Iowa Republicans will be the first in the nation to weigh in on the competitive Republican presidential race, as they continue their long-time Iowa Caucus tradition on Jan. 15 next year.

But Democrats—with a virtually noncompetitive race, a presidential call to ditch caucuses, and memories of the bungled 2020 caucus—are turning entirely to mail ballots for the 2024 caucuses in Iowa.

If 2020 was the year of election anomalies, the first irregularity was the Democratic Iowa Caucus which was rife with technical flaws, offered no results on election night, and left the Associated Press unable to ever declare a winner.

The Feb. 3, 2020, Democratic Iowa Caucus used a freshly developed smartphone app to communicate caucus results, but the app got glitchy, and a hotline to call in results was overwhelmed, preventing results from being available on caucus night. By the next day, just 62 percent of the Democratic results were counted. A week later, folks were losing patience.

The White House announced on Nov. 29 that Ms. Harris, along with "dozens of senior U.S. officials representing more than 20 U.S. departments and agencies" will be headed to the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP28, being held in the United Arab Emirates' capital.

In a Wednesday afternoon press call, Ike Irby, deputy domestic policy advisor to the vice president, said the visit builds on the administration's "leadership on bold global action to address the climate crisis."

"Throughout her engagements in Dubai, Vice President Harris will highlight the administration's historic investments to address the climate crisis at home and abroad and announce several initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions support, adaptation, and boost climate resilience alongside global partners," he said.

Russia has long faced widespread international condemnation for what outside countries have decried as a crackdown on sexual minorities. President Vladimir Putin has persisted in stressing that Russia must safeguard traditional family values, and that this means protecting children from the pervasive propaganda of the West which seeks to sexualize young people.

Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday in an official ruling designated what it called the "international LGBT public movement" as a banned "extremist" organization. The new ban is expected to take full effect by early next year - but some reports have said it is effective immediately - and while specifics haven't been forthcoming, the label would clearly give state authorities much broader powers to go after activist groups.

A rule to redefine what doing business as a gun dealer means—proposed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)—is supported by a majority of public commenters, with 10 days left in the comment period.

On Nov. 27, more than 230,000 of the 280,098 comments supported the plan. This is an estimate based on a review by The Epoch Times.

A search of the comments section revealed that 237,172 comments include the opening sentence about loopholes in federal law from a sample email posted on the Everytown for Gun Safety webpage.

Everytown for Gun Safety (Everytown) did not respond to an email seeking comment for this report.

On its webpage, Everytown claims that “loopholes” in the law allow the sale of guns to criminals through online sales, private transactions, and gun shows.

“The regulation goes directly to the loopholes we have been trying to close for years by expanding background checks to guns offered for sale online or at gun shows, keeping weapons out of the hands of dangerous people, and ultimately saving lives,” the webpage reads.

“But for ATF to finish the job on this life-saving action, it needs to know that the public supports closing these dangerous loopholes. ATF needs to hear from us.”

Many of the online comments use language similar to the Everytown email, with some posting the sample message word-for-word.

Webmaster addition: This is called Grass Roots Lobbying and the targeted media outlets and politicians usually fail to see it is an organized PR campaign!

An extensive review of images of Gaza after seven weeks of Israeli bombing shows extensive damage to the infrastructure within the Strip. According to a human rights monitoring group, Israel has dropped more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza.

Satellite and drone images examined by the BBC show nearly 100,000 buildings have sustained damage. Most of the destruction has occurred in the northern half of the Strip, including the destruction of entire neighborhoods. 

However, Israeli strikes have destroyed large areas in the south. In Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, 15% of buildings have been damaged by Israeli strikes. As Israel began its operations in the Strip after October 7, Tel Aviv ordered the Palestinians in northern Gaza to leave for the southern half. 

In addition to the bombing, Israel has used bulldozers to clear areas for military roads and bases. Israeli forces even used military vehicles to carve a Star of David into the earth in Gaza City. 

The market’s recovery, reminiscent of historical patterns like the Nifty Fifty era, raises concerns about the sustainability of the current narrow leadership dominated by a select few mega-cap stocks.

CNN's Anderson Cooper is joined by New York Times Magazine staff writer Ronen Bergman to discuss his stunning report that Israeli intelligence was aware of a blueprint for an attack from Hamas more than a year ago that was similar to the attack on October 7th.

The Israeli government is implementing significant amendments in the usage and access of biometric data, which could have profound implications for privacy rights, per recent reports from the Calcalist.

This move demonstrates a radical shift in the control of civilian and private biometric data, especially during the country’s wartime.

The series of altered data permissions are presently making their way through the Knesset, the country’s legislative body, taking the form of regulatory modifications and legislative memos. This proposes a scenario where, barring judicial resistance, the Israeli military, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement could acquire increased surveillance authority.

The Knesset-approved shift in data access is far-reaching and profound, seeking to overturn previous government resolutions. Central to these changes is the all-encompassing access granted to the National Biometric Database. The Israeli government maintains that the purpose of this database is “to protect the identity of the Israeli citizens and to ensure that every person has only one set of official documentation and one unique identity — the person’s true identity.”

The CIC is a physical body representing the action arm of the ESG concept. It is meant to create incentives and punishments for the business world based on their compliance with the values of globalism and woke socialism, as well as their submission to the climate agenda. I have written about this issue extensively, but my article ‘What Is The “Council For Inclusive Capitalism?” It’s The New World Order’ is probably the best overview of the group and their intentions.

The idea is simple: Bring the majority of corporations into line with the far-left political order. Once this is done, they will force those companies to use their platforms and public exposure to indoctrinate the masses. We have seen this strategy in action over the past several years, with many companies producing a steady stream of products, media content and marketing rife with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion propaganda, not to mention anti-west and anti-conservative propaganda.

These corporations have been so ingrained into the DEI and ESG format that many of them are willing to alienate the majority of their customers and lose vast profits. The last vestiges of free market economics are thus destroyed, because the profit motive has been replaced with a political motive.

Webmaster addition: When corporations merge with government, you get fascism.

The legacy corporate news media remains disturbingly silent as the United States hurtles toward a financial abyss, ignoring the glaring signs of an impending debt crisis, potential banking collapse, and an economic downturn that threatens the nation’s stability.

In a striking irony, the Democratic Party’s primary strategy for the 2024 presidential election involves efforts to imprison their prominent opponent, utilizing a dual strategy of fraud (Russiagate) and censorship (Hunter Biden docs) with the collaboration of corporate media. 

As many as 36 groups advocating free speech, the Free Speech Alliance, have turned to US Congress with a request to stop any further funding of NewsGuard.

NewsGuard is an outfit that describes itself as countering “misinformation on behalf of news consumers, brands and democracies.”

That “mission” also includes (trust) rating system for news sites – right in people’s browsers.

But members of the Free Speech Alliance, and those supporting it are not buying this pitch, summing up and denouncing NewsGuard instead as an ideologically-motivated “internet traffic cop.”

And they are warning that taxpayer money should never have been spent on financing it, and its ilk – and even less so, that the US authorities should continue to spend taxpayer money on what is described as politically motivated censorship of speech.

Sometimes, this is all it takes…those darn real estate bubbles.

Congressional leaders with the House Energy and Commerce investigative subcommittee will question CDC Director Mandy Cohen tomorrow in what should be an interesting hearing on restoring public trust.

The hearing “should” be interesting, because this committee has a long history of holding corporate and government leaders accountable.

However, we have yet to see this committee get any actual explanation for a rash of mistakes and failures during the COVID pandemic.

Global banks’ increasing liquidity hoarding, seen in the eurodollar space and reflected in the record highs of the Federal Reserve’s BTFP balance, heightened borrowings instead of repaying emergency funds, and a surge in the Foreign Repo Pool at FRBNY, indicates widespread caution.

In a new media landscape dominated not by Western media giants but by Instagram reels, TikTok videos and YouTube shorts, Israel’s ongoing war on the besieged Gaza Strip is more than televised.

Audiences across the world, and especially young people, have been watching the devastation caused by Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of the Palestinian enclave on their preferred social media platforms, in real-time, for over a month. Anyone with internet access has seen countless videos of babies torn apart by bombs, women crushed under tonnes of concrete and mothers cradling the dead bodies of their children.

Israel, of course, still continues with its usual efforts – and more – to control the narrative about its bloody wars and decades-old occupation.

Islamic Jihad militants captured Israeli intelligence servers while participating in the Hamas attack on Israel last month, the group’s representative in Iran claimed on Wednesday. Nasser Abu-Sharif said the servers contained the names of multiple Israeli spies, some of whom were operating in Iran.

During the October 7 assault, “the resistance managed to take the Israeli regime’s intelligence servers to Gaza,” Abu-Sharif announced at an event in Tehran, according to Iranian media. 

“The servers contained the names of many spies, even those who were inside the Islamic Republic [of Iran],” he added.

Appropriately it was along Unter der Linden Stasse, inside the foyer of a palatial office building that had served as headquarters of the Nazi regime's Gestapo secret police and Soviet East Germany's Stasi spy service, that I had the dubious honor of shaking hands with Heinz "Henry" Kissinger, or perhaps that gesture was in dishonor, a low point for both the great man and this lowly investigative journalist, who did not cross swords with the grand-master of global affairs. Such is this Universe, a constant clash of destruction and reconstruction, of courage and ignominy.

The occasion was a conference celebrating the millennium, sponsored by a major German-European publishing house, focused on assessing Germany's foreign policy priorities in the post-Soviet rubble. Kissinger spoke of the need to cobble together the many fragments a global consensus, however fraught with distrust and misgivings. My much lesser role, as a American reporter with long experience in China, Japan, Southeast Asia and the USA, was to discuss the vexing issue of maintaining a cool demeanor toward a Beijing leadership eager to fill the Soviet vacuum. Since the forum focused on reconciliation, and cooperation in global power relations, past history with its horrifying brutalities went mostly unmentioned and indeed unnoticed, given the great man's utterances of political assurance.

Jesus was part of an extended family. The Bible says he had brothers and sisters. Some churches try to spin that these were only cousins, or Joseph's from a previous marriage, but Mary, Jesus' mother, was not an only child. At the very least, Jesus had cousins, Aunts, and Uncles. John the Baptist was Jesus' second cousin according to Luke 1:5-38.

For the purpose of this discussion, we do not need to go into the question of whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a family.

But the fact is that Jesus had kinfolk; blood relations, at least on his mother's side (although the Bible provides a paternal genealogy for Jesus back to the House of David).

Those kinfolk had children. Those children had children. Those children had children. And so forth.

Modern genetics testing has demonstrated that modern-day Palestinians have a direct genetic trail back to the biblical Israelites.

So here is the deal. Some of the people walking around Palestine, Gaza, and the West Bank are blood relatives of Jesus. Distant blood relatives, but still blood relatives. Given 2000 years, it is possible that the vast majority of present day Palestinians are remote relatives of Jesus.

Israel is killing them.

For all the people who want the end of days to come sooner rather than later, just find a church where author Dr. Mike Evans speaks. He’ll be the first to tell congregations of 500 or more that bombing Iran is the only way to save Israel. The former 700 Club superstar warmonger claims America can only avert Armageddon by starting it. No, really. The congregations out there seem fully ready for the “big ride” to begin.

Evans’ latest report in the Jerusalem Post, entitled “America needs to bomb Iran,” wreaks of Zionist hatred for Sunni and Shia Muslims. Evans and his benefactors make sure every good Christian is a card-carrying Arab hater, Russia hater, China hater, and bigot against everyone and everything that is not in the interest of Israel. Good Christians are expected to applaud the Zionists blasting babies and their moms into the sky or burying them beneath a hundred tons of rubble in Gaza.

The former prime minister, who spent 50 days in office before being forced to resign in October 2022, arrived in Washington this week with Tory colleagues to try to convince the GOP’s MAGA wing to reverse its stance on Ukraine funding. But given her sorry record at home, the ex-PM’s chances are anyone’s guess, a leading UK politics expert says.

With less than two weeks left in the current legislative calendar to pass Joe Biden’s new proposed package of aid to Ukraine, the president has called out the big guns to try to lobby conservative Republicans.

Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, a well-known "specialist" on Eastern European affairs, who once confused a pair of two Russian regions for Ukrainian ones, and vowed that London would always support its “Baltic allies across the Black Sea,” arrived in Washington, DC this week to explain to skeptical Republicans why the United States needs to shell out more money for Kiev in its failing proxy war with Moscow.

Russia has never refused to hold talks with Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said. To start them, Kiev must stop hostilities and revoke a decree banning talks with Russia, Putin said in September.

The West and some Ukrainian politicians are beginning to prepare the people for a peaceful settlement of the conflict with Russia, said Ukrainian political scientist Ruslan Bortnik.

"Western media and some of our politicians are already hanging this gun on the wall so that we can see it, so that we can get used to the sight of it. Obviously, certain preparations need to be made for possible negotiations," the expert said.

Israel has resumed its attacks on Hamas after a lull lasting several days, accusing the Palestinian armed group of violating the ceasefire. West Jerusalem has repeatedly said that it would resume the hostilities after the truce is over.

In a statement in the early hours of Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that “Hamas violated the operational pause, and in addition, fired toward Israeli territory.” 

“The IDF has resumed combat against the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip,” it added. The military also announced that it was conducting air raids on Hamas targets in Gaza.

Leading Wall Street bankers are opposed to both Joe Biden and Donald Trump as candidates for next year’s US presidential election, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

According to the outlet, JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon stated this week that voters should support former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley as a potential alternative to Trump for the Republican nomination.

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman told Bloomberg on Tuesday that current US President Biden should make way for a new candidate to emerge.

Israel lacks “credit” to keep the fight against Hamas going for months and needs to change its tactics in the south of Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a war cabinet meeting on Thursday, according to Israel’s Channel 12.

Blinken was in Jerusalem for meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the cabinet overseeing the war on the Palestinian militant group. Some of the quotes from the meeting somehow made their way to Channel 12, Israel’s most popular commercial TV station, which aired them on Thursday evening.

“You can’t operate in southern Gaza in the way you did in the north. There are two million Palestinians there,” Blinken said at one point, according to a translation from Hebrew posted by the Times of Israel.

“You need to evacuate fewer people from their homes, be more accurate in the attacks, not hit UN facilities, and ensure that there are enough protected areas,” the US diplomat added. “And if not? Then not to attack where there is a civilian population.”

The confrontations in southern Lebanon between the resistance movement Hezbollah and Israel did not only lead to military casualties.

Israel also systematically targeted civilian houses, burned tens of thousands of olive trees and destroyed schools for disabled children.

Thousands of makeshift tombstones were displayed in the center of Rome to commemorate the children of Gaza who were slaughtered by Israel in recent weeks.

Jamil: 11 years of age; Salma: 16; Jawan: 2; Mohammed 13.

These are the names of just four Palestinian children who have been slaughtered in Gaza since Israel started bombing the besieged territory on October 7th, 2023.

Their names, together with those of 5000 other deceased Palestinian boys and girls, were placed on makeshift tombstones and displayed at a central Piazza in Rome, in memory of all the children killed during Israel's ongoing brutal military assault on Gaza.

Israel's so-called national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has threatened to dissolve the regime’s incumbent administration if the devastating bombing campaign against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip stops.

“Stopping the war = dissolution of the cabinet,” the 47-year-old far-right politician wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, also said on X that a ceasefire in exchange for returning all captives held in Gaza is “a plan to eliminate Israel.”

The controversial comments coincided with talks on a possible new agreement for a long-term humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip.

On Wednesday, a source close to the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement said the group is willing to extend the truce by an additional four days.