First of all, we’re glad that the little girl is safe. Nothing points up the monstrous evil of Hamas, and the jihadi creed which inspires it, like the fact that we’re even talking about a four-year-old girl as a hostage. Every American should thank God that Abigail Mor Edan has been freed, along with other young children the terrorists despicably abducted after murdering their parents. So far we’re all in agreement, apart from those college students and professors who support using “any means necessary” to ethnically cleanse the Holy Land of Christians and Jews.

So process the happy fact first, and then let’s dig into the details, which are at least … interesting. Creative Destruction Media reports on the family connections of poor little Abigail — an innocent pawn on the chessboard of terrorist jihadis, and our own corrupt government. CDM suggests that there’s a reason why Abigail was the first American released:

Abigail’s aunt, Elizabeth Naftali, is a Los Angeles real estate investor, Democratic donor, who is connected to Hunter Biden’s art, has had access to the Biden White House, and received a cushy appointment by President Joe Biden.

Federal Election Commission records show almost 1,700 democratic political donation entries by Natali over recent years.

It is reported in the records that Naftali gave $5,600 directly to Biden’s campaign and thousands in contributions to Democratic campaigns, party organizations, and PACs during the 2019-2020 campaign cycle, including a $50,000 contribution to a pro-Biden political action committee.

Naftali has been at the Biden White House at least 13 times since December 2021, the Washington Free Beacon reported just months ago.

…

Naftali was one of several who collectively spent a boatload on Hunter Biden’s art, as reported The Real Deal.

Mess with Israel, and Joe Biden will get you a ceasefire. Invade American borders, and Biden will welcome you in. But mess with a financial beneficiary of the Biden family … and you’ll get three of your prisoners released for each hostage you set free. (That’s the deal Biden apparently brokered for Israel with Hamas.)

This is no way to run an empire, people.

Senator Questions Warrantless Searches of Americans’ Cell Phone Records

The indispensable site Conservative Tree House highlights a courageous request by Sen. Ron Wyden that the Justice Department release records of its lawless surveillance of millions of Americans, in partnership with AT&T. Go read the original letter to see how extensively woke corporations have been falling over themselves to help the Deep State spy on us all. But even more helpful is Conservative Tree House’s short version of how the Deep State became the fourth branch of government, unaccountable to any of the others. Unless Congress defunds it. We’ve struggled to tell that crucial but murky story clearly. This summary does better than anything I’ve seen so far:

Barack Obama and Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; the institutions were already weaponized by the Patriot Act. What Obama and Holder did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so the weapons of government only targeted one side of the political continuum.

…

(1) The Patriot Act turned the intel surveillance radar from foreign searches for terrorists to domestic searches for terrorists.

(2) Obama/Biden then redefined what is a “terrorist” to include their political opposition.

In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus, instructed by Vice President Dick Cheney, was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.

After 9/11/01, the electronic surveillance system that was originally created to monitor threats from abroad was retooled to monitor threats inside our country. That is when all of our electronic ‘metadata’ came under federal surveillance.

That inflection point, and the process that followed, was exactly what Edward Snowden tried to point out.

What Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms so that only their political opposition became the target of this new national security system.

Think about all, and remember that even while he was the duly elected president of the United States, Donald Trump couldn’t control the rogue agencies that allegedly answered to him. In fact, they targeted him with a false impeachment dossier, and falsified crucial intelligence about the Hunter Biden laptop (“Russian disinformation”) to throw the election to his opponent.

Still feeling warm and fuzzy about our Congress funding the Feds?

The “Catholic” Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) Funds … Demon Worshipers?

Man, I wish this were an exaggeration or clickbait, but the Catholic watchdog group the Lepanto Institute has collected all the receipts. The “Catholic Campaign for Human Development,” or CCHD, was created by Saul Alinsky acolytes in the early 1960s to steer the Catholic Church toward the radical left, as the film A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing documented.

But things at the CCHD have gone beyond mere Marxist materialism into fully occult directions, Lepanto reports. Not only does CCHD fund groups that flagrantly violate the church’s pro-life and other moral teachings. It also supports neo-pagan groups engaged in witchcraft. Lepanto’s latest report:

A few weeks ago, the Lepanto Institute proved that a recent grantee called CUSH collected homosexual pornography with the intent to provide it to children. Then, the Lepanto Institute proved that the CCHD provided grants to Unchained, a pro-abortion, pro-LGBT organization with intimate ties to Marxist entities.

This report will show that … the CCHD must have either knowingly provided a grant to an organization that admitted to praying to demons, or the CCHD did NOT “thoroughly review” the organization as it claims it does. Either way the fact remains: the CCHD provided over $100,000 to an organization actively promoting sexual perversion and praying to demons.

Lepanto then links to the website of CCHD-supported organization Planting Justice, and an article entitled “Remembering Our Dead” commemorating “martyred” transgender people. The picture illustrating the article features various items used in Wiccan (not Christian) rituals:

On the plaque is a pentagram, a sword, two cups, and a dagger. To the left of the plaque is a golden apple, and to its right is a Jhika hand cymbal. All of these are prominent symbols in witchcraft.

…

The picture of the “altar” contained a pagan idol of unknown origin, a document titled, “A List of All Trans People Killed In Hate [indecipherable] That We Know Of,” sitting on a platform with a pentagram, a couple of books, and an assortment of other items.

Every Catholic parish in America takes an annual collection for the leftist, now pro-abort and pagan-aligned CCHD. Of course I don’t put in money, but I’m now torn as to whether I should actually remove money next time, and donate it to some pro-life pregnancy center … which is the kind of charity parishioners doubtless think that they are supporting.

At Least 30,000 Babies’ Lives Saved After Roe v. Wade Was Overturned

Gateway Pundit offers us some unalloyed good news:

Good news for families and babies. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, over 30,000 additional babies have been born.

This statistic was from a new study that was published in November 2023 by the Institute of Labor Economics.

The study, which looked at the first half of 2023 showed that births went up about 2.3 percent in states that didn’t allow abortion and compared it to states that didn’t have restrictions.

Along The Stream:

Don’t miss Shane Idleman’s fiery call for … more fiery calls for repentance, in a shambling, rudderless country.

My own column, later this morning, explains how Pope Francis’ abuses of power may end up bankrupting the Catholic Church. Which might (as I’ll explain in Part 2) actually purify that church.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”