VP touts big wage gains amid affordability concerns; Developing peace plan for war in Ukraine leaks, pressure on Zelensky to agree amid corruption scandal; Dem lawmakers urging military to defy Trump’s orders receive backlash; Open letter defends Traditional Mass against Cdl. Cupich’s ‘spectacle’ claims; Catholics celebrate an ancient Marian feast today; and more —
JD Vance Touts Big Wage Gains Amid Affordability Concerns
President Donald Trump’s policies have helped raise Americans’ wages by roughly $1,200 per person, Vice President JD Vance told Breitbart News on Thursday.
“Wages continue to way outpace inflation,” Vance told Breitbart News’s Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle at a policy event. “If you go back to the three years of the Biden administration, the average American worker actually lost about $3,000 in take-home pay. In the first 10 months of the Trump economy, we’ve increased take home pay by about $1,200 adjusting for inflation. So that’s a huge, huge thing.”
He highlighted another key point. “And this is really important … we are seeing the job growth go to native-born American citizens. And what happened under the Biden administration is, to the extent there was any job growth at all … almost all of the net job creation in the United States under the Biden administration went to the foreign-born.
Read more at Breitbart
VP on new jobs for Americans
Watch @JDVance
FOX News poll: Voters believe Trump administration harming economy
Americans are registering deep frustration with the Trump presidency this term, giving negative reviews of the economy and saying rising prices are straining their budgets, according to a new FOX News national survey.
The poll, conducted Nov. 14-17, measured 1,005 registered voters’ attitudes across economic, political, and foreign-policy issues. It found 76% now view the economy negatively — worse than the 67% who said so in July and the 70% who felt that way at the end of former President Joe Biden’s term. Large majorities across party lines say their costs for groceries, utilities, healthcare, and housing have risen this year.
Read more at Catholic Vote
Transportation secretary making good on bonuses to air traffic controllers
Read more @Daily Signal
6 Dems named in release of TikTok video urging military to defy orders from Trump
See @JackStr42679640
Fox News host pushes Dem involved in video for clarification of its intent
Watch @RNCResearch
Speaker Johnson – and others – call out Dem lawmakers encouraging troops to disobey orders
Watch @MarioNawfal; see also @DineshDSouza; @T_S_P_O_O_K_Y; @TomFitton; @Becky_Weiss_; @IngrahamAngle; @AndrewKolvet
Social media users noting Mark Kelly’s connection to Alex Soros
See @docmurdock; see also @jessejay94; @atensnut; @lizchurchill10
Essay – Theater Kids In Congress Vaguely Urge Military To Disobey Commander-In-Chief, Written By Victor Davis Hanson
Even by the pathetic standards of congressional Democrats, this is unusually idiotic.
Note what they don’t say. They say that the American military is being “pitted against” their own countrymen, and they say to service members that “you can refuse illegal orders…”
… but they don’t say, even once, even in a pretty clear hint, precisely what illegal orders Trump has issued. He’s being vaguely bad, so you don’t have to obey him. The serious version would look like this: On [date here], the president of the United States ordered [unit name] to enter [place name] for the purpose of [specific action], and that order violated [explicit citation of U.S. Code]. They mushmouth around a set of feelings-signals about Mean Orange Something, but they never quite manage to spit it out. …
This is exactly what the Catholic bishops just did in their own stupid virtue performance, the precise mark of an absence of seriousness in a coven of drama queens …
Read more at The Federalist
A huge corruption scandal threatens Ukraine’s government – Volodymyr Zelensky faces his biggest challenge since the invasion
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY is facing his most challenging test since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. A huge corruption scandal in which senior officials allegedly stole millions from Energoatom, the state nuclear company, has cost him two ministers. Officials and MPs are pressing him to purge tainted allies in order to save himself and the state.
Meanwhile, on November 19th, American media reported on a secret 28-point ceasefire proposal negotiated by American and Russian officials demanding that Ukraine settle with its invader on crippling terms. The proposal may not have full American backing. But it adds to the pressure on Ukraine’s president at a critical time.
Read more at The Economist
Volodymyr Zelensky changes tune about ending war, Trump
Read @ZelenskyyUa on X
Secretary of State’s post on a developing peace plan
Read at marcorubio on X
Hungarian PM points to newly revealed 28-point American peace plan, warns of European pro-war interference
Read @zoltonspox on X
BP Strickland: US bishops presented Pope Leo limited picture of immigration crisis
Watch @CforCatholics on X
A plea to US bishops for fuller picture of the immigration crisis
Read @JackPosobiec on X
Open Letter Defends Traditional Mass Against Cardinal Cupich’s ‘Spectacle’ Claims
An Italian expert liturgist has written an open letter to Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, criticizing the cardinal’s recent assertions, published by the Vatican’s news website, that the traditional Latin Mass is a “spectacle” that prevents “active participation” of all the baptized.
In his letter published Nov. 18, Father Nicola Bux, a former consultor during Benedict XVI’s pontificate to the then-Congregations for the Doctrine of the Faith and Causes of Saints, took issue with the cardinal’s argument, saying that he had effectively misunderstood both the aims of the Council Fathers and the historical meaning and importance of the traditional Roman Rite. …
Father Bux countered Cardinal Cupich’s assertions by saying the liturgy should be a sacred spectacle to glorify God and insisting it was “untrue” that the Council “desired a poor liturgy.” He said the Council’s sacred constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, instead asks that “‘rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity,’ because they must speak of the majesty of God, who is noble beauty itself, and not of worldly trivialities.”
Father Bux said the Church understood this from the beginning, both in East and West, adding that “even Saint Francis prescribed that the most precious linens and vessels be used in worship.”
Read more at the National Catholic Register; read Fr. Nicola Bux’s full letter here
New attack on Catholic school reported in Nigeria
Read @vicegrad24
Nigerian diocese releases statement on attack of St. Mary’s Primary and Secondary School in Nigeria
Read @agbodomish
Vatican Secretary of State describes attacks on Nigerian Christians as ‘social conflict’
Read @CatholicSat
Today is the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
See @FriarMario; read more about the Feast at My Catholic Life!
