Glad to see we didn't lose any "bits" over the Holidays:
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken headed to Mexico City on Wednesday to discuss a surge in illegal immigration as thousands of migrants trek through southern Mexico in a mass movement toward the United States.
Mr. Blinken will meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at a time when border crossings have hit record numbers. There have been days this month when the Border Patrol encountered more than 10,000 people at the southern border.
Republicans have stepped up their attacks on Mr. Biden over the border numbers, a potential [actual, not potential] vulnerability for the president as he seeks re-election next year.
An appeals court on Tuesday reversed a conviction that led to the resignation last year of former congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.), ruling that he was not tried in the right venue on charges of lying to federal agents about illegal campaign contributions from a foreign billionaire.The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said that Fortenberry’s trial in Los Angeles “took place in a state where no charged crime was committed, and before a jury drawn from the vicinage of the federal agencies that investigated the defendant.”
“The Constitution does not permit this,” the decision said. “Fortenberry’s convictions are reversed so that he may be retried, if at all, in a proper venue.”
Days after denouncing an unverified report casting innuendo about his sexuality and accusing him of being a frequent participant at sex parties hosted by producer and music mogul Sean Combs, popularly known as Diddy, televangelist T.D. Jakes called his accusers “liars” on Sunday and noted that even “if everything was true, all I got to do is repent sincerely from my heart.”
Jakes, who leads The Potter's House megachurch in Dallas, Texas, directly addressed his congregation for the first time on Christmas Eve and urged them not to worry about him because “I’m good.”
“Would y'all please do me a favor and stop worrying about me and give God some praise and honor and glory? I can feel you. … I am fine. I'm good. I'm good. I'm the man for the job. I'm good,” Jakes declared in a public livestream of his Christmas Eve service on YouTube which has since been made private.
“I can feel you. I can feel you. Relax ... We’re not gonna let the devil take over our service. No, no, no, no, no. We're gonna give God some praise and some honor and some glory, for this is the day that the Lord has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it,” he insisted. “I'm not going to let the rain stop me. I’m not going to let the weather stop me. And I'm sure not going to let the liars stop me.
“The worst that could happen, if everything was true, all I got to do is repent sincerely, from my heart. There's enough power in the blood to cover all kinds of sin. I don't care what it is, the blood would fix it. But I ain't got to repent about this,” Jakes declared.
Donald Trump Warns Americans of Undercover Spies Being Sent by the FBI to persecute Christians.On Thursday night, the former president posted a video to his Truth Social account with the caption “Stopping the Persecution of Christians!” His post says the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) have adopted an anti-Christian bias and are sending agents to churches as part of that alleged “bigotry.”
“Under crooked Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted like nothing this nation has ever seen before,” Trump said in the video.
He went on: “Catholics, in particular, are being targeted and evangelicals are surely on the watch list as well. Over the past three years, the Biden administration has sent SWAT teams to arrest pro-life activists. The FBI has been caught profiling devout Catholics as possible domestic terrorists and planning to send undercover spies into Catholic churches, just like in the old days of the Soviet Union.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) joined the growing chorus of GOP critics of Colorado’s ruling disqualifying former President Trump from the state’s primary ballot, arguing “radical leftism” has “infiltrated” every institution in the U.S.
Asked on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo for his view on the Colorado ruling, Johnson said, “Well, radical leftism has infiltrated every institution in this country, our courts, our education system, government agencies. It’s a real problem.”
The Colorado Supreme Court handed down a bombshell ruling last week saying Trump engaged in an insurrection through his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.