Again, with the Monday Reads! Peace on Earth! Good will to all Living Things!

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

And now for something completely different … A holiday hit list.

Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem… are you still there?

Pope Francis said in a Christmas message on Monday that children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the “little Jesuses of today” and that Israeli strikes were reaping an “appalling harvest” of innocent civilians.

Some of Gaza’s small Christian community took a break from the conflict and suffering to celebrate Christmas.

Several residents made pleas on social media for people to give them shelter as they have become homeless after leaving their homes in Bureij.

“I have 60 people in the house, people who arrived at my house believing that central Gaza area was safe. Now we are searching for a place to get to,” said Odeh, a resident of the refugee camps.

The Israeli army said it was reviewing the report of a Maghazi incident and was committed to minimising harm to civilians. Israeli says Hamas operates in densely populated areas and uses civilians as human shields, which Hamas denies.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli warplanes were bombing main roads, hindering the passage of ambulances and emergency vehicles.

Christian clergy cancelled celebrations in Bethlehem, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank city where Christian tradition says Jesus was born in a stable 2,000 years ago.

Palestinian Christians held a candle-lit Christmas vigil in Bethlehem with hymns and prayers for peace in Gaza, instead of the usual celebrations.

In addition to the civilian deaths, three Israeli hostages were found dead.  (Note: they changed the headline overnight, but the picture shows the one from yesterday.  That’s not a double star in the sky.)

This photo of polar bears feeding at a garbage dump near the Russian village of Belushya Guba was taken on October 31, 2018. A state of emergency was declared later in February once dozens of polar bears were seen entering the villagers’ homes and public buildings. Melting Arctic ice has forced these bears to spend more time on land competing for food. 02 of 23 Heat Is On

Joy to the World!  Let heaven and nature sing!

A scientist reckons with climate grief. Climate scientist Peter Kalmus visits a fossil-fuel-free homestead in Maine, looking not for solutions to climate change, but for a better way to survive it and make peace with his grief.

He has grown increasingly frustrated with President Joe Biden, who signed the Inflation Reduction Act as his signature climate bill. Kalmus thinks it does too little to shut out the fossil fuel industry.

(Rhodium Group, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates greenhouse gas emissions will drop 32%-42% below 2005 levels by 2030, well short of Biden’s own benchmark for progress. The inflation bill is responsible for about a quarter of that projected decrease.)

“He brags about how he thinks we should consider him a climate champion because he reentered the Paris accord. That Paris Agreement will take us to about 3 degrees Celsius of global heating,” Kalmus said. “I don’t think we’ll have a civilization at 3 degrees Celsius.”

(A 2022 United Nations report estimated global temperatures would rise between 2.1 and 2.9 degrees Celsius by 2100 if countries held to their climate commitments. Many countries remain off that pace.)

Climate change is weighing on scientists, but also everyday Americans.

A 2022 poll found almost two-thirds of Americans say they have been affected by extreme weather they believe was at least partially due to climate change.

About 27% of Americans say they are “very worried” about climate change; another 27% just avoid the subject as best they can. One in 10 reported feeling symptoms of anxiety or depression over climate change.

No place is safe

Thousands of migrants have crossed into the U.S. from Mexico in recent weeks, amid record numbers of people moving north across the continent.

Away in a manger, No crib for a bed

Drastic border restrictions considered by Biden and the Senate reflect seismic political shift on immigration

Nearly three years into his tenure, Mr. Biden now finds himself entertaining drastic and permanent restrictions on asylum — including an extraordinary authority first invoked by former President Donald Trump to summarily expel migrants during spikes in illegal crossings — in order to convince congressional Republicans to support more military aid to Ukraine.

In many ways, the president’s willingness to support strict border policies similar to those employed by his predecessor — and loathed by progressives and human rights advocates — reflects a seismic shift in the politics of immigration over the past several years.

It’s a shift fueled by a convergence of factors. Record levels of migrant apprehensions along the southern border have strained federal and local resources. Democratic-led cities like New York and Chicago have struggled to house new arrivals, with local officials loudly voicing their concerns about overwhelmed services. Public polling shows a majority of Americans view Mr. Biden’s immigration agenda unfavorably.

With a follow-up from the Vermin King, 

As President Biden grapples with an unwieldy crisis at the southern border, his likely 2024 rival has leveled many criticisms — including some baseless and misleading claims.

WHAT WAS SAID

“I read an article recently in a paper … about a man who runs a mental institution in South America, and by the way they’re coming from all over the world. They’re coming from Africa, from Asia, all over, but this happened to be in South America. And he was sitting, the picture was — sitting, reading a newspaper, sort of leisurely, and they were asking him, what are you doing? He goes, I was very busy all my life. I was very proud. I worked 24 hours a day. I was so busy all the time. But now I’m in this mental institution — where he’s been for years — and I’m in the mental institution and I worked very hard on my patients but now we don’t have any patients. They’ve all been brought to the United States.”
— during a rally in Nevada this month

This lacks evidence. Mr. Trump has repeatedly claimed that immigrants crossing the border are coming from “mental institutions” and jails. This particular story would seem to offer specific facts behind that assertion, but there is no evidence that such a report exists.

The New York Times could not find any such news account from the start of Mr. Biden’s tenure in January 2021 to March, when Mr. Trump told the same story at a Texas rally.

The Trump campaign did not respond when repeatedly asked about the source of this claim. But pressed this year by CNN for factual support for the tale, the campaign provided links that did not corroborate it.

Likewise, there is no support for Mr. Trump’s broader claim that countries are “dumping” their prisoners and psychiatric patients in the United States.

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay

Donald Trump urges federal appeals court to grant him immunity from criminal prosecution in election subversion case

Donald Trump urged a federal appeals court to throw out the federal election subversion criminal case in Washington, DC, again arguing in a filing late Saturday that he is protected under presidential immunity.

Trump wants the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower-court ruling rejecting his claims of immunity in special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion case. The appeals panel is weighing Trump’s request, which the Supreme Court on Friday refused to take up on an expedited basis, as Smith requested.

The filing reiterates what the former president’s lawyers have repeatedly asserted – that Trump was working in his official capacity as president to “ensure election integrity” when he allegedly undermined the 2020 election results and therefore has immunity, and that his indictment is unconstitutional because presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for “official acts” unless they are impeached and convicted by the Senate.

“The Constitution establishes a powerful structural check to prevent political factions from abusing the formidable threat of criminal prosecution to disable the President and attack their political enemies,” Trump’s attorneys wrote Saturday.

“Before any single prosecutor can ask a court to sit in judgment of the President’s conduct, Congress must have approved of it by impeaching and convicting the President,” they wrote. “That did not happen here, and so President Trump has absolute immunity.”

Well, DeSantos is trying to look merry, isn’t he? Casey is sure not letting him dismay anything!

These are just a few headlines for you to chew on today.

Season’s greetings and Happy New Year!

A shout-out to the Yule Cat, too!!!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?