Iraqi Catholic Official Who Survived 5 Assassination Attempts: ‘Jesus Told Me Not to Fear’

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Assyrian Iraqi Christian Pascale Warda was not deterred when would-be assailants tried to kill her five times, vowing instead to bring the light of good governance to her nation stricken by the aftermath of war. . .

Speaking to the Register on Nov. 27 in Budapest, where she was attending the Second International Conference on Christian Persecution, Warda recounts those attempts on her life, explains how her faith helped her get through them, and how her “apostolic formation” equipped her to battle against corruption against all odds.

What exactly happened when attempts were made on your life, and how much did your faith help you through those times?

It’s important to see faith is a part of you; it’s not something you can take or leave from somewhere. It’s your life. It’s not a question of: “Ah, I will be Christian or not Christian; I’m very Christian now, and afterward I’m not a Christian.” No, no — even when I don’t speak about Christianity or Christian issues, what I do or say has a Christian perspective, even subconsciously, because I’ve grown up like that. I grew up Christian and was educated a Christian.

A French journalist was staying with me and writing a “day in the life” of me as a minister. We got in the car with many bodyguards, and he said: “You’re in danger! How do you feel? You are not afraid?” I said: “Afraid, yeah, maybe, but to stop, no. Nothing will stop me.” “How can you go?” he asked, and he was afraid to go with me. I said, “As you like, you can stay at home. I will go.” “What is making you go?” he asked. “Nobody is making me go, just this: In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — and I go. Jesus told me not to fear, and so I will not fear. If I’m ever called to be a martyr, so be it. I am here for that. If Jesus wants that, I’ll be in the service of all these people who are living in great darkness, bringing them a little of his light.” “No one speaks like this,” he said. “I said, ‘Yes they do, and yet you’re French, but you say this as though it’s from the 13th century. Well, it’s our life today.’”

(Read more from “Iraqi Catholic Official Who Survived 5 Assassination Attempts: ‘Jesus Told Me Not to Fear'” HERE)

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Catholic Exorcist Warns of Rise in ‘Aggressive Satanism’ Among Young People

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Exorcist Father Francois Dermine for the Archdiocese of Ancona-Osimo in Italy said the problems of society can be blamed on a rise in “aggressive Satanism” in an article in Crux.

Dermine said young people can be especially affected by demonic energies because of secularism, imagery in video games and a lack of role models. . .

Dermine called the involvement of young people in a culture that celebrates the demonic a “Satanist mentality,” saying that those who are engaged with that culture “can become evil themselves very easily.”

“We must not underestimate this,” Dermine said, “because violence among young people is becoming more and more diffused. A violent mentality is very dangerous for our society, very, very dangerous. Our society risks collapse if it continues like this.” (Read more from “Catholic Exorcist Warns of Rise in ‘Aggressive Satanism’ Among Young People” HERE)

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Hunter and His New Wife Omitted From Biden Family Christmas Greeting

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Christmas greetings from the Biden family were conspicuously missing two members who are the subject of considerable scandal and chatter: Hunter Biden and his wife, Melissa.

Joe Biden posted a photo on Twitter late Christmas morning that included most members of the Biden clan along with a video featuring two of the family dogs. The Bidens added the message: “Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. With love, from my family to yours.”

Hours later, the former vice president’s Twitter account posted a video featuring Champ and Major Biden, two German shepherds. “When we say Merry Christmas from the entire Biden family, that means even the dogs.” Neither his son nor his new daughter-in-law appear in either of the tweets.

The scandals surrounding Hunter Biden, 49, are fraught politically for his father, currently mounting a third White House run. On Christmas Eve, news broke that private investigators hired by Lunden Roberts, the mother of Hunter Biden’s 16-month-old child, alleged in a court filing that Hunter Biden is the subject of multiple criminal investigations. His lawyers called the accusation “a scheme by a non-party simply to make scandalous allegations in the pending suit to gain some quick media attention.”

Hunter Biden previously denied having had relations with Roberts, although the results of a court-ordered paternity test released in November confirmed he is the father. Joe Biden, 77, has so far refused to comment on the matter. Roberts, 28, previously worked as a stripper in Washington. (Read more from “Hunter and His New Wife Omitted From Biden Family Christmas Greeting” HERE)

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For China’s Underground Churches, This Was No Easy Christmas

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Li Chengju glared at her prison interrogator as he pressed her to renounce her Christian church and condemn her pastor. . .

“I’m a citizen who has faith,” she told the interrogator. “God knows everything you are doing and he will judge you one day.”

Then she repeated a saying she’d heard at church about the Chinese president: “Xi Jinping is sinning against God. If he doesn’t repent, he will be judged by God.” . . .

The government calls its campaign “Sinicization” — a euphemism for turning faith into a tool for indoctrination in Chinese Communist Party ideology. The official five-year plan, issued in 2018, calls for inserting “patriotic education” and “socialist core values” into churches, revising the Bible and using church sermons to enforce party leadership and reject foreign influences. . .

“Every day, we’re in a battle with fear,” she said. “But we can pray, and God will be faithful.” (Read more from “For China’s Underground Churches, This Was No Easy Christmas” HERE)

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Corrupt Murkowski ‘Disturbed’ by ‘Total Coordination’ Vow Between McConnell, Trump on Impeachment

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said Tuesday that she was “disturbed” to hear that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) promised President Donald Trump that they would coordinate on the upcoming Senate impeachment trial.

McConnell recently said that there would be “total coordination” between the Senate and White House on the upcoming Senate impeachment trial; this disturbed the Alaska Republican.

She said, “And in fairness, when I heard that I was disturbed. To me, it means that we have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense, and so I heard what leader McConnell had said, I happened to think that that has further confused the process.”

Murkowski criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) impeachment as rushed. “Speaker Pelosi was very clear, very direct that her goal was to get this done before Christmas,” she said.

Murkowski was also one of three Senate Republicans not to back a letter sponsored by McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC), criticizing the Democrats’ closed-door, secretive impeachment inquiry. (Read more from “Corrupt Murkowski ‘Disturbed’ by ‘Total Coordination’ Vow Between Mcconnell, Trump on Impeachment” HERE)

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Trump’s Economy: Super Saturday Recorded Highest Sales of Any Day in U.S. History; Democrats Claim Most Americans Don’t Benefit From Booming Trump Economy – but Voters Know They Do

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By Daily Wire. More evidence of the strong U.S. economy during the Trump administration came over last weekend, as sales across the country on Saturday reached the highest level ever recorded.

Bloomberg reported, “Holiday shopping set records over the weekend, with Super Saturday sales reaching $34.4 billion, the biggest single day in U.S. retail history, according to Customer Growth Partners.” Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, credited job growth and the abundance of disposable income for the record-setting day, adding, “Paced by the ‘Big Four’ mega-retailers — Walmart, Amazon, Costco and Target — Super Saturday was boosted by the best traffic our team has seen in years.”

Johnson noted that 58% of the increase in sales could be attributed to sales online. On Black Friday 2019, the day after Thanksgiving, the nation recorded $31.2 billion; on Saturday, December 14, the level reached $28.1 billion, and Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, the level of sales reached $19.1 billion. (Read more from “Trump’s Economy: Super Saturday Recorded Highest Sales of Any Day in U.S. History” HERE)

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Andy Puzder: Democrats Claim Most Americans Don’t Benefit From Booming Trump Economy – but Voters Know They Do

By Fox News. The American people have a lot to celebrate this holiday season, thanks to the booming Trump economy – and polls prove they know it, despite the false claims of Democratic presidential candidates that only the rich are benefitting from President Trump’s policies.

According to Fidelity Investments’ 2020 New Year Financial Resolutions Study released earlier this month, 82 percent of Americans say they’re in a similar or better financial position this year than last. And 78 percent believe they will be even better off next year.

A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that 76 percent of Americans rate current economic conditions as positive – the highest percentage since February 2001.

Since August, the percentages of Americans with this positive view have increased significantly. Some 97 percent of Republicans, 75 percent of independents and even 62 percent of Democrats now view our economic conditions positively. Those are incredibly high numbers.

As for the next year, 68 percent of Americans expect our economy to be in good shape a year from now – the best showing in CNN’s polling since December 2003. (Read more from “Andy Puzder: Democrats Claim Most Americans Don’t Benefit From Booming Trump Economy – but Voters Know They Do” HERE)

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WATCH: Disgraced Kevin Spacey Returns on Christmas Eve With Another Bizarre Video

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Is Kevin Spacey trying to spark an annual Christmas tradition? On two Christmas Eves in a row now, he has sparked a firestorm on social media by releasing two bizarre videos of himself delivering a Yuletide greeting as his “House of Cards” character Frank Underwood.

Titled “Kill Them with Kindness,” the newest video features Spacey in a red Christmas sweater as he stokes the flames in an iconic fireplace. Addressing the fourth wall, Spacey then dons Underwood’s sinister southern accent to wish everyone a Merry Christmas while boasting of the many changes he wishes to make in his life come 2020. Take a look:

“You didn’t really think I was going to miss the opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas, did you?” Spacey tells us with a sardonic grin.

As a possible reference to his many courtroom victories this year after having his career and reputation torpedoed in 2017 due to a series of sexual assault allegations, Spacey then reflects on the “pretty good year” he has enjoyed and how it spurred him to become a new man, so to speak.

“It’s been a pretty good year, and I’m grateful to have my health back,” Spacey tells us. “And in light of that, I’ve made some changes in my life and I’d like to invite you to join me.” (Read more from “WATCH: Disgraced Kevin Spacey Returns on Christmas Eve With Another Bizarre Video” HERE)

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Virginia Governor Increases Corrections Budget in Anticipation of Jailing Gun Owners

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As if Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s wholesale attack on law-abiding gun owners wasn’t enough, the disgraced public official and his Michael Bloomberg-bought allies in the General Assembly now want the state’s hard-working taxpayers to foot the bill for their unconstitutional schemes. The budget bill (HB30) includes an appropriation of a quarter million dollars to carry out a host of gun control measures that Northam and his anti-gun allies hope to enact.

The $250,000 is appropriated to the Corrections Special Reserve Fund in order to provide for the “increase in the operating cost of adult correctional facilities resulting from the enactment” of Northam’s gun control measures. Among the enumerated laws that this allocation is meant to fund is a ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, the criminalization of private firearms transfers, and gun confiscation orders issued without due process. . .

Long guns of any description are rarely used in violent crime. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data breaks down homicides by weapon type. In 2018, the FBI reported that there were five times as many individuals listed as killed with “knives or cutting instruments,” than with rifles of any kind. The data also showed that rifles were listed as being used in less homicides than “blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.)” or “personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.).”

A 1997 Department of Justice-funded study of the 1994 federal “assault weapons” ban determined that “At best, the assault weapons ban can have only a limited effect on total gun murders, because the banned weapons and magazines were never involved in more than a modest fraction of all gun murders.” A 2004 follow-up Department of Justice-funded study came to a similar conclusion. The study determined that “AWs [assault weapons] and LCMs [large capacity magazines] were used in only a minority of gun crimes prior to the 1994 federal ban,” “relatively few attacks involve more than 10 shots fired,” and “the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.” (Read more from “Virginia Governor Increases Corrections Budget in Anticipation of Jailing Gun Owners” HERE)

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Hong Kong Police Use Tear Gas, Pepper Spray on Christmas Eve Protesters

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By The Blaze. While many across the world are spending Christmas Eve doing last minute shopping and spending time with family, protesters in Hong Kong are continuing to experience violent clashes with the police as they seek to secure additional freedoms and autonomy from the Chinese government.

According to Bloomberg News, hundreds of citizens turned out in various Hong Kong shopping districts in the latest round of protests, which have now lasted more than six months and have often turned violent.

Police were reported to have fired tear gas canisters around 9pm local time at a crowd that gathered outside the Peninsula Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, and also to have used pepper spray on protesters inside other shopping malls and centers throughout the city. Chinese state media reported that a handful of arrests were made.

The protests, which occurred on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, further added to the economic unrest in Hong Kong, which has been severely impacted by the protracted civil unrest. (Read more from “Hong Kong Police Use Tear Gas, Pepper Spray on Christmas Eve Protesters” HERE)

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5 Charts Show How Protests in Hong Kong Have Affected the City’s Economy and Stock Market

By CNBC. . .The protests, along with uncertainties such as the U.S.-China trade war, sent the Hong Kong economy into a recession for the first time in a decade. . .

One major driver of the economic downturn in Hong Kong is a steep decline in retail sales. Private consumption accounts for around 65% of the city’s GDP. . .

Declining tourist arrivals into Hong Kong have added to the city’s economic troubles. . .

Despite the pressure on the economy, Hong Kong’s benchmark stock index — the Hang Seng Index — appears on track to end 2019 higher than where it started the year. . .

That’s because investors still see the Hong Kong stock market as a way to buy and sell Chinese assets, according to Mark Mobius, founding partner at Mobius Capital Partners. (Read more from “5 Charts Show How Protests in Hong Kong Have Affected the City’s Economy and Stock Market” HERE)

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‘We’re Blessed to Have Them’: More Than 200,000 Troops Will Spend Christmas Away From Home This Year

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By Washington Examiner. Each year at Christmas, a soldier’s version of a beloved children’s poem circulates on military social media groups. In The Soldier’s Night Before Christmas, Santa drops in on an American soldier curled up alone on a poncho in some far flung locale. The soldier is spending Christmas deployed without his family.

This year, Santa might have similar encounters with other American forces – not all on ponchos, but definitely far from home. Some 214,277 service members are serving around the world this year, including as many as 18,700 in combat zones in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

American troops also are in Africa, South Korea, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and other land bases, and aboard ships in oceans around the globe. . .

While Iraq and Afghanistan deployments are not as common as they were in years past, troops are still putting their lives on the line. The death of Sgt. 1st Class Michael James Goble in Afghanistan on Monday is a stark reminder of that, Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst James Carafano told the Washington Examiner.

“The loss of every American life is tragic, particularly this time of year. It just reminds us that, not just in Afghanistan, we have men and women around the world every day, not just on Christmas, that put their life in harm’s way for our interests, and we’re really blessed to have them,” said Carafano, an Army veteran. (Read more from “‘We’re Blessed to Have Them’: More Than 200,000 Troops Will Spend Christmas Away From Home This Year” HERE)

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Operation Holiday Express Brings Gifts to U.S. Troops in Syria

By The Associated Press. Hundreds of American troops based in Syria have received Christmas gifts thanks to Operation Holiday Express, launched by U.S.-led coalition forces from across the border in neighboring Iraq.

This year, Santa’s sleigh and reindeer were apparently swapped for a workhorse CH-47 Chinook helicopter. But coalition forces still donned jolly red caps as they unloaded boxes of gifts at five locations in eastern Syria, as seen by The Associated Press on Monday.

In addition to the presents, Christmas tunes were provided by a military band from the 1st Infantry Division, flown in from Fort Riley, Kansas. The soldiers received stockings stuffed with candies, toiletries and other gifts. Most were donated by military support organizations in the U.S., as well as churches and charity organizations, coalition spokesman Col. Myles Caggins said. (Read more from “Operation Holiday Express Brings Gifts to Us Troops in Syria” HERE)

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