I want to say a huge thank you…
…to everyone who wrote me an email, message on the website, the few of you who have my personal contact information who texted or even called to offer condolences over my friend who passed and about the delay in the issues and all the love and support. Like the Grinch, my heart has swollen three times.
And one of the Johns sent me a message on the website and mentioned a favorite song/hymn of mine. It is Well With my Soul. And I told him of the time, at one of our training sessions for Kairos, the music director said he thought that was one of the greatest songs ever written for a men’s choir. Now we were about the furthest thing from a choir that was ever put together, but when you had about 30 guys singing that song … man! Like I told John, you could just feel the Holy Spirit come crushing down on that place! Not a men’s choir, but I REALLY like Matt Redman’s version…
It’s not the traditional “hymn” version. It’s more upbeat and “happy”. I really like it. I have it on my phone and it plays on my rotation.
Anyway … today is Sunday, and so far, Faye is still alive. I told you about her yesterday. One of my Pastors went and visited her after church today and said she looks worse. Personally, I didn’t think that was possible. But, they are doing what they can to make her comfortable. Keep her in your prayers.
So, let’s move this on to other things, while we have a little time, shall we?
I’m going to start with stuff that is topical that I got recently…and stuff that I found particularly funny and well … just stuff.
And this next one is just Aussie Pete being obstinate…
And we’re STILL waiting to see what happens with THIS guy…
Too true people. We don’t compare ourselves to OTHER people, we compare ourselves to the one perfect person…we’ll never stack up, but the closer we get the better we are.
Well, if I understand it correctly, that’s not right either, because didn’t Trump pardon the 1,600 or so January 6 people who have been illegally locked up for four years?
This next one is from Brother Sasquatch, who just seems full of good news…
44 Statistics From 2024 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe
2024 was definitely one of the wildest years that any of us have ever experienced. During the past 12 months, Donald Trump was convicted by a New York jury, he was almost assassinated, he won the presidential election, and he was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. Nobody has ever had a year quite like that.
Of course 2024 was also a year of war. Israel battled Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, the government of Syria was overthrown by radical Islamists, long-range missiles provided by NATO started raining down on targets deep inside Russia, and Russian forces stormed even deeper into eastern Ukraine.
2024 also brought us Hurricane Helene, a “Great American eclipse”, and “the comet of the century”. Now here we are at the end of the year, and we are being told to brace ourselves for a bird flu pandemic.
I have a feeling that the year ahead is going to be absolutely nuts, but for a moment I wanted to look back at the crazy year that we just went through.
The following are 44 statistics from 2024 that are almost too crazy to believe…
#1 Over 155 million votes were cast in the 2024 presidential election. Donald Trump’s win in that election capped what many consider to be the greatest political comeback in U.S. history.
#2 Nearly 11 billion dollars was spent during the 2024 election cycle. That is the most money ever spent on an election by a very wide margin.
#3 1.2 billion dollars was spent on political ads in the state of Pennsylvania alone.
#4 Prior to the election, one survey found that 79 percent of Americans believed that the nation was on the wrong track.
#5 The U.S. government is currently $36,144,183,375,647.43 in debt.
#6 If our politicians keep spending money at the current rate, the U.S. government will be 51 trillion dollars in debt four years from now.
#7 Total U.S. household debt is nearing 18 trillion dollars.
#8 The number of shoplifting incidents per year in the United States is up 93 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels
#9 On a single day in December, Joe Biden announced that he was commuting the prison sentences of nearly 1,500 criminals and he issued full pardons to 39 others.
#10 The U.S. Census Bureau says that 37 percent of Americans are having trouble even paying their most basic bills.
#11 According to Bank of America, almost a third of all households “spend more than 95% of their disposable income on necessities such as housing costs, groceries and utility bills”.
#12 The price of orange juice is up 327 percent over the last 3 years.
#13 The average household in Miami spends 327 dollars during a single trip to the grocery store.
#14 It now takes more than $100,000 a year for a typical U.S. household to live “the American Dream” in all 50 states, and in 29 U.S. states it takes more than $150,000 a year.
#15 For the average person, it now costs 4.4 million dollars to live “the American Dream” over the course of a lifetime.
#16 Thanks to rampant inflation, the average American now believes that it takes an income of $270,000 a year in order to be “financially successful”.
#17 Overall, U.S. home prices are up more than 1,000 percent since 1974.
#18 Only 10 percent of Americans believe that becoming a homeowner is “easy or somewhat easy”.
#19 37 percent of U.S. cardholders have already maxed out at least one credit card.
#20 The amount of money that Americans owe on their credit cards is twice as large as the GDP of the 100 poorest nations on the entire planet combined.
#21 30 percent of all student loan borrowers have “gone without food or medicine due to their monthly bills”.
#22 At one food bank in New Jersey, demand has actually quadrupled since the peak of the pandemic.
#23 An all-time record high 770,000 people are homeless in the United States, and that number grew by 18 percent in just one year which is also an all-time record high.
#24 We are being told that more than 3 million Americans are now living in their vehicles.
#25 The number of job openings in the United States has fallen by about 4 million since 2021.
#26 U.S. retailers have announced 7,100 store closures in 2024.
#27 For the 12 months ending June 30th, the number of business bankruptcy filings was up more than 40 percent compared to the previous 12 months.
#28 An office building in Manhattan that sold for $332 million dollars in 2006 sold for just $8.5 million dollars in 2024.
#29 Half of all workers in the U.S. make less than $43,222.81 a year.
#30 According to Bank of America, from 2019 to 2024 there was a 10 percent jump in those that are living paycheck to paycheck.
#31 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 29 percent of all U.S. households were one person households in 2024.
#32 40 percent of Americans report feeling lonely at least some of the time.
#33 30 percent of Americans have been clinically diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives.
#34 The market capitalization of Fartcoin is currently 973 million dollars. Meanwhile, the market capitalization of Office Depot is just 680 million dollars.
#35 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 46.2 million people that were not born in the United States are now living here.
#36 The federal government has admitted that there are approximately “425,000 convicted criminals living in the U.S. illegally”.
#37 According to North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, the total damage caused by Hurricane Helene in his state exceeds 50 billion dollars.
#38 According to the official website of the GAO, Congress had appropriated a total of 174 billion dollars for the war in Ukraine as of April.
#39 According to the Institute for Economics & Peace, there are 56 active military conflicts raging around the world right now. That is the highest number that we have seen since World War II.
#40 According to the United Nations, there are over 2 billion people that eat insects as part of their normal diets right now.
#41 It is being projected that the market for insect protein in the United States will be valued at 274 billion dollars in 2031.
#42 Sperm counts have fallen by more than 50 percent since 1973. If this trend continues, soon we will not be able to produce enough viable offspring and the human population of this planet will plummet dramatically.
#43 Our brains are slowly but surely filling up with plastic. One team of scientists discovered that human brain samples from 2024 had concentrations of microplastics that were 50 percent higher than human brain samples from 2016.
#44 If the amount of plastic in our brains continues to rise at a rate of 50 percent every 8 years, 28 percent of our brains will be plastic 80 years from now and everyone will be dead.
Originally published at End Of The American Dream
I don’t know about you, but after that I need something really funny. How about a bunch of Calvin and Hobbs?
This one is a quick read from Ted
Trump to Putin: End the War or Face Sanctions
I was JUST sent this as a video from facebook from a dear friend in Florida, so I’ll have to transcribe it for you.
Jesus, Moses and an elderly gentleman were out golfing.
Moses is up first. Hits his shot.
Whack!
Terrible shot, right into the water. Moses ambles over to the pond, parts the water, walks down onto the dry land, hits his second shot, right onto the green.
Jesus says, “Nice shot, Moses.”
Jesus is up next, hits his first shot.
Whack!
Worse than Moses’ first. Farther into the pond. Jesus walks out to the pond, walks across the water, the ball rises to the surface of the water, Jesus hits his second shot, right onto the green.
Moses says, “You too, Jesus.”
Elderly gentleman is up, hits his first shot.
Not even a whack.
Worst shot of the bunch. Goes about 40 yards down the green. Sparrow flies down and grabs the ball in its beak, flies over the pond and loses the ball. The ball falls into the pond. Carp leaps up into the air with the ball in its mouth when an eagle screeches and snatches the carp out of the air and flies over the green where the carp coughs up the ball and it lands right near the cup where a squirrel runs out and nudges the ball into the cup for a hole in one.
Jesus says, “Nice shot … Dad.”
You know, if Jesus doesn’t come back and Rapture all of us by then, I should seriously think about doing something like that. My grandfather lived to be 91 and my dad is still alive at 90. There is a good chance that with my genes I could be one of those people who are interviewed at 100 and them asking me, “So, Impish, what is it that you attribute your long life to?” and then I’d have to come up with something like, “Well Chris,” (they’re always named Chris. They couldn’t send me an Annette or something?! They had to send me a Chris?!) “Well, Annette, (see, I changed it around on them! Can’t keep me down! I’ll insist on Annette!) “Well, Annette, I attribute my long life to clean living, following God’s word and one other little secret that I’ll only tell you.” Then I’ll whisper in her ear and she’ll smile real big, take my hand and we’ll both walk off the stage together. And that will get EVERYONE talking! And you know what I’ll whisper in her ear?
This is exactly what I’ll whisper in her ear, “I’ll give you a thousand dollars right now if you’ll smile real big, grab my hand and walk off stage with me and don’t look back.”
What a PERFECT comparison!
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Liberty One News |
D.C. Jan. 6 Hostages Finally Freed
The notorious Washington, D.C. jail, often referred to as the “Gulag,” is finally seeing the release of some January 6 detainees who were granted pardons or commutations by former President Donald Trump. Despite these pardons, their release had been delayed by officials aligned with the Democratic Party. For many, this marks the first time in years that they can reunite with their families, leave behind the oppressive environment of the prison, and experience life outside a cell. Jonathan Pollock, one of the individuals released, expressed a sense of newfound freedom and emphasized the severe persecution faced by January 6 participants and their families, orchestrated by the January 6 Committee and the Biden-Harris administration. Jake Lang, who endured four years of imprisonment without a trial, celebrated his release by proclaiming, “This is what being American is all about!” However, not all detainees have been freed yet. The U.S. Marshals, a judge named Nichols, and prison authorities are reportedly delaying releases, citing paperwork issues and pending state charges. Representative Eli Crane from Arizona, a member of the Freedom Caucus, visited the jail to investigate the refusal to comply with Trump’s orders. According to Crane and reporter Ben Bergquam, this D.C. facility was the last in the nation to drag its feet on releasing January 6 detainees. Among those released are individuals who received some of the harshest sentences, including Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years despite not being at the Capitol, Joe Biggs with 17 years, and Stewart Rhodes with 18 years, neither of whom entered the Capitol building. Meanwhile, the country still awaits the sentencing of numerous violent Antifa and pro-Hamas rioters and clients of Jeffrey Epstein. Jake Lang recounted a troubling incident during his out-processing when he was reportedly assaulted and handcuffed by guards, led by a Lieutenant Allen. Despite false assurances about the timing of releases, prison authorities eventually freed Lang and other January 6 detainees. Witnessing Lang’s emotional reunion with his fiancée and father, free from the confines of guards and bars for the first time in years, was a powerful moment. Lang expressed, “These are the people who make America great. This is what we fought for … we are witnessing an indelible moment in American history, where freedom is finally able to reign again.” Lang criticized the current administration, stating that “this weaponization” has caused institutions to “crumble,” but under Trump, they are “being restored.” He tearfully shared how faith, trust, and hope are being rekindled in America, attributing their survival to divine intervention. Displaying his prison Bible, Lang shared messages from young prisoner Isaac Thomas, highlighting the spiritual support that sustained him. In another incident, former Green Beret Jeremy Brown was reportedly returned to his cell during the release process, while his mother waited outside. He described the setback as, “Back to ZERO. So close, but yet so far.” Supporters are urged to pray for those still imprisoned and for those who have just been released, as they begin to rebuild their lives with their loved ones after enduring a harrowing four-year ordeal. |
How women shop for a shower head…
And that’s it my friends. Out of time. Until next time, may God Bless you with Love and Happiness, Comfort and Strength.
Dragon Laffs 