It’s Friday, February 9th, A.D. 2024. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com. I’m Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com)
By Adam McManus
Pakistani Muslims kill 14-year-old Christian teen
Pakistani Muslim gunmen shouting threats against Christians shot a 14-year-old Christian dead on Monday, February 5th, reports Morning Star News.
Sunil Masih and other Christians were standing in a market in the Mandiala Warraich area of Punjab Province when six Muslim men, armed with pistols, arrived on motorcycles and opened fire on them, said the slain boy’s uncle, Mehboob Gill.
He said, “We were talking to each other when suddenly Zaman Butt and his accomplices Anas Yaseen, Adil Rehman, Ashraf Ullah and two unidentified men came there on motorcycles. Adil shouted that no Christian in the area should be left alive, after which Zaman opened fire on Sunil with his pistol, hitting him in the chest.”
Yaseen shot at another Christian boy, identified only as Jamshed, with the bullet only grazing him.
The uncle said, “We rushed Sunil to a local hospital, but he succumbed to his bullet wound before doctors could begin their treatment,” adding that his nephew was an eighth-grade student whose father, George Masih, works at a local car shop.
Pakistan ranks seventh on Open Doors’ 2024 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian.
In Acts 22:4, Paul confessed, “I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison.” If Jesus Christ can convert Saul, please pray that He converts these Pakistani Muslims who are killing Christians.
Israel says over a fifth of Hamas hostages are dead
Israeli intelligence officers have concluded that more than one-fifth of the 136 individuals still held hostage by Hamas in Gaza are dead, reports The Christian Post.
The Israeli military confirmed the deaths of at least 30 of the more than 130 remaining hostages, according to a copy of the intelligence report reviewed by the New York Times.
While Hamas, the Muslim terrorist group, released several hostages during a temporary ceasefire in November, dozens remain in captivity.
Another Biden gaffe
In an appearance in Las Vegas, President Joe Biden confused French President Emmanuel Macron with the late French President François Mitterand who was the president of France between 1981 and 1995 and died in 1996.
Listen.
BIDEN: “Right, right, right after I was elected, I went to what they call a G7 meeting, all the NATO leaders. It was in, it was in the south of England. And I sat down and I said, ‘America is back.’ And Mitterand from Germany, I mean from France, looked at me and said, said, ‘You know, why, how long you back for?’”
Fox News reporter Peter Doocy raised the issue of Biden’s mental competence in a White House Press briefing with Karine Jean-Pierre.
DOOCY: “How is President Biden ever going to convince the three-quarters of voters who are worried about his physical and mental health that he is okay, even though in Las Vegas he told a story about recently talking to a French president who died in 1996?”
JEAN-PIERRE: “I’m not even going to go down that rabbit hole with you sir.”
DOOCY: “What’s the rabbit hole? He said he talked to Mitterand?”
JEAN-PIERRE: (referring to another reporter) “Go ahead. Go ahead.”
Supreme Court skeptical about keeping Trump off ballot
And finally, the Supreme Court sounds broadly skeptical of efforts to kick former President Donald Trump off the 2024 presidential election ballot in any of the 50 states, reports the Associated Press.
In arguments ticking past 90 minutes Thursday, both conservative and liberal justices raised questions of whether Trump can be disqualified because of his efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 election, ending with the January 6, 2021 rally at the U.S. Capitol.
At the heart of the case is a provision in the 14th Amendment preventing those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.
Listen to former President Trump’s attorney, Jonathan Mitchell.
MITCHELL: “The Colorado Supreme Court held that President Donald J. Trump is constitutionally disqualified from serving as president under section three of the 14th Amendment. The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision is wrong and should be reversed for numerous independent reasons. The first reason is that President Trump is not covered by section three, because the President is not an officer of the United States as that term is used throughout the Constitution.”
Even liberal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan sounded skeptical about ruling to disqualify Trump from a state’s ballot.
Listen.
KAGAN: “I think that the question that you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be President of the United States. This question of whether a former president is disqualified for insurrection, to be President again, is just say it, it sounds awfully national to me. So, whatever means there are to enforce it would suggest that they have to be federal, national means.
“You know, if you weren’t from Colorado, and you were from Wisconsin, or you were from Michigan, what the Michigan Secretary of State did is going to make the difference between whether Candidate A is elected or Candidate B is elected. I mean, that seems quite extraordinary, doesn’t it?”
Here’s the response of Jason Murray, the Denver attorney who successfully persuaded Colorado’s top court to declare Trump ineligible to run in that state due to the Constitution’s insurrection clause.
MURRAY: “No, Your Honor, because ultimately, it’s this court that’s going to decide that question of federal constitutional eligibility and settle the issue for the nation. And certainly it’s not unusual that questions of national importance come up.”
KAGAN: “Well, I suppose this court would be saying something along the lines of that a state has the power to do it. But I guess I was asking you to go a little bit further and say, ‘Why should that be the right rule? Why should a single state have the ability to make this determination, not only for their own citizens, but for the rest of the nation?’”
MURRAY: “Because Article Two gives them the power to appoint their own electors as they see fit. But if they’re going to use a federal constitutional qualification as a ballot access determinant, then it’s creating a federal constitutional question that then this Court decides. If this court affirms the decision below, determining that President Trump is ineligible to be president, other states would still have to determine what effect that would have on their own state’s law and state procedure.”
Eight of the nine justices suggested that they were open to at least some of the arguments made by Jonathan Mitchell, Trump’s attorney at the Supreme Court. Trump could win his case if the court finds just one of those arguments persuasive.
Only Justice Sonia Sotomayor sounded like she might vote to uphold the Colorado Supreme Court ruling that found that Trump “engaged in insurrection” and is ineligible to be president. The state court ruled Trump should not be on the ballot for the state’s Republican primary on March 5th.
Pray the plea of Amos 5:4. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
Close
And that’s The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Friday, February 9th in the year of our Lord 2024. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I’m Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.