’s X-37B set to launch again Is it a secretive Pentagon weapon? Is it stealthy? Does it sneak up to satellites? What exactly does it do in space? And why is it up there for so long? The Pentagon won’t say. And the veil of secrecy over the X-37B continues ahead of its launch Sunday at 8:14 p.m. Eastern on its seventh mission. But this time there are some clues that at least something is different.
In historic decision, FDA approves a CRISPR-based medicine for treatment of sickle cell disease The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the world’s first medicine based on CRISPR gene-editing technology, a groundbreaking treatment for sickle cell disease that delivers a potential cure for people born with the chronic and life-shortening blood disorder. The new medicine, called Casgevy, is made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics. Its authorization is a scientific triumph for the technology that can efficiently and precisely repair DNA mutations — ushering in a new era of genetic medicines for inherited diseases.
Two ‘traitors of Ukraine’ killed in separate incidents Two Ukrainians who collaborated with Russian authorities have been killed — one in a shooting in a village southwest of Moscow and the other in a car bombing in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Luhansk region. Russia’s Investigative Committee later confirmed Kyva’s death and announced that a criminal investigation has been opened.
“Beyond Shocking”: ACLU Will Represent NRA In Free Speech Supreme Court Case “We’re representing the NRA at the Supreme Court in their case against New York’s Department of Financial Services for abusing its regulatory power to violate the NRA’s First Amendment rights. The government can’t blacklist an advocacy group because of its viewpoint,” the ACLU announced on ‘free speech’ platform X.
“They Look Like America”: Clip Of Kevin McCarthy Fluffing Democrats Goes Viral “When you look at the Democrats, they actually look like America. When I look at my party, we look like the most restrictive country club in America,” McCarthy said to laughter and applause. (Watch) “McCarthy is not some weird outlier, he is not a “RINO”, he held THE key leadership position in the party until a few weeks ago … The clip resurfaced within a day or so of McCarthy announcing his support for Trump.
We’re Starting To Find Out What’s Beneath The Thin Veneer Of Civilization That We’ve All Been Taking For Granted Unlike so many people around the world, those of us that live in the United States were fortunate enough to grow up in a relatively civilized society. Unfortunately, we have turned our backs on the values that our forefathers handed down to us, and so now we are starting to find out what is beneath the thin veneer of civilization that we have all been taking for granted all these years.
Hatred Of Toward Israel: It’s Not A Different Point Of View… It’s Evil Vs Good Johnnie Moore, president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, told me, “When they say things like ‘from the river to the sea,’ that’s a call for the genocide of the Jewish people. It’s not the ‘two-state solution.’ It’s the Final Solution.” “A lot of people in politics don’t believe in evil. They just think that people have different points of view in the world.” But, he said, “No. There’s good, and there’s evil.”
‘Who made us live in poverty in Gaza? Not the Jews, Hamas’ The speakers were translated and voiced over, and their identity protected, using animated pictures after, according to the group’s founder and president, Joseph Braude, protests of Hamas in the Strip, as recently as last July, were violently shut down. Braude said some of the recordings were made since the outbreak of the war. one woman said the wars in Gaza are waged by Hamas for political reasons alone. “If you’re a Gazan citizen who opposes war and says, “I don’t want war,” you’re branded a traitor.
Egypt mulls plans for global resettlement for Gaza’s Palestinian population, report says Arab newspaper Al-Akhbar quoted sources on Saturday claiming that Egypt is exploring ways to deal with the Palestinian migration that may begin in early 2024. One option the country is looking into is the possibility that other countries will agree to host the Gazans who’ll be allowed to leave via the Rafah border crossing.
Where did Hamas’ spokesman go? Abu Obaydah, Hamas’ spokesman, has been absent from Hamas video publications since the end of November. Since Friday, Palestinian Arab media has reported that he was either killed or seriously injured in an IDF attack last week.
Yemen’s Houthis Warn They Will Target All Ships Headed to Israel Yemen’s Houthi movement said on Saturday they would target all ships heading to Israel, regardless of their nationality, and warned all international shipping companies against dealing with Israeli ports. The Iran-aligned group is escalating the risks of a regional conflict amid a brutal war between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist Hamas.
Shooting towards Ariel on Friday On Friday, two bullets fired by terrorists from the Arab city of Salfit entered the city of Ariel in Samaria. According to the municipality, “this was not direct fire, but something that apparently was fired into the air.” … it is clear that this is not a coincidence or mistake. There is no such thing as stray bullets. Every bullet has an address.
Pew poll: 50% of Democrats blame Israel for war in Gaza More than twice as many Democrats (50%) as Republicans (21%) say that the Israeli government bears “a lot” of responsibility for the war against the Hamas terror organization in the Gaza Strip. That’s according to a new poll that the Pew Research Center conducted of 5,203 adults between Nov. 27 and Dec. 3.
IDF Chairman says Hamas operatives surrendering, criticizing their leaders On Saturday, IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari reported the surrender of many Hamas terrorists and the disconnection between Hamas operatives and the terror group’s leadership. In leaked footage from Northern Gaza on Saturday, a Hamas operative surrounded by numerous terrorists can be seen putting his assault rifle down on the ground in a gesture of surrender. “In Shejaiya and Jabaliya, terrorists surrendered and handed over weapons and equipment.”
Dean Phillips campaign: Democratic primary ‘corrupt, rigged’ Phillips plans to file challenges with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) regarding his exclusion from Democratic primary ballots in Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The Florida Democratic Party submitted only Biden’s name despite multiple candidates, including Phillips, expressing their desire to appear on the primary ballot. Weaver described the process as “corrupt” and “rigged.”
Biden Threatens To Send Troops To Fight Russia Totalitarian sociopath, Joe Biden is threatening to send American troops to fight Russia. If Congress won’t approve more military financial aid for Ukraine, he thinks sending human cattle to kill and be killed is an adequate trade.
Legal experts warn Hunter Biden faces ‘real chance of jail time’ if convicted on new tax felony charges George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital said Biden could face jail time if he is convicted of the three felony tax charges filed by special counsel David Weiss in California Thursday. Turley said Weiss repeatedly emphasized in Biden’s indictment “that this was a four-year effort to knowingly evade taxes to spend on ‘an extravagant lifestyle.’” “It is hard to see how prosecutors would make such a case and not seek jail time for knowingly criminal conduct.
Amazon’s AI Reportedly Suffering “Severe Hallucinations” In a surprise announcement last week, Amazon’s cloud computing division announced a flashy new AI chatbot aimed at businesses called Amazon Q — not to be confused with OpenAI’s secretive Q*, pronounced Q star, which is rumored to be a separate and powerful new AI system.
Red Cross reprimands Israeli hostage families: Think about Palestinians Families of Israelis being held hostage by Hamas were reprimanded by representatives of the Red Cross in a meeting earlier this week, with the Red Cross telling one family they need to “think about the Palestinian side,” KAN reported on Thursday night.
U.S., South Korea, Japan to step up actions on North Korea cyber threats The United States, South Korea and Japan agreed new initiatives on Saturday to respond to North Korea’s threats in cyberspace, including cryptocurrency abuses and space launches, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Hatred Toward Israel: It’s Not A Different Point Of View… It’s Evil Vs Good …Johnnie Moore, president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, told me, “When they say things like ‘from the river to the sea,’ that’s a call for the genocide of the Jewish people. It’s not the ‘two-state solution.’ It’s the Final Solution.”
US vetoes UN Security Council resolution demanding immediate ceasefire in Gaza Strip The United States vetoed a United Nations resolution Friday backed by almost all other Security Council members and many other nations demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, where Palestinian civilians are facing what the UN chief calls a “humanitarian nightmare.”
Colombian Health Minister tells Senate covid vaccines are the greatest experiment carried out in human history During a First Committee of the Senate debate on the supply of medicines, Colombian Health Minister Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo said vehemently that “all Colombians who are vaccinated [against covid-19] served for the greatest experiment that has been carried out in the entire history of humanity … We cannot continue experimenting with the Colombian community.”
Sen. Rand Paul unpacks the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and how Dr. Anthony Fauci and China could be held accountable for hiding the truth about how it started and how the U.S. responded to it, during an interview with FNC’s Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Well, the problem is, is that the Chinese have destroyed any kind of reputation they had. I mean, we can no longer believe any kind of pronouncements from them, which makes us suspicious. Right now, there’s a host of disease affecting young people, respiratory disease and pneumonia, in China, and they tell us, well, there’s nothing to see here. And maybe that’s true, but they have destroyed any kind of foundation we had in trusting them, and they still haven’t come clean. In early 2020, when COVID came out, they said, oh, we’re not having human-to-human transmission, and we don’t seem to be having an extraordinary amount of flooding in the hospitals or deaths. All of that was untrue, and they knew for at least three or four weeks. They also knew the sequence of the virus, and they kept that secret as well. I think they also knew that three of their workers got sick at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in November 2019. I think they knew all of this. And I think they absolutely know it now, and the only way they can restore trust is to own up to it. Look, I don’t blame them completely for this. I think it was an accident, but cover-up is not an accident. If they were to come clean and say, we’re punishing the scientists who did what they weren’t supposed to, I think then that we could restore some trust. But, right now, we have really no trust with the Chinese government. MARIA BARTIROMO: Well, what about the accountability here, and why the Biden administration does not push for it? I mean, right now, as we speak, there are American investors continuing to underwrite the CCP by buying those companies that are tied to the Chinese military. It seems this administration is not willing to pull the economic lever, and that is shut off the capital markets to Chinese communist companies that may have been involved in that cover-up or tied to the military. PAUL: Well, we still continue to fight the Biden administration every day just for unclassified information, and they resist at every turn. We have had to basically withhold nominees and withhold legislation to try to get anything from the Biden administration. And I’m not sure what it is. Either it’s sympathy or believing that relations with China are so important that the truth can be obscured. But there’s also a certain amount of culpability in the Biden administration throughout several different departments, USAID, NIH, HHS. They’re withholding documents because they funded the lab in Wuhan, not just once, not just twice, but for a decade they were funding. And we have Anthony Fauci on record as saying that, even if a pandemic occurs, even if a gain-of-function research infects a scientist and a pandemic occurs, that the knowledge would be worth the risk. And I think most people who had a loved one die from COVID either here or around the world would disagree and think Anthony Fauci made a disastrous judgment call. But he also took the research, and it didn’t go before the normal scrutiny. There’s a safety committee that was supposed to review this, and Anthony Fauci allowed this research to be done at his signature, at his conclusion, at his approval without the approval of the safety committee. And this — for this, he really should go down in history perhaps as one of the worst people in public office ever and responsible for probably more deaths than other — any other individual in the medical world. BARTIROMO: Well, I mean, there was so much censorship of so much information that was vital for Americans to see and understand about COVID and about the vaccines, but they censored it. Can we even trust health officials in this government? PAUL: Well, it was directed explicitly by him. We go over this in the book, because he commissioned scientists who were saying in private that they thought it was a manipulative virus, manipulated a lab and came from a lab. He convinced them in public to say the opposite. He commissioned and edited a paper that said that absolutely this did not come from a lab, while, privately, all of these same scientists were saying, in all likelihood, it did come from a lab. So, there really was an orchestrated cover-up on this. We also now know that he was visiting the CIA in early 2020. We know that the CIA scientists, seven of them, voted six to one to say it came from the lab, and then they were reversed by superiors. We need to know whether Anthony Fauci influenced the superiors, or perhaps the opposite. Did the CIA influence Anthony Fauci? But we also need to know how often he was visiting and what he was there for. Our understanding is that he wasn’t recorded on visitor logs, but he was appearing frequently at the CIA. You have to realize that he was not a scientist in charge of a cure for cancer. He was also in charge of a lot of bioweapons money and in charge of a lot of things that had dual use. And they won’t reveal any of this to us. They had weekly meetings on dangerous dual-use research concerns and gain-of-function, and not one item of any of those meetings has been released to us, despite us asking for it for over three years. BARTIROMO: Do you believe COVID was a bioweapon? PAUL: I think that it was probably developed for a vaccine. I think they developed a coronavirus. They inserted this cleavage site in to make it more infectious to humans, and then they had a vaccine very early on, because I think they were developing a vaccine against COVID, and then COVID got out. BARTIROMO: Yes. PAUL: But the interesting thing is the scientist, Dr. Zo Yusin (ph), who developed it, died mysteriously two months after the development of the virus. He fell from a tall building in Beijing. And there’s a lot of questions as to the circumstances of his death. BARTIROMO: Wow. I did not realize that, that he died from a tall building in Beijing. That’s incredible.
DEVIN NUNES: Look, I think it’s just Donald Trump back in 2016 when he made the quip about Rosie O’Donnell. I mean, how ridiculous is it that he has to sit up there and be accused of being a dictator? Like, what really happens in dictatorships? Let’s just take just a few things off the top of my head. One, a dictatorship would maybe raid the home of a former president. That’s what dictators do. They would weaponize the justice system and the FBI. That’s what dictators do. They would maybe gag a U.S. citizen and not let him talk about what’s happening in a courtroom. That is what dictators do. Now, is that Donald Trump? No. That’s Joe Biden and this current administration. So what do you expect Donald Trump to do? I think this is why people like him. He’s like, screw it. You want to call me a dictator, I’m just going to embrace it. Now, what really happened here, Maria? This is the typical thing that we have seen now for many decades, but it’s gotten really bad over the last 20 years, where you have 95 percent of the fake news is controlled by the left. It’s a propaganda arm for the Democratic Party, no different than, we were talking about earlier, TikTok is to China. BARTIROMO: So the polling said, call Trump a dictator, and they just went with it? NUNES: That is exactly right. They said, we need a narrative. And seldom do you see — even when they get 30 or 40 of them out doing and saying the same thing, the American people are not buying it.
The first few videos were posted to the Rumble channel on Dec. 5. By the next day, the collection grew to 135 clips—each about 10 minutes long. The channel had nearly 700 followers on Dec. 7.
The committee released the first batch of 90 CCTV clips on Nov. 17 on its House of Representatives website. The two websites now contain nearly 40 hours of the more than 40,000 hours of video from Jan. 6 held by Capitol Police.
“As promised, we’re releasing more U.S. Capitol Police CCTV video footage from January 6th to ensure full transparency and accountability,” said U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight. “Every American may access this and future footage on our new Rumble video page.”
The new batch of videos all come from Camera 0908, housed high on the west dome of the Capitol. The aerial footage starts just after midnight and ends about 11:55 p.m. on Jan. 6.
The video includes the flow of protesters from the Ellipse during and after former President Donald Trump’s speech, the breach of the first police line, and the violence on several levels of the west front of the Capitol.
Rep. Mike Bost, R-Il., discusses the Department of Veteran Affairs’ role in facilitating medical care for illegal immigrants and veteran access for community care. #foxnews
Persecution of Russians by Ukrainian authorities was among main causes of Moscow’s military operation, Vladimir Putin says
Persistent persecution of ethnic Russians in Ukraine was one of the key reasons behind Moscow’s decision to launch its special military operation in that country, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that the Ukrainian authorities have since gone completely “crazy” in their policies.
The president made the remarks earlier this week when he hosted distinguished servicemen at the Kremlin to award them Hero of Russia medals. Excerpts from Putin’s speech on the sidelines of the event were published by Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday.
“We would never have done anything like [the special military operation] if they had not started to destroy Russia in our historical territories, expel people from there, declared Russians a non-indigenous ethnic group in Ukraine. Have they gone completely crazy? Are they completely – how can I put it more bluntly – nuts?” Putin told the medal recipients.
The president was apparently referring to Ukraine’s Law On Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2021. The legislation recognized only three ethnic groups – Crimean Tatars, Crimean Karaites and Krymchaks (Crimean Jews) – as the country’s indigenous peoples.
The legislation denied indigenous designations to Russians, which amounted to at least one fifth of Ukraine’s population, according to various estimates, and to other minorities, such as the ethnic Hungarians and Belarusians who reside in the country’s west and north, respectively. Moreover, all three ethnic groups recognized by the ‘indigenous peoples’ law predominantly live in Crimea, which split from Ukraine in 2014 and joined Russia after a peninsula-wide referendum.
In addition to questionable ethnic policies, the Ukrainian leadership has been openly courting and honoring Nazis, Putin said, invoking a recent scandal in Canada’s House of Commons. The legislature celebrated Ukrainian-Canadian Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Waffen SS veteran, hailing him as a “Canadian hero” who’d “fought the Russians” during World War II. The whole body, with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in attendance, engaged in a standing ovation to honor Hunka.
“And who exactly fought Russians during the war? Nazis. Everyone knows that and the Ukrainian president knows that. The entire parliament stood up and applauded him. What is it, if not a manifestation of Nazism?” Putin asked, adding that a large proportion of Nazi atrocities were committed by Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with them.
“They are not just fools, they are also neo-Nazis. It’s an obvious fact. They are ready to cooperate with just anyone to try and hurt Russia,” the president noted.
The Hunka affair triggered a major international scandal, which led to the downfall of the House Speaker Anthony Rota, who accepted entire responsibility for inviting the Waffen SS veteran to the legislature. Russia has charged Hunka in absentia with genocide, claiming that archive documents serve as evidence that he and fellow SS Galicia members had killed at least 500 civilians in late February 1944, and Moscow is now seeking the extradition of the Nazi veteran.
On Tuesday, 63 nations, including the United States, joined a pledge to cut down cooling-related emissions at the COP28 United Nations climate summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Global Cooling Pledge requires countries to reduce such emissions by at least 68 percent by 2050 compared to 2022 levels. The focus of cooling-related emissions would be on appliances like air conditioners and refrigerators. The pledge also proposes setting up minimum energy performance standards for appliances by 2030.
“We want to lay out a pathway to reduce cooling-related emissions across all sectors but increase access to sustainable cooling,” said Mr. Kerry, who joined representatives from other countries in the pledge, Reuters reported.
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) criticized the pledge in a Dec. 6 X post: “John Kerry lost his run for president & has been trying to assert his revenge on everyday Americans ever since. If he gets his way, our cars, our appliances, and food will be gone. All from a man who flies around on his wife’s private jet.”
Food banks say high costs are making life worse for Americans already facing food insecurity.
According to the federal Department of Agriculture’s Household Food Insecurity Report, in 2022, 12.8 percent of Americans were classified as “food insecure,” which means that they are not starving, but not certain they can have three meals a day every day.
The report noted that food insecurity rose from 10.2 percent in 2021, amounting to an increase of 3.5 million households.
HUNGER BLAME: Bidenomics Causing Food Insecurity Explosion, 10 Million Hungry Under Joe https://t.co/AbmNlqKqyJ
Jen Muzia with the Ballard Food Bank in Seattle, Washington, told Fox News in a report published Friday that it’s getting harder to meet needs.
“It’s not only our guests that come in to shop, we’re also seeing it on us as we go to buy food. It’s costing us way more to buy food,” Muzia said, according to Fox.
Demand during the Biden presidency is far above what it was under former President Donald Trump.
“For us, we are seeing more than double what we saw pre-pandemic,” Muzia said.
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Brian Greene, president of the Houston Food Bank, told Fox that inflation has hit hard.
“Food inflation is only running about 3 percent now, but rent inflation is over 7 percent,” he said.
“And for low-income or working families, rent can account for about 50 percent or more of their income. So, as those costs are continuing to go up, the money just isn’t going as far, and food tends to be a flexible expense,” Greene said.
The federal report noted that children were among those most deeply affected.
The report said food insecurity hit 8.8 percent of households with children, up from 6.2 percent in 2021. That amounts to an increase of about 1 million households, the report said.
Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of the group Feeding America, said in a news release that, overall, the UDSDA data showed “that 1 in 7 people, including 1 in 5 children, in the U.S live in food insecure households.
She said “food insecurity does not happen in a vacuum. Housing prices and other cost of living increases create a gap in income, and food is often the first place where families can cut corners to make ends meet.”
“We estimate that almost 50 million people have visited food banks in the past year seeking help. The Federal and State governments have rolled back nearly all support that was provided for people during the pandemic at the very time that inflation was taking an extra large bite out of their income,” Vince Hall of Feeding America told Fox News.
“These numbers are more than statistics. They paint a picture of just how many Americans faced the heartbreaking challenge last year of struggling to meet a basic need for themselves and their children,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in a statement, according to NPR.
According to NPR, the numbers are a turnaround from a decade-long drop in food insecurity in U.S. households.
Elaine Waxman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, told NPR that the end of federal programs that paid Americans’ bills during the pandemic is part of the reason for the spike in food insecurity.
“A lot of the programs that had buffered people’s experience during the pandemic were retired or rolled back in some way,” Waxman said.
In a Dec. 2 social media post, former President Donald Trump blasted the Biden administration’s handling of the economy.
( @realDonaldTrump – Truth Social ) ( Donald J. Trump – Truth Post – Dec 02, 2023, 8:50 PM ET )
“Bidenomics Boomerang: Hunger explodes on Joe’s watch as 10 million more fall into food insecurity”
USDA report latest sign of the impact of inflation under the 46th president.
— Donald J. Trump 🇺🇸 TRUTH POSTS (@TruthTrumpPosts) December 3, 2023
Kelly Horton, chief program officer at the Food Research and Action Center, told NPR the number of Americans working in shaky gig economy jobs is also a factor.
“So all of these things converging…we have a lot of people who are living on the edge,” Horton said.
Politicians are hell-bent on protecting citizens against everything except Uncle Sam. Is America becoming a Cage Keeper Democracy where voters merely ratify the latest demolition of their rights and liberties?
“We live in a world in which everything has been criminalized,” warned Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. There are now more than 5,200 separate federal criminal offenses, a 36% increase since the 1990s, along with tens of thousands of state and local crimes. More laws mean more violators who can be harshly punished on command, resulting in the arrests of more than 10 million Americans each year. Thanks to the Supreme Court, police can lock up anyone accused of “even a very minor criminal offense” such as an unbuckled seatbelt.
The Founding Fathers saw property rights as “the guardian of every other right.” But today’s politicians never lack a pretext for plundering private citizens. Despite being charged with no crime, half a million Americans have been robbed by government agents on the nation’s sidewalks, highways, and airports in recent decades. Federal law enforcement agencies arbitrarily confiscate more property from Americans each year than all the burglars steal nationwide. The IRS pilfered more cash from private bank accounts because of alleged paperwork errors than the total looted by bank robbers nationwide. Federal bureaucrats blocked landowners from farming or building on a hundred million acres of their own property because of puddles, ditches, or other suspected wet spots.
Police have killed more than 25,000 citizens since the turn of the century, but the federal government does not even bother compiling a body count. SWAT teams use battering rams and flash-bang grenades to attack 50,000 homes a year, routinely terrorizing people suspected of dastardly crimes like spraying graffiti or running poker games. Cops in many cities have been caught planting guns on hapless targets, while corrupt police labs fabricated tens of thousands of bogus drug convictions. Police unions have more sway over government policy than anyone on the wrong end of a baton or Taser. Despite perpetual promises of reform, most police who brutalize private citizens still automatically receive legal immunity. Federal Judge Don Willett derided the “Constitution-free zone” courts created where “individuals whose constitutional rights are violated at the hands of federal officers are essentially remedy-less.”
Hezbollah is likely to be next in line to be tackled by the Israeli Defense Forces after it finishes eliminating Hamas from Gaza.
Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi suggested on Saturday night that Israel may have no choice but to go to war against Hezbollah – the Iranian proxy terrorist organization in Lebanon on Israel’s northern border – after Hamas is defeated in Gaza.
There is increasing concern that Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force could stage an invasion and massacre from the north, similar to the one perpetrated by Hamas terrorists in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Hanegbi admitted that Israel had taken on Hamas “17 years too late,” referring to Israel’s withdrawal in 2005 from the Gaza Strip, and that the IDF would need to deal with the threat from Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon.
Since Oct. 7, around 60,000 residents of Israel’s northern border communities have been evacuated from the north, as clashes across the border between Hezbollah and Israel continue.
“Residents will not return if we don’t do the same thing” in the north against Hezbollah as is being done in the south against Hamas, Hanegbi told local Channel 12 news on Saturday night.
“We can no longer accept [Hezbollah’s elite] Radwan Force sitting on the border. We can no longer accept Resolution 1701 not being implemented,” Hanegbi added. The UN resolution bans Hezbollah from operating anywhere within about 30 kilometers (18 miles) of the border with Israel.
Hanegbi said that if Hezbollah refuses to stop its aggression, war remains the only option.
“The situation in the north must be changed. And it will change. If Hezbollah agrees to change things via diplomacy, very good. But I don’t believe it will.”
Hanegbi said that Israel will have to guarantee its evacuees that the situation in the north has improved. Many evacuees have said they will not feel safe to return to their homes on the northern border in the current situation.
“When the day comes,” Israel will have to act to ensure that residents of the north are no longer “displaced in their land, and to guarantee for them that the situation in the north has changed,” Hanegbi said, adding that the risk with Hezbollah’s Radwan Force is that “within minutes it could cross the border and begin a murderous rampage in northern communities as Hamas did in the south on October 7. Israel cannot tolerate this threat any longer.”
Hanegbi also told Channel 12 that it is not possible to know when Israel will be finished removing the Hamas threat.
“The Americans have not set any deadline. They understand that they can’t tell the IDF how long it needs to achieve the goals. They share the goals of returning the hostages — a campaign that a date cannot be set for — and of destroying Hamas,” he said.
“Therefore, the assessment [that achieving the goals of the war in Gaza] cannot be measured in weeks is correct, and I’m not sure it can be measured in months.”
Hanegbi said the IDF has so far eliminated at least 7,000 terrorists and that forces were now very close to Hamas’ centers of command in Jabaliya and Shaja’iya in northern Gaza.
He indicated that eliminating Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar is key to defeating Hamas and bringing back the hostages.
The IDF’s attempts to free the hostages are extremely dangerous “because their captors are waiting with their fingers on the trigger,” Hanegbi said, adding that “military pressure could produce another halt in the fighting” and the release of further hostages.
One of the most alarming developments of recent months is the realisation that not only is antisemitism on the rise, but that young people in the West think that it’s somehow or other justified.
Unfortunately, one doesn’t have to look far to understand why this is happening. The Western education system is increasingly being hijacked by political activists. For example, James Morrow recently wrote in The Daily Telegraph:
Parents have described themselves as “disheartened” by an attempt by a group of activist teachers to promote a one-sided view of the Israel-Hamas conflict in classrooms.
The group, calling itself Teachers 4 Palestine, has through its social media accounts accused Israel of “genocide” online while encouraging teachers to “light up our schools for Palestine”.
The group not only encourages students to skip school for a planned unauthorised protest on Friday, but also tells teachers to “wear Khaffiyehs”, “Palestine badges” and “make Palestine visible in our schools” by, for example, taking group photos with pro-Palestine signs.
Indoctrinated
Consistent with the tactics of Hamas, pro-Palestinian protestors are using children as human shields to defend their actions. Note how children were present at the recent unauthorised rally in Port Botany, while at the same time blaming the police for their “thuggery” at upholding the law.
Violent, unjustified thuggery from @nswpolice towards a peaceful crowd which included children
In a far-reaching interview with John Anderson — the former deputy prime minister of Australia — distinguished historian and author Niall Ferguson makes the following cogent observation:
I think the strange thing about all of this is the generational divide that’s opened up. It’s very remarkable if you look at polling in the United States, Britain or Continental Europe, that older people strongly sympathise with Israel and younger people strongly sympathise with the Palestinians. In fact, the youngest group surveyed — 18 to 24 in the US and in the UK — is strongly anti-Israel, and pro-Palestinian.
And that’s why when you look at the protests that you see in support of the Palestinians, they are very youthful when you look closely. And I think there’s a very good reason for this, and it’s an extremely important point which some of us have been making for years. It’s that the universities — and to an extent the schools too — have been systematically infiltrated by propagandists in favour of Islamism and anti-Zionism.
And we are now reaping the harvest of allowing the infiltration of higher education by radical leftists and Islamists. That’s the best explanation I think for this generational divide. It’s not just that the passage of time has dampened public sympathy for Israel. I think it’s something much more sinister than that.
Strange Collusion
Ferguson argues that the new current generation of leftists is different to their classic liberal forebears, and that there is even a “strange unholy alliance” between Islamists and radical leftists who are both completely obsessed with identity politics. As Ferguson explains:
I think what has happened is there has been an unwitting, leftwards lurch. Liberals of the 1968 era, the anti-Vietnam types, thought when they saw the radicals of the next generation that they were seeing of themselves. Ah yes, to be young and radical again. And they appointed people who were far to the left of those anti-Vietnam liberals.
And one obvious distinction is, those anti-Vietnam liberals were at least in favour of free speech. But the new generation of leftists are not liberal at all. They’re totally against free speech. Nor are they secular. They’re highly susceptible to the Islamist arguments, which is remarkable when you consider some of the other things that they believe.
They passionately believe in LGBTIQ+ rights. They passionately believe that there are fifty-five genders… this is what is so bizarre about this coalition which has formed. It’s a strange unholy alliance between Islamists and radical leftists, completely obsessed with identity politics.
So obsessed with identity politics that they don’t recognise that the Palestinians are not just another minority like the transgender rights activists, but are really part of a globalist movement which is profoundly hostile to all the things that they care about, particularly when it comes to gender.
It’s a very strange — and I think unintended — consequence of the penchant liberal professors have to hire people further to the left of themselves.
This also goes a long way to explaining why so many young people are questioning whether Osama Bin Laden’s actions on September 11, 2001, were, in fact, justified. It’s because their whole lens for viewing the world is that of oppressors and victims. Of those who have power and those who do not.
This powerful — but also poisonous — philosophical paradigm is why the younger generation today is coming to a profoundly different position regarding Palestine. What should be condemned is now celebrated. What should be denounced is now defended. And the reason why that is so is because that is how they’ve been taught to think.
On “Sunday Agenda,” Lidia Curanaj discusses the Biden family corruption, saying, ‘If Hunter’s last name was anything but Biden, he’d already be behind bars.’ Watch NEWSMAX, an independent news network with a conservative perspective, available in 100M+ U.S. homes.
The world’s rich and famous, plus an army of publicists, hangers-ons and mendicants, are attending the COP28 meeting in Dubai, the ostentatious 7-star playground capital of the United Arab Emirates, where even the police drive luxury sports cars.
We peasant classes sitting at home note that climate royalty, including King Charles from the UK, John Kerry from the USA and Blackouts Bowen from Australia, are all flying there, burning vast amounts of carbon fuels. Fittingly, these hypocrites chose to meet in the richest and most wasteful artificial city in the world, wallowing in wealth derived from oil, gas and air-travel tourists.
The UAE has already been accused of using the meeting to organise oil and gas sales ‘on the sidelines’, so for them, it will be doubly profitable.
We wonder how John Kerry will explain how the Green New Deal is falling apart in the USA.
Dystopian
The sinister hidden agenda of COP28 in Dubai is about rationing and depopulation – they want to ration energy, reduce meat production and eliminate wasteful driving and “useless eaters”.
They want us locked into 15-minute cities with our movements tracked and restricted to walking, bicycles and small communal electric cars. They plan to abolish the freedom of cash so they can track our consumption. They want to see us restricted to green smoothies, oat-milk coffee, minced crickets and fake meat burgers while they jet off to a new, well-fed tourist destination every year.
We have copped these annual climate fests for 26 years now. The last one catered for about 40,000 delegates and hangers-on for two weeks of talk-fest that achieved NOTHING useful (as usual). Even Saint Greta Thunberg said that COP27 was a scam.
Let’s have a few Clexit (Climate Exit) Referenda so we can Vote NO and repudiate all liabilities under the Kyoto and Paris Climate Agreements.
Nutty Policies
Only stupid Western politicians from places like the UK, the USA and Australia think they can force-feed wind-solar energy sufficiently to keep the lights on as coal and gas plants close. Naturally, Greens are also opposed to building dams for hydro energy, and they do not like nuclear.
The Net Zero Prize for reaching fanciful Net Zero Emissions targets will be precarious populations with industry operating on the whims of the weather and an angry, urbanised, locked-down population faced with food, fuel and electricity rationing.
However, King What’s-his-name, John Kerry (the US Presidential Envoy for Controlling Climate) and Blackouts Bowen (Australia’s Minister for Climate Panics and Zero Energy) are determined to create an electricity crisis. Power grid failure will be followed quickly by failure of food and water supplies to cities.
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Marc Morano, the Vice President of Clexit, is attending. Watch him here.
‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ co-hosts Will Cain and Pete Hegseth go off the wall to break down the impact the Israel-Hamas war has had on U.S. college campuses. #foxnews
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