News
Compiled by Michael Hernandez, 12-30-24
There are so many stories making up the mosaic of national/international news that we can’t cover them all every week. The biggest stories now seem to be: the Trump transition, immigration (migrants and illegals), wars, weaponization of government (the deep state) against Trump and conservatives, our nation going bankrupt, massive inflation, phony climate change controversy and related expenses of government, industry attempting to address these issues, the Chinese threat and now drones and national security as well as abortion and anti-Christian hate. So here are just a few:
Dec. 23: Breitbart By Hannah Knudsen
Rand Paul Festivus Report Highlights More Than $1 Trillion In Waste: Millions Spent On Paraguayan Border Security, Lonely Rat Cocaine Studies
The federal government wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on a number of absurd and bizarre projects, including securing the Paraguayan border, studies on lonely rats and their relationship to cocaine, and “various magical projects.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Monday released his annual Festivus report chock-full of grievances after another year of incredibly wasteful spending. This year, he is highlighting over $1 trillion in government waste.
“Who’s to blame for our crushing national debt? Everybody. This year, members of both political parties in Congress voted for massive spending bills, filled with subsidies for underperforming industries, continued military aid to Ukraine, and controversial climate initiatives,” Paul wrote in the report.
- The Department of Energy (DOE) spent $15.5 billion to push Americans toward electric vehicles they don’t want.
- The federal government spent $10 billion on maintaining, leasing, and furnishing almost entirely empty buildings.
- The Department of Defense (DOD) spent $10,851,439 on Orwellian cat experiments.
- The federal government spent $7,026,689 on various magical projects.
Dec. 23: Fox News By Pilar Arias and Bill Melugin
Suspect Accused Of Burning Woman To Death On NYC Subway Is Previously Deported Illegal Immigrant
The migrant from Guatemala who was arrested in connection to the heinous death of a woman set on fire and burned to death on a subway train in Brooklyn, New York, on Sunday was previously deported. Sebastin Zapeta, 33, was arrested by Border Patrol on June 1, 2018, after he crossed illegally into Sonoita, Arizona and was deported by the Trump administration just days later on June 7, U.S. Immigration and Customs Zapeta then re-entered the U.S. illegally “on an unknown date and location.”
Surveillance video showed the suspect calmly approaching the woman, who was sitting motionless and may have been sleeping, while aboard a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station and then setting her on fire.
Dec. 24: Breitbart By John Binder
Meet Some Of The Violent Killers For Whom Biden Commuted Death Sentences
As one of his final acts as president, Joe Biden is commuting the death sentences of 37 of the federal government’s 40 death row inmates, giving them life sentences instead. These 37 men include some of the most violent killers in the United States.
- In 2019, Brandon Council was sentenced to death for murdering 59-year-old Donna Major and 36-year-old Katie Skeen in 2017 during a South Carolina bank robbery.
- In 2005, Edward Leon Fields Jr. was sentenced to death for murdering 47-year-old Charles Glen Chick and his wife, 50-year-old Shirley Chick, while they were camping in the Winding Stair Mountains in Oklahoma.
- In 1996, former New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) officer Len Davis was sentenced to death for ordering the murder of 32-year-old Kim Groves after she filed a civil rights complaint against him.
- In 2002, in Michigan, Marvin Charles Gabrion was sentenced to death for murdering 19-year-old Rachel Timmerman whom he was also accused of sexually assaulting.
- Daniel Troya and Ricardo Sanchez Jr. were sentenced to death after murdering a family of four — 28-year-old Jose Luis Escobedo, 25-year-old Yessica Guerrero Escobedo, and their two children, three-year-old Luis Damian Escobedo and four-year-old Luis Julian Escobedo — in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2006.
Dec. 25: Gateway Pundit By Margaret Flavin
JD Vance Shares Sweet Family Tradition
Vice President-elect JD Vance took some time away from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season to share a treasured family tradition with his family. Vance, joined by the “world’s best three-year-old sous chef,” daughter Mirabel, made a batch of biscuits just like Mamaw taught him.
“Today, we are going to learn to make biscuits because I feel like biscuit-making is a lost art. And I think that every American family should have a biscuit on their table during Christmas dinner.”
Dec. 25: Fox News By Alex Nitzberg
Marjorie Taylor Greene Wants Death Penalty For Migrant Who Allegedly Set Woman On Fire On Subway: ‘Finish Him’
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is calling for the swift trial, conviction, and execution of the man charged in connection with the gruesome murder of a woman burned alive on a New York City subway. The outspoken Republican took to social media on Tuesday to address the incident, in which Guatemalan national Sebastian Zapeta, 33, is accused of setting a woman on fire while on a train in Brooklyn. “Death penalty, don’t waste money on a lengthy trial. Convict him and finish him. What he did is so incredibly evil,” Greene declared in a post on X.
Dec. 26: Breitbart By Wendell Husebo
Donald Trump’s Day One Executive Orders: Promises To Fulfill on January 20
President-elect Donald Trump will take office on January 20 and has pledged to sign a host of executive orders (EOs) on day one. Many of the EOs will reverse policies undertaken by the Biden administration, restore Trump’s own past policies, and implement new policy goals.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s pick for White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said deportations of illegal migrants will be the president-elect’s first priority. “President Trump … on day one, is going to issue a series of executive orders that seal the border shut and begin the largest deportation operation in American history,” he told Fox News in December.
Dec. 26: Fox News By Morgan Phillips and Michael Dorgan
State Department’s ‘Global Engagement Center’ Accused Of Censoring Americans—Shuts Its Doors
The State Department’s foreign disinformation center, accused by conservatives of censoring U.S. citizens, shut its doors due to lack of funding this week. Elon Musk
had deemed the Global Engagement Center (GEC), established in 2016, the “worst offender in U.S. government censorship & media manipulation,” and its funding was stripped as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Pentagon’s yearly policy bill.
“The Global Engagement Center will terminate by operation of law [by the end of the day] on December 23, 2024,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. “The Department of State has consulted with Congress regarding next steps.”
Dec. 27: Gateway Pundit By Mike LaChance
New Poll Finds Majority of Americans Do Not Care About Celebrity Opinions On Politics
New polling indicates that most Americans don’t care what celebrities think about politics. For years now, the left has counted on the approval of liberals in Hollywood to speak for them. We saw this ramped up significantly during the Obama years. Barack Obama loved to share the spotlight with famous actors, musicians and other celebs. They, in turn, would fall all over themselves for any chance to spend time at the Obama White House and be photographed with him.
Democrats tried to replicate this in the Kamala Harris campaign with people like Oprah Winfrey, Lizzo, and a variety of Hollywood players. It failed miserably, mostly because voters knew that these folks were not suffering like average Americans under the policies of the left. Now the American people are making it clear for the Hollywood left no one cares what they think.
Dec. 28: Breitbart By David Ng
Former Pixar Staffers Break Down Over Cut Trans Storyline In Kids’ Show
Former Pixar staffers are reportedly experiencing emotional meltdowns following Disney’s decision to remove a transgender storyline from the upcoming children’s animated series Win or Lose, with one ex-staffer admitting to breaking down in tears. Others have accused the Walt Disney Company of making a political calculation and actually putting the lives of so-called transgender children in danger.
Multiple former Pixar staffers expressed sorrow and dismay over Disney’s decision to axe the trans storyline from Win or Lose, which is set to begin streaming on Disney+ in February, according to mostly anonymous accounts given to The Hollywood Reporter.
Dec. 28: Fox News By Brie Stinson
Biden Still Regrets Dropping Out of 2024 Presidential Race, Believes He Could Have Beaten Trump
The president recently told people that he still believes he could have beaten Trump in the November election, despite his rough debate performance in June and his low approval numbers that forced him to leave the race, according to the Washington Post, citing people familiar with the conversations. Following the June 27 debate, more and more Democrats began to call for him to drop out every day, so another person could run in his place. The president also saw much of his funding dry up last summer as donors began to doubt his chances of beating Trump.
Dec. 29: Breitbart By Alana Mastrangelo
Roger Stone: Republican Party Was ‘Completely Remade’ By Historic Trump Election
Political adviser Roger Stone told Breitbart News “the Republican Party is completely remade” by the “historic watershed election” of President-elect Donald Trump. “This is a historic watershed election,” Stone told Breitbart News of the 2024 political realignment at Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest conference last week in Phoenix, Arizona.
“This is like the realignment of 1932 or the realignment of 1968 in which those who favor endless foreign war, who are in favor of censorship, who are think that Big Pharma and Big Food should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they’re profitable, and those people gravitated to Kamala Harris,” Stone continued.
The “common sense Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, free thinkers,” and “people who admire Robert Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard, Governor Rod Blagojevich,” meanwhile, “gravitated to the new working class Party — the America First Party of Donald Trump,” Stone said. “This is a historic realignment, and I think it is going to dominate our politics for decades,” Stone asserted.
“We were once the Party of war, big business, Wall Street, the financial elite, the country club — that Party is over,” Stone said. “We are now the Party of the working class, we’re the Party of middle America. We’re the party of low taxes,” Stone added. “We’re the party of border security, we’re the party of law and order, we’re the party of less regulation, we’re the party of economic growth, we’re the party of peace, prosperity, security, and justice.”
Dec. 29: Gateway Pundit By Jim Hoft
James Comer Promises To Investigate Biden-China Photo Scandal
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, joined Jason Chaffetz on Sunday Morning Futures this morning to discuss the incriminating photos released by America First Legal (AFL) that were published last week of Joe and Hunter Biden meeting with their Chinese business associates while Joe Biden was in China representing the United States government.
Government Officials with the National Archives and partisan Records Administration (NARA) hid and concealed these photos from the American public the last four years to shield and protect Joe Biden. NARA was supposed to release the photos on October 23, 2024 – before the 2024 election but they dragged it out to cover up Joe Biden’s corruption. NARA was hiding 99.98% of pages of Joe Biden’s pseudonym emails from Congress.
On Sunday, Oversight Chairman James Comer announced that his committee would investigate why NARA, the same partisan government group that targeted President Trump for four years, refused to release the Biden photos and illicit emails with their Chinese business counterparts.
Michael Hernandez, from California is co-founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service. He is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted at [email protected] and is editor of the weekly “Stories Speak Volumes.”
