For an open-minded, fair-thinking person (IOW, not Nancy Pelosi), building the wall should obviously be the most compassionate, sensible and moral thing our nation could do in addressing concerns over our southern border. Here are five reasons why:

1. Building a strong border boundary would allow more people from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to staff the designated ports of entry, so as to process more quickly and efficiently those seeking asylum, as well as those hoping to find jobs in America.  As it is today, thousands of personnel from CBP and the Department of Homeland Security have to patrol our very long, open and porous border with Mexico.  Democrats, Republicans and others rightly bemoan the plight of desperate people seeking freedom and safety in America.  Why would one not want to enable more of these people to have their cases resolved expeditiously?
2. By having an effective, permanent wall, the government could actual increase the number and locations of designated ports of entry, again allowing more people to be processed in a timely manner.  By stopping illegal entry into the country where there is no barrier, those with nefarious reasons to enter would more likely forego an attempted entry, allowing for those with legitimate and understandable reasons to come here and to be granted entrance more quickly.
3. The flow of illegal drugs across the border is both a moral issue and a matter of life and death.  Millions of people in the United States are victims of drug addiction and death due to the relative ease with which drug cartels move drugs and cash back and forth over the border.  While some drug smugglers are caught trying to enter at a port of entry, many simply walk or drive across where there is no barrier.
4. Human traffickers routinely transport people across the border.  Many of their victims end up in the sex trade or in forced-labor situations.  Most of them are minors.  Desperate and trusting parents in Mexico and Central America often pay thousands of dollars to these traffickers, hoping to secure a better life for their children in America—only to have this happen.  Traffickers also take advantage of runaway or orphaned children.  This is a blight on our nation’s soul and a human tragedy that is repeated virtually every day.  What kind of misguided thinking would not see this as an enormous moral issue?  Based on this alone, a border wall to stop this victimization of innocent people is a moral imperative.  As serious as the matter of drug-smuggling is, human smuggling is even more stark and gut-wrenching.  Even if this were the only reason to have a strong border—it would be sufficient to justify such an undertaking.
5. Finally, if one believes our government has a moral obligation to protect its citizens, the national security implications for border security are indicative of the need for a border wall.  Hundreds of illegal immigrants apprehended at our southern border each year are not from Central or South America, but rather are from the Middle East and Africa.  After the events of 9/11, one of the findings of the investigation following the attacks was that the United States had a “failure of imagination.”  We simply did not imagine the lengths our enemies would go to attack our nation.  We could not grasp the idea that they would be so creative as to thwart our transportation system and use planes full of people as guided missiles.  What are we overlooking at our southern border? What people, and with what weapons, would exploit our porous and ineffective border to plan and launch another devastating attack on the homeland?

Source:

• https://aclj.org/national-security/5-reasons-why-the-border-wall-is-a-moral-issue

FLOTUS posted: “Helping children across the country track #Santa is becoming one of my favorite traditions!”

I like to make my gifts, so I’ve been too busy with Christmas crafting to post a Bits & Bytes for several days. But today, Dearest is with his sibs, the Buzzers are with Daddy Buzz’s clan, the Texans are probably comatose after their first Christmas season as retailers, and the former Marines are at home with their preemie who is still too fragile to leave home. I do have a gf coming for dinner, so you don’t have to feel sorry for me. 🙂 I just wanted to explain why I’m posting this on Christmas!

TISSUE ALERT!

BUILD THE WALL: Voters want it, Trump promised it — And according to this article, there are sources of revenue in the executive branch that the president has authority to use without congressional approval. And he has the authority to build the wall without congressional approval. Wouldn’t it be SWEET if we got the wall DESPITE the NeverTrumper/Democrat blockade?!

• https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/12/24/donald-trump-shutdown-congress-approval-build-border-wall-spending-column/2402442002/

TEAMSTERS SUCK: Seasonal UPS workers got the shaft for Christmas — The Teamsters up and decided everybody has to pay their $500 union initiation fee up front, in one lump sum, even if they’re just seasonal workers who were only brought on to handle the December rush. One woman say she worked 41 hours that week, many of them during the night, and ended up with just $14.52 in her pay check. The stinkin’ union took the rest … then blamed UPS. I’ve said it before and now I’ll say it again: These big unions have become the problem they were started to stop.

• https://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/12/20/i-team-seasonal-ups-workers-entire-paychecks-teamsters-union/

RUSH: The stock market decline is not Trump’s fault — I don’t understand this stuff at all, so I’ll just leave the link here for those who want it.

• https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2018/12/24/so-many-things-to-observe-about-the-markets/

SAUSAGE LOVERS RESPOND:

• That’s why they make A-1 sauce.
• Minimizing waste is a bad thing?
• So as long as it tastes good, I don’t care.
• Ridiculous. You cannot convince me that any of the food I eat is made from PETA members.
• If you consider this harrowing, I can say with confidence you’ve never raised a child.
• There’s a good chance you’ve eaten something grown in manure.
• There’s a near 100% chance you’ve eaten salad contaminated with human feces.
• You cannot spell “Eat broccoli” without “E coli.”

BILL O’REILLY: On Syria pull out — It happens that I was at the White House yesterday when the Syria story hit.  President Trump announcing US ground troops will no longer operate in that country because ISIS has been largely defeated.

The media’s negative reaction to the announcement is kind of strange because it supported President Obama’s policy of letting ISIS run wild, which the killers certainly did.  Correct me if I’m wrong but I did not hear media cries for American forces on the ground to crush the terror group back then.

But now Donald Trump is President and everything he does is baaaad.  

The policy of keeping peace in Syria should be assumed by the United Nations.  But that won’t happen.  So President Trump is pulling troops back because he doesn’t like to deploy American soldiers on foreign soil.  He’s made that quite clear in the past.

US forces will, however, be close in case violence once again develops in Syria.  So why all the hysteria?

To damage Trump, that’s why.

• https://www.billoreilly.com/b/U.S.-Withdrawal-from-Syria/923753440845708751.html

MSM: Hypocrisy on Mattis retirement — The unhinged media’s shrieking over Mattis’ decision to retire ignores the face that, when he retires in February after two straight years of media hell, he’ll have outlasted three out of four Obama SECDEFs. The fourth one, Robert Gates, was a hold over from Bush. He lasted longer under Obama than Mattis under Trump, BUT as soon as he stepped down, he slammed Obama’s leadership.

• https://ilovemyfreedom.org/media-forgets-to-point-out-general-mattis-will-have-served-longer-than-obamas-last-3-defense-secretaries/

KARMA: She’s a bitch — A Hamas terrorist was killed when the tunnel he was building under his home to attack Israel collapsed on him. It is common for these guys to hide among and underneath civilian structures, using civilians as human shields. In this case, it was the man’s own family. I hope he’s enjoying his “virgins.”

• https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/12/hamas-tunnel-engineer-working-on-a-tunnel-underneath-his-home-when-it-collapsed-and-killed-him/

LIBERALS SHOW THEIR TRUE COLORS: Good will toward all? Not them! — Those paragons of tolerance, diversity, and compassion for the differently abled have been heaping the vileness in their hearts and minds on to the triple-amputee veteran, Brian Kolfage, who started the immensely successful GoFundMe campaign to raise money for a border wall and on multiple conservative women. I’ll spare you the details. It’s Christmas!

• https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/exclusive-read-the-vile-hate-mail-sent-to-triple-amputee-veteran-behind-gofundthewall-encouraged-by-liberal-media-and-celebrities/
• http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/21/msnbc-rolls-sexist-anti-christian-smears-female-trump-employees/
• https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2018/12/22/blue-check-columnist-tweets-absolutely-sick-comments-to-dana-loesch-who-has-a-reminder-for-him/

ABORTION: Ohio Update –– Governor John Kasich has VETOED a bill that would have prohibited abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable. A baby’s heart starts beating during the fifth week of pregnancy, but usually cannot be detected until about 12 weeks into pregnancy. Kasich SIGNED a bill to ban dismemberment abortions, where the abortionist reaches into the womb and literally twists and rips the unborn baby’s arms and legs off, then crushes its skull.

• https://www.lifenews.com/2018/12/21/ohio-gov-john-kasich-vetoes-bill-to-ban-abortions-after-unborn-babys-heartbeat-begins/
• https://www.livestrong.com/article/222695-how-early-can-you-hear-the-heartbeat-of-a-baby/
• https://www.lifenews.com/2018/12/21/ohio-bans-dismemberment-abortions-tearing-babies-limb-from-limb/

Musical Fun at Chicago’s Union Station

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Bless us all with Your love and make us holy!

Help us all to seek You with sincere hearts, knowing that it will profit us nothing if we gain the whole world yet lose our souls.

Help us all to trust Your gracious purpose in every trial.

Help us all to feel Your blessings in every day.

Thank You for coming, Lord Jesus!

Amen.

TISSUE ALERT! This is probably my #1 favorite Christmas carol and this is a gorgeous version!

LOL! Watch this to the end.

The Jewish historian Josephus writing in the first century records that at Passover up to 265,000 lambs would be sacrificed in the Jewish temple at Jerusalem.

The Passover lamb was called “The Lamb of God.”

Those lambs had to meet the strict legal-religious regulations of the Jewish faith. They had to be no more than one year old, male and without spot or blemish. Therefore they had to be born in controlled conditions and inspected for birth defects before being raised in protected conditions.

Where did they get that many lambs? The law also said that animals to be sacrificed had to be born within five miles of Jerusalem.

Bethlehem is just five miles from Jerusalem.

The hillsides around Bethlehem, therefore were a first century lamb factory farm. When the lambs were born they were wrapped up in strips of cloth to protect them and placed in a stone feeding trough in the birthing barn until the priest could come by and inspect them.

This is why the angel said to the shepherds “This shall be a sign for you. You will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” The “manger” was most likely a stone feeding trough, not a wooden crib as we usually see. That comes from the medieval version of the story.

Jesus was therefore born in the same place and at the same time with the same treatment as the lambs that would be sacrificed.

The shepherds knew they were not going to see just any baby. They were going to see the newborn Lamb of God.

That’s why they worshiped him. They knew he was the promised Messiah, the Suffering Servant, the Lamb of God.

— Source unknown.

SHUTDOWN: Countdown — After the holidays, some government workers will be getting a paid-for-later furlough because Senate Dems are unwilling to approve $5.7 billion for President Trump’s border wall.

• In 2013, Obama shut down the government because Congress hadn’t put Obamacare funding into the spending bill. Democrats and their lapdog media depicted that as “evil Republicans want people to die.”
• In 2018, Trump shuts down the government because Congress won’t put border security funding into the spending bill. Democrats and their lapdog media are depicting this as “Trump is having a toddler tantrum.”

Lemme think … the 2013 Congress that wouldn’t fund Obamacare was voted in by Americans who were furious that Democrats had shoved Obamacare down our throats. A majority of Americans did NOT want Obamacare.

But the 2018 president who was voted in by Americans promised us a wall again and again and again. A majority of Americans DO want border security. So do Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, whose houses have border walls. In fact, we the taxpayers paid to install the one around Obama’s post-WH digs, because HIS security matters.

Meanwhile, illegal aliens cost American taxpayers $116 billion annually. Democrats are always telling us to be like other countries. But one third of the nations in the world have border walls!

THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BORDER SECURITY. It is ALL about Trump Hate.

We the People Will Fund the Wall = $16,728,894 today at 5 pm.

https://www.gofundme.com/TheTrumpWall

• https://www.watchdog.org/national/analysis-illegal-immigrants-cost-taxpayers-billion-annually/article_b51222e8-8b7b-11e8-8546-37063af1f318.html
• https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/12/daily-reminder-65-countries-have-border-walls-and-so-does-nancy-pelosis-backyard/

Here are two cases that demonstrate why doing your own research is better than just taking (or rejecting) what your doctor says. Both videos are by health professionals. One proves an age-old alternative remedy is useless. The other shows that conventional medical wisdom about the place of fiber in our diets is flat out wrong.

EAR CANDLES: These alternative method for removing ear wax don’t work. –– Worse, they could do some serious damage.

LOW CARB DIETS: Fiber is not necessary for a healthy diet — In studies, the low carb (aka, keto) diet produced far better results for people suffering from constipation, IBS, and diabetes. Other studies show that the gut microbes that prefer high fat, keto diets are the same microbes that are associated with weight loss; however, the science does not support a fairly common claim that taking pro-biotics will make you lose weight. It’s more likely that the high-fat, low-carb diet causes both weight loss and an increase in the microbes associated with weight loss. IOW, just taking pro-biotic supplements is unlikely to help you lose weight, but a high-fat, low-carb diet will.

One interesting study he talks about concerns what causes “non-celiac gluten sensitivity” which I and some of my family members seem to have. The study suggested it is not the gluten, but the fructan that is causing the symptoms. Fructan is the F in something called FODMAPS, which are high in gluten-rich grains. They are also high in some non-grain foods — i.e., blackberries, watermelon, asparagus, mushrooms, onion, and watermelon. This could explain why I can eat one Caulipower pizza in a week, but not two. Good to know! I don’t care much about the others on that list, as I rarely eat them anyway. But onions. Wahhh! I ❤ onions! :o(“ I guess I’ll have to pay attention to how I feel after eating them from now on.

You’re never really sure which Lindsey Graham is going to show up.
Lindsey Graham Doubles Down On Wall Funding: ‘We’re Not Going To Give In’

In a Fox News interview Saturday evening with Jeanine Pirro, the lawmaker called out Democrats for the division, accusing them of waging “a silly, petty fight” on the spending bill, and assuring Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) he was in for a war.
Senator Schumer, what does it take for you to realize that we need more money for a broken border?” he asked. “And this is about them hating Trump so much, wanting him to lose, they can’t understand that America needs to win, and we’re not going to give in. I’m a pretty reasonable guy, but we’re not going to give in on this.”

Graham’s tough talk comes just roughly 24 hours after he appeared on the network Friday, praising President Donald Trump’s push for border money and encouraging him to “dig in” further.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/lindsey-graham-doubles-down-wall-055843076.html

While last year’s fake reporting largely occurred during the media’s relentless pursuit to prove Russian collusion, this year’s list is much more varied. However, some themes emerged: stories about then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the U.S. border were routinely flagged for misinformation.

Without further ado, here is the list of 2018’s worst examples of fake news:
1. WAPO BLAMES BORDER PATROL FOR DEATH OF 7-YEAR-OLD MIGRANT
The Washington Post published a story in December focusing on a 7-year-old migrant child from Guatemala who died in border patrol custody.

Despite WaPo’s misleading headline suggesting border patrol was to blame for the girl’s death, the full timeline of events and statements from the girl’s father praising border agents revealed a different story.
https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/22/worst-fake-news-stories-cnn-nbc-2018/

Maxine Waters: ‘We Need to Get Rid’ of ‘Despicable’ Trump

Waters said, “We must understand that the Fed does not work for the president of the United States. The Fed creates monetary policy based on what’s good for the economy and, of course, I may disagree from time to time with their decisions but we must not interfere. They must be independent
She added, “I’m not surprised that the president is doing this because I’m not surprised at anything that the president may do or say. I have warned America from the beginning that this president is not worthy, he cannot be trusted, he’s a liar, He’s despicable. Any time he steps in, opens his mouth, tries to interfere with one of our agencies I’m not shocked but the American people continue to be shocked.
https://www.breitbart.com/video/2018/12/23/maxine-waters-we-need-to-get-rid-of-despicable-trump/

Suitable for the home of the perpetual traffic jam
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The signs are up, and it’s official: You can now take a drive on the President Barack H. Obama Highway.

Signs were posted Thursday, renaming a section of a Los Angeles-area freeway after the 44th president of the United States, The Associated Press reported. The signs were installed along a stretch of State Route 134 that runs from the Eagle Rock area of Los Angeles to Interstate 210 in Pasadena.
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-12-21/signs-installed-along-president-barack-h-obama-highway-in-los-angeles