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The U.S. rejection of Russia’s main demands to resolve the crisis over Ukraine leaves little ground for optimism, the Kremlin spokesman said Thursday, while adding that dialogue was still possible. But as expected, the U.S. and the Western alliance firmly rejected any concessions on Moscow’s main points Wednesday, refusing to permanently ban Ukraine from joining NATO and saying allied deployments of troops and military equipment in Eastern Europe are nonnegotiable. The U.S. did outline areas in which some of Russia’s concerns might be addressed, possibly offering a path to de-escalation. “There is no change, there will be no change,” U.S....

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemGalatians 5Life by the Spirit 13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. 16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to...

January 27th, 2021 St. Sabas of Serbia St. John Vianney, Quetta, PakistanReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green First reading2 Samuel 7:18-19,24-29 ©'The house of your servant will be blessed for ever'After Nathan had spoken to him, King David went in and, seated before the Lord, said: ‘Who am I, O Lord, and what is my House, that you have led me as far as this? Yet in your sight, O Lord, this is still not far enough, and you make your promises extend to the House of your servant for a far-distant future. You have constituted your people Israel to be...

Americans want an autonomous Ukraine to survive. They hope the West can stop Russian President Vladimir Putin's strangulation of both Ukraine and NATO. Yet Americans do not want their troops to venture across the world to Europe's backyard to fight nuclear Russia to ensure that Ukraine stays independent. Most Americans oppose the notion that Russia can simply dictate the future of Ukraine. Yet Americans also grudgingly accept that Ukraine was often historically part of Russia. During World War II, it was the bloody scene of joint Russian-Ukrainian sacrifices - over 5 million killed - to defeat the Nazi German invasion....

The truth is that the Second American Civil War is...almost over. Unlike the first one, the Democrats appear to be a near lock to win. Leftists, through a combination of brilliant projectionist strategy and callously evil use of their political opponents' naïveté, decency, and tolerance, have transformed America's institutions. They have weaponized them and used them against their less aggressive fellow citizens. In the process, they have transformed Americans, their beliefs and expectations, too. Much like the Chinese Communist Party, they own nearly all the levers of influence and power, exercising an iron grip on the education establishment, the mass...

“Everyone cheats” is a hell of a lesson for the nation’s kids. When it comes to professional sports it might be true. When everyone is at the top of their game, and there are millions of dollars on the line, everyone will look for an advantage. Some people will cross the line, and many of those people will get away with it. Is it time to accept this? I’m not suggesting pro sports go the route of the great Saturday Night Live skit about the “All-Drug Olympics” from back when the show was funny, but maybe acknowledge that players, even...

As we all slog into year three of this pandemic and the debates about mandates, masks, and a staggered economy, it feels as if we have lost sight of something important; namely, how does this end? At what point do we all just take a step back and return to some sense of normalcy, i.e., a pre-pandemic state? It’s like a bad TV series that is going on one season too long… you just want it to end. Early on, back in those bygone days when the media taught us all how to wash our hands, there was talk that...

The GOP-controlled Senate on Tuesday ended a nearly two-year Democratic filibuster of California judge Janice Rogers Brown, putting her on track to become the second black woman on what many people consider to be the nation’s second highest court. The 65-32 vote virtually assures the conservative jurist and Alabama native’s confirmation Wednesday evening to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, part of a historic deal to avert a partisan showdown over judicial filibusters. It takes 60 votes to bypass a filibuster. In November 2003, Brown’s Republican supporters were able to get only 53 votes for...

Sen. Joe Biden said Sunday that if President Bush nominates recently confirmed Circuit Court Judge Janice Rogers Brown to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats will launch a filibuster. "If [Bush] sent up Edith Jones, I could assure you that would be a very, very, very difficult fight - and she would probably be filibustered," Biden told CBS's "Face the Nation." In the next breath Biden corrected himself, saying, "I misspoke, I misspoke. Janice Rogers Brown is what I meant to say." Asked whether that would break the Senate's much heralded compromise last month not to...

One of the big selling points for sticking our nose into a border incursion half-a-world away (while studiously ignoring a bigger border incursion right here at home) is that we need to show the world’s bullies and punks that America’s no pushover. Now, the people busy selling that line are the same people who presided over Iraq and Afghanistan, the places where our failed elite’s performance created said need to show the world’s bullies and punks that America’s no pushover. Think really hard about what foreign policy success our foreign policy elite can mark in the “WIN” column during the...

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Tick, Tick, Tick…. Is the End Nigh? The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was facing an immediate political death sentence, so what did he do? He declared the pandemic over. The question now on this side of the pond: Will Joe Biden—himself facing a political death sentence, though admittedly a few months away—learn anything from Boris Johnson? As the already relatively-weak omicron variant wheezes towards its nadir, the calls to end COVID-related restrictions—to remove the elephant that has been sitting on the congested chest of the world—have grown louder and more insistent. This increasing clamor has already appeared to...

A new bill has been proposed in California’s legislature. State senator Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) wants to require COVID “vaccination” for all the state’s schoolchildren, K-12 ostensibly to make schools “safe.” Meanwhile, there’s reality, which dictates that buyer’s remorse is hitting the populace in heavily vaccinated countries. But still, the press ignores it all. In Israel, with a 95% vaccination rate, there are currently nearly 450,000 active cases. There are fewer than 10,000,000 Israeli citizens, so around one in 20 Israelis currently have COVID. Denmark is similar—highly vaccinated, with an infection rate higher than ever before. Higher, even, than before there...

In an old episode of Star Trek, a powerful android threatened Captain Kirk and was defeated when asked an impossible question. Kirk actually employed “induced computer destruction” at least four times during the series. The human brain is like a computer in some ways and holding conflicting views can be very uncomfortable. The term “cognitive dissonance” comes up regularly in political discussions, probably because these issues are rarely cut and dried, but are considered very important. It is defined as “the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. People tend to seek consistency in their...

10m ago 06:11 A senior Russian official has said a nuclear missile crisis between Moscow and Washington was unavoidable without measures to ensure restraint and predictability. The Russian state news agency Tass was quoting Vladimir Ermakov, a senior Russian foreign ministry official. According to Tass, he said Moscow thought the United States was preparing to deploy short and intermediate range missiles to Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. FacebookTwitter 25m ago 05:56 Philip Oltermann Philip Oltermann Germany’s restrictive stance on exporting weapons or military equipment to Ukraine is causing consternation in Kyiv and elsewhere in Europe, but the position has popular...

When Biden's going gets tough, his toughest dead-enders in the liberal media get going. Yesterday brought the latest polling blow: Biden's approval rating has sunk to an abysmal 39% in the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll. Pro tip: any poll that has "Harvard" in its name is definitely not biased against Biden! And sure enough, the Morning Joe crew was out there today, doing its best to 'splain away Biden's dwindling support. First up was Jonathan Lemire, who in an exquisite bit of understatement called Biden's poll numbers "not all that high." Sort of like Mario Mendoza's batting average, Jonathan? Get the...

First school shooting in Montgomery County history follows vote to remove police from school buildings Maryland's Montgomery County became the latest Democrat-run jurisdiction to reverse its decision to remove police officers from schools after it suffered the first school shooting in the county's history last week, in which a 15-year-old boy was shot last Friday by a classmate. The district announced on Monday after the shooting that police would temporarily return to every high school in the county, a reversal of a March 2021 decision by county lawmakers to yank funding from its longstanding School Resource Officer program. The lawmakers...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) stock trades have reportedly become of great interest to those looking to beat the market in January. While Speaker Pelosi has been recognized as the “best trader on the Hill,” online searches for “Pelosi stock trades” have hit a record high, Reuters reported. Those on social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and Tiktok reportedly study Pelosi’s trade disclosures after they are published on the House website. In 2021, Speaker Pelosi disclosed her husband Paul Pelosi has traded stocks valued up to $5 million. The stock trades are primarily in big-tech, such as Apple, Amazon,...

An F-35C Lightning II fighter suffered "a landing mishap" on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea on Monday. It left seven sailors injured while the pilot safely ejected and was later recovered, the Navy confirmed, marking the fifth major mishap aboard the deployed carrier since late November. Between Nov. 22 and Tuesday, Carrier Air Wing 2 reported four other major incidents involving aircraft. Naval Safety Center data shows that the first incident, which occurred Nov. 22, was an in-flight engine fire aboard an F/A-18E Super Hornet that was able to land successfully. Two days...

Groups such as Black Lives Matter and Women's March launched an effort calling for the justice's retirement News of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's intention to retire comes after months of pressure from the left to hang up his robe in time for President Biden to name his replacement. "There’s no question that Justice Breyer, for whom I have great respect, should retire at the end of this term," Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., said last spring, just months after Biden took office. "My goodness, have we not learned our lesson?"