259 Epiphany 3: The King: Anchor of Authority
“The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold.” ~ Psalm 19
The King: Anchor of Authority
In chess, the King is everything. He doesn’t move fast. He doesn’t strike hard. But without him, the game is over. He is the anchor, the center, the reason every other piece exists.
The King moves slowly, deliberately. One square at a time. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t chase. His power is in his presence, not his speed.
That’s wisdom.
That’s sovereignty.
In the spiritual realm, it’s the same. Christ doesn’t scramble for position—He reigns. Colossians 1:17 says, “In Him all things hold together.” Without Him, nothing makes sense.
But the King isn’t alone. He’s surrounded! This is what it means to be the King. All move together with one goal in mind—his reign. So also, life in Christ. Every decision, every action is under Him. That's a simple fact. He has made you his own. You are not alone.
The King’s strength is quiet but absolute. He doesn’t fight like common men. But his Spirit defines the game.
"He who sits in the heavens laughs.”
He's not worried. Why are you?
Till angel cry and trumpet sound,
R.J.M.F
The first week of Trump 2.0 was such a firehose, I’ve made two separate summaries of important happenings. So apologies for the outside links, but go read them if you want to get up to speed on Hill happenings.. As far as that is possible! Frisby
In this edition:
Getting down to business at the border
More confirmations for President Trump
The Oscar’s announces its as clueless as ever
Lots of political news this week, but there’s always cool stuff to see if you just look around. So, enjoy!
Coming to America
President Trump ordered that the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) app, which had been set up in 2020 during covid, be shut down. The Biden administration had leaned on the app to streamline the process of asylum seeking, allowing illegal aliens to set up a court date (which is usually years away). Those registered through the app were then usually allowed into the US. (Just the News, US and World News)
Border chief, Tom Homan says deportations have already begun and will “steadily increase”. Military units have joined National Guard officers at the border, largely to “enhance surveillance efforts and act as a deterrent to illegal crossings.” Marines have been helping repair and install razor wire barriers. Americans will need to steel themselves against folks crying at the border and the media flurry that will likely follow. Reports claim that encounters at the border have dropped dramatically in the last few days, suggesting that President Biden could have done more to fix the problem, despite his insistence that he was hamstrung by Congress. (Washington Examiner, Military, Not The Bee, Fox)
Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro has agreed to take its nationals who are deported from the US. Bogota refused to allow two planes of deported illegal immigrants until President Trump threatened steep tariffs against Colombian goods. Though progressives worried about creating an international incident and the price of coffee going up, Petro agreed within a few hours, to fly his own plane to pick up his people.(Reuters)
One of the more disputed executive orders issued by the new President was to rescind birthright citizenship. A federal judge has already issued a temporary block on the Order, slamming it as "blatantly unconstitutional". Supporters of the change point out that that birthright citizenship was only lately adopted – in 1868 – and applied to a man whose parents who were permanently domiciled here. As they argue, the 14thAmendment envisions citizenship for those who are both born in America and are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” which can’t be true of those illegally or temporarily here. Certainly it would be good to address the fact that there are immigrants who take advantage of America’s goodwill, traveling State-side specifically to have their baby in the US. (Reuters, The Federalist, The Federalist, Not the Bee)
The Laken Riley Act has passed into law, giving Homeland Security power to detain and deport illegal immigrants found guilty of crime. Critics have called the Act a “grab bag of draconian policies”, fearing it grants too much power to authorities. Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez complained that illegal aliens will be denied due process, but that dog won’t hunt. (Just the News, Reason, Forbes via YouTube)
New polls show that the majority of Americans want to deport all illegal aliens. (Harry Enten via X)
Births, Deaths and Marriages
A whistleblowing doctor who has pursued by the Department of Justice for exposing Texas hospital’s child mutilation has had his case dropped. God be praised! (Not The Bee)
Michigan has become the last US state to decriminalize paid surrogacy. Those who promote surrogacy services prey on women’s desire to help by cultivating the idea that they “become even more motherly by giving up their children.” (The Federalist)
It took a while, but the Mad Mondays year-in-review for 2024 is here!
Politics
The US Senate voted unanimously to confirm Florida’s Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has been confirmed as Head of Homeland Security. Former veteran and Fox presenter, Pete Hegseth has been confirmed as Secretary of Defense. With a tie mostly along party lines, Vice President Vance cast the deciding vote. The President has handed out temporary security clearances to clear out the backlog and speed up the process of cabinet confirmations. (RedState, RedState, Just the News, Hot Air)
President Trump has yanked security detail for a number of former intelligence luminaries who were responsible for calling the Hunter Biden’s laptop “Russian disinformation”. Anthony Fauci has also had his taxpayer-funded security detail pulled. While it could be seen as revenge for ill-treatment of Trump (and probably is), it is worth asking how long protection should last after leaving office. The President says he has no qualms about pulling the funding, saying that these men made “lots of money” and can “pay for their own security too.” (Washington Times, Washington Examiner)
Money, Markets and Jobs
The Trump administration is considering selling off unoccupied government buildings, up to two-thirds of its office space. Realtors in DC say it could wreck havoc in the market. (CRE)
Elon Musk has proposed getting rid of the penny as part of government penny-pinching (pun intended!) (The Week)
The US Federal Reserve has backed out of a climate coalition which was dedicated to the “greening of the financial system” globally. (Not the Bee)
Crime and Punishment
One to watch: a group of truckers has filed a second amendment case against Minnesota Department of Public Safety. The truckers, who carry secured firearms in their 18 wheelers may be punished as they cross state lines with varying gun laws. (The Federalist)
The Digital Age
President Trump announced a $500 billion joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle, known as Stargate. The project is set to build massive data centers/computers but Elon Musk said the group doesn’t actually have the money. OpenAI’s Sam Altman recently said the “social contract” will have to be renegotiated to accommodate AI, which is also alarming, but the tech bros like to dream. (Semafor, Yahoo, TFTC via X)
The FBI says that phone numbers of agents and who they texted and called were likely amongst the information stolen during a Chinese hack on AT&T. (Yahoo)
A federal court has ruled that private communications of American citizens cannot be collected using a “backdoor” in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) but must be covered by a warrant. (Reclaim the Net)
The internet is not enough: An internal document leaked from Meta shows that the company wants to use copyrighted material for training its AI, citing “data scarcity”. (The Verge)
There are reports that TikTok is considering the offer of a merger with Perplexity, the “AI-powered answer engine”, based in California. YouTube personality Mr Beast is also reportedly considering buying the app – if ByteDance will sell. TikTok’s success often lead to headscratching over its mysteriously effectivene algorithms, but one tech writer says it might just down to marketing. TikTok were spending millions a day on platforms like Meta to “buy, not rent user engagement”. In the meantime, Instagram appears to be hedging its bets, trying to snap up TikTok’s best and brightest with big bonuses to bring their influencing to its servers. (The Verge) (Mindstream, TechCrunch, Mobile Dev Memo) Studies into how the China influences TikTok users .(Network Contagion)
X alternative, Bluesky is getting a companion photo-sharing app. X is also rolling out a vertical video feed for US users. (TechCrunch, TechCrunch)
The Chinese-owned app RedNote is considering walling off its Chinese users to avoid American influence as TikTok refugees flood the platform. (ArsTechnica)
Health, Medicine and Food
Tech bros are hoping to bring their “tech can fix everything” techno optimism to human health. Oracle’s Larry Ellison offered an alarmingly fanciful vision of AI devising “personalized medicine”, such as cancer vaccines. mRNA expert, Robert Malone says it’s stupid to think you could make a single cancer vaccine let alone universal one, noting that the biggest risk factors are lifestyle and diet. (ZeroHedge Tsarathrustra via X, Malone News)
The Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that COVID-19 "more likely" originated from a Chinese research lab leak. (Just the News)
Brain rot. Even trading a smart phone for flip phones makes a difference to kids well-being. (The Critic, CBS)
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a ketamine-related nasal spray for adults who have a “major depressive disorder that is difficult to treat.” (CNBC)
Gym regulars hold out for the New Year’s resolutions noobs to give up. (Wall Street Journal)
Scots in the US can now enjoy haggis from the motherland, after a Scottish producer devised a recipe adapted to satisfy US requirements. The US banned products with offal in 1971. (Yahoo)
God’s Green Earth
Pray for Cali: Rain over the weekend has helped firefighters rein in the three main fires, which are now almost fully contained. However, floods and mudslides are forecast. Meanwhile, independent reporting claims that Governor Gavin Newsom had opportunity to increase fire protection measures for houses built in fire-prone areas but vetoed the spending to prioritize building more homes. (Forbes, Red State)
Japan’s government has said it will give $2 million to help California wildfire (Kyodo News)
A practical problem with the claim that 2024 was the hottest year on record. (Mercator)
There’s more to a local weatherman than you might think. But like many small news services, meteorologists are under threat. (The Hustle)
Making shop windows bird-friendly. (Good Good Good)
Science
China is having a turn at beaming electricity from space. A new report says its planned massive solar array will produce more power than “all the oil on earth”. NASA made forays into orbiting power stations in the 70s and 90s but gave up due to cost and the difficulty of containing a microwave beam safely. (LiveScience, Spectrum IEEE)
Straight Outta J-School
Former Politico journalists say staff were told to say nothing negative about Hunter Biden’s laptop. (PJ Media)
CNN has announced the layoff of around 200 staff, as it aims to keep up with digital news services. (CNBC)
Religion and the Church
A gaslighting female Episcopal bishop has berated President Trump and Vice President Vance during her “sermon” at the National Cathedral. (Honest to Goodness)
Arts, History and Sport
The Oscars seems as out-of-touch as ever, with the Academy announcing its nominees for this year’s awards. A trans-identified man is in the running to win “best actress” for a film described to me as “if El-Chapo was trans”. “Conclave” is also up for a number of gongs. The movie is supposed to portray Vatican palace intrigue but the twist? The new pope is secretly trans. Hooray for Hollywood. (Variety)
The International Olympic Committee has said it will replace athlete’s gold medals which are reportedly fading mere months after the Paris games. (Inside the Games)
Two artists are offering to draw pictures of houses lost in LA fires. (CBC)
Hearts and Minds
The teaching power of a virtuous friendship. (Plough)
War and Rumors of War
Israel’s military chief has said he will step down citing his inability to protect Israelis during the attack on October 7, 2023. (Times of Israel)
Hamas has released seven female hostages back to Israel, but says that 8 of the 26 due to be freed in this first agreement are dead. (BBC)
Stories from Far Away
🇵🇦 Panamanian authorities have launched an audit into the Hong Kong-based company that controls the Canal. (Alarabiya News)
🇨🇾 The leaders of the two halves of Cyprus have agreed that checkpoints are needed along the island’s dividing line. The nation was split when Turkey invaded for a few days in 1974. The UN has held a buffer zone since then, but rising demand for freer travel between the two territories lead to the rare meeting between leaders. The argument seems to be over where to put the checkpoints. (KGET)
🇮🇩 Indonesia has joined the BRICS bloc of nations and is discussing the use of local currencies to trade with other member nations. (Jakarta Globe)
🇨🇳 China has executed two men responsible for separate deadly attacks. One drove his car into a crowd and another was charged with a knife attack in a school. (UPI)
🇬🇧 The UK’s MI5 has declassified a tranche of documents including some pertaining to the Cambridge Five, a group of Soviet spies who infiltrated top levels of government, including Buckingham Palace. (National Archive UK)
🇨🇦 Canada’s former deputy prime minisier, Chrystia Freeland has thrown her hat in the ring for the top spot. Elections for a new prime minister will be held later this year. (The Guardian)
☕ How much coffee for a lethal dose?
🎒 Is it a calque or a loanword?
❓ A compendium of known unknowns
🏰 A hard-mode hobby: a group of friends builds a medieval castle from scratch
🏈 Sports terms that we use everyday
🍲 Chicken noodle soup-flavored candy (we don’t make the rules, obviously)
🪑 A world without chairs? Well, they say sitting is the new smoking..
Wisdom. It’s bigger than brains and stronger than strength. And, for the sake of our churches, communities, wives, and children, we men need to know how to wield it. At the 2025 Men’s Gathering, Pastor Jonathan Conner of Issues Etc. "Kid's Have Questions" fame will bring Biblical wisdom to bear on two of the most pressing issues of our day, screens and identity, as he equips us to tame our screens and to strengthen our identity as men of God.
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Let us pray. Almighty God, You called Titus to the work of pastor and teacher. Make all shepherds of Your flock diligent in preaching Your holy Word so that the whole world may know the immeasurable riches of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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God's peace