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NEW: Bud Light sales keep sinking - CNN
RUSSIA: Is Russian President Vladimir Putin dead? - The Hill
OUCH: Twitter is now worth less than half of what Elon Musk paid for it.
SCOTUS: Supreme Court weighs whether public officials can be sued for blocking critics on social media - NBC
HEADLINE: US consumer confidence dropped for third consecutive month despite the booming economy - CNN
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No Ceasefire
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forcefully rejected the notion of a ceasefire in the pages of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (paywall).
“Calls for a cease-fire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen.
The Book of Ecclesiastes says that there is a time for peace and a time for war. This is a time for war—a war for our common future. Today we draw a line between civilization and barbarism. It is a time for everyone to decide where they stand. Israel will stand against the forces of barbarism until victory.”
Why this matters: Israel’s invasion of Gaza has been shrouded in secrecy with minimal details provided by the IDF. We do know that Israel has increased its number of targeted ground invasions resulting in the elimination of 300 Hamas targets around Gaza City within the past 24 hours. IDF forces raided a network of Hamas tunnels killing a number of terrorists and freeing a captured Israeli soldier.
New: On Monday, Israeli forces seized control of the vital Salah-al-Din road which connects Gaza City with the southern portion of the territory. The news is significant because it signals the Israeli military has surrounded Gaza City where a significant portion of the 240 Israeli hostages are being held.
Hezbollah: In addition to fighting Hamas, Israel is stepping up military actions against Hezbollah militants in Syria and Lebanon where Iran-backed militias are provoking attacks on Israel’s northern border. The United Nations warned the situation in Syria is “at its most dangerous for a long time” as Iran-backed militias have grown in influence.
More Violence?
“Violent conflict is increasing in multiple parts of the world. In addition to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, and the Israeli offensive on Gaza, raising the specter of a wider war in the Middle East, there has been a surge in violence across Syria, including a wave of armed drone attacks that threatened U.S. troops stationed there. In the Caucasus in late September, Azerbaijan seized the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh—forcing an estimated 150,000 ethnic Armenians to flee their historical home in the territory and setting the stage for renewed fighting with Armenia. Meanwhile, in Africa, the civil war in Sudan rages on, conflict has returned to Ethiopia, and a military takeover of Niger in July was the sixth coup across the Sahel and West Africa since 2020.”
Read the full quote from John Ellis on Substack.
How To Avoid Carjacking
As the number of carjackings continues to surge in Washington, DC police are telling residents to drive in the center lane and never ride alone in order to avoid becoming a victim.
Context at WaPo: When police arrived after Stephanie Traub was carjacked at gunpoint on October 2nd, officers sat with the victim and watched the vehicle speed away on her laptop as her Apple device tracked the vehicle. Officers sheepishly told Traub they were not allowed to pursue.
Why this matters: After DC’s city council passed a “no chase” policy that precludes officers from pursuing bad guys, the total number of 2023 carjackings have more than doubled last year’s total.
Trending news:
What Happens When There Aren’t Enough Jews to Lynch? - The Free Press
New Book Dives Into Tucker Carlson Fox News Ouster: ‘It Was Always Going to End Badly’ - The Messenger
Ex-North Dakota Lawmaker Accused Of Flying To Prague To Rape Minor - HuffPo
Depression and anxiety may impact young adults twice as much as teens, Harvard survey finds - Fox News
‘This war is prophetically significant’: why US evangelical Christians support Israel - The Guardian
DC Freshens Up ‘Black Lives Matter’ Street Art Despite Hamas Endorsements - Daily Signal
Sen. Josh Hawley To Introduce Bill Reversing Citizens United - RCP
‘You Can Apply for the Job!’ Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney Absolutely LOSES IT On a Fan Who Called Him Out for His Mediocre Record - Mediaite
Democrats Risk Long-Lasting Rift Over Israel-Hamas War - WSJ (paywall)
China’s Economy Shows Fresh Signs of Slowing - WSJ (paywall)
The Star of Half Baked Harvest Inspires Loyalty — and Controversy - NYT (paywall)
Market snapshot:
All you DT haters voted for this Nov 2020. . Many voting laws were raped those voting days. All under the guise of COVID lock down.
Now here is what you directly or indirectly inserted. It is certainly not an all inclusive list or litany.
This is from Rep Jim Comer
Patriot,
Just a year ago, it was unfathomable to me that I would be writing this. It’s a bit long, but I would ask you to read it in its entirety. I spent a lot of time writing it and did my best to make every word count.
I write it with great sadness and astonishment, sadness for our country which I hold so dear, and astonishment at Joe Biden’s desecration of the Oath of Office he took with his hand on the Bible in front of the world.
It has come to light that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has had 40 informants inside the Biden family over the past 15 years.
For 15 years, Credible Informants have been providing criminal information against the Biden’s to FBI Field Offices across the country, and for 15 years, everytime the information has been brought to FBI HQ, the leadership of the FBI shuts it down.
But it’s not just the FBI, it’s the Department of Justice as well.
I just heard sworn witness testimony that the Biden Bribery allegations on the FD-1023 Form were CREDIBLE, and that he referred the criminal matters originating from it to three separate U.S. Attorney’s offices in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Delaware for further investigation.
Then, just like at the FBI, nothing happened.
Trump has come up with another demeaning nickname?? Why I will never vote for him: there is something called The Ninth Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor. I think Donald Trump violates this Commandment at minimum three times a week, and quite possibly all seven days of the week. He demeaned Jeb Bush by calling this very successful governor sleepy and dull. A lie. He claimed Ted Cruz was actually belittling the 9/11 responders when he used the term "New York values" (which Cruz only used to describe NYers' and Trump's big-spending habits -- a description that turned out to be totally justified in Trump's case). That's why I wrote in Ted Cruz on Election Day. Trump called his former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany "untalented" (which she certainly isn't) when she dared to report on FoxNews that Trump's lead had slipped just a bit in poll. He recently called Nicki Haley "bird-brained." But, of course, his most unrelenting slanders have been reserved for DeSantis, the candidate that, like Jeb Bush in 2015, Trump pegged early on as THE guy he had to beat. To do that meant, for Trump, of course, doing what comes natural -- lying about him and his positions, spreading false gossip about him. (Trump had close supporters checking whether or not they could accuse Casey DeSantis of faking her cancer.)
Jesus said that calling people false names and undercutting their characters was a form of murder. That has made me tell myself many times not to use a name on people. What I will say is something like "Donald Trump very often acts with childish-like petulance, gross self-centered-ness, and even cruel vengeance."
I believe God gave us a big test with him -- a man who had a number of strong policies for the country, but who demeaned the office he held, and therefore hurt the country, every day he was in office. Thank The Lord for Twitter to have exposed that.
But the majority of GOP voters, and many in the conservative political and media classes, never got the message. They are comfortable with him as an idol -- blind to the depth of his corruptness as a human being, blind to the fact that the GOP has been losing much more than it's won since its association with him began. Our future supporting him seems deservedly dim.
Which, from a Biblical standpoint, is just about just.