I must speak to you tonight about a serious problem that demands your immediate attention. I need your help. Today the United States Senate began a rendezvous with history. The threads of our past, present and future as a nation will soon converge on the single overriding question before that body. Can we at last, after decades of drift, neglect and excess, put our fiscal house in order? Can we assure a strong and prosperous future for ourselves, our children and their children, by adopting a plan that will compel the federal government to end the dangerous addiction to deficit spending and finally live within its means? Throughout our history, we Americans have been willing to meet great challenges and do what is right when our destiny demanded it. Just four years ago this week, I asked your support for our bipartisan recovery program. That was the program the spenders said wouldn't work and they called it Reaganomics. You might remember April 1981, a time when our defenses were weak, inflation still in double digits and economic growth almost dead from a government that taxed too much and spent even more than a taxed. We knew it would take a great effort to turn that around. We knew that letting you keep more of your earnings to get our economy moving again would be resisted by the old guard in Washington. But we also knew the answer to a government that's too fat is to stop feeding its growth. We wanted America to rediscover opportunity. We asked for your help then and you gave it to us. You turned America around, turned around our confidence, turned around our economy, turned around over a decade of one national nightmare after another. We're into our 29th straight month of economic growth with inflation staying down and more of us working than ever before. That's 8 million new jobs. Now that our program is working, you may have noticed they're not calling it Reaganomics anymore. Once again, the United States is the flagship economy for the world. A new generation of entrepreneurs is coming up, pointing us toward a 21st century full of amazing change and vast new opportunities. We must seize this historic moment to shape America's future, to completely overhaul our tax code, changing it from a source of confusion and contempt to a model of fairness and simplicity with strong new incentives for even greater growth. So many good things lie ahead for America. And yet all our progress, all the good we've accomplished so far, and all our dreams for the future could be wrecked if we do not overcome our one giant obstacle. The simple truth is, no matter how hard you work, no matter how strong this economy grows, no matter how much more tax money comes to Washington, it won't amount to a hill of beans if government won't curb its endless appetite to spend. Overspending is the subject we must now address. How budgets got so far out of balance, and yes, what together we can and must do to correct this. You know, sometimes the big spenders in Congress talk as if all that money they spend just kind of magically appears on their doorstep, a gift from the Internal Revenue Service. They talk as if spending were all giving and no taking. Well, there is no magic money machine. Every dollar the government spend comes out of your pockets. Every dollar the government gives to someone has to first be taken away from someone else. So it's our moral duty to make sure that we can justify every one of your tax dollars, that we spend them wisely and carefully and just as important, fairly. Unfortunately, hardly anyone could honestly call federal budgets wise, careful or fair. Is it fair to ask one small business to help subsidize its competitors? Is it fair to ask workers in the private economy to pay for civil service pensions that are much more generous than the retirement benefits they receive? Is it fair to ask low income families to help pay for the college education of children from families with incomes as high as $100,000 a year? Is it fair to ask taxpayers to help pay billions for export subsidies to a handful of America's biggest corporations? Well, it isn't fair and you know it. But that's the law of the land right now, just part of the legacy of 50 years of trying to do good things for all by treating your earnings like government property. The time has come to decide what benefits we can properly expect from the federal government for ourselves, our neighbors and those in need, and what government can take from us in taxes without making everyone worse off, including those who need our help. The one thing we cannot do is stay on the immoral dead end course of deficit spending. Today our national debt amounts to nearly $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America and it's increasing by about $1,000 per person each and every year. Just to cover the interest on that debt, the federal government will spend $155 billion this year alone. That's more than its entire budget as recently as 1966. Despite your worries and all the warnings, the trend has continued year after year. We've had only one balanced budget in the last quarter century. As a nation, our debt has grown and grown and grown. Until now, it totals $1.7 trillion, a number so big that it's nearly unimaginable. A single billion is 1,000 millions, a trillion is a million millions. Now this is not just my problem, this is not just Congress' problem, this is our problem and we must solve it together as Americans. Tonight I'm asking all of you, Democrats, Republicans and independents, to give me your help to put our financial house in order so that our tax spending and monetary policies will not hinder growth but encourage it, not send inflation and interest rates shooting back up but keep them heading down and not drown us under a tidal wave of debt but protect us in the safe harbor of financial stability with a sound and powerful economy. Not surprisingly, some still want to raise your taxes. They say we cut your taxes too much in 1981 when we ended years of bracket creep and lowered rates for every American taxpayer. Well, this is simply untrue and it implies government has a right to take from you all that it needs to satisfy the demands of special interest groups. Surely, there's no faster way to see our prosperity vanish than to yoke the decent, hard-working tax-paying citizens of this great nation to an automatic spending machine in Washington, D.C. Government should tax to meet government's needs, not government's wants. Nine days ago I received a very welcome gift, a letter with 146 signatures. 146 members of Congress have pledged to uphold what I repeat tonight will be my certain veto of any tax increase Congress sends me, no matter how cleverly it's disguised. Is it too much to ask the spoilers to give up their hidden agenda to increase taxes, which would only slow the economy, throw people out of work, and yes, make the deficit worse?  But as you can see, the rising blue bar shows that the taxes you paid in the last 20 years increased by over $620 billion. Now, if you think that's a staggering sum, you're right. But look at this rising red bar showing government spending. In that same 20-year period, the red bar went up even more. It went up by over $840 billion. Government spending, that's the real Washington Monument. Taxes are too high, but spending is even higher. During the 20 years when inflation, steep federal income tax rates, and rising state county and local taxes were pushing you into tax brackets once reserved for the wealthy, Congress was writing checks and spending your money even faster than you could spend it. What went wrong? Where has all the money gone? Well, during the strong, prosperous Eisenhower years in the 1950s and through the Kennedy years, we kept spending in check. During those Kennedy years, there was a tax cut proposed similar to our cut. It was enacted in 1964, and the economy grew then as it has grown now. But others in government did not take the next logical step and say, look, freedom and incentives are working, so let's reduce tax rates further. Let's transform our ghettos into havens for enterprise, give families new incentives to save for their children's education. Let's make every citizen a shareholder in America's future. Government did the opposite. Government began to take over America. In the name of the great society, it began doing things never before felt possible or desirable. Government took over passenger railroads. It began contributing billions to 39,000 local government budgets, yet spending on agriculture subsidies soared to a level higher than the total net income from every farm in America. Let me interject something here, and I'll state it plainly and simply. The enormous weight of federal spending and runaway deficits has gone far toward placing in jeopardy one of every seven family farms in the United States. This is not simply an economic statistic. It is a great social tragedy that should command the concern of every American. Control of this runaway engine of federal spending has become crucial to the survival of the family farm in the United States. The new programs started after 1964. They cost $16 billion by 1966, $78 billion by 1975, and $148 billion per year by 1981. Today, government puts a dime into the fare box every time somebody boards a local bus or transit line. Today, government subsidizes loans for every imaginable purpose, from education to aircraft exporters to luxury waterfront developments and hotels, so that government's lending business is bigger than Chase Manhattan and the Bank of America's combined. And the spending line keeps going up. To be sure, much good has been done. In health, education, and food assistance, we're spending more than ever before in our history. But in many areas, we're spending where we should not be and spending what we can no longer afford. And so much of what we spend goes not to the individuals needing help, but the thousands upon thousands of bureaucrats, researchers, planners, managers, and professional advocates who earn their living from the great growth industry of government. It's no accident that some of the wealthiest communities in America are the communities surrounding the federal government in Washington, D.C. My fellow citizens, the time has come for government to make the same hard choices your families and businesses do. The time has come for your public servants to bring spending down into line with tax revenues. Accomplishing this, bringing the spending line down to our incomes is the heart of our deficit reduction plan that we put together with Senator Dole and his colleagues. We call it the Taxpayers Protection Plan, and that's just what it is. It will reduce deficits by $300 billion over three years, bringing us within reach of a balanced budget by 1990. And it will do this not by raising your taxes, but by reversing 20 years of overspending. Our plan attacks excessive spending across the board. No part of the budget is spared, and a shared effort will be asked of all. But unlike a spending freeze, which would not reduce deficits nearly enough, and which would make no distinction between worthy and wasteful programs, our plan recognizes that all spending is not created equal. Some programs are vital to our national security and domestic welfare, and must be given first priority. Others are no longer affordable, or were not proper federal responsibilities to begin with. Our plan establishes clear national priorities. It keeps what should be kept, and cuts what should be cut. Our first priority must always be our national security. The Soviets are far more dangerous today than during the 50s and 60s, periods in which we devoted far more to our defense, and they continue arming well beyond the defense needs of their country. Because of that threat, we must maintain modest but steady growth each year. Three percent is the rock bottom level that we must maintain for effective deterrence to protect our security.  Cuts we've proposed and projected defense spending will contribute a hundred billion dollars, a full one-third of our proposed budget savings for the next three years. Now this will require canceling some programs, some non-essential military bases may be closed or cut back, but mainly we will continue to identify and eliminate waste and crack down harder on excesses in contract costs. Waste in the Department of Defense must and is being eliminated as is fraud in defense contracts. The stories you've been reading and hearing about $400 hammers and such are things that we've discovered were going on before and that we're correcting. Padding of expense accounts, overcharging for weapons, profiteering at the expense of the public, these should be and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Men who illegally line their pockets with dollars the American people have contributed to our defense are stealing from the arsenal of democracy the very weapons our young men need to defend freedom and our tolerance of this selfish behavior was long ago exhausted. The Senate will face demands to cut defense even more, but here we must draw the line. Federal overspending is not caused by meeting vital security needs and even our critics know that further reductions would jeopardize our security. Our strategic programs, our 600 ship navy, our conventional weapons modernization, and our readiness programs must go forward. Our plan will freeze the defense spending share of our gross national product at 6.4 percent for the next three years. That is a share well below the eight or nine percent at the time of the Eisenhower and Kennedy. The remaining two thirds of our deficit reduction can and must come from other parts of the budget from domestic programs that are no longer necessary or in need of basic reform. Let me give some examples of the sort of programs we intend to cut back. When Amtrak was begun in 1971 for a two-year trial run we were told it would soon turn a profit of 14 years and nearly nine billion dollars later. Amtrak is still running on taxpayer subsidies. Every time a train leaves the station it costs taxpayers $35 for each passenger on board. In some cases it would be cheaper just to hand them plane tickets. Eliminating Amtrak will save eight billion dollars over the next decade. We'll also save billions by eliminating taxpayer subsidies to some of America's biggest corporations through export import bank loans and by abolishing the small business administration's lending programs which are not only costly and unfair but unneeded in an economy creating over 600,000 new business corporations a year. Supporters of programs like these always ignore the big hidden costs all of us eventually have to pay. If programs like these can't be cut we might as well give up hope of ever getting government spending under control. If Congress can't bring itself to do what's right well they should at least give me what 43 governors already have a line item veto then I'll make the cuts I'll take the responsibility and the heat and I'll enjoy it. One area we will not touch however is the safety net for needy Americans. Programs that provide income food housing and medical aid for the neediest Americans were reformed in 1981 and are now targeted to genuine need but these programs only make up eight percent of the budget so we need everyone's help to get spending under control. The burden will not be great if all of us help carry the load. We're asking the 46 million Americans who receive a retirement veterans or social security check to accept a guaranteed two percent increase over the next three years in place of the existing cost of living adjustment. If however inflation should rise above four percent the amount above four percent would be added to the two percent. Now these programs now total nearly 250 billion dollars per year 25 percent of our entire budget. They cost 30 times more than they did just three decades ago. Our veterans disabled workers and retired citizens have earned their benefits. They deserve an adequate and dignified standard of living and we will never renege on that pledge. All of us together have a shared interest in a healthy expanding economy. It means jobs opportunities and rising incomes for our younger citizens and a steady flow of tax payments into the funds that support our retired citizens. A small effort now will mean big gains for all Americans later. If we can keep our economy on track 16 million more Americans will be working in 1988 than were employed at the end of 1982. With that much growth with that many new jobs there will never be any doubt the retirement checks that 46 million Americans depend on will be secure. The economic base that supports them will be strong and the tax payments that fund them will be abundant. If we want to continue trying to make these the best years of our lives if we want to protect our retired and disabled boost small business create jobs strengthen our farm economy our exports improve our cities and help your families send your children to college there is one surefire way to do it. We're all going to have to pitch in together but if we refuse if we go back to the old pattern of business as usual then let there be no mistake business as usual will eventually destroy our prosperity and all the blessings it has given us. My fellow citizens you remember the words of young John Kennedy words of challenge to America in 1961 ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country. In those days federal spending was only a fraction of what it is today since then government programs have grown to the point where they touch almost half the families in America. Today his question is more relevant than before all of us are being challenged again to ask what we can do for our country challenged to work together 237 million strong to build a secure and lasting foundation for the American dream even with all our cuts and reforms our plan still provides five hundred and sixty billion dollars for non-defense programs next year the highest level in history congress has before had a budget that doesn't mortgage our future to higher taxes and expanding debt it is a fair program it is a balanced program it will protect the neediest among us it will stop the worst abuses of overspending and it not only deserves your support it must have your support to pass so let me stress as strongly as i can this shared effort we're asking you to make now will be our best assurance of avoiding painful hardship down the road we stand at a crossroads the hour is late the task is large and the stakes are momentous i ask you to join us in making your voices heard in the senate this week and later in the house please tell your senators and representatives by phone wire or mailgram that our future hangs in the balance that this is no time for partisanship and that our future is too precious to permit this crucial effort to be picked apart piece by piece by the special interest groups we've got to put the public interest first my fellow americans i hope history says of us that we were worthy of our past worthy of our heritage we can seize the moment we can do our best for america to keep our future strong sure and free our children will thank us and that's all the thanks we'll ever need thank you god bless you and good night


So we had an interesting weekend with Bitcoin retesting that $50,000 area and then quickly getting rejected and getting sent back below $48,000 briefly to trigger, of course, our $48,000 bounce back entries. As you can see, we're currently above $48,500. Easy profits here guys. Ethereum is also on the move today guys. It is currently above that $33,000 area for the first time since August 24th. So it's been about a week or so since we've seen this area. This, of course, also went under that $3,200 level to trigger some easy profits on our trade setups that we spoke about on Friday's video. Now, are we finally going to see this next leg up in Ethereum? Are we going to finally break this week above $50,000 in Bitcoin? Let's jump into it. AJ here and welcome to Bitcoin Daily bringing you guys the best tips, tutorials and ideas to help you guys become profitable and successful investors. The goal of this channel as always is to empower you guys, the community with the knowledge and resources to take your wealth up to that next level. So if you guys are new to the channel, don't forget to subscribe. And if you enjoy this video, go ahead and smash that like button. Let's jump into today's video. So continuing where we left off on Friday's video, when we're looking at this current pattern in Bitcoin, we saw that we were in this channel kind of bouncing up and down within it as we continue to go up, setting higher highs, higher lows and etc. You will see that over the weekend, we touched the bottom of the channel yet again here. And we set another higher low here. So we didn't go as low as the previous one, we continue to set higher lows as we continue to move within this channel. So this week, we're looking for this to continue. We're looking to see a bounce off of the bottom of the channel and a move up to finally break through this $50,000 area. That's the current big resistance level that we're currently watching that we're currently being held under. If you guys can see that you can draw a line here and it's a triangle here, right with the big impulse move and consolidation. So this is a classic bull flag that's popping up here now. Now the only things that we have to keep in mind as we go into September. So first of all, September has historically been kind of a down month, right through the summer, Bitcoin goes up. And then in September, usually is like the breathing period for Bitcoin. And that's kind of what's happened here, right? We've had after this drop July and August, we've had two very bullish months, September could be a month of consolidation, maybe a month of pulling back to go along with that story. You can see that the momentum on the RSI has been dropping, right? So you see that RSI is currently dropping down while the price is going up. So that's there is a that's called a bearish divergence. When there's bearish divergences in the chart, that means that either we have to pull back so that they both get back on track, kind of start, you know, start going together again, or that we need more consolidation, right? So so that's currently those are the things that we're watching right now on the, you know, the bearish case scenario. Now on a bearish case scenario, we would be expecting something like, you know, a breakdown from this channel, maybe to a retest of 42,000 before continuation up. So that would be the bearish case scenario. I don't think we would break below 42,000. Now the bullish case scenario here is that we just completely ignore this, right? And get a bunch of volume here and bounce back up to the top of this channel, which would lead us probably to that like 54 to 55, I would say 52 to $55,000 area in September. So that's currently what we're watching here as we continue to develop this week. We have to continue to watch what develops and just kind of make decisions based off of that. That's why we do these every Monday and Friday, because the whole market structure could change within that timeframe. Now, another thing to note here is a Bitcoin dominance. As you can see, the Bitcoin dominance has been dropping as of late, right? So we went as high as almost 50. And then ever since then, that was basically the end of July, you know, Bitcoin dominance has been going down, which is why, you know, Bitcoin's just been kind of consolidating for the most part and outcoins have been running a lot more. So now this does open up the opportunity for Ethereum to finally make it to move up. I believe that if we can break above 3,500 here, we could really run up to around that $4,000 area all the way up to possibly previous all-time highs. We're not far off those all-time highs at this point, guys. If we look from where we are right now to where our all-time high is, that's just a 30% move from where we currently are right now. So we're 30% away from an all-time high. That is definitely very doable, especially if the Bitcoin dominance continues to go down, you know, and as long as Bitcoin holds around this area, as long as it either bounces up or holds here, we can definitely see the price of Ethereum here shoot up, possibly breaking this 3,500 area and retesting those previous all-time highs around that $4,400 area. All right. So you can see that we basically have any Ethereum kind of a similar channel right now, right? We have a similar channel like in Bitcoin, where it's an ascending channel and we're just kind of been consolidating within it, you know, kind of doing this, right? So if we continue to do that, we should be expecting to hit 3,500 within the week, right? So the top of this is right around September 3rd, September 4th range. So if we were to continue within this channel, I'd be expecting, you know, to potentially test it within the week, possibly see a breakout sometime after that, maybe sometime mid-September, or maybe like in about two weeks or so, or it might happen earlier. Because remember, Ethereum hasn't really been moving here. Look at all this consolidation. So there really hasn't been a next leg up here. So we're looking for something like this here, where it just explodes up, right? So if we get something like that, then we could definitely break this within the week, or maybe even faster. So that's currently what we're going to be watching here as a week develops in Ethereum and try to take advantage of the next move up or any pullbacks back down to the bottom of the channel so that we can grab some entries and make some profits on those moves in regardless of the direction of it. All right, so let's go ahead and look at some trade setups that we're going to be watching this week. So the first thing that we're looking here, I mean, not much is going to change in Bitcoin. There's two levels that we're going to be watching here. That's $48,000 and $50,000. So $48,000 is, of course, the pullback bounce entry that we're looking for. That means that if this price pulls back down here below $48,000 and then bounces back, we are entering on a break back above, you know, bounce back above $48,000. We don't want to enter the trade while the price is going down. That's going to most likely stop you out. We're going to enter when the price bounces back up. The next entry is going to be that $50,000 area.  We had one fake out there and we haven't really touched $50,000. So I'm playing that same exact level. One of these moves above $50,000 will be the breakout. So just I'm entering, you know, as soon as we're breaking above those levels, no hesitation there. You guys already know that a breakout above $50,000 could potentially lead us up to between $52,000 to $55,000 as we spoke about already. So those are the two trades that we're looking for this week in Bitcoin. In Ethereum, you guys already know that we like that 3200 levels. One of our favorite levels that we've been using for entries, 3300 is also fine. But our favorite level on a pullback is of course $3,000. That's where we have the most support, the most buying activity at that level. And after that, you can play the levels like 31, 32, 33, but I'm risking very little on those 1% or less on those trades. The next breakout that I'm looking for is over 3400. But even on that one, I'm still risking 1% or less. The break that I want is above 3500. So 3500, if we get that break, I'll be risking there between 2% to 3% with a potential target of $4,000. And that's pretty much it guys. There hasn't been too much craziness in the market over the last couple of days. So it's not too much to update on. We're still kind of pretty much watching the same things we've been watching since Friday. We have to see what develops here. We're all just patiently waiting here for the next leg up so that we can catch this next move and just make a lot of profits with it. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you did, don't forget to smash that like button. If you guys haven't subscribed to the channel yet, make sure to subscribe. We're almost at 11,000 subs. And that's pretty much it guys. I will see you guys on the next one. As always guys, have a great week. Let's make some profits and peace and love.


NP said that they are committed to why can't he then say guarantee that this can be something that people can expect as a right across Scotland Minister I thank Michael Marra for his intervention there I'm clear that the Scottish Government has invested £40 million to recruit additional 500 health visitors and following this investment their numbers have remained largely stable but we continue to work as I've said closely with health boards to monitor the delivery of the universal healthways visiting pathway to best ensure young families get the support they need I'd just like to make progress there was a lot of discussion around peer support I think that that is absolutely essential and as part of our quality improvement programme an additional investment of over £9 million over five years we've provided over £1.6 million to third sector peer support charities to increase research and deliver on the national breastfeeding helpline I understand that breastbuddies programme in Angus received funding in the last year and this is driving increases in that area so that shows the importance of that third sector peer support Rachael Hamilton referenced breastfeeding in the borders and again I would like to thank them for the work that they are doing we also contribute funding towards the national breastfeeding helpline which provides support via phones and closed social media groups we there is a lot of publicity as well of on breastfeeding legislation and that's included in ready steady baby and on parent club and joining instructions for that or email information is found in the baby box and also to celebrate the breastfeeding act's 10 year anniversary we had a breastfeeding week and perhaps there's an opportunity to do one in 2025 or on its 21st anniversary in 26 and nine years ago we agreed not to sunset the legislation this last summer I attended a breastfeeding picnic outside Parliament and there was great publicity from that not to mention the knitted breastfeeding boob that I have in my office and as MSPs we should really sign up as Claire Hawhey suggested to being breast friendly workplaces in our constituency offices and if I may also just mention Inverclyde where a mural on a gable end became a talking point in the community it was a breastfeeding mermaid so there is a lot of publicity happening I was very pleased that Claire Hawhey and also my colleague Marie Todd were so involved in an instrumental in the baby box and Claire Hawhey clearly outlined everything that is content everything that is in it referencing Stephanie Callahan's question and I'm very happy to work with my colleague Natalie Dawn discussing what we can do about the current contents I'd like to too touch on Alec Cole Hamilton's point about recognising the role of partners and fathers we worked with fathers the fathers network Scotland to put content for dads on parent club and we did a social media campaign on the role of partners which was promoted and accessed widely I think that's a very key thing to talk about Claire Baker touched on the costs around yes of course Alec Cole Hamilton I'm very grateful for her picking up my remarks about the role of partners and fathers when we were expecting our first child and we were attending national childbirth trust classes there was an entire class dedicated to just the dads on how to support partners who are having difficulties securing a latch with their baby against the nipple and indeed supporting them through difficulties around breastfeeding is there a way the government could help expand that kind of intervention to other groups Minister I thank Mr Cole Hamilton for his intervention and would suggest that a lot of work being done in this area and also the leaflets off to a good start and various other ones support that and it's something like yesterday when I met two midwives within Argyll and Bute that they talked about as well I want to restate that all infant formula is nutritionally equivalent and price is not an indicator of quality and I agree with Claire Baker's point that the reductions are very welcome pity they didn't happen sooner but I think further reductions are needed perhaps including consideration of a price cap formula is a vital product in the first year of life profits should not be cut over health I think both Gillian Mackay and Claire Baker talked about the social determinants of health and Rona Mackay and various others talked about the best start foods and payments that the Scottish Government has introduced and I think we should recognise that best start foods provides a weekly payment that is more generous than the rest of the UK and we will increase best start foods to a minimum of £5.30 a week from April 1 subject parliamentary approval Gillian Mackay I thank the minister for taking the intervention in my speech I mentioned that many of the factors to improve best speeding rates outside of her portfolio I wonder if she would take into conversations with other ministers and cabinet secretaries the need for them to look at how workplaces and others enhance their support for breastfeeding minister I thank Gillian Mackay for reminding me that I think I suffer from Carol Mockins they are not writing everything down quickly enough but yes very welcome to speak to colleagues about this I think basically quoting Fulton McGregor we cannot act in a vacuum we must learn from women who have felt unsupported or unheard and share that across sectors including maternity, neonatal and in the community failing to learn can impact on mothers mental health and confidence to breastfeed in the future and as Karen Adam said each individual breastfeeding journey is different and flexibility and support is tailored to need is so important clinical and support staff receive training on the baby friendly standards both during periods of formal education and in practice we must make sure that this is of the highest quality as embedded in holistic care the UNCRC will afford us more recognition across sectors that the needs of babies and young children must be fully considered in all that we do this includes receiving adequate nutrition and supporting their parents to provide this just to finish I recognise that even where a mum wants to breastfeed her baby that is not always easy especially in the early days and without the right support it can be hard to meet individual breastfeeding goals we have some excellent support across Scotland which I've already highlighted as have others in this debate this includes our parent club website local infant feeding teams the national helpline specialist and peer support we need to listen to mums and new parents to learn how to continuously improve their offers to better meet their needs I want every new mum in Scotland to feel that they have a real choice in how they feed their baby and I want breastfeeding to be that easiest choice I'm delighted to have had this opportunity to commit this motion and also hear from across the chamber people's thoughts and views thanks that concludes the debate on celebrating and supporting breastfeeding in Scotland and it is now time to move on to the next item of business I am minded to accept a motion without notice under rule 11.2.4 of standing orders that decision time be brought forward to now I would invite the minister for parliamentary business to move the motion thank you the question is that decision time be brought forward to now are we all agreed thank you we are agreed there are in fact three questions to be put as a result of today's business the first question is that amendment 11935.2 in the name of Tess White which seeks to amend motion 11935 in the name of Jenny Minto on celebrating and supporting breastfeeding in Scotland be agreed are we all agreed are we all agreed the Parliament is agreed and therefore the amendment is agreed the next question to be put I'm sorry Mr Fraser is there some thank you the next question is that amendment 11935.1 in the name of Carol Mochan which seeks to amend motion 11935 in the name of Jenny Minto on celebrating and supporting breastfeeding in Scotland be agreed are we all agreed the Parliament is not agreed and therefore we will move to a vote there will be a short suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system thank you


Hi, this is Pastor David Rosales of Calvary Chapel of the Chino Valley, California. In the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 11, verse 8, Solomon wrote, If a man lives many years and rejoices in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many, all that is coming is vanity. It's a sad commentary of how today many believe that somehow God and life combine to owe them perpetual sunny days. It's interesting how we desire a long life and pray that our days will be many, but forget that with long life also comes many sorrows. Days of darkness can refer to the time of old age or seasons of sorrow, affliction, loss, or pain. Obviously, the longer one lives, the greater the amount of stormy days that will be endured. It simply goes with the territory and is something that we need to come to grips with. We know this, but sometimes the only thing we want to do is to forget what are called days of darkness. We want to forget those days, put them behind us, simply move on with our lives, and on one level this is understandable. Why dwell on past hurts? Let's just move on, forget those days and leave the past behind. We need to remember that heartache and disappointment often produce the backdrop of when enhances our appreciation of God's blessings and deepens us in our character and refines our faith. The fact is, the longer we live, the more trials and hurts we will encounter, and it is often through these difficult and dark seasons that the light of God's grace shines most clearly and leads us most gently. It's when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death that we truly learn to fear no evil because we discover that God is with us, that His rod and His staff actually comfort us. It is in these times that we learn to cling to His promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us. The fact is, fearing and loving the Lord doesn't produce painless living. We all know that sometimes we actually encounter incredible pain and affliction, even when we've sought to live for Him most faithfully. As Solomon says, days of darkness will be many. But in spite of this, God's promise is that when we go through times of adversity, His light still will shine on us. We will go through many hard times, but the Lord is with us through them all. Psalm 42, verse 8 says, The Lord will command His loving-kindness in the daytime and in the night His song shall be with me, a prayer to the God of my life. In the night His song shall be with me, like when Paul and Silas were unjustly jailed in Philippi. They were humiliated, stripped of their clothing, severely beaten with rods until their backs were bloody. Placed in a cell, the jailer was ordered to keep them secure, so he fastened their feet in the stocks. I wonder how I would have felt in the midst of this government persecution. In the case of Paul and Silas, Luke records that at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. In the night His song will be with me. I will praise Him, even in the dark night of sorrow and pain, because in those days He'll give me deeper insight into Him in His ways, and my heart will be filled with gratitude, and my mouth will sing His praise. The fact is, our days of darkness are not to be forgotten, but rather to be remembered. Those days we experience provide us with deep life lessons and memories of where we met the Lord in special ways. They provide for us powerful ways to grow in our faith in Him. The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 119, verse 71, It's good for me that I've been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes. We Christians often say we want to be like Jesus, but we seem to often forget He's our wounded healer. As Isaiah said, He bore our griefs, carried our sorrows, was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, oppressed and afflicted, and was led as a lamb to the slaughter. This is the Jesus that every believer is being conformed into the image of, and we should not be surprised when we have many days of darkness. We must understand that it is through these things we deepen in our trust of the Lord, and it is how we come to realize that He works through all of our trials to bring us to know Him in a deeper way. The end result is that we learn not to trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death and does deliver us, in whom we trust that He will still deliver us. As we go through days of darkness, may we learn what Job held fast to in the midst of His dark days. He said in Job chapter 23, verse 10, He knows the way that I take. When He's tested me, I shall come forth as gold. In the end, we will all ultimately see that what we went through on this earth was woven together, working together for good and answering our prayers.  During these dark and difficult days, remember to look up for Your redemption draws an eye. This is Pastor David Rosales of Calvary Chapel of the Chino Valley, California.