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| American Airlines Flight Collides with Helicopter in Washington | | View on Our YouTube Channel |  | Washington, DC Jan. 29, 2025 - Added at press time, we have the collision of a U.S. Army Sikorsky H-60 helicopter with American Eagle Flight No. 5342 carrying 50 passengers and four crew members on a flight from Wichita, Kansas. Read more... |
| Deadly Los Angeles Fire
Toll Rises to 29 | | View on Our YouTube Channel |  | Los Angeles, CA. Jan. 27, 2025 - At least 29 people died as a result of wild fires that were fueled by severe drought and strong winds. Thousands of firefighters fought the infernal across 45 square miles of densely populated Los Angeles County. Read more... |
| Thousands Return to Northern Gaza as Part of Ceasefire | | View on Our YouTube Channel |  | Deir Al-Balah, Gaza Strip Jan. 24, 2025 - There is a cease-fire deal which has concluded with the return of Gaza residents to the north for the first time since the beginning of the 15-month war between Israel and Hamas. Read more... |
| Tik-Tok Saved by Trump One
Day after Going Dark | | View on Our YouTube Channel |  | Washington, DC Jan. 20, 2025 - Trump gave a reprieve by executive order to TikTok after it was already shut down. He gave it 75 more days to sell the app to an American company. Read more... |
| Trump Is Back | | View on Our YouTube Channel |  | Washington, D.C. Jan. 20, 2025 - On this date, Donald Trump returned to power as the 47th president of the United States. In his inaugural address he promised that, “the golden age of America begins right now.” and “From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world.” Read more... |
| Deadly Attacks in
New Orleans and Las Vegas | | View on Our YouTube Channel |  | New Orleans, LA. Jan. 01, 2025 - On January 1st , Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an American=born resident of Houston Texas, drove a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street, in New Orleans. Fifteen people were killed, including the perpetrator. Fortunately, Police shot the attacker and prevented further deaths. Read more... |
| The House Passes a Stop-gap Budget Bill on the Evening of the Last Day | | View on Our YouTube Channel |  | Washington, D.C. Dec. 20, 2024 - The House of Representatives passed a last ditch budget bill and sent it to the senate this evening which should pass in the senate without problems. The newest House proposal is a 118-page bill that contains most of the provisions that were put in place in the bipartisan bill that was agreed to on Wednesday. The bill includes $100 billion for disaster aid, $30 billion for farmers and a one-year extension of the farm bill, provisions that were under heavy debate prior to this week's votes. Read more... |
| Rebels Take Syria as Fifty-Three Year Assad Family Reign Ends | | View on Our YouTube Channel |  | Damascus, Syria Dec. 08, 2024 - Early this morning rebels took over Damascus and had the government turned over to them peacefully with Assad apparently nowhere to be found. It was reported that Assad's family had fled earlier to Russia and Russian state media reported that Assad himself landed in Moscow after having fled. This is a historic moment as the collapse of more than 53 years of al-Assad family rule has finally ended. Read more... |
| Texas State Board of Education Approves Bible Curriculum for K- 5 | | View on Our YouTube Channel |  | Austin, TX. Nov. 23, 2024 - CNN reports that public schools in Texas now have the option to teach a Christian biblical view as part of their K-5th grade curriculum. It is a part of the state developed curriculum called Bluebonnet Learning. School districts in Texas are autonomous in choosing their curriculum, however, the state offered $60 per student to accept this curriculum will be hard for most to turn down. Read more... |
| Matt Gaetz Withdraws Nomination | | View on Our YouTube Channel |  | Washington, DC. Nov. 21, 2024 - ABC News announced today that former Rep. Matt Gaetz has withdrawn his name for consideration for Attorney General in President-elect Donald Trump's upcoming administration. "I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday," Gaetz wrote in a post on X. "I appreciate their thoughtful feedback - and the incredible support of so many. Read more... |
| Mass Deportations Using the Military Confirmed by President-Elect Trump | | View on Our YouTube Channel |  Washington, DC. Nov. 18, 2024 - According to ABC News, President-elect Donald Trump confirmed he would declare a national emergency in order to implement his campaign promise of mass deportations of illegal immigrants. Trump replied on social media that such reports of using military assets was indeed "TRUE!!!".
In his original campaign pledge at a rally at Madison Square Garden he stated, "On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, then kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible."
Commentary
Leviticus 19:33-34 states, "'When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.'" ESV
You did not have to become a Jew to be a foreigner in Israel. To become a Jew, all you originally needed was a belief in the one true God and circumcision. To become a Christian, the requirement was less physical and was simply, but most importantly, repent and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. To become American, it was once much simpler as a portion of Emma Lazarus' poem on the Statue of Liberty monument states:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
In the most egregious use of the U.S. military domestically since the attack on the veterans of World War I on the capitol mall by Herbert Hoover, the republican president-elect intends to use the military for his own political purposes. Republicans are supposedly for States-rights, however they have failed miserably under the Trump administration who would impose his MAGA will on as many states with which he can. Governor Walz, the 2024 Vice Presidential candidate for the Democrats, stated his states-rights position on immigration in 2018 in a CBS interview, "My position on Minnesota becoming a sanctuary state boils down to who has the responsibility for enforcing immigration law." While Trump supports the states as having a right to determine their own rules on abortion, he refuses to give them the authority over immigration within their own border, except to demand they send all undocumented aliens packing. Now he wants to use the military. As a military man of 20 years, I find that offensive and quiet bordering on an unlawful order, forbidden under the post-Vietnam Code of Conduct. I hope the generals remind their commander-in-chief of that code and that such a use of the military domestically is the unlawful act that it is and they are not bound to follow such an order.
MAGA does not mean Make America Great Again. It is a dog whistle for Make America White Again. That explains the support from the KKK, Nazi groups, Proud Boys, etc., of whom Trump said there were good people and patriots. Donald does not have a problem with European immigration and sponsored his wives to come to America, he just hates all those others out there. Do you hate immigrants? As a Christian, have you followed God's commandment and loved our immigrants ... all of our immigrants - legal or not? The Bible made no such legal distinction. Trump's own mother was a Scottish immigrant, as was his first wife Ivana from Czechoslovakia and his current wife, our former and soon First Lady, Melania from Slovenia. Remember the days when former Eastern Europeans, even naturalized citizens, were suspicious and could not hold certain security clearances. Love your immigrants. The Donald does, if they are white and from Europe.
Yes, let's make America great again. You know what they mean. Let's go back to the days of my Daddy, where he said there was a sign outside the city limits of Cullman, Alabama stating something like, "Nigger, don't let the sun set on you in Cullman". When I received a note scrawled in bad penmanship by mail as editor of the Independent Press stating, "Nigger, take this penny and save on welfare. Go back to pickin white mans cotton. KKK" [there was a penny enclosed]. Being white myself, I found the letter both amusing, yet frightening in the mid-seventies. As a boy in the mid-fifties in Birmingham, Alabama, I remember the days of Jim Crow when my mother admonished me not to drink out of the water fountain labeled "Colored" (she spelled it out for me as an English lesson), because it was nasty. There was also the time I went to the back of the city bus to go to school and the bus driver hollered, "You better get back up here boy before I tan your hide." The people around me were encouraging me to obey him, as they feared they would be in trouble having a white boy in the colored section. Yeah, those were the good ole days - just ask a large segment of Trump voters pining for their return.
For those Republicans who now revere Ronald Reagan more than their founding President Abraham Lincoln (and certainly have forgotten his notion of equality for all in America), I leave you with his final words in his farewell address:
January 19, 1989: "Now, tomorrow is a special day for me. I'm going to receive my gold watch. And since this is the last speech that I will give as President, I think it's fitting to leave one final thought, an observation about a country which I love. It was stated best in a letter I received not long ago. A man wrote me and said: 'You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.'
"Yes, the torch of Lady Liberty symbolizes our freedom and represents our heritage, the compact with our parents, our grandparents, and our ancestors. It is that lady who gives us our great and special place in the world. For it's the great life force of each generation of new Americans that guarantees that America's triumph shall continue unsurpassed into the next century and beyond. Other countries may seek to compete with us; but in one vital area, as a beacon of freedom and opportunity that draws the people of the world, no country on Earth comes close.
"This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America's greatness. We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people - our strength - from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.
A number of years ago, an American student traveling in Europe took an East German ship across the Baltic Sea. One of the ship's crewmembers from East Germany, a man in his sixties, struck up a conversation with the American student. After a while the student asked the man how he had learned such good English. And the man explained that he had once lived in America. He said that for over a year he had worked as a farmer in Oklahoma and California, that he had planted tomatoes and picked ripe melons. It was, the man said, the happiest time of his life. Well, the student, who had seen the awful conditions behind the Iron Curtain, blurted out the question, "Well, why did you ever leave?" "I had to," he said, "the war ended." The man had been in America as a German prisoner of war.
"Now, I don't tell this story to make the case for former POW's. Instead, I tell this story just to remind you of the magical, intoxicating power of America. We may sometimes forget it, but others do not. Even a man from a country at war with the United States, while held here as a prisoner, could fall in love with us. Those who become American citizens love this country even more. And that's why the Statue of Liberty lifts her lamp to welcome them to the golden door.
"It is bold men and women, yearning for freedom and opportunity, who leave their homelands and come to a new country to start their lives over. They believe in the American dream. And over and over, they make it come true for themselves, for their children, and for others. They give more than they receive. They labor and succeed. And often they are entrepreneurs. But their greatest contribution is more than economic, because they understand in a special way how glorious it is to be an American. They renew our pride and gratitude in the United States of America, the greatest, freest nation in the world - the last, best hope of man on Earth." [President Ronald Reagan]
You see, immigrants, (almost all of them, are not the criminals, rapists and drain on resources that Trump would have you believe. The crime rate amongst illegal immigrants is lower than the general population. They contribute to the economy greatly. It is estimated that the cost of such a mass deportation to be almost a trillion dollars over a decade. That is just the up front cost. The loss of labor and its impact on the economy would be massive as the construction and agriculture industries would lose at least one in eight workers and one in 14 workers in hospitality, including 30 percent of the workers in major construction trades, such as plasterers, roofers and painters; nearly 28 percent of graders and sorters of agriculture produces; and a fourth of all housekeeping cleaners. Most Americans are too lazy to do the work or find it beneath their dignity. There are at least 1 million undocumented immigrant entrepreneurs who generated $27.1 billion in total business income in 2022.
Overall, mass deportation would lead to a loss of 4.2 percent to 6.8 percent of annual U.S. GDP, or $1.1 trillion to $1.7 trillion in 2022 dollars. In comparison, the U.S. GDP shrunk by 4.3 percent during the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009 making the chances of another large economic downturn under Trump's next administration highly probable. The negative impact would be the most significant in California, Texas, and Florida, the three states that were home to 47.2 percent of the country's undocumented immigrants in 2022 and where one in every 20 residents would be deported. (American Immigration Council)
It is not a surprise, when you consider that Trump, thought by his voters to be great on the economy and the nation as a whole, is quite the opposite. It is also not a surprise in that almost every Republican president since Herbert Hoover has cause an economic downturn with their trickle-down economic policies of helping the rich at the expense of the poor and middle-class. Even Reagan caused economic woes, it was just delayed until his Vice-President George H. W. Bush took office (remember "Its the economy , stupid!") True conservatives should be aware of the poor results recorded during Trump's previous four-year administration:
• The federal debt held by the public went up, from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion or 7.2 trillion dollars.
• The economy lost 2.7 million jobs.
• The unemployment rate increased by 1.7 percentage points to 6.4%.
• The trade deficit in goods and services in 2020 was the highest since 2008 and increased 36.3%.
• The number of people lacking health insurance rose by 3 million.
• Illegal immigration increased.
• The murder rate in his last year rose to the highest level since 1997.
• Home prices rose 27.5%
(FactCheck.org}
In fact, much of the inflation that was credited to Biden's administration, was caused by many of the fiscal policies of the Trump administration. Yet, Trump used inflation to win the 2024 election when he himself contributed to much of it. You cannot let the rich get out of paying taxes, yet keep spending to the greatest deficit in our nation's history. Any high school economics student can tell you that causes inflation. Now Trump, in his xenophobic frenzy, wants to contribute to the loss of 4.2 percent to 6.8 percent of annual U.S. GDP, while reducing taxes for the wealthy once again and raising tariffs, which will cause inflation to go into obit.
Enough said. God commanded us to love immigrants, so how can any good Christian support this attack on millions of people contributing greatly to our American economy and who just want to be free.
Commentary from Larry Joe McDowell, Editor, Christian Press.
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