Nancy Pelosi spends government shutdown relaxing in luxury Hawaii resort

Convention Of States  . . . "Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi is spending the government shutdown at a luxury resort in Hawaii, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

"Pelosi, who has put blame squarely on President Donald Trump for the current government shutdown, was spotted Thursday vacationing in Hawaii at the Fairmont Orchid resort, where room accommodations range from $899-a-night for a standard room to $4,899-a-night for the presidential suite.

"The resort, on Hawaii's Big Island, features a golf course, six restaurants, and a 10,000-square-foot oceanfront pool. It also features a "Spa Without Walls," where the 110-minute Ali'i Royal Experience is available for $369 and a 50-minute couples massage runs $549, according to the spa menu. While at the spa, guests can snack on a gluten-free grilled prawn summer roll for $19." . . .

World’s First Lesbian Bishop Calls for Church to Remove Crosses, to Install Muslim Prayer Space

Breitbart

"The Bishop of Stockholm has proposed a church in her diocese remove all signs of the cross and put down markings showing the direction to Mecca for the benefit of Muslim worshippers.

"Eva Brunne, who was made the world’s first openly lesbian bishop by the church of Sweden in 2009, and has a young son with her wife and fellow lesbian priest Gunilla Linden, made the suggestion to make those of other faiths more welcome.

"The church targeted is the Seamen’s mission church in Stockholm’s eastern dockyards. The Bishop held a meeting there this year and challenged the priest to explain what he’d do if a ship’s crew came into port who weren’t Christian but wanted to pray.

"Calling Muslim guests to the church “angels“, the Bishop later took to her official blog to explain that removing Christian symbols from the church and preparing the building for Muslim prayer doesn’t make a priest any less a defender of the faith. Rather, to do any less would make one “stingy towards people of other faiths”.

"The bishop insisted this wasn’t an issue, after all airports and hospitals already had multi-faith prayer rooms, and converting the dockyard church would only bring it up to speed. Regardless, the announcement has aroused protest.

"Father Patrik Pettersson, one of the priests in her diocese and active in the same parish as the Seaman’s mission church has hit back in a blog of his own, complaining there is no way you could equate a consecrated church with a prayer room, remarking “I should have thought a bishop would be able to tell the difference”."  . . .

A comment on this bishop in Wikipedia was: "In September 2015 Brunne proposed the removal of symbols of Christianity, including crosses, from the Seamen's Church in Stockholm Harbor, to open the church to worshipping sailors of all beliefs, and to mark the direction of Mecca as a service to Muslim visitors.^{[12][13][14] [15]} As the Seamen's Church is an independent foundation and, while in Stockholm, not part of Brunne's Diocese of Stockholm, Kicki Wetterberg, the head of the Seamen's Church, rejected the suggestion in an interview with Dagen, stating that she had "no problem with Muslim or Hindu sailor"s worshipping in the church, but the church will keep its crosses, being a Christian church".

Here are some more of her teachings: There is the issue of...wait for it...pronouns.

. . . "Only a week ago, lesbian bishop, Eva Brunne of the Stockholm Church of Sweden, proclaimed our Holy Bible flawed and actually issued a “handbook” to her congregation that has corrected the mistakes of the bestselling book of all time.
"What were the mistakes, according to this heretic?  And, yes, I use the word “heretic” correctly and with forethought.  The mistakes, according to the homosexual woman, are that the pronouns used in the Bible are not “gender inclusive.”  That is not a joke or an exaggeration.  Brunne has proclaimed that the men and women who participated in the most inspiring work of mankind were insensitive and, more importantly, wrong in their inspiration.
"No longer would she or her followers be using the words, Lord, Father, He, Him, or His when referring to God or Jesus.  The Holy Trinity, as well, will not be referred to as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, because Brunne says so.  And apparently, her word is law in Sweden." . . .

Bre Payton's death and the increase of swine flu

Conservative journalist Bre Payton's shock H1N1 death shows just how little the local press is reporting
. . . "Then I headed off to the County Health and Human Services Agency, where, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, her death is being investigated.

"What I found there was shocking - take a look at this Dec. 22 Influenza Watch chart: Flu cases have spiked up significantly in the past two weeks. Swine flu, which is relatively rare, now accounts for 14.3% of all flu cases. We can also see from the various charts shown that there was a bad outbreak last year and this year seems to be on track to echo to a lesser extent that same dangerous pattern" . . .

. . . "More searching shows that swine flu has been in this area in the past. A decade ago, H1N1 shut down my old high school as a public safety measure. I had my flu shot. But what I can't ascertain from news reports is whether that strain of the flu is included in this year's shot. I only found an old report saying that after the 2009 outbreak, H1N1 was included in the following year's serum. Not seeing any news on that, either.

"What does this tell us? That a big story has been going on and none of the local presses are spotting it. Seriously, I looked. That's a public health issue that affects everyone, and nobody has been reporting it. Not the local TV stations, not the San Diego Union-Tribune, not the local alternative presses. This is a different sort of media dereliction of duty compared to the typical political bias, and makes me wonder if it's the result of so many layoffs in the news industry that expertise on public health has gone by the wayside.

"Either way, the press has fallen down on the job by not warning of the potential for danger in San Diego over this deadly illness." . . .

Boy who died in U.S. custody tested positive for influenza; cause of death still under investigation

Related; Bre Payton articles

Democrats: A plague on the nation

The Democrats hate Trump so much that they want the economy to crash.  They are hoping for recession. 

Patricia McCarthy  "How as Americans do we explain the intransigence of the left when it comes to national security?  'Tis a mystery.  These people, these Democrats in Congress,

are among the most privileged persons on the planet.  They have enjoyed, more than most, the blessings bequeathed by the Founders, the authors of the Constitution.  Yet they are determined, like Obama, to transform us into something this nation was never meant to be: a land without borders.  While all of them are on record supporting a border wall in the past, now that Donald Trump is president, they all oppose it with every fiber of their being.  They know that it will work, and they cannot abide Trump having a win.  These people – Schumer, Pelosi, Gutiérrez, etc. – are truly venal.  Governor Brown has effectively destroyed California, now benighted by rampant homelessness and the crime that accompanies a population of illiterate, drug-addicted, gang-affiliated, criminally inclined persons adrift on our streets.  And now another young officer has been killed by an illegal alien thanks to the left's obsession with protecting the throngs of migrants crossing the border into the U.S. 
. . . 

"The young policeman who died in California Christmas night will and should be a wake-up call for the Democrats.  They are 100% responsible for the presence of such criminals, protected by ridiculous sanctuary policies in our cities.  The media and the Democrats are in an uproar over the two migrant children who died at the hands of irresponsible parents who used them as a ticket to ride, yet they have nothing to say about the murder of the young policeman in Newman, Calif.  He is, to them, a casualty of politics, of their grand design to obliterate conservatives from the public realm forever.  They do not care about him, his widow, or his infant son.  They were happy to contribute to the odious Christine Blasey Ford's GoFundMe page, but not one of them will contribute to a GoFundMe page for Ronil Singh's family.  He is law enforcement, so they feel nothing. 

"The Democratic Party of today is an abomination." . . .

Calif. Sheriff Praises Slain Cop as 'Shining Example of What Immigration in America Should Be'

Jerry Brown Grants Pardons to Immigrants Facing Deportation Due to Criminal History  . . . "Brown is able to grant more requests for pardons and clemency until he leaves office Jan. 7." . . .

Politics and Bigotry: No Catholics Need Apply? "The amazing Mazie at it again."

The American Spectator

"Those of you waiting for things to become a little more statesmanlike, or even coherent, in “the world’s greatest deliberative body” can put your feet up and relax. It’s going to be a while longer. Maybe a lot longer.

"Two of the Senate Democrats’ main picadors in the unsuccessful attempted knee-capping of now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh are at it again. This month California’s Kamala Harris and Hawaii’s Mazie Hirano landed on Omaha lawyer Brian Buescher, nominated by President Trump to serve on the Nebraska U.S. District court, for, of all things, his membership in the Knights of Columbus.

"That’s right, the Knights of Columbus, a venerable Catholic fraternal, service, and charitable organization that has been committing good works, including helping the sick and needy, since before Harris’s and Hirano’s grandparents were born. The Knights also support traditional Catholic values and social policy. And this is the rub, according to Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Harris questioned whether membership in this retrograde (according to secularists) organization would impede Buescher’s ability to hear cases before the federal court fairly and impartially. She asked Buescher if he agreed with Supreme Knight (the K of C chief executive) Carl A. Anderson’s statement that abortion is “the killing of the innocent on a massive scale.” Buescher replied he wasn’t responsible for the Knight’s statements and policies and that as a judge he would be guided by law and precedent in all areas.

"In written questions sent to Buescher by the committee, Hirano harrumphed, “The Knights of Columbus has taken a number of extreme positions.” (Note how Democrat questions sound more like accusations.)

"Considering the source, that’s a real knee-slapper. We all remember the amazing Mazie. She’s the one who during the attempted Kavanaugh takedown suggested that all men are swine and should just “shut up and step up.” (As Ring Lardner would have phrased it, “Shut up, she explained.”) This sexist non-sequitur, and downright extreme position, was Mazie’s contribution to the question of whether Kavanaugh, a man with a spotless adult life, had sexually assaulted a 15-year-old at a party long ago at an undetermined place, during an undetermined year, and under vague circumstances that no one but the accuser remembers." . . .

While on the subject of Democrat bigotry: Anti-Semites on the (Women’s) March

. . . "But although the organizers are branding the march with the hashtag #WomensWave, a nod to the success of Democratic women who ran and won in the midterm elections, it is the Women’s March brand that has recently suffered a mortal blow. As a deeply reported and damning investigation by Tablet revealed, the leadership of the organization has spent the past two years avoiding tough questions about its finances and purging people who depart from its radical orthodoxy—all while cozying up to hatemongers like Louis Farrakhan. " . . .

Queen Offers to Restore British Rule Over United States (Satire or CNN?)

New Yorker

"This two-hundred-and-forty-year experiment in self-rule began with the best of intentions, but I think we can all agree that it didn't end well," she said.

"LONDON (The Borowitz Report)—In an unexpected televised address on Saturday, Queen Elizabeth II offered to restore British rule over the United States of America.

"Addressing the American people from her office in Buckingham Palace, the Queen said that she was making the offer “in recognition of the desperate situation you now find yourselves in.”

" 'This two-hundred-and-forty-year experiment in self-rule began with the best of intentions, but I think we can all agree that it didn't end well," she said.

"The Queen urged Americans to write in her name on Election Day, after which the transition to British rule could begin “with a minimum of bother.”

"Elizabeth acknowledged that, in the wake of Brexit, Americans might justifiably be alarmed about being governed by the British parliamentary system, but she reassured them, “ 'Parliament would play no role in this deal. This would be an old-school monarchy. Just me, and then, assuming you’d rather not have Charles, we could go straight to William and those children of his who have mesmerized you so.”

"Using the closing moments of her speech to tout her credentials, the Queen made it clear that she has never used e-mail and has only had sex with one person "very occasionally.' "

Andy Borowitz is the New York Times best-selling author of “The 50 Funniest American Writers,” and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes the Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news, for newyorker.com
Hat tip to Rick McGinty at Mark Levin's Fan Club of Intelligent, Thinking Women (and Men)