Remembering
James Robison

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The Brew: Tragedy Strikes Another Christian School as ‘Juvenile’ Opens Fire, Killing Two

By Al Perrotta Published on December 17, 2024

It’s Tuesday morning, and another Christian school has been targeted with a mass shooting.

Horror at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin

As we come up to celebrating the birth of Christ, we also come up to the anniversary of Herod’s massacre of the innocents. Tragically, at a school that celebrates and follows Christ, many families now know the cruel pain of innocent blood shed.

Yesterday, a suspect identified by police as 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow opened fire at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, killing two people and injuring six others, two of them critically. The shooter then took her own life. By the grace of God, medics happened to be training just three miles away, and they, along with law enforcement, were able to get to the scene almost immediately.

Our prayers go out to the students, staff, and families at Abundant Life.

Again this morning we are left to grapple with the question: “What would compel a youth to commit mass murder?”

Why? The sounds of the shots had barely faded before the same public figures started repeating the same rhetoric about guns. (Funny, nobody on the left talked about guns and the need to restrict them when the victim was a health care executive and the shooter a radicalized leftist.) However, no gun on earth can talk a child into thinking they have a right — be it over a grievance or for attention — to take the life of others.

What wickedness spoke into this killer’s young life? What demons? What turned classmates and teachers into enemies to be punished — or worse, disposed of?

The new year will bring a lot of changes. May our resolution as a nation be to address the mental and spiritual health crisis that’s been laying waste to our children.

Drones Force Shutdown at Wright-Patterson AFB …

Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio was forced to briefly shut down its runways Friday after drones appeared over the base, commanders announced Sunday. Wright-Patterson is a critical military installation, home to the Air Force Research Lab, Air Force Material Command, and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, among other crucial programs.

Whether the incursion is connected to the array of drones that have been menacing the skies over the Eastern seaboard the past several weeks is unknown. However, as The Stream has reported, drones plagued sensitive military and intelligence posts near Langley and Norfolk, Virginia last year, and a Chinese national was arrested just last week for flying a drone over and photographing Vandenberg AFB in California.

What about those drones that were all over New Jersey?

President-Elect Donald Trump declared Monday that “The government knows what is happening. For some reason they don’t want to tell the people and they should.” He refused to comment on whether he has been briefed on what is going on.

… as Feds Admit Radioactive Material Is Missing

Yesterday we reported that the federal government may be hunting for a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb, or sniffing around for something, via these unexplained drones. This may be connected, maybe not — but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just released a report admitting that radioactive material went missing at the beginning of December.

The container that was supposed to be carrying the material arrived in New Jersey “damaged and empty” on December 2. Credit Officer Lew for catching the NRC report.

The material is not weapons grade. According to the report, it is “less than IAEC Category 3 sources,” thus “very unlikely to cause permanent injury.”

Still, where did it go?

NBC News: Trump’s Pressure a “Big Factor” in Hamas Caving to Two Major Israeli Cease-Fire Demands

Donald Trump won’t even be president for another month, yet his impact is already being felt in the Middle East. NBC News reports that Trump’s demand to have the Hamas-Israeli war over by the time he’s inaugurated was a “big factor” in Hamas’s decision to give in to two major Israeli cease-fire demands.

Trump had told the terror group there would be “hell to pay” if the remaining hostages are not released by then.

Trump Gets $100 Billion Investment Commitment from SoftBank. No, Make That $200 Billion.

Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son went to Mar-a-Lago Monday to announce that he’s investing $100 billion in the U.S. to create 100,000 jobs focused on artificial intelligence and related infrastructure. But Trump being Trump, Son hadn’t even left the stage before the president-elect pushed him to up his commitment $200 billion — and a smiling, giggling CEO agreed he would try. The Art of the Deal in action.

Softbank invested $50 billion when Trump was elected in 2016. “My confidence level to the economy of the United States has tremendously increased with his victory,” Son said Monday. “President Trump is a double-down president. I’m going to have to double down.”

Or is that quadruple down?

Thanks to Biden, Trump Can Fire Any Political Appointee He Wants

When Joe Biden took office in 2021, he fired former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and two others from the visitor boards of military academies, despite the fact that President Donald Trump had appointed both of them to three-year terms that were not yet over. Spicer sued and lost, with the judge agreeing with the Biden administration that a president can fire any political appointee, even before his or her appointment expires.

Once again, as the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard explains, a partisan move by the Democrats is coming back to bite them on the backside. Thanks to that legal precedent, Trump can now fire anyone Biden appointed who gets in the way of his agenda. (In fact, according to Bedard, Spicer actually wanted to lose the case just to get the precedent in place for Trump.)

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Let’s give you an example of how this could play out in the Trump 47 administration. Last week, Trump nominated Kari Lake to become director of the Voice of America. Over the last few years, VOA has betrayed its mandate and become a globalist, left-wing broadcaster that is more NPR than pro-USA. However, Lake’s nomination has to be approved by a seven-member, presidentially appointed advisory board at VOA’s parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

During Trump’s first term, his nominee to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Michael Pack, went through two years of hell before finally being allowed to take control of the agency, and the liberal establishment fought his effort to bring reform to VOA tooth and nail. No doubt Lake’s nomination will be a dog fight, too. Getting approved by the current board won’t be easy, especially when some VOA journalists are already moaning to CNN that Lake would break down the “firewall” between VOA and political partisanship. (Translation: The news vet turned conservative firebrand will dump the liberal bias.)

Except now, thanks to Joe Biden firing Spicer and Trump allies from other politically appointed board positions in 2021, Trump can turn around and dump any of the directors who stand in the way of returning VOA to a “fair, accurate and unbiased” outlet proudly telling the American story.

This, of course would apply to any agency hosting Never Trumpers in politically appointed positions.

Along the Stream…

Jules Gomes keeps the heat on the Vatican with “Pope Francis Embraces Holocaust Denier Who Rewards Terrorist ‘Martyrs'”

Joseph Mattera tells us about “The Ideal City of God and Biblical Justice.”

 

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.