By Yvonne AdamsEditor@newsnblues.caThursday, December 24, 2020Volume 1568
Current and archived Newsletters, Commentaries and Articles can be accessed at: www.newsnblues.ca
“During the beautiful and holy season of Christmas, our hearts are filled with the same wonder, gratitude, and joy that led the psalmist of old to ask, “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” At Christmas, we, too, rejoice in the mystery of God’s love for us – love revealed through the gift of Christ’s birth. Born into a family of a young carpenter and his wife, in a stable shared by beasts of the field, our Savior came to live among ordinary men. Yet, in time, the miraculous nature of this simple event became clear. Christ’s birth changed the course of history, bringing the light of hope to a world dwelling in the darkness of sin and death. Today, nearly 2,000 years later, the shining promise of that first Christmas continues to give our lives a sense of peace and purpose. Our words and deeds, when guided by the example of Christ’s life, can help others share in the joy of man’s Redemption.”
- George H.W. Bush, December 18, 1989- Source: en.wikiquote.org
Did you know……
- As reported by AccuWeather, winter was in full force across the central U.S. on Dec. 23, 2020, as a blizzard lashed the region with dangerously low temperatures. And in southern Ontario, rain is forecast to begin Wednesday night ahead of an approaching low pressure system. Snow may become mixed with ice pellets for a period Thursday or Thursday night. By late Thursday, or early Friday, the snow may become heavy at times, resulting in hazardous travel conditions. Local blowing snow is also possible.
- Wineries and other businesses in 19 California counties have been ordered to shut down or heavily restrict indoor operations under the COVID-19 restrictions issued by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to theleoterrell.com. However, his own winery is exempt.
- On December 22, 2020, President Donald J. Trump granted full pardons to 15 individuals and commuted part or all of the sentences of an additional 5 individuals.
- On December 23, 2020, President Donald Trump granted full pardons to former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former adviser Roger Stone. He also issued a full pardon for Charles Kushner, a real estate developer and the father of Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
- On December 23, 2020, France began allowing people to enter the country from Britain again after several days in which it and other European nations imposed travel bans to contain a COVID-19 variant spreading in Britain.
- VOA News reports that U.S. lawmakers are expected to endorse $1.9 billion to fund a program to remove telecom network equipment that the U.S. government says poses national security risks as part of a year-end spending bill and COVID-19 bill, a source briefed on the matter said on Sunday.
- Some 803,000 U.S. workers filed for unemployment compensation last week, a historically high level but 89,000 fewer than the previous week, the U.S. Labor Department reported as the coronavirus crisis continues to weaken the American labor market nine months after the pandemic began, as per VOA News.
- On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, under the pretext of upholding the Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty of 1978.
- On December 24, 1970, after the FLQ crisis in Canada was resolved, army troops were withdrawn from Quebec.
- The Treaty of Peace and Amity between Britain and the United States of America was signed by British and American representatives at Ghent, Belgium, ending the War of 1812. By terms of the treaty, all conquered territory was to be returned, and commissions were planned to settle the boundary of the United States and Canada.
By Jake MacAulayThe American ViewDecember 22, 2020
Video Column
In their effort to make a point, those who discuss law and government and politics for a living often miss the most crucial – the most critical point of all. So, as we celebrate Christmas, this is a good time to take a deep breath and revisit the first principles of America.
We should remember the political significance of Christmas. Now don’t get distracted by arguments that early Christians latched onto a pre-existing pagan holiday to establish the date of Christmas. That may be true, but it is a distraction from what’s truly important. The important thing is the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ.
The birth of the Savior is the most significant political event in human history. This bears repeating. The birth of Jesus Christ is the most significant political event in the history of the universe.
Why? Well, simply put, it is because liberty does not and cannot exist absent the acknowledgement of the Almighty, Omniscient, Living and Everlasting God of the Bible, whose Son is Jesus Christ — Who created the world, entered His own creation, and sacrificed His life to cover our sins and make us presentable before the Throne of Grace.
For liberty to exist in the world, this acknowledgement of Christ’s authority must exist in the hearts of the people and it must be the operating principle of civil government.
If it is, then peace on earth will prevail. But to the extent that the hearts of the people are distracted and the civil government forgets that it is a ministry of Jesus Christ (look up Romans 13), is the extent that injustice, chaos, corruption and tyranny will prevail.
Now you may not share the Christian beliefs I’ve just described, but that doesn’t affect my point here because it is indisputable that the founders of American government believed them and established a system of law and liberty based on them.
So, your disbelief in them does not extinguish them. Whatever beliefs you personally hold, please remember that far from violating any law, the acknowledgement of Jesus Christ as the Source of Law and Government is the very first presupposition of American government. It is contained in the Declaration of Independence, which is the organic law of the United States. The Declaration states that there is a Creator-God, that our rights to Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness come from Him, and that the purpose of civil government is simply to secure the rights He gave to His creation.
Therefore, celebrating Christmas through Nativity displays, public prayer, sacred song, and all other forms of Christian witness are consistent with and supportive of the American View of Law and Liberty and are the essence of American government.
Publicly celebrating the blessed birth of the Savior of the world is not only lawful, it is patriotic in the purest sense and the most politically correct thing you can ever do.
So with that, we at the Institute on the Constitution wish you a very Merry Christmas this year.
Sign up for a FREE U.S. Constitution course with Jake MacAulay and the Institute on the Constitution. Jake MacAulay serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Institute on the Constitution (IOTC), an educational outreach that presents the founders’ “American View”of law and government. IOTC has produced thousands of graduates in all 50 states with a full understanding of the Biblical principles on which America’s founding documents are based. The former co-host of the syndicated talk show, The Sons of Liberty, he is an ordained minister and has spoken to audiences nation-wide, and has established the American Club, a constitutional study group in public and private schools. Jake has been seen on Yahoo News, Fox News, The Blaze, AP, CBS, NBC, The Weekly Standard, and more…
Contact:Email: Jake@TheAmericanView.comTwitter: @constitutionjmFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/jake.m.macaulayMake your tax-deductible donation here!
www.theamericanview.com
Republished by permission of the author
By VOA NewsDecember 23, 2020
U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Tuesday to not sign a massive year-end bill passed by Congress that includes nearly $900 billion in coronavirus aid and $1.4 trillion in annual government funding.
In a video posted on social media, Trump highlighted what he called “wasteful spending” on various programs that are common in annual U.S. funding measures, such as military aid to Egypt, museum funding and money for agricultural and wildlife efforts.
His specific objections to the coronavirus relief portion focused on what he said was insufficient help for small businesses that have suffered during the pandemic, and on the size of direct payments to individuals.
The bill that overwhelmingly passed both houses of Congress includes $600 for most individuals, half the level from a March aid package. Trump says it should be $2,000 per person this round.
"I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000, or $4,000 dollars for a couple,” Trump said. “I'm also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation and to send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package.”
Democrats had pushed for larger payments as part of a much larger coronavirus relief package, including a $3 trillion version the House passed in May and one totaling $2 trillion it approved in October. But neither advanced in the Senate as Republicans opposed that level of spending and pushed for a more focused relief effort…….
For more, read: https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-politics/trump-threatens-not-sign-covid-19-aid-package-government-funding-bill
By Adam Michel / @adamnmichel / The Daily SignalDecember 22, 2020
It looks as though Congress won’t be including additional direct aid to state and local governments in the end-of-year COVID-19 relief package.
Congress is right to deny an additional bailout.
Apart from the fact that it isn’t the federal government’s responsibility to cover state and local revenue shortfalls, most states don’t need the aid.
According to the most recent data, state and local combined revenues are close to unchanged compared with last year.
The federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic has already provided $360 billion to state and local governments, which comes in addition to the nearly $800 billion provided to state and local governments in the base fiscal year 2020 budget.
The next package could send an additional $100 billion or more to states to support education systems, vaccine distribution, and subsidies for mass transit.
According to the most recent data released by the Census Bureau through the end of September, state and local combined revenues increased by $20 billion, compared with the same 12-month period in 2019.
State-only revenues over the same period declined by $24 billion, or about 2.2%, because they tend to rely on more volatile taxes, such as corporate and personal income taxes, instead of property taxes.
The pandemic makes estimating and comparing revenues across years challenging, but any way you look at the most recent data, revenues are performing much better than most predictions.
For example, state and local combined revenues are only down 3.6% ($27 billion) from April through September, during the height of the economic disruptions. State-only revenues over the same six months declined by $47 billion, or about 8%.
Just looking at the most pessimistic state-only funding figures, the existing aid Congress has authorized is almost eight times the revenues states have lost in the first six months of the pandemic. The $75.5 billion in state rainy day funds are also more than enough to make up the $47 billion of state-only revenue declines.
Some states have struggled more than others. States that rely heavily on revenue from natural resources or tourism—such as Alaska, North Dakota, and Hawaii—have faced more significant double-digit declines in revenue.
But for each of these states, federal aid to date exceeds lost revenues.
Still, some states that have been particularly hard hit by the health crisis or that have maintained overly burdensome economic restrictions may find themselves tight on cash.
In those limited cases, states have budgetary options to constrain cost growth that are normal in the private sector. A one-year pay freeze, for example, could save states about $50 billion, and suspending pension contributions and accruals (so as to not further exacerbate existing shortfalls) for one year could save up to $234 billion.
Those reforms, made in conjunction with public employee unions, could stabilize state budgets without cutting crucial services or instituting mass layoffs.
Federal subsidies set a dangerous precedent that could lead to trillions of dollars in additional federal bailouts of the most irresponsible states and localities.
For example, two of the most vocal state governments asking for additional federal bailouts, New York and Illinois, already had budget deficits of $6 billion and $1.1 billion before the pandemic hit. Their budget problems would have existed with or without the coronavirus.
Federal aid also tends to expand state budgets and make them less resilient during future crises, perpetuating problems such as systematic pension underfunding.
State bailouts do little more than temporarily redistribute local costs to federal taxpayers across all 50 states. And it certainly doesn’t make sense for the federal government to assume state and local shortfalls when the federal government already has about seven times as much debt per capita as state and local governments.
Federal aid also undermines local decision-making about the best pace for reopening society. State and local policymakers oversee decisions that affect businesses’ ability to operate, and they should assume the potential costs of new and ongoing closures of businesses and schools they impose.
States with the most restrictive economic policies are suffering from the largest business, employment, and economic losses. Federal taxpayers should not continue to subsidize state and local decisions (which often aren’t backed by data or science) to shutter businesses and ruin livelihoods.
By not providing additional state bailouts, Congress has wisely recognized that more funding is both unnecessary and counterproductive.
Adam Michel focuses on tax policy and the federal budget as a policy analyst in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/12/22/congress-is-right-not-to-pass-bailouts-for-states-and-cities/
By J.B. WilliamsNewsWithViews.comDecember 23rd, 2020
Forced masks, social distancing, house arrest, unemployment, business closures, vaccinations, totally fraudulent elections, legal voter disenfranchisement? So much for freedom and liberty…land of the free, home of the brave! You don’t even have “legal standing” to defend yourself or your country, according to recent decisions by the deeply corrupted U.S. Supreme Court.
According to modern day legal injustice, it’s only “your body, your choice” when you want to kill your own child in the womb. But it’s NOT “your body or your choice” if you want to perform sexual acts for a living, inhale, ingest or inject “government unapproved” illicit drugs into your own body, or choose to not where a mask, or get a vaccine.
Roe v. Wade 1974 – YOUR BODY, YOUR CHOICE! The leftists call this “settled law.” Why doesn’t it apply to your choices on a mask, staying at home or running your business? The answer is…because YOU DO NOT ENFORCE YOUR WILL! They enforce their will on YOU!
According to today’s political ruling class, you’re only as free as they will allow you to be. Your individual liberty will be decided by them. According to them, you are too stupid to rule your own lives, much less this country, by any democratic process. And according to your track record over the past 50-years, they could be right!
Your Constitution and Bill of Rights no longer exist. Rioting, looting, vandalizing property and burning cities is “protected free speech.” But a right to your day in court, or any other means of redress of grievance, is gone!
It’s illegal for any Elector to cast a ballot for any illegal, fraudulent, or criminal candidate. But 306 Presidential Electors just did on December 14th. “Fake News” is also illegal under libel, slander, and misreporting of facts…but that’s the only kind of news we have in our country today…….
© 2020 NWV – All Rights Reserved
JB Williams is a writer on matters of history and American politics with more than 3000 pieces published over a twenty-year span. He is co-author of the just released book – TRUMPED – The New American Revolution – with co-author Timothy Harrington, published by COFBooks.com. He has a decidedly conservative reverence for the Charters of Freedom, the men and women who have paid the price of freedom and liberty for all, and action oriented real-time solutions for modern challenges. He is a Christian, a husband, a father, a researcher, author and writer as well as a small business owner. He is co-founder of action organizations The United States Patriots Union, a civilian parent organization for The Veteran Defenders of America. He is also co-founder of The North American Law Center, a citizen run investigative legal research and activism organization focused upon constitutionally protected Natural Rights under Natural Law. Williams also co-hosts TNALC Radio every Sunday evening at 5:00 PM ET with TNALC Lead Counsel Stephen Pidgeon. Email: jb.uspu@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.PatriotsUnion.org
For more, read: https://newswithviews.com/my-body-my-country-my-choice/Republished by permission of the author
Pfizer-BioNTech said Wednesday they will supply the United States with an additional 100 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine as the country struggles to contain surges in infections.
The drug makers said they expect to complete the delivery by the end of July in a nearly $2 billion deal with the federal government.
“Securing more doses from Pfizer and BioNTech for delivery in the second quarter of 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. “This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021.”
On December 11, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use, clearing the way for the drug makers to supply the government with an initial 100 million doses.
The agreement announced Wednesday stipulates the companies will deliver at least 70 million of the additional doses by June 30, with the remaining 30 million doses being delivered by July 31. The government can also purchase up to an additional 400 million doses.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first of two to be approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration, the other developed by rival Moderna, Inc. The first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine throughout the U.S. began December 13.
The U.S. continues to lead the world in COVID-19 deaths, with nearly 323,000, and in infections, with more than 18.2 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease.
Health care workers and nursing home residents have been among the first to be vaccinated. More than 600,000 people in the U.S. received their first doses as of Monday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two shots to be fully effective.
https://www.voanews.com/usa/additional-100-million-doses-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-be-distributed-us
December 22, 2020
I recommend this LifeSiteNews.com article:https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ontario-going-back-into-strict-lockdown-effective-december-26
Mary Street North, Oshawa, ON L1G 7X1 (905) 435-0333
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