By Newt Gingrich

After a tough year of lockdowns and living through a global pandemic, many of us are looking for a sign of hope. The world may get that sign on Monday, when Jupiter and Saturn come together to form a great light in the night sky.

And it’s all too fitting that this should happen right before Christmas. Let me explain.

The star that signaled the birth of Jesus Christ and led the wisemen to their savior became known as the Star of Bethlehem, and later the Christmas Star.

This “Christmas Star” that led the wisemen to Jesus has become an iconic symbol of Christianity and the light we must follow during the holiday season. We see the star on top of Christmas trees and in nativity scenes, all in reference to the original star that introduced Jesus to the world.

Since the star plays a central role in the Christmas story, many people have debated whether it was real or just a symbol of the light Jesus would bring into the world.

Stars symbolize emerging hope, God’s plan for the world, and even the journey to find God in our lives as the wisemen did. So, many people believe that the Christmas Star was just that: A Biblical symbol.

Others, however, think that the Christmas Star was a real, physical, celestial object. Scientifically, it is possible that the Christmas star did exist but is known today as what we call a great conjunction.

Jupiter and Saturn appear to us on Earth to be aligned in the sky about once every 20 years. But this year, the planets will pass each other closer than they have in 400 years. Plus, this will be the first time in 800 years that the alignment occurs at night, allowing people around the world to see it.

I dig deeper into the story of the Christmas Star and what people will be seeing tomorrow night in the night sky on the latest episode of my podcast, “Newt’s World.” My guest is Dr. Henry Throop, who explains the scientific nature of the Christmas Star, or the great conjunction.

Dr. Throop is a program scientist in the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters. He focuses his research on the outer solar systems and co-discovered Pluto’s moon Styx in 2012. His expertise is deep, and his insights are exciting for anyone interested in space and the unknown.

I hope you will listen to this week’s episode and see the light of Jupiter and Saturn coming together in a conjunction on the darkest day of the year, just before Christmas, as a sign of hope for 2021 after the dark, crazy year that was 2020.

By Newt Gingrich

Last week, I reported on an extraordinarily open and candid lecture by a Chinese Communist professor, who explained that China had strong allies on Wall Street and in Washington. He described President Donald Trump as an interruption of the Chinese ability to dominate American policy making. He was confident that with Trump gone, the Chinese effort to reshape America to fit the needs of the totalitarian dictatorship would once again be dominant.

Now, I want to share a series of stories that illustrate just how real and dangerous the communist professor’s analysis of the Chinese Communist dictatorship’s penetration of America really is.

In some ways, the strangest and most sobering recent revelation was the report that Rep. Eric Swalwell, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, had a close relationship with a professional Chinese communist spy named Fāng Fāng (also known as Christine Fang).

The most amazing part of the story is not that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is desperately trying to keep him on the House Intelligence Committee. The most fascinating question is: Why did Speaker Pelosi appoint him after the FBI had warned her he had been in a dangerous relationship with a Chinese spy?

The threat of the Chinese Communist dictatorship penetrating the United States is not a problem for the future. It is a crisis now.

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