Most Clarence Thomas hit pieces can't stand up to perfunctory scrutiny. But the newest doesn't even make any sense.
In a new five-person-bylined article, anti-Supreme Court outfit ProPublica takes a decades-old offhand complaint the justice made about his salary and spins it into a nefarious conspiracy. In 2000, Thomas apparently groused about his pay to "vocal conservative" Rep. Cliff Stearns. (The justice was hardly alone. It was a big issue in the 2000s.)
This interaction, we are informed, "set off a flurry of activity across the judiciary and Capitol Hill." By "flurry of activity," ProPublica means a single memo in which the possibility of raising justices' salaries was discussed.
Greenville County Republican Party 1st Vice Chairman Joe Dill represented Santa Clause at the Tigerville Christmas Parade. Along with his wish for everyone to have a Happy New Year and hoping everyone had a great Christmas, he challenges everyone to work hard to get Republicans elected by re-electing proven Conservatives back into office.
A special election will be held in New York's 3rd Congressional District on Feb. 13 to replace George Santos, world-class conman, who Republicans recently expelled on ethics charges.
Republicans have picked a uniquely exciting candidate to run for this now open seat in Mazi Melesa Pilip.
Pilip is a Black Orthodox Jew and a mother of seven children who arrived to Israel at age 12 from Ethiopia, grew up there, served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces and continued on to earn a degree in occupational therapy at Haifa University, where she met her husband, and then earned a master's in diplomacy and security at Tel Aviv University.
The painting “Belezaire and the Frey Children” depicts three white children in their 19th century finery. Painted in about 1837, for generations, the “Belezaire” of the portrait was missing.
Then, a few years ago, a restoration of the painting uncovered a slender African American youth of about 15, arms folded and looking into the distance, resting against a tree. Records show that Belezaire remained in slavery, eventually living in New Orleans. When that city surrendered to federal forces in 1861, Belezaire disappears from history.
Why was Belezaire’s figure painted over? We will never know why, even as we are unlikely to know what happened to Belezaire. But reading about the portrait has made me wonder about the things we might “paint over” in our walks with God, things we think we can hide from Him or other matters we simply choose not to contemplate because they are too painful.
The late Harry G. Summers, Jr. (1932-1999), Colonel of Infantry and distinguished faculty member of the Army War College, often called people’s attention to the fact that considerable differences in the treatment of the Vietnam War can be seen in the literature published in academia and that published by the veterans who served during the war. Summers also called attention to the fact that the perspective of the veterans differs considerably among themselves as to the time frame of their involvement and their role.
In addition, academic and media people, tend to lump the whole experience, tactics, and strategies of the war together, when four Presidential administrations were involved. Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford faced dramatically different situations and applied after some learning curve dramatically different thinking, tactics and strategies subject to increasingly politicized and predictably unwise Congressional limitations.
The United States now desperately needs -- but will not get -- a non-interventionist foreign policy.
It will not get it for deep structural reasons: because the Yankee Empire, with its massive and unreformable imperial apparatus in DC and elsewhere, will not allow it. That is why the anti-American globalist Deep State found Trump the America-first non-interventionist intolerable, barred him from office by election theft in 2020, and will almost certainly bar him again in 2024.
That means the US will now slog along to its national death, stained with the blood of innocent others and sullied in reputation — having now slouched past Gomorrah and into, even, the genocidal -- until it falls finally of its own weight, like a murderous but exhausted monster. And that unhappy and inglorious end may well come soon, to the relieved cheers of a world freed from bullying and torment by a dark colossus.
“Some people have made transformational changes in…human learning or in one aspect of human life, and their names are forever enshrined in the annals of human history. But Jesus Christ, the greatest man who ever lived, changed virtually every aspect of human life—and most people don’t know it. The greatest tragedy of the Christmas holiday each year is not so much its commercialization…but its trivialization. How tragic it is that people have forgotten Him to whom they owe so very much.” (Rev. D. James Kennedy, in What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994, p. 1).
A Keystone State school board is banning school bus drivers from putting up Christmas decorations. On Friday, just over a week before Christmas, the Wallingford-Swarthmore school district in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, issued a memo to school bus drivers saying, “If you have decorated your bus with anything specific to the Christmas Holiday or any other decorations relating to a specific religion, please remove them immediately.”
The memo concludes, “In addition, employees are instructed not to wear clothing related to Christmas or any other religious holiday.” According to the memo, school district leadership “has been receiving complaints from parents concerning District employees displaying ‘Christmas’ themed decorations and/or wearing clothing of the same nature.” A note adds that the policy is not specific to school bus drivers but “APPLIES TO ALL DISTRICT EMPLOYEES.”
URGENT; ACT NOW: South Carolina’s Article V Con-Con resolutions — S. 369, H. 3676 (BBA), S. 481, H.3895 (term limits), S. 391, H.4626, and H.4625 (delegate bills) — could be scheduled for hearings in their respective committees at any time, and at short notice. Contact your state representative and senator, and urge them to oppose these disastrous resolutions!
Members of the South Carolina General Assembly are seeking to pass a resolution applying to Congress to “call a Convention for proposing Amendments,” under Article V of the Constitution, otherwise known as a constitutional convention (Con-Con) or “convention of the states,” as some erroneously refer to it.
I have written in the past about the similarities of the stress and tensions in our country today to the stress and tensions that were taking place in the years before the Civil War.
A free country will always have debate and differences of opinion. But that debate becomes dangerous and destructive when the differences strike at the core premises that define the very existence of the nation. When we can no longer agree about who we are, what we stand for and why we exist, our very existence comes into question.
As Abraham Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Then the basic premises of our free country were challenged by the existence of slavery.
Despite the tremendous propaganda campaign still ongoing in most of the mainstream media and sponsored social media advertising “news,” the war is not going well for Ukraine. Ukrainian armed forces casualties have risen to unsustainable levels. “Fighting to the last Ukrainian” is looking more like reality than a foolish Biden Administration political boast of Ukrainian commitment to the American and NATO proxy war to weaken and destabilize Russia and bring about a Russian regime change suitable to Neo-con American interests. Various casualty estimates—from Macgregor and several others--of Ukrainian KIA and missing are running as high as 500,000. Amputees exceed 50,000. The Ukrainians are literally running out of manpower. The Ukrainians are having to draft—often with extreme coercion--teen-agers, women, and men in their 60s. One 70-year old Ukrainian tank crewmember was captured by the Russians. Civilian casualties have been relatively light for an intensely artillery centered war. According to the United Nations September 2023 report, just short of 10,000 civilian deaths have occurred, and nearly half of them have been in the Russian ethnic oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk. Ukrainian artillery continues deliberate shelling of civilian business and residential areas there.
At age 87 I have a lot of mostly good memories of Christmases past—of the America that once was (but is no more), and of the many people who “traveled” with me over my life’s road, at least for part of it. How much more time I’ll have to enjoy all of these memories only my Savior and LORD Jesus knows. But I would like to share a few of these “old” memories with you once again. So bear with me. Perhaps you share similar memories. I hope so. If not now, then when you get “old and experienced”, like me.
People on the fence of one of America’s burning issues — girls’ sports — will have a tough time staying there after this week. For the first time in history, a biological boy didn’t just steal a woman’s title or spot on the team, he ripped a four-year Division I scholarship out of a deserving woman’s hands, pouring gasoline on one of the few debates in this country that’s uniting all parents.
Tate Drageset’s story is no ordinary one. Son of a trans activist, who’s been all too eager to exploit her son’s journey for the last decade, Tate still managed to hide his gender from coaches, parents, and other teammates. “Drageset has already been part of several girls’ volleyball teams that made it to state championships, and this year, he was named the MVP at the Girls Junior National Championships. Drageset also won the California Interscholastic Federation’s Division 5 Player of the 2022-23 Year,” Breitbart reported.
MEDIA ADVISORY -- A group of more than a dozen influential pastors from America, Canada, and the United Kingdom, led by Bishop Robert Stearns and Eagles' Wings, returned to their home countries on Friday after a powerful 4-day Mission of Solidarity with the Jewish state.
It was the first known Christian Pastors Solidarity Mission to Israel since the atrocities that took place on October 7th.
During the timely mission, the group of leaders had the opportunity to see first-hand the devastation that the Jewish people experienced in the attacks unleashed against them two months ago. During a visit to Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel, just a few miles from the Gaza border, the group saw the ransacked homes of the community that was brutally destroyed by Hamas. Escorted by IDF officers, they spoke with family members of hostages who are still being held in Gaza.
WASHINGTON -- Prison Fellowship International’s flagship in-prison program, The Prisoner’s Journey® (TPJ) has reached its 10-year anniversary. This program, launched in South Africa and Nigeria in 2014, now runs in 35 countries across six continents. TPJ takes those in prison on a journey of self-discovery through the Gospel of Mark where they encounter Jesus the prisoner to learn who He is, why He came and what it means to follow Him.
Since inception, more than 1,600,000 prisoners in nearly 900 prisons around the world have been invited to learn about Jesus through TPJ. Of those, 772,379 have accepted the invitation, continued through the eight-week course and made a commitment to Christ through program graduation. Nearly 70% of those who complete TPJ demonstrate true heart conversion by continuing on to participation in another evangelism or discipleship course, a strong indicator of lasting life change.
SAN DIEGO -- On Saturday, December 16, 2023, the United States Navy ‘Mother of the Fleet,’ the late Verna M. Linzey, D.D., was honored and saluted by PFC Gabriel Pangle, USMC at Wreaths Across America ceremony, hosted by Miramar National Cemetery. He also rendered honors to Verna’s husband, the late Captain Stanford E. Linzey, Jr., CHC, USN (Ret.), who was a World War II hero as a survivor of the sinking of the USS Yorktown in the Battle of Midway.
With U.S. government revenues rising, 2023 might have been a good year to get America's post-COVID-19 finances on track, but the budget deficit is still growing. You can thank overspending for this. It's also the reason we've had to live with inflation, higher interest rates and the threat of massive future tax hikes for another year.
That sets up 2024 as the time when Congress might abandon a dangerous idea that helped get us here. I hope they find a better idea to replace it.
The Congressional Budget Office's latest Monthly Budget Review for November reveals the alarming trend: despite a 19% increase in revenues, amounting to $107 billion, the federal budget deficit has swelled to $383 billion -- $47 billion more than the same period in the previous fiscal year. This surge is attributed to expenditures outpacing revenues by $155 billion.
LOVES PARK, Ill. -- A unique Christmas program will bring the gift of hope to thousands of children caught in the devastating wars in Israel and Ukraine.
American Christians are supporting the annual Christmas campaign called Immanuel's Child that will deliver gifts and a "star of hope" to as many as 75,000 needy children this festive season, including those living on the frontline of wars in Israel and Ukraine.
ATLANTA -- Peachtree Proofreading Services proudly announces a significant milestone in their history. They have contributed to Bibles that now exceed one billion copies distributed worldwide.
“Our journey, deeply rooted in a mission to protect and advance God’s Word, celebrates a profound impact--over one billion Bibles,” says Christopher Hudson, President of Peachtree. “This milestone is not just about business. It’s about the individual lives touched by the Scripture translations we’ve helped to develop and proofread.”
Repeat after me, class: Growth does NOT cause inflation. Write it on the blackboard 100 times.
For decades, the economics profession has been trying to tell us all just the opposite. They keep shoveling out the dumbest economic concept of all time: the Phillips Curve. This was the lame-brained "theory" by neo-Keynesian economists of the 1960s and 1970s that to slow inflation, the Federal Reserve needs to raise unemployment and slow down economic growth.
The whole concept of an inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation blew up when it was put into practice in the mid-1970s and the result was rising inflation AND rising unemployment. Then in the 1980s and '90s, with free-market supply-side policies in place, we had low inflation and low unemployment.
On Tuesday, Rasmussen Reports and The Heartland Institute released the results of a new poll indicating that one in five voters who submitted a mail-in ballot during the 2020 election admit to committing fraudulent activity in violation of federal law, including filling out a ballot for a friend or family member and submitting a ballot for a state they no longer live in. The results are unnerving election integrity experts and casting further doubt on the veracity of the 2020 election results, in which numerous irregularities were uncovered.
Congress is trying to tie up loose ends before leaving town this week. Securing the border, passing the defense authorization bill, providing supplemental aid to Israel and Ukraine, and extending the Foreign Surveillance Act are the outstanding issues that Members must either reach an agreement on or leave unresolved when they leave Washington for the rest of this year.
Republicans continue to advocate for the passage of strong border security legislation as tens of thousands of illegal immigrants pour over our border daily and even liberal-run sanctuary cities decry the influx. Republicans, after being thwarted by the Democrats all year, are tying additional aid to Ukraine to acceptance of real border security measures. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the White House this week to ask for more money (in addition to the $113 billion he has already received). President Joe Biden falsely blames House Republicans for the holdup. However, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has been clear about his expectations:
LOS ANGELES -- The "It's a Baby" ad campaign video was awarded the Television Messaging Campaign of the Year in the 2024 National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Media Awards. The award recognizes creativity, innovation and excellence in production quality as the winning campaign stands for free speech and/or against threats to free speech or religion. Produced by Cooke Media Group for Focus on the Family's It's a Baby ad campaign, the 60-second video counteracts the devaluation of life with its message that identifies the pre-born child as a baby and not a fetus.
On October 4, 2023, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) published a proposed rule that would create an entirely new type of company called a Natural Asset Company (NAC). An NAC, “is a corporation whose primary purpose is to actively manage, maintain, restore (as applicable), and grow the value of natural assets and their production of ecosystem services.”
“This means that NACs would be given license to control lands, both public and private, and would be required not to conduct any ‘unsustainable activities, such as mining, that lead to the degradation of the ecosystems,’” stated Margaret Byfield of American Stewards of Liberty, writing in RealClearMarkets.
AUSTIN, Texas -- On Tuesday, Dec. 5, the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) filed a second lawsuit attacking Texas' protective abortion laws, seeking a court to block enforcement of the laws in a case involving a woman whose unborn child has been diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a condition which sadly is often fatal for the child before or soon after birth. The case, Cox v. Texas, is currently in a Travis County state district court. This follows a similar case brought by the CRR, Zurawski v. Texas, now pending before the Texas Supreme Court. Our news release on the Zurawski case is here.
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