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Update: the debate

1:50 AM: Marine Le Pen succeeded in making me think that Emmanuel Macron won’t be such a bad president after all. It was just an illusion, but she can be given credit for it.

Her only strong moment was when she confronted Macron on the question of fundamentalist Islam. It is his weak point and she supported her argument with strong specifics. However, he was able to slip out of the trap by confronting her record of systematically voting against protective measures taken by the French or EU government, for example the PNR and broad wiretapping powers for the police. “They’re all junk,” she retorted.

For the rest, her performance was a disgraceful barrage of insults, snickering, cackling, interrupting, sputtering, and endless wild shots that missed their target.

Instead of revealing weak points in Emmanuel Macron’s vision or program, she wasted her ammunition on sloppy rants. Even when she was right, she was wrong.

By the time she finished accusing her rival of being an heir to François Hollande, a creature of the socialists, a heartless ally of globalized big finance, responsible for the capitalist free for all that divides and conquers, crushes the poor peasants and workers, crawling on his belly to the orders of Angela Merkel and the drug companies… all of this and more in one rambling rant, she made no points that could stick.

And there she was again with Whirlpool. If she were president they wouldn’t close the factory. Because she’d slap their imports with a 35% tax.

To reduce the deficit of the health care system, she would force pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices.

Aha, replied Emmanuel Macron, I have bad news for you. 90% of the drugs consumed in France are manufactured in other countries. Your import tax will increase the cost. And the same goes for your cell phone…

Who won? In a post debate poll, 63% judged Emmanuel Macron most convincing as against 34% for Marine Le Pen.

Despite the fact that many of 20 million viewers that followed what was more like a punching match than a debate were deeply disappointed at the entire spectacle, I think it is safe to predict that it clinched Emmanuel Macron’s lead and in the long run doomed Marine Le Pen’s political prospects.

After-math

Final results of the first round vote on April 23rd		Number of votes
Emmanuel Macron	23.87%,	8,656,346
Marine Le Pen	21.53%,	7,678,491
François Fillon	19.91%,	7,212,995
Jean-Luc Mélenchon	19.64%,	7,059,951
Benoît Hamon	6.35%,
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan	4.75%	1,695,000 (that might have carried Fillon to the 2^nd round
Jean Lasalle	1.22%
Philippe Poutou	1.10%
Asselineau, Arthaud, Cheminade	Each under 1%.

Four radically different candidates came in so close to each other that the order is almost arbitrary. But the consequences are enormous.

In contrast with the 1st round, polls were scarce and barely mentioned until Macron’s lead over Le Pen slipped by five points. On the eve of the May 3rd debate it stood at 59%/41%. And nothing is certain. Nothing is stable. The French political scene is like the polar ice cap, with big chunks breaking away and floating on icy seas and huge masses looming on the horizon. No one is in control. If François Hollande and his cronies thought they could count on a “Republican Front” to carry their candidate to victory, they miscalculated. The media that was so cozy with the En Marche wunderkind on the 1^st round has turned snippy. And, no matter how many old devils surface, they seem to think Marine Le Pen has managed to take the onus off of her party. More or less.

Many honest citizens will abstain or vote blank. Marine Le Pen is trying to seduce the 1^st round voters of the lider maximo Mélenchon, who won’t take a stand one way or the other. Reportedly, one third are ready to go her way. In his concession speech, François Fillon said he would vote Macron. Hard to swallow for him as for his supporters, but consistent with the view that the Front National is not a legitimate political party. Many high profile members of the LR followed suit; others announced they would not vote for either candidate. A few have already edged into Macron’s camp since Fillon was weakened by scandal. François Baroin, once slated to be Fillon’s PM, is now running the LR legislative campaign. If the party maintains its majority, Baroin would accept the post of prime minister in an En Marche-LR cohabitation government. No one knows if the Assembly is going to be a patchwork, a tossed salad, or a sour soup.

And then there’s holier than thou Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (known as NDA), a man of such high principles that he broke away from the conservative party (today’s LR) and started his own movement to defend national sovereignty, dignity, and integrity. Fishing in the same voter pool as François Fillon, NDA reveled in his rival’s mishaps. The gift of expensive suits? NDA, mayor of Yerres, raises his eyebrows: “I gave back all the gifts I received.” You could just see the right honorable mayor depositing in the municipal treasure chest the paperweight offered by a local printing company, the tool kit donated by a hardware store, and other such precious gifts. Does he employ his wife as parliamentary assistant? “Yes,” he exclaims, “and she really works!!!”

On the 1st round election night, defeated candidates and prominent members of their parties announced one after the other their reluctant or enthusiastic support for Emmanuel Macron. Clean as a whistle NDA, who scored under the 5% minimum that entitles a candidate to reimbursement of an important share of his campaign expenses, coyly promised to state his position the next day. It dragged on until the Friday presentation of the dream team: Marine President, Dupont-Aignan Prime Minister. The vice president of NDA’s party (Debout la France / Stand tall, France), horrified by this unholy alliance, immediately resigned. Citizens of Yerres are disgusted. But most commentators seem to think Marine has finally achieved her goal of making a real alliance with a real political party. What a catch!

What a catch? She’s fishing for giant tuna and she hooks a sardine, big deal! Since MLP and NDA joined forces, her platform has cracked and fizzled. Frexit is kicked down the road, the euro won’t be ditched, the linchpin of a rickety economic project is removed, leaving only barebones French-first promises, most of which are unconstitutional or impossible without leaving the EU and the eurozone. Huge gaps are plastered over with boasting. Marine will give the EU a piece of the glorious French people’s mind, she’ll negotiate from strength, she’ll wrest control of borders, protect our economy from unfair competition, ridiculous regulations, lousy trade agreements, and dumping of products and workers. How about the euro, blamed for our import-export ills? It will be retained, after all. Temporarily. But only for international exchanges. The French will have their cherished franc for domestic exchanges. I watched Marine’s niece, the young MP Marion Maréchal Le Pen, explain the double-decker currency to a hawk-eyed BFM TV economic expert … who didn’t even blink!

One thing is clear: immediately upon taking office MLP/NDA will set about moralizing political life. Marine’s supporters are not bothered by the EU Parliament’s demand for reimbursement of 5 million euros in funds misused by FN eurodeputies. It doesn’t bother the raised eyebrows of Dupont-Aignan either. No snooper journalist has zoomed in on a Daddy Warbucks that might have given Marine a free outfit or a buy-all-you-want card at the French equivalent of Macy’s basement. Then there are the varied accusations of financial irregularities in FN operations here in France. Jean-François Jalckh, who is involved in those scandals, served briefly as interim party chief while Marine is making her way to the presidency, stepped down after just a few days in office, embarrassed by some boiler plate negationism captured in a 2005 interview for Le Temps des saviors.

Jalckh denies he said Zyklon B could not be used for wide scale massacres; the journalist says she has the recording; Marine says she wants nothing to do with that kind of talk that led her to break with her father. Jean-Marie Le Pen blubbered that the slain policeman Xavier Jugelé was honored as a homosexual (Jugelé was an LGBT activist within the police force) not as a man in blue.

One commentator suggested that Marine is on her way to achieving her dream of reorganizing the Right around her axis. In other words, bagging NDA with his self-righteous smirk is enough to undo the intricate conservative movement established after France was liberated from the Nazis and maintained in relative good health ever since. They should all disappear into the hole dug to bury François Fillon?

Highlights of the first week of campaigning: Commemorations, delocalizations, exploitation

The 2nd round campaign has been frantic and incoherent. To cast light on the dark origins of the Front National, Emmanuel Macron did a round of commemorations of “horrors that must never be repeated”: the Armenian Genocide, the Nazi atrocity at Oradour sur Glane, the Deportation, the Shoah, and the 1995 drowning of Brahim Bouarram pushed into the Seine by skinheads during a Front National Mayday parade. Marine Le Pen decried her rival’s exploitation of the dead.

And what about contemporary atrocities? To her credit, Marine Le Pen did mention the murder of Sarah Halimi, but neither candidate has made an issue of the contemporary form of anti-Jewish persecution. MP Meyer Habib is following the case, in close contact with the victim’s brother William Attal and with the interior minister. At Habib’s suggestion the family has retained Maître Gilles William Goldnadel, lawyer, columnist, and president of the France-Israel association. Further Details of the vicious jihad murder have emerged: Sarah Halimi was subject to “torture and barbaric supplications” before being pushed out the window by Kada Traoré. Inexplicably, the police, called to the address because Traoré was on the rampage, waited downstairs until commando reinforcements arrived. Too late.

Close to a thousand people participated in the march in tribute to Sarah Halimi. They had not yet reached her building when some of the organizers stopped the march and asked them to leave their flowers. The participants refused. When they reached the site, they saw (visibly Muslim) neighbors on their balconies cursing and throwing projectiles at them. A bit further, local “youths” threatened them. “We know what to do with you, Jews. We have kalachs.” An eyewitness tells me that mature family men joined the younger Jews and chased the aggressors away.

Courageous political leaders, including Manuel Valls and François Fillon, have identified antizionism as the modern form of antisemitism. Times of Israel unearthed a basket of comments by Marine’s running mate Dupont-Aignan: in 2014 he defended a French parliamentary motion for unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state, condemned Israel’s “disproportionate” reactions and “unacceptable” collateral damage to civilians during the Protective Edge operation, called the land operation an “invasion,” slammed France’s failure to “rein in” Israel. He described the conflict as a duel between two hawkish camps led respectively by Netanyahu and Hamas. Nothing better can be expected of Emmanuel Macron on this score.

Frantic campaign maneuvers

Traditionally, French presidential candidates gallop over to the nearest labor dispute and promise that such things will never happen once they are elected. This time it’s the closure of a Whirlpool plant in Amiens that is relocating to Poland, and the workers are vigorously protesting against the disgraceful delocalization. They don’t know or don’t care to know that Whirlpool (we say whirl as in world, the French say it as in weird) is an American company started as a small family business in 1885 and now operating in 26 countries. The story is edifying. After his first venture failed, Lou Upton was able to salvage one item. He chose the patent on a hand washer and wringer that he thought could be electrified. It worked. But all the machines in the first shipment broke down because of one defective part. The company solved the problem, replaced all the machines, and established its good reputation.

When Marine Le Pen heard that Emmanuel Macron was meeting with labor and management in an office at the Amiens site, she dropped everything and parachuted herself into the crowd of angry workers, bringing them croissants, hugs & kisses, and selfie-ops. After she left, Macron came out of the office and mingled, but the reception was cool. Faced with insinuations of buttering up the workers with croissants, FN-affiliated MP Gilbert Collard sputtered, “We’re not whores, the workers aren’t whores…it’s the bankers that are whores.”

This is one of Marine’s major lines of attack against Macron: he is an instrument of the evil financial oligarchy, once a banker always a friend of the bankers. He’s a tool of the financial monster that sucks the blood of the hardworking people, feeds the voracious multinationals that crush the working man, destroy our countryside, ruins our farmers and small businessmen, inundates us with hostile immigrants.

Emmanuel Macron counter-attacked with a foray into Sarcelles, one of those banlieues where, he proudly declared, Marine would not be welcome. He was surrounded by cheering diversity locals. slim Macron in his elegant suit kicked around a soccer ball to squeals of delight, made a fake goal with the help of an enthusiastic supporter, squinted as he was hugged by a woman in hijab. The socialist mayor of Sarcelles, François Pupponi, looked on with a smile. At a conference organized by the UPJF [Union des patrons et professionnels juifs de France] in March, Pupponi said the Salafists are messing up Sarcelles. Once known as Little Jerusalem, Sarcelles was home to a vibrant population of Jewish refugees from the Maghreb. In the summer of 2014 rioters wreaked havoc, burned down a kosher grocery, and attacked a synagogue.

May Day

The traditional worker’s May Day parade was billed this year as anti-Le Pen but the bulk of the message was “No to the plague and cholera” and the outrage was concentrated on Emmanuel Macron the banker. As the usual marching crowd moved slowly down the boulevard from Place de la République heading to Bastille and Place de la Nation, buoyed by giant balloons bobbing in the wind and ear-blasting sound trucks, hundreds of Black Blocs and associated party crashers were already fighting the police a few hundred meters past the Bastille. Pictures of a riot policeman engulfed in flames have gone around the world tour, making a mockery of the state of emergency, and reminding us that above and beyond this tumbledown presidential campaign, France has to deal with the full range of violent subversive forces.

Anarchists roam the city, smashing whatever pops up on their disapproval list: Real estate agencies, trendy clothing stores and always and repeatedly, banks. Money is the root of all evil, except of course if they need some for themselves. They deface all the election posters displayed on age-old municipal hoardings in front of polling places. Sometimes they team up with the lycéens, barricade the entry to schools, set fire to trash cans here, motorcycles there. Destroy.

27 April: Historian of past and present, Georges Bensoussan presented his latest release, Une France Soumise [French submission], to a receptive audience at the Cercle Bernard Lazare, a Jewish community center in the Marais. Readers of Troubled Dawn of the 21st Century will find an account of an assault on the CBL by pro-Palestinians marching for peace in 2003. Editorial director of the groundbreaking Territoires perdus de la République, Bensoussan again worked with a team of investigators gathering testimony from private citizens, public servants, medical personnel and other professionals exposed to the thrust of Islamic domination. Ninety percent of the people interviewed asked to remain anonymous, either out of fear of reprisals from aggressors or disapproval from their superiors. Bensoussan is not an alarmist, he is not inspired by any personal animosity, he could have refrained from examining these distressful truths, the better to promote his distinguished career. Instead, historian of the Shoah, Jewish refugee from the Maghreb, he has taken it upon himself to look the facts in the face. If the ills cannot be recognized, he says, they cannot be cured. Listening to anecdotes, statistics, overall impressions and analyses, it felt like being dipped into the “reservoir of hatred” that the author warns can explode at the slightest spark. He takes care to add that despite her rhetoric, Marine Le Pen is not the answer. The Front National is anti-democratic, a danger to the nation.

According to Aymeric Chauprade, Le Pen’s former foreign policy advisor, Marine Le Pen is under the influence of the obsessively antisemitic Frédéric Chatillon who handles PR and is a big cog in the party’s financial machine, currently under investigation. Chatillon’s political origins in the neo-Nazi GUD movement and his current links to Bashar al Assad, Hezbollah, Alain Soral, Dieudonné, and others of the same ilk remind us of other examples of collusion between these seemingly disparate forces.

Does this reassure us about the will and the way that Emmanuel Macron will protect our cherished freedom and lead a democratic defense of our national sovereignty and international civilization, domestically and within the European Union that he wants to strengthen and federate? Will he protect the living with as much devotion as he has shown to the memory of the dead, victims of the same persecution from a 20^th century version of totalitarian conquest? Determined to combat Daesh…as long as it is done under UN auspices, committed to a solution of the Mideast conflict…in conformity with international law, Emmanuel Macron advocates peace and harmony.

Questioned about the May Day violence, Macron promised stiff penalties for anyone who attacks the police, and fire-resistant uniforms for law enforcement.

Far from reassuring on this count as on other major issues, the probable future president will face the skepticism of a majority of the electorate, the reluctant support of those who choose him as a lesser evil, the explosive anger of disappointed followers of Mélenchon and Le Pen, and the wrath of the Front Social, a hard-nosed fringe of the labor movement and assorted autonomists acting in concert with the violent Destroy fringe and determined to settle scores in the street, not in the voting booth. On the site of the Publicis branch of the CGT (Communist trade union) the photo of the riot policeman engulfed in flames is labeled “poulet rôti” [roast chicken = roast cop].

Is something more ominous at work beneath the surface of this dismal presidential campaign? Is the choice between the Front National meteor with its Petainist tail and the En Marche bombshell innocently harboring an Islamist powder keg a sign of acquiescence to the new wave of genocide sweeping our world? The Front National is, they say, banalisé. Not a shameful heir to the disgrace of the 20^th century, just an ordinary political party. And an ordinary extermination, an ordinary past. Time to forget and move on. En Marche, move on, on the go, forward with all the youthful energy of progressives, new faces…facing new forms of subversion armed with victim status and appealing to universal values…the better to eat you with, my dears.

COUNTDOWN: The Top 5 Lies of the Left

May 3, 2017/in Commentary, Culture War, Policy, Politics, Science, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Rod Thomson

American political liberaldom relies heavily on empty canards, name-calling and scare tactics to stay alive and shut down opposition.

There are few if any deep and penetrating debates on major topics that drive the politics of the left. They simply will not allow it. So they create fictitious arguments (the nice way of saying lies.)

With that in mind, here are a few major shibboleths of at least the activist left which verge on the incredulous, but which are used regularly and magnified by the sympathetic media megaphone.

No. 5 Lie: Border security is racist

If you believe that America should act like most every other country in the world and protect its borders, you’re a racist.

If you believe that America should have the authority to let in who it wants to and keep out who it wants to like most every other country, you’re a racist.

If you believe America should know who is here and who is coming and going like most every other country, you’re a racist.

This stems from candidate Donald Trump running on a campaign to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to stop the millions of illegal aliens (that is the actual, legal term) from crossing back and forth like it was a state border.

This quasi-open border is the result of an unholy alliance between businesses that want cheap labor and Democrat political interests that see future Democratic voters and a play to current Hispanic voters. And it is the issue that Trump claimed in order to peel away blue-collar Democratic voters.

The left rarely tries to argue the merits of open borders, because most Americans oppose that. So they devolve to the thought-free name-calling of racism because, you know, Mexicans are brown and therefore opposing them, or anyone else, breaking into our country illegally is racist.

No. 4 Lie: Asking questions is science denying

Speaking of science and politics, the inquisitive, independent thinkers among us are now considered anti-science — if they are asking questions about the degree and causes of climate change today.

Yes, while it is obviously the antithesis of actual science, which involves continually asking questions, forming hypotheses, testing, re-testing based on results and so on, this tactic now is employed to shut up any opposition to the climate change political agenda.

The data seems to suggest modest warming since the mid 1800s and there seems to be a connection between carbon in the atmosphere, trapped greenhouse gases, and global warming.

But if you question the data because of a series of scandals revealing how leading climatologists have conspired to alter older data creating cooler temperatures to suggest more rapid warming now, you are a denier.

If you question the degree to which human activity is impacting climate change by pointing out a nearly two-decade pause while carbon emissions continued to increase, you are a denier.

But these and many others are reasonable questions. That we are not allowed to ask them without being labeled flat-earthers suggests this is a lot more about politics than about science.

No. 3 Lie: Men can be women can be men, or whatever

One of the most mind-boggling absurdities foisted on us by the modern liberal is that a person’s sex is dependent on what they think it is. Any “assignment at birth” is an arbitrary constraint to who that person really is.

So, if a person has one Y chromosome and one X chromosome and they have the full package of penis and scrotum, it is not arbitrary to call them male. That person is a man. That is actual science.

But the left — in true full science denial — says those physical realities can be trumped by a person’s feeling. If that person feels like a woman, then they are a woman trapped in a man’s body and they should be allowed and encouraged to dress like a woman or have full-blown surgery to become a woman. And they should be allowed to use women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and showers — even though they are a man.

Until just the past few years this was considered a psychological condition that should be treated. But now, the left celebrates children as young as four years old being encouraged to be the sex they are not.

One could reasonably call that child abuse.

No. 2 Lie: Hate speech is not free speech

No less a luminary than former Vermont governor, DNC chairman and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean tweeted out this past week that “Hate speech is not protected by the first amendment.”

The internet blew up over such a ridiculous statement. Even PolitiFact and media organs called him to task. But the thing is, his tweet got 700 retweets and 1,400 likes. Dean actually doesn’t have that big a Twitter following, meaning the tweet got strong traction among those following him.

Too many on the left, most particularly those on college campuses, view hate speech practically as any speech with which they disagree. Of course, many of these same campuses actually have speech codes and “free speech zones” with the overt meaning that outside the zone is not for free speech.

The unfortunate truth is that many college liberals, trained by professorial liberals, think that they should be able to shut down speech they do not appreciate or agree with. They have safe spaces and mainstream American views can be shouted down and pushed out with threats and actions.

These people leave the campuses today and in a generation will be leaders in the nation. It matters. The radicals running campuses know this.

No. 1 Lie: It’s not about innocent life, but reproductive freedom

And coming in at number one in our countdown is the oldie but definitely not goodie, the abortion non-debate.

Increasingly, science (which worldview seems to be anti-science here?) is showing that by every objective definition the baby in the womb is indeed a human, with the inherent rights of a human, within a few weeks of conception. From brainwaves to heartbeats to pain reaction, a person. Science continually pushes this obvious definition earlier and earlier.

But the left forces the debate to revolve around women’s rights. Not the 50 percent of female babies aborted — not those would-be women — but adult women who should have the right to kill their unborn baby at any point in a pregnancy for any reason they deem. Period. This is the classic Planned Parenthood position on choice.

Because abortion is conflated with birth control, it is called a reproductive “right” on the order of getting a contraceptive device or even pap smears and mammograms — anything except actually talking about whether we should condone the often wanton taking of an innocent human life. Any restrictions on abortion therefore are restrictions on a woman’s access to healthcare. See how much you can get away with when you refuse to call something what it is.

Oh and coat hangers. Don’t forget coat hangers.

But there is an encouraging side to this falderal. All of this avoidance on major issues means that conservatives actually have the stronger cases. Otherwise, liberals would not avoid the debate. We just need to be courageous enough to make those cases over and over and over.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Revolutionary Act. Click here to subscribe to the Revolutionary Act’s YouTube channel!

Why The Circle Is Such an Epic Fail by Jeffrey A. Tucker

May 2, 2017/in Commentary, Culture War, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

All of us have wondered and worried about the astonishing amounts of private information we share with digital hubs. Google, Facebook, Apple, and so many others collect enough on all of us to enable identity theft, financial pillaging, blackmail, and worse. We know this, and it rightly troubles us.

What should we do about it? Where is this heading?

A movie on this subject sounds promising, especially one starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson. And yet The Circle might set records for bad reviews and low profitability. It has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 17% and it seems to be falling from there. It has a D+ CinemaScore, which apparently has no precedent. The reviews are savage.

Abandoned Plot Lines

What went wrong? I counted at least four plot lines that seemed promising but then strangely fizzled into nothingness. Characters were undeveloped. In the main plot, nothing particularly intelligent happens. It was supposed to be dystopian, but the threat to our well-being was never quite threatening enough, and the solution to the supposed problem was unbearably unsatisfying.

The story is of a young worker who gets the chance to work at The Circle, a company with this huge compound where, she gradually learns, she is expected to spend most all her time. Her position is with customer service and her job is to upsell all customers on new products. But the company also seeks to be the whole of her life: her friends, her parties, her support groups, her lifeline to all good things.Yes, it’s wildly exaggerated, but that is fine. It is true that companies’ of a certain size today do provide an impressive range of employee amenities, all designed to take the edge off the toil of work. The lunch offerings at a place like Google compare with the nicest resorts I’ve been to, and it is common for even small startups to have ping pong tables and cocktail hours.

Work = Life

If you have seen Mad Men, however, you know this isn’t entirely new. The postwar corporate world adapted to new times and sought to play an outsized role in people’s lives, at least as compared with the typical big-city job in the first half of the 20th century. It began with health care provision, of course, and moved to retirement benefits. Over time, the workplace tried to become less like a job and more like a family or community.

It can get creepy, certainly, but whose fault is this? For half a century, government policy has prodded companies to do exactly this, all in the name of granting new rights to employees. The benefits that government mandates employers must provide were supposed to be pro-worker but they actually have the opposite effect. Once you get a secure job and all the benefits it provides (particularly health care), the effect is to lock employees into their jobs, even when they are unhappy in them.

Job lock is indeed a huge problem in American labor markets today, and Obamacare and hyper-regulation of the labor markets has made it worse. Economists have shown that a higher rate of job-to-job transition (the quit rate) is associated with higher earning relative to staying in one place. The IMF has done some remarkable number-crunching to discover what is happening to the American quit rate, and found that it has been in free fall.

A main effect of Obamacare was to wreck the market for health care for independent contractors. Ten years ago, it was possible to obtain a cheap policy with low deductibles and low premiums. No longer. It’s a terrifying market out there, without many options and no guarantee that doctors will even accept what you buy.

Whose fault is this? It’s not the big bad corporations that the movie The Circle tries to demonize. The fault belongs to the regulators who have imposed on business all sorts of benefits that ought to be left to the competitive market.

The Circle Is about Something Else

The problem of job lock could have been an amazing theme for the movie to explore. Incredibly, it doesn’t. As with several other themes, the idea is introduced and quickly dropped.

To be sure, it wasn’t all bad. Portions of the film captured the crazy world of social media beautifully. It happens when the lead protagonist decides to go fully transparent and put her entire life online in real time, gaining millions of followers who comment on her every word and move. Here the movie gets creative, funny, and even alarming. We’ve all been there and it is a strange thing to experience.

And yet, that’s about all that I recommend from the movie.

The implausibility of the main lines of the plot were obvious from the beginning. The Circle is a company that is a “one-stop shop” for all things digital: search, texting, audio, video, entertainment, and so on. One thing you learn from the world of tech startups: anyone who claims to be the “one-stop shop” will fail. This is not how digital technology has come to be. You have to move into a niche and be the best in it, or else you will flop.

The Circle mysteriously gained some kind of monopoly (90% of the population is enrolled) but we are never told how or why. Oddly, the company never has to deal with competition from anyone else in its space. Huh? Even giants like Amazon, Google, Netflix, and Facebook deal with competition. They live and breathe it. If they have a market share, they all know it could be temporary. Rest and you will lose it, just as Google today is massively under pressure from competitors.Not so with The Circle. This company seems to have a free hand to do what it wants. And that’s absurd. Even in today’s highly regulated, truncated, and hobbled marketplace, there is always a competitor out there trying to eat your lunch. For this reason, the movie lost me in the first 10 minutes.

What about Privacy?

As this movie flounders around trying to figure out what it is about, it finally hits on a theme: privacy. How much transparency, openness, and information-sharing should there be? How much is too much? Is the demand for privacy only about wanting to hide sin from the world or is there a fundamental human right at stake?

I’m looking at today’s digital world and it does seem alarming how much information “they” have on us. But we have to make some distinctions here. Most of these private companies are collecting data on us precisely so that they can better give us what we want: targeted ads, quicker search results, tools that integrate across platforms, and so on. Google and Facebook desire to serve us better. They don’t always go about it the right way and they often rub us wrong, but this is the prevailing purpose of data collection.

To be sure, there is a darker side to data collection. Edward Snowden’s revelations showed us the NSA and the national security state had generally installed backdoors into top companies servers, sometimes with their own complicity, but other times not. There is solid evidence that both Apple and Google were astonished to learn of the extent to which their own server space had been penetrated. Meanwhile, the private sector is innovating to serve the growing market demand for privacy itself.But in The Circle, the totality of the problem is that private enterprise, and actually just one company with a nearly complete monopoly, is the source of all problems. Sadly, the movie just ends up collapsing into a classic anti-capitalist screed that wildly exaggerates the power of business while completely ignoring the actual real-world problem with government intrusion into the digital space.

For me, the anti-capitalist agenda was the reason the film lost energy, becoming directionless, tired, and ultimately vapid. The overwhelmingly obvious problem with the power of data today is not that we are going to get targeted ads but rather that our masters in the state apparatus are going to use this data as a more effective way to control the population. This is your dystopia. Somehow The Circle completely missed the mark.

And here’s the ultimate irony: the complete financial failure of The Circle as a film beautifully demonstrates that, even in our times, the market still works to sort out winners from losers.

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also Chief Liberty Officer and founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, an advisor to the blockchain application builder Factom, and author of five books. He has written 150 introductions to books and many thousands of articles appearing in the scholarly and popular press.

Operation Mural

May 2, 2017/in Commentary, Culture War, Religion/by Jerry Gordon

Children rescued during Operation Mural.

Bat Ye’or, Giselle Littman, is the nom de plume of noted author of The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, Eurabia: The Europe Arab Axis, Europe, Globalization, and the Coming of the Universal Caliphate and other major works in her oeuvre. Her books and articles cover the treatment of Jews and Christians in Muslim Lands, the threat of Islamization of the West and what she called, “the Palestinization of Israel.”

Bat Ye’or is featured in the book and documentary about Operation Mural about the Israeli Mossad covert operation that involved both her and her late husband David Littman posing as Christians smuggled the first 530 Jewish children to Israel via Switzerland and France under the guise of a summer camp. They were the leading edge of ultimately more than 100,000 Moroccan Jews to gain freedom in the land of Israel in 1961. Operation Mural was launched following the tragic loss of 44 Moroccan Jews lost when an illegal immigrant ship the Egoz capsized. Emigration to Israel had been restricted by Morocco following its Independence from France in 1956.

For his efforts, David Littman was awarded the Mossad Hero of Silence by a grateful Israeli government in 2009.

Here is the note Bat Ye’or sent this writer about development of the book on Operation Mural:

Bat Ye’or , Giselle Littman.

Dearest Jerry and Jean,

First, many thanks for your beautiful card that you kindly sent me for Pesach. I had been in Paris where I gave a lecture on the Islamization of Jerusalem by UNESCO. I am so happy to see that you are active together as always, devoted to fight the vicious enemies of our people.

I wanted to tell you that I am delighted to see that David’s beautiful and generous act on behalf of Moroccan children, prevented to leave the country, is remembered in this feast of Passover commemorating deliverance and freedom. We had to keep it secret for many years because it would have endangered people working still there. Meanwhile, others who never went to Morocco claimed the merit of it.

I am happy that the film was produced and the book written: Operation Mural giving all the proofs from Swiss archives. Although he was much weakened, David Littman, z”l, finished this book while he was in the clinic of Genoliers under heavy treatment for an aggressive form of leukemia. I stayed most of the time with him and it is from there that I wrote for you late at night in the dark room, hardly seeing anything, an interview that you had published beautifully in The West Speaks (2012).

Ariane, our daughter, helped David in typing the manuscript and after his death edited it with skill, adding the documents and some testimonies of children who are now grandparents. The book was published some years ago and I hope that you have a copy.

I hope that you both are strong and healthy like when I met you so many years ago. I think often of my American friends and I am proud to see their achievements in fighting this terrible world jihadist battle to save the most important human right that Judaism proclaimed for humanity, three thousand years ago: Freedom!

Giselle Littman aka Bat Ye’or

A special showing of the film Operation Mural-Casablanca 1961 will be held at B’nai Israel Synagogue in Pensacola, Florida on Sunday, May 7, 2017 at 4PM. Following the film, a panel composed of synagogue members Esther Allen and Kate Lollar of Moroccan Jewish Sephardim heritage will discuss their experience during WWII, the period that led up to Operation Mural and a relative who was among the first wave of Moroccan children who left for Israel facilitated by the Littmans.

An assortment of Moroccan delicacies will be served to attendees at the Operation Mural event.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

The Unfortunate Phenomenon of Black Political Group Think

April 30, 2017/in Commentary, Elections, Policy, Politics/by Lloyd Marcus

My black brother called me from Baltimore feeling frustrated and alone. He is surrounded by blacks, including his household who believe everything they are told by fake news media. No amount of data, logic or truth seems to penetrate their wall of brain-dead loyalty to the democrat party and worship of Obama. My brother said even at his all black church every sermon includes digs against Trump.

In his black circles, spouting the truth about Obama is not tolerated. They angrily reject data confirming that blacks moved backwards culturally and economically after 8 years of Obama.

As a strong Christian, my brother is saddened that many of his black peers abandoned Christ’s agenda to worship at the feet of their black-golden-idol Obama. Many black Christians ignore the truth that Obama was the most biblically-hostile president in U.S. history. Remarkably, even some black preachers threw their Bibles under the bus to support Obama’s anti-biblical mandates.

My brother said he cannot understand why so many blacks eagerly accept Leftists’ obvious lie that all problems plaguing blacks are the fault of white racist America and new Nemesis, Donald Trump.

I praised my brother for being an independent thinker. He reminds me of Joe, an old black college buddy back in the 1970s.

Around a dozen of us black art students were attending the Maryland Institute College of Art. The Black Panthers and black power protests were the rage. Our small group of black students ranted constantly about how a black man does not have an f****** chance in this f****** racist country.

Joe stayed focused on working part-time jobs and his classes. Joe was a no-excuses no-nonsense kind of guy. While working on a college art project together, my job was to find special paper. I told Joe I looked everywhere and simply could not find the paper. Joe questioned me. “Did you look here?” I replied no. Did you look there? My reply was the same. Joe said, “Well Lloyd, don’t tell me you looked everywhere.” Though he annoyed me, I knew Joe was right.

After graduating college, Joe worked his way through grad school and became the first black art director at a prestigious Baltimore Advertising Agency. Joe was an independent thinker.

Frustrated, my brother asked how can he get through to blacks who automatically dismiss him as an Uncle Tom without researching his reasons why blacks should stop voting Democrat? I told him experience has taught me no amount of truth will penetrate willful ignorance.

Matthews 10:14 “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to you words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.” In other words, forget them and move on.

My brother said when you are on a different page than everyone around you, you tend to question yourself. I assured my brother that he was on the right side of the issues. Also, I wonder if self-reliant (conservative) people are born that way. As far back as I can remember, the only thing my brother ever wanted from the government is for it to stay out of his way. Some people are willing to surrender control of every aspect of their lives to government for the promise of a few crumbs of security.

I explained to my brother that the vast majority of black Americans are engaged in group think when it comes to politics.

However, I have seen signs of more blacks beginning to see the light. Praise God. A group of Chicago blacks produced a video expressing their displeasure with Obama and Democrats. One black person said, “Everything in my community is controlled by Democrats so they can’t blame the Tea Party.”

Another good sign of cracks in the democrats’ wall of deception is an ad I heard while campaigning in Georgia against democrat far-left radical Jon Ossoff. A black group’s radio ad told blacks that voting for Ossoff equaled voting for more Democrat broken dreams and broken promises. Thrilled, I said, “Right on bros!”

I told my brother to keep spreading the truth. While many will reject his message, you never know who will truly hear and receive it. As for those blacks who insist on being stuck-on-stupid, wipe their dust from your shoes and move on bro; move on.

The liberal view of women’s rights ‘a load of horse manure’

April 30, 2017/in Commentary, Culture War, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Jihad Watch

Fantasy Christian oppression vs. very real Muslim oppression: which do you think the Left is more upset about? That’s right.

“Laura Perrins: Islamism poses the real threat to the sisterhood,” by Laura Perrins, The Conservative Woman, April 29, 2017 (thanks to Inexion):

The novel, The Handmaid’s Tale by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, has been scaring the bejesus out of women since 1985. I am not going to give you the full summary – you know it. The US becomes a big evil Christian theocracy and after widespread infertility hits, only the few fertile women that are left must become Handmaids to the better families, bearing them children.

Fornication is punished by death, women cannot work and have to be covered and suffer from all round horror at the hands of the patriarchy (and evil conservative women).

The book is everything that feminists want women to believe is ‘just around the corner’.

What a load of horse manure. Thankfully, the only thing that came into being since 1985 is that we pay for everything electronically. If memory serves me right in the dystopian book the Government transfers unilaterally all the wealth held by women to the bank accounts held by their nearest male relative, something that was easy to do given the lack of cash.

But that does not stop numerous TV adaptations of The Handmaid’s Tale, the latest being this.

The book and adaptations generate many think pieces, warning us that we are just a Trump presidency away from such a theocracy even though Trump is the least socially conservative Republican president ever and the Christian Right was split on his election.

But sure, why should we let the facts get in the way of a good propaganda campaign, especially against Christians? And this book has been the most effective form of propaganda to keep women scared into submission and voting Democrat ever, I do believe….

But as this piece demonstrates, the liberals are too terrified to examine where the real threat to women’s rights comes from.

Tell, me again which extremist ideology executes gay men by throwing them off buildings?

What theocracy demands women must be covered and refuses to let them drive? What girls are at high risk of female genital mutilation? Are they the Mormons and Roman Catholics or hardline Lutherans?

No. The real threat to women’s rights comes from Islamism. But you will be waiting a long time before you read a feminist dystopian novel about the threats to American women from such a theocracy. If you did it would be immediately slammed as Islamophobic.

The Catholic Church has given up its ministry to the government

April 30, 2017/in Commentary, Culture War, Healthcare, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Dr. Rich Swier

The Catholic Church is in decline. Why? Because it has failed perform its primary mission to minister to and provide for the sick and needy. It has surrendered to government that role that once was the sole dominion of the church.

I recently read a statement by Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Florida, Chair of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development for the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops. Bishop Dewane states:

“It is deeply disappointing to many Americans that, in modifying the American Health Care Act to again attempt a vote, proponents of the bill left in place its serious flaws, including unacceptable modifications to Medicaid that will endanger coverage and affordability for millions of people, according to reports,” said Bishop Dewane. “Sadly, some of the recently proposed amendments-especially those designed to give states flexibility-lack apparent safeguards to ensure quality of care. These additions could severely impact many people with pre-existing conditions while risking for others the loss of access to various essential coverages.”

His concern should not be about what the government is doing with healthcare. His concern should be that government should not be dictating to the states nor the people, who should or should not be covered. Particularly people of faith.

Bishop Dewane and the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops should not be casting the first stone, for they are not without sin. Government taking over healthcare has harmed the Catholic church, its institutions and is congregations.

Let’s look at the Little Sisters of the Poor. The December 2016 edition of the Atlantic reported:

[T]he Supreme Court decided to tackle the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of nuns who believe, along with some priests, a Roman Catholic Archdiocese, and several universities, that the government is compelling them to violate their beliefs. Their claim: The so-called birth-control mandate of the Affordable Care Act places a burden on their religious exercise, even with an accommodation from the government.

[ …]

The Affordable Care Act requires all U.S. insurance plans to cover 20 varieties of FDA-approved contraceptives at no cost to patients. This affects employers at both for-profit and non-profit organizations, because they have to provide coverage for contraception in their insurance plans. Immediately following the passage of the law in 2010, a number of organizations objected, saying that some of the approved forms of contraception are the equivalent of abortifacients, or drugs that cause abortion. If they refused to provide the coverage, they would face heavy fines.

Note the words “some priests” and a “Roman Catholic Archdiocese.” This is what happens when the Catholic church fails to stop the government from imposing itself on the lives of the faithful with mandates such as killing the innocent via abortifacients.

Perhaps Bishop Dewane would better serve his Archdiocese and Florida’s Catholics by working to get government totally out of healthcare?

GotQuestions.org notes:

The Roman government taxed the Jews unjustly and many of the tax collectors were thieves. When asked about this dilemma, Jesus took a coin and said, “‘Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?’ ‘Caesar’s,’ they replied. Then he said to them, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s’” (Matthew 22:20-21).

But remember that the Roman Empire fell not because of external pressure but because of internal rot.

EDITORS NOTE: Following oral argument on the Little Sisters of the Poor case, the U.S. Supreme Court requested supplemental briefing from the parties addressing “whether contraceptive coverage could be provided to petitioners’ employees, through petitioners’ insurance companies, without any such notice from petitioners.” Post, p. ___. Both petitioners and the Government now confirm that such an option is feasible. Petitioners have clarified that their religious exercise is not infringed where they “need to do nothing more than contract for a plan that does not include coverage for some or all forms of contraception,” even if their employees receive cost-free contraceptive coverage from the same insurance company. Supplemental Brief for Petitioners 4. The Government has confirmed that the challenged procedures “for employers with insured plans could be modified to operate in the manner posited in the Court’s order while still ensuring that the affected women receive contraceptive coverage seamlessly, together with the rest of their health coverage.” Read more.

‘The Catholic Church…has become one of Islam’s loudest boosters’

April 28, 2017/in Commentary, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Jihad Watch

In this excellent piece, George Neumayr refers to the rupture of relations between the Vatican and al-Azhar that took place during the time of Pope Benedict. As I explained here, that rupture took place because Pope Benedict dared to speak out about the Muslim persecution of Christians.

By contrast, Francis energetically defends Islam, and leaves the persecuted Christians twisting in the wind, so he is acceptable to al-Azhar.

The worst part about this is the fact that because this man is Pope, all too many Catholics, including some in positions of high authority, treat him as if he were a divine oracle, his every utterance to be revered, respected, studied, and followed. Because of the statement of Vatican II that “religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra,” and “must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will,” Catholic leaders and publications tend to think that they must adhere to anything the Pope says about anything.

This leads them into impossible positions. When Pope Benedict XVI appeared to criticize the aspects of Islam that incite and justify violence, they allowed for criticism of Islam. When Francis showed himself to be an Islamic apologist, they became Islamic apologists. All too many Catholic leaders and institutions, in other words, are more interested in being papists than in being truthful. They would rather show loyalty to the Pope, no matter how damaging his utterances, than stand for the truth on the own against the Pope.

The contradiction is clear, and absolute. If the Catholic Church has become one of Islam’s loudest boosters, then those who are aware of the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, rooted in Islamic texts and teachings, have to make some hard decisions about where they stand.

“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)

“The Papal Propagandist for Islam Heads to Egypt,” by George Neumayr, American Spectator, April 26, 2017 (thanks to Lookmann):

As the prototypical progressive Jesuit, Pope Francis prides himself on his “ecumenism.” He oozes enthusiasm for every religion except his own. At the top of his list of favorite religions is the Church’s fiercest adversary — Islam.

He often sounds more like a spokesman for CAIR than a Catholic pope. After jihadists cut off the head of a French priest in July 2016 — yelling “Allahu Akbar” over the priest’s slit throat — Pope Francis rushed to the defense of Islam. “I don’t like to talk about Islamic violence, because every day, when I read the newspaper, I see violence,” he said, before ludicrously blaming the rise of terrorism on the “idolatry” of free-market economics: “As long as the god of money is at the center of the global economy and not the human person, man and woman, this is the first terrorism.”

As Europe turns into Eurabia, Pope Francis is picking up honors and awards from progressives, including, hilariously, the 2016 “Charlemagne Prize” for his Islamic apologetics. It is hard to imagine a Christian leader less like Charlemagne. Pope Francis is energized not depressed by the disappearance of Christian Europe. “States must be secular,” he told La Croix. Christian states, he said, “end badly” and go “against the grain of history.” He added that “when I hear talk of the Christian roots of Europe, I sometimes dread the tone, which can seem triumphalist or even vengeful.” It also takes on “colonialist overtones,” he complained.

The most liberal pope ever, of course, sees no irony in shilling for the most illiberal religion on Earth. On his anti-colonialist scorecard, Islam wears the white hats and Christian Europe, the black ones. After jihadists gunned down ten journalists at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, Pope Francis rushed to Islam’s defense again, in effect rebuking the dead journalists for incitement: “You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.” Those who do, he continued, should “expect a punch.”

This week Pope Francis takes his pro-Islamic apology tour to Egypt. Previewing the trip, which starts on Friday, he said he seeks to “offer a valid contribution to inter-religious dialogue with the Islamic world.” Francis’s fawning media courtiers are already rolling out the propaganda for it, predicting that it will “build bridges to moderate Islam.”

“A main reason for the trip is to try to strengthen relations with the 1,000-year-old Azhar center that were cut by the Muslim side in 2011 over what it said were repeated insults of Islam by Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict,” according to Reuters. “Ties with the center were restored last year after [Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb] visited the Vatican. Tayeb, widely seen as one of the most moderate senior clerics in Egypt, has repeatedly condemned Islamic State and its practice of declaring others as apostates and infidels as a pretext for waging violent jihad.”

Being “one of the most moderate senior clerics in Egypt” is about as meaningful a distinction as being one of the most chaste Kardashian sisters. Useful idiots in the West call Tayeb moderate, but anyone paying attention knows that he is not, unless calling for the killing of apostates now counts as “moderate.”…

Past popes regarded Islam as a font of poisonous heresies. Dante placed Muhammad in hell. St. Thomas Aquinas said Muhammad peddled “fables and doctrines of the greatest falsity” and sardonically remarked upon the perverse basis for his claim of divine favor: “Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms — which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants.”What has changed? Nothing. Islam remains as violent as it started. But one thing is new: The Catholic Church, under the death-wish progressivism of Francis, has become one of Islam’s loudest boosters.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan — America’s worst nightmare

April 25, 2017/in Commentary, Policy, Politics, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Geoff Ross

Dear Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI),

I understand that your wife Janna is a life long member of the Democrat party and worked very hard to elect Obama and tried to elect Hillary Clinton – into the Oval Office.

Your Democrat induced family network is deeply embedded in this nation as you wrap tightly around the necks of the American people and the small business owners that are trying to make America great again under the leadership of President Trump.

You are a fake and a fraud – you, sir, are a liberal posing as an American impeding the Trump economic recovery for this Republic.

You claim you want to cut spending while turning a blind eye to unconstitutional expenditures. For example: No attempt has been made to defund the unconstitutionally funded U.S. Department of Education (DOE)

The disclaimer on the DOE website clearly states the 10th Amendment protects the states from federal intrusion in funding and educating our children.

It states:

“Please note that in the U.S., the federal role in education is limited. Because of the Tenth Amendment, most education policy is decided at the state and local levels. So, if you have a question about a policy or issue, you may want to check with the relevant organization in your state or school district.”

So why are you Paul Ryan funding an increase of $1.3 billion tax payer dollars more for FY 17 for the Department of Education than was given in 2016? Do we borrow more money from China to cover this expense? Maybe we can send the bill to your wife’s idol Hillary Clinton?

The DOE budget request for FY 2017 includes $69.4 billion in discretionary funding, which is an increase of $1.3 billion over the 2016 appropriation. This is totally unacceptable tax payer waste and abuse.

Why is the federal government working through the Department of Education funding elementary and secondary programs annually handing out tax payer cash to 16,900 school districts and approximately 50 million students attending more than 98,000 public schools and 28,000 private schools?

Under whose authority? The Constitution does not permit this folly Mr. Speaker!

Department programs also provide grant, loan, and work-study assistance to more than 13 million post-secondary students.

Why is this?

Who decides this redistribution-of-wealth to the far left colleges ran by pro Marxist – LGBT embracing – Communists leading our kids down the Socialist path of destruction?

This unconstitutional intrusion into our schools gave President Obama and his wife unprecedented control over all schools in this nation that accepted this fleeced tax payer money.

Right down to what the kids can eat for lunch with the federal bureaucrats inspecting our kids brown bag lunches to make sure they were compliant with Michelle Obama’s menu.

Our national debt is $20 Trillion.

Mr. Ryan – when you decide to return back to constitutional governance and defund and abolish this Jimmy Carter approved DOE assault on our schools please let us know.

So while the Republican led Congress sits on its asinus refusing to address the debt on this nation created by the unprecedented out of control spending by the Congress of the United States – we Americans will keep you in the spotlight until you resign from your leadership post in the Congress.

President Trump has only one tool blocking the Congressional excesses to free this nation from the over bloated – tax payer abusing Communist – Socialist Congress – YOU!

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Citizenship Needs an Owner’s Manual by Lawrence W. Reed

April 24, 2017/in Commentary, Culture War, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

When you buy a new car, you get an indispensable document called an Owner’s Manual. Nobody ever throws the manual away while he owns the car. It’s far more important than the slip of paper you get with a new flashlight that tells you where to put the batteries; you could figure that out on your own. A car has a maze of electronic circuitry; lots of buttons, dials and periodic maintenance requirements; and numerous moving parts both visible and hidden. Many things could go wrong if you don’t get things right.

Citizenship in a free republic is similar. Historically, it’s a scarce and valuable commodity. The freedom it conveys is much sought after but most people in history never achieved it and most of those currently living never will. Some who have it will lose it through assault or neglect. If and when you’re blessed to possess it, you will discover that it won’t run on its own.

You must take charge. Maintenance, after all, requires an active maintainer. So it is that citizenship in a free republic requires an Owner’s Manual, and now for Americans at least, activist and philanthropist Helen Krieble has given us one.

Helen Krieble, formerly of Colorado and now a resident again of her home state of Connecticut, is president of the Vernon K. Krieble Foundation. She’s a lifelong promoter and benefactor of freedom-related causes from regulation to immigration. Her late father, Robert Krieble, co-founder of the Loctite Corporation and former vice chairman of the Heritage Foundation, was known for his role in supporting freedom movements within the old Soviet Empire.

Helen has tangled with intrusive governments herself right in her own backyard, battling regulators in Colorado whose nonsense forced her to close and sell her beloved Colorado Horse Park, an international equestrian and events center.

She knows that freedom is never automatic or guaranteed from one generation to the next. She also knows that defending it begins at the most local level, the individual.

Helen is the prime mover behind many effective projects over the years, including the impressive Leadership Program of the Rockies. Her latest is the Lens of Liberty Citizenship Initiative , “a series of projects and programs to educate Americans on what it means to be a United States citizen, and on the responsibilities that come with citizenship.”

It’s nothing like the nondescript mush you hear from groups that purposefully steer clear of any principled message—you know, the ones that go no deeper than tell you to vote (for anybody, so long as you vote), write your congressman, tour the capitol building and attend school board meetings. Everything Helen’s organization produces is aimed at getting Americans to see all issues through the “lens of liberty” and then equipping them to act on behalf of their vanishing freedoms.

The 50-page Your American Citizenship Owner’s Manual is one of the Lens of Liberty’s publications. It includes a “Parts List” and sections on “The Privileges of Ownership,” “Teaching Other Drivers,” “Maintenance Responsibilities,” “Operating the Controls,” “Roadside Emergencies” and even one on “Recalling Defective Parts.” It’s included in the free “Freedom Kit” you can request here.

Citizenship in a free republic, in Helen Krieble’s view, requires that we understand and appreciate these principles: equality before the law, unalienable individual rights, personal responsibility, the rule of law, free enterprise and private property, among others. Moreover, we must put our time and talents to work for them. We must speak truth to power and challenge unconstitutional or unwarranted assaults on our freedoms whether they come from the distant federal government or from the local zoning board. “Every citizen,” says Helen, “must hold government accountable for preserving our freedom, not taking it, and our home towns are great places to start.”

At FEE, we educate people (young ones especially) in pretty much the same ideals that Helen’s new effort does, so we are especially pleased to partner with the Lens of Liberty Citizenship Initiative. When I am asked, as I frequently am, “What can I do now that I’m sold on liberty?” I urge principled people to start a Bastiat Society chapter, sponsor students to a FEE seminar, get involved in media or politics or any number of other activities where their talents are best deployed.

Now to that list I proudly add Helen Krieble’s Lens of Liberty! You can start by learning more about the organization and by ordering your Freedom Kit today.

America is more than just a place—it is an ideal and a set of principles. In America, government exists for and with the consent of the people—a radical concept in the beginning that the founders knew would require informed and responsible citizens. American citizens who enjoy the privileges of a free society must play a role in keeping the nation’s ideals of freedom on course.

~ Helen Krieble, founder of the Lens of Liberty Citizenship Initiative.

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is President of the Foundation for Economic Education and the author of the book Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of Courage, Character and Conviction. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

Women have become political and social IED’s

April 23, 2017/in Commentary, Culture War, News, Politics/by Kevin Schmersal

I have been thinking a lot about Bill O’Reilly and his departure from Fox News. This is the first time that I have commented on it because I wanted to thoroughly think it through first, and this is the conclusion that I have arrived at.

I am not a big fan of Bill O’Reilly, and never have been, but that isn’t because of any allegations of womanizing. I just find him to be an obnoxious bore, but Mr. Bill has become the latest victim of liberalism, that’s all. Nothing to do with sex, or harassment, or anything of the sort…just liberalism and here’s why.

Woman have gone the way of every other minority in this country, namely blacks, in the respect that they have become abusers of the very system that has given them equality and justice. At one time, that pendulum of justice swung far to one side and treated women unfairly…same as it did for blacks, but then things changed and there was a correction, rightfully so, and that pendulum swung the other way, but instead of stopping it in the middle where truth and fairness for all is found, they, like blacks, kept on pushing it far to the opposite side to where now they are able to manipulate and abuse the very system that sought to correct the uneven balance.

Women have become political and social IED’s.

The slightest provocation, and even no provocation, could cause them to explode, and if you are in their path…..you are going to get hurt.

One word from a woman, and without one iota or scintilla of evidence or proof, and a man is immediately under the microscope by the social and legal communities and his entire life is at risk. Let’s take a couple of scenarios that are going on right now and that I am personally familiar with:

The first, a young couple living together. He bought the house, and she is the “live in” girlfriend with three kids. They get into a fight, she calls the cops and accuses him of hitting her. He is arrested and cannot return to his house. This has become an old story. It is now almost commonplace for a woman to file a “protection from abuse” when couples seek divorce, just to get him out of the house, and if she files it, she automatically gets it. No proof of abuse, she just gets the order.

Next, did you know that it is a sad fact that many young fathers will not bathe their daughters? It’s a fact. Why? Because of the ever increasing accusations of sexual abuse if the couple becomes estranged. One accusation from a woman immediately puts a man under the microscope of the legal authorities. Yes, I know of such a case right now……and it never happened. The playwright, William Congreve said it best, “…Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turn’d, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

These are not isolated cases or situations. This has become the norm across the Nation. The American Woman has proudly taken her place alongside Black Lives Matter. Unless you have your head buried in the sand, you’ll have noticed that there is a war against whites, there is a war against boys and there is a war against men.

So if you’re a white boy who has grown to be a man? Well, you’re pretty much screwed.

Judicial Watch Sues for Records about Govt. Funding of George Soros’ Foundation

April 21, 2017/in Commentary, Courts & Law, Politics, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Judicial Watch

George Soros

One reason George Soros is so active in the political scene – both in the U.S. and worldwide – is that he is handed a lot of our tax dollars to fund his activities. And your Judicial Watch is hot on the trail of exposing this corruption.

This past week, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for records and communications relating to the funding and political activities of the Open Society Foundation – Macedonia. We want to learn why the Macedonia organization, part of George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, received nearly $5 million from USAID from 2012 to 2016. We filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (No. 1:17-cv-00729).

We sued after both the State Department and USAID failed to respond to a February 16, 2017, FOIA request seeking:

All records related to any grants, contracts, or disbursements of funds by the State Department to the Open Society Foundation – Macedonia and/or any of the Foundation’s subsidiaries. This request includes all related requests for funding, payment authorizations, or similar records, as well as all related records of communication between any official, employee, or representative of the State Department and any official, employee, or representative of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Any records of communication between any official, employee, or representative of the State Department and any officer, employee, or representative of the Open Society Foundation – Macedonia and/or any of the Foundation’s affiliated organizations. This request includes responsive records of communication sent from or directed to U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia Jess L. Baily.

All analyses or similar records regarding the political activities of the Open Society Foundation – Macedonia and/or any of the Foundation’s affiliated organizations.

All messages transmitted via the State Department’s SMART system sent from any U.S. Government employee or contractor operating under the Chief of Mission’s authority at the U.S. Embassy in Skopje that pertain to the Open Society Foundation – Macedonia and/or any of the Foundation’s affiliated organizations.

The USAID website reports that between February 27, 2012, and August 31, 2016, USAID gave $4,819,125 in taxpayer money to Soros’s Open Society Foundation – Macedonia (FOSM), in partnership with four local “civil society” organizations. The USAID’s website links to www.soros.org.mk, and says the project trained hundreds of young Macedonians “on topics such as freedom of association, youth policies, citizen initiatives, persuasive argumentation and use of new media.”

Earlier, in February, in Judicial Watch’s Corruption Chronicles we reported:

The U.S. government has quietly spent millions of taxpayer dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia by colluding with leftwing billionaire philanthropist George Soros, records obtained by Judicial Watch show. Barack Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia, Jess L. Baily, has worked behind the scenes with Soros’ Open Society Foundation to funnel large sums of American dollars for the cause, constituting an interference of the U.S. Ambassador in domestic political affairs in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

[ …]

Here’s how the clandestine operation functions, according to high-level sources in Macedonia and the U.S. that have provided Judicial Watch with records as part of an ongoing investigation. The Open Society Foundation has established and funded dozens of leftwing, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Macedonia to overthrow the conservative government. One Macedonian government official interviewed by Judicial Watch in Washington D.C. recently calls it the “Soros infantry.” The groups organize youth movements, create influential media outlets and organize violent protests to undermine the institutions and policies implemented by the government. One of the Soros’ groups funded the translation and publication of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” into Macedonian. The book is a tactical manual of subversion, provides direct advice for radical street protests and proclaims Lucifer to be the first radical. Thanks to Obama’s ambassador, who has not been replaced by President Trump, Uncle Sam keeps the money flowing so the groups can continue operating and recruiting, sources in Macedonia and the U.S. confirm.

According to InsidePhilanthropy.com, Soros’ Open Society Foundation “may be the largest philanthropic organization ever built, with branches in 37 countries. While the Gates Foundation spends more money, OSF has a larger footprint worldwide thanks to its many local offices, including throughout Africa.” OSF’s budget will be around $930 million …”The activities of Ambassador Bailey and USAID’s funding of the Open Society Foundation have recently come under Congressional scrutiny. On January 17, 2017, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) sent a letter to Baily asking him to explain the State Department’s relationship with Open Society Foundation. On February 24, 2017, Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and others called on the Government Accountability Office to conduct an investigation and audit of the State Department and USAID’s activities in Macedonia, including funding of Open Society Foundation entities and potential interference in domestic Macedonian political affairs in potential violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

It’s clear from what we have already learned that the Obama administration freely used our tax dollars for political purposes, including support of the Soros operation. Let’s hope the Trump State Department and USAID will get their act together and disclose the details of the Obama-Soros spigot.

Thuribles are ritual symbols of the Christian Religion

April 20, 2017/in Commentary, Religion/by Anatolii Ulitovskyi

Thuribles have always been a part of worship services of the different Christian religions such as Lutheran, Roman Catholic, United Methodist, Oriental Orthodox, United Methodist, and more.

Thurible

What are Thuribles?

The term may not be familiar to most, yet, a common sight in every church service. The thurible is the metal container that emits smoke from the incense burned inside. It is suspended on chains which the altar server dexterously swings at certain times during the church service. The altar server is called the thurifertaken from the word thurible.

The ecclesiastical practice of using thuribles dates back to the religious practices of Judaism during the time of the Second Jewish Temple. The term “thurible” was taken from the word thurible from the Old French that has its roots in turibulum from Latin meaning incense.

In today’s setting, the term thurible has been changed to “incense burner” or simply, “boat”.

How does a thurible work?

A thurifer working a thurible during worship service looks simple, but it is not. Every thurible has a center to hold the burning incense, which in turn is suspended by three or four chains. There are designs for single-chain thuribles which are fairly uncommon. Around the chains is a metal ring to lock the center of the censer. There is usually a removable crucible in the center to put in the burning charcoals. Thuribles have stands to safely suspend it when not in use.

The metal censer or the boat holding the burning charcoal can either be removable or permanent. The loose incense sprinkled on top of the hot charcoal emits the smoke used for sensing sacred objects, the priests, and the people. While incenses come in different varieties, the sweet-smelling ones are commonly used in worship services.

Why are thuribles used in worship?

The sole purpose of a thurible in church services is to waft out smoke from the burning incense. If this is the only purpose of thuribles, what makes them so important to worship services?

The burning of incense in places of worship symbolizes prayer, offering, and the acknowledgement of the presence of God. The rising smoke coming from the thuribles symbolizes prayers offered by the faithful to send up to God. God’s presence in the worship service is magnified, almost to be physically felt by the worshipers because of the sweet smells emitted from the thurible.

Burning incense at the altar is the most crucial, the hardest job, and the sole responsibility of the thurifer. The thurifer has to keep the coals burning throughout the service while being dexterous every time he wafts out the smoke to prevent accidentally burning the priest and himself.

Opening and closing the thurible is not as simple as it looks where oftentimes, only one hand is used without tangling the chains. Setting the pace from beginning to end of the worship service together with the sequencing of sacred objects to be censed, is an art by itself that takes long practice on the part of the server or thurifer before it can be perfected.

The sequence of censing

The start of every worship service begins with the thurifer censing the altar before moving over to the Gospel Book. The next cense time occurs after the proclamation of the Gospel.

The thurifer also cense special gifts offered at the altar right after censing the altar and the cross. During the Eucharistic prayer, all the servers, people, the choir, and the priests or ministers are censed.

As soon as the body and blood of Christ is consecrated during the Eucharistic prayer, the thurifer cense the consecrated wine and bread. The sequence of censing always follows a set pattern.

Censing sacred objects and people involved in the worship service vary, but follow a set sequence. The book of Gospels, the celebrant minister or priest, the co-celebrant priests or ministers, the altar and the cross each receive three double censing. During the Lenten season, a Paschal candle lighted on the platform of the church also receives three double censing.

The deacon and non-celebrant ministers and priests are given two double censing while one double censing goes to the congregation, sub-deacons, choir, and altar servers.

Placing and blessing the incense in the thurible

At every Sunday worship service, the first incense blessing takes place in the vestry where the hot coals in the center of the thurible are sprinkled with loose incense by the celebrant priest. The traditional ritual followed is for the thurifer to present the thurible to the priest or minister speaking the words, “Pray Father a blessing”.

This gives the signal for the officiating priest to sprinkle the incense grains on top of the burning coals before speaking the words, “Be blessed by Him in whose honor you shall be burned”, followed by the sign of the cross. This is the sign for the thurifer to close the lid of the thurible.

The second incense blessing takes place before the Gospel procession where the thurifer approaches the celebrant priest at his chair. The same ritual and blessing that first happened in the vestry is repeated.

The third and last incense blessing happens before the Eucharistic prayer. The thurifer, holding the thurible again approaches the celebrant priest at his chair to request for the final blessing. The slight variation to the ritual is with the prayer offered by the celebrant priest that will be, “At the intercession of the Blessed Michael the Archangel who stands at the right hand of the altar of incense, may the Lord graciously accept this fragrant offering to His praise and glory”.

The symbolism and tradition of thuribles

The tradition of using thuribles during Sunday Mass or any worship service represents an important symbol to every Christian believer. The role of the thurible may only be a vessel, yet it is a worthy vessel created to hold one of the most important essences in a Sunday church worship. The perfumed sweetness of incense emanating from the thurible evokes and inspires a deeper spiritual experience between man and his Creator.

How do you get your news?

April 20, 2017/in Commentary, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Wallace Bruschweiler

If you had any doubt the news system was rigged, this might remove that doubt:

ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron is married to Susan Rice, former National Security Adviser.

CBS President David Rhodes is the brother of Ben Rhodes, Obama’s former Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications.

ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman is married to former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

ABC News and Univision reporter Matthew Jaffe is married to Katie Hogan, Obama’s former Deputy Press Secretary.

ABC President Ben Sherwood is the brother of Obama’s former Special Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood.

CNN President Virginia Moseley is married to Clinton’s former Deputy Secretary Tom Nides.

And if that didn’t throw the final turd into the punch-bowl, the ultra-liberal New York Times is owned by Carlos Slim, the richest citizen of MEXICO! What a great big happy family!

Before you believe everything you read in the newspapers or see on TV — think about what these billionaire “insiders” have at stake when they lose their crooked “providers” in government.

Russia and Failed American Intelligence: The North Korea, Syria, Putin, Obama Connection

April 20, 2017/in Commentary, National Security, Policy, Politics/by Simona Pipko

The tension rises overseas, Syria and North Korea dominate the world media with a wide variety of discussions, stories, and predictions in April 2017. Yet, nobody connects these two countries ideologically. Alas, as usual, the media has forgotten the Stalinist era of building Socialism. As a matter of fact, Stalin’s long-range strategy included building Socialism world-wide and creating a One World Government under the Kremlin rule. Stalin planned to be a President of the World, his actions proved and confirmed his intent. Do you remember the First Communist International and the second one? Both were established in the 20th Century. As General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR, Stalin was its leader.

Don’t be confused by the fraudulent term Communism/Socialism. Carefully crafted Stalinist political correctness has been working since the Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Russia to manipulate human mind. Pay attention to the history and the facts of life. The expansion of Soviet Socialism has started immediately after the revolution: Mongolia, China, North Korea, and so on. Both North Korea and Syria are Stalinist states built on Stalin’s Doctrine of One World Government under Kremlin’s rule, to dominate the world…

Stalinist North Korea

Let me give you a part of a lecture I presented at New York University in 1990. We were discussing the book Red Cocaine: The Drugging of America, by Joseph D. Douglass, Jr. Clarion House, 1990. The book was stunning me. The author knew well the machinery of the Soviet government and its modus operandi. He used the murky time in Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall and temporary openness in Russia; he visited the KGB archives, copying precious documents. The book is a pearl of a documentary and should be read by all decent people in the world. That exact reading I recommended to my students. Here is a part of the lecture presented in 1990.

“Reading the book, you’ll learn about the so-called ‘medical facilities’ in North Korea. For that reason I want to bring you to another part of the world and take the subject of the KGB even further back in time. Let me give you some examples. In 1945, World War II had ended, but not for Stalin. He had in mind his Second Front—Asia. He viewed it as a strategic region of paramount importance.

“At that time, defeated Japan had left a political vacuum in North Korea, and Stalin used it. A Korean Army was formed, trained, equipped to the teeth with the Soviet arms, and supervised by KGB men sent to implement the Stalinist formula in North Korea. Stalin personally chose its leader—a captain of the Soviet Army, Kim IL Sung. Since then, the connection between the Soviet military, the KGB and the Korean military has never ended—the Soviet General Staff had worked out the plan for aggression in 1950 and the Soviets military fully participated in the Korean War.

“After the communist victory of 1949 in China, under the slogan ‘Stalin and Mao—friendship forever,’ tens of thousands of Soviet advisors flooded China. These were Stalin’s apparatchiks and bureaucrats. All of them taught the Chinese how to build and instill the party machine and an infrastructure of the Soviet system, with its institutions. Under the same slogan, hundreds of thousands of young Chinese flooded the Soviet universities. I met some of them in law school. By that time, they spoke Russian fluently. While studying, most of those students had been recruited by the KGB, and upon return to China they deepened implementation of the Stalinist model. Cultural similarities have been conducive to success.” Baltic Winds: Testimony of a Soviet Attorney, pp. 529-555, Xlibris, 2002.

Seventy years later, you saw a massive military parade, Soviet style, a quite provocative celebration of the Kim IL Sung birth day on April 15, 2017. The grandson Kim Jong-un presented his grandfather as “the Sun or a Son of God,” but the real history tells us that Kim IL Sung was a ‘Son of Stalinism.’ Look at twenty-five million Koreans living under the regime today—it is a Stalinist GULAG, enslaving human beings. And it is not a coincidence that the Korean missile test failed, but don’t take comfort in that. The military machine of North Korea is working non-stop like the Soviet one and the master-puppet Putin is there with full military capacity to undermine global tranquility. Rising tensions in Asia are a result of Russia’s intent to test Trump’s administration. Flying over Alaska is the same testing Trump’s administration on the Pacific…

Unfortunately, the Stalinist Doctrine of destruction did not die with Stalin: his devoted disciples in Russia have continued its expansion across the world. The Middle East and especially Syria present a vivid example of how Soviet Socialism has been disseminated with the Influence of Russian Intelligence. It is this force that provided all its satellites with WMD: Saddam got Sarin and Mustard Gas, Assad-Sarin. Watch WMD within ISIS and al-Qaeda… Though China definitely has power over North Korea, the Russian security apparatus still has long arms with the intent to dominate the world. Syria is another example.

Syria

If Arafat was the first molding of a Soviet style leader in the Middle East, Hafez al-Assad was indeed the second one. He participated in the 1963 Syrian coup d’état which brought the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party to power, and was appointed Commander of the Syrian Air Force by the new leadership. In 1966, Assad participated in a second coup, and was appointed defense minister by the new government. In 1970 Assad seized power and then appointed himself the undisputed leader of Syria in 1970–71. He was Prime Minister from 1970 to 1971 and President of Syria from 1971 to 2000. This amounted to thirty years of total Soviet influence in Syria under Papa Assad.

That was the usual Soviet strategy of infiltrating the Middle East. Under Bashar Assad, Syria has once again become a Soviet Arab Socialist Republic with all the consequences of Stalin’s Doctrine and his Formula for Power. By the way, Saddam Hussein came to power in Iraq the same way in 1979 as did the Ayatollahs in Iran in 1979. Don’t be surprised at the connection between ISIS and al-Qaeda—all terrorists groups regardless of their names have the same parents—Soviet Fascism. Please read my analyses of the years 1970-1980, pp. 145-161, Chapter 8, What is Happening to America? The Hidden Truth of Global Destruction, Xlibris, 2012

As a matter of fact, Syria, which is comprised of several major incompatible tribes is a strategic center of the Mideast. It was a typical Soviet Socialist State, equipped with a huge arsenal of the Soviet arms and weaponry since 1971. The city of Tartus hosts a Soviet-era naval supply and maintenance facility, under a 1971 agreement with Baathist Syria, Tartus is practically a Russian military base in Syria. The close relation between the Russian intelligence and military with Syria has been going on since. “The facility hosts the Amur (Russian) class of floating workshop PM-138, capable of providing technical maintenance to Russian warships deployed in the Mediterranean in the 21st century.”

Hence Russia has a free access to Mediterranean, which means the Middle East, North Africa and Southern Europe. You can see on a map of the area that there is also a corridor from Iran and Iraq to Lebanon, a route for shipping arms to Hamas and Hezbollah. Remember Stalin’s Doctrine worked at the time and it worked well in the Middle East as well. Moreover, Putin needed Crimea for this particular reason: to have a free avenue for Russian fleet to Mediterranean and the Middle East. Stalin’s design to use Islam is alive and well, you are witnessing it every day by the criminal activities of terrorism. Today Russians have several military installations in Syria. Read Socialist Lies: From Stalin to Clintons, Obamas, and Sanders, Xlibris, 2016.

However strange it sounds, I had some experience in connection with Syria. Once, a client came to my law office, a man who had a question about his apartment in Tallinn. In talking to me he told that he was leaving in a week, as he was working in Syria. I asked him what he was doing there, he answered very calmly that he was an instructor in the Soviet Terrorist training camp in Syria. It was in the end of the 1960s or beginning of the 1970s. I wasn’t surprised; the people living in Socialist countries had known Russia’s agenda in the Middle East where constant attacks were taking place daily. Today, in 2017, you can see the long-range strategy of Soviet Socialism and the Stalinist’s addiction to expansion—one of the reasons, I called the regime Soviet Fascism.

The ideology of Soviet Fascism

The Stalinist ideology has created special kinds of people, affecting them with subversive political correctness. They ignore the reality of the world and the war waged by Soviet Fascism against Western civilization during the last hundred years. But reality is very suborn—Stalinism connects Putin, Assad, Kim Jong-un, and many others like an umbilical cord to the ideology. Those leaders know that they are criminals and that the power they amass is the only thing that will save them from prison. The unfortunate result of their existence across the world is obvious—the rise of Anti-Semitism, the genocide of Christians, unspeakable violence, orchestrated protests—the attributes of Soviet Fascism. All of those we, the former Soviet citizens, had experienced in the Soviet Union. We called it Stalinism.

Researching the ideology for the last twenty-five years, I am convinced that the globe is dealing today with Soviet Fascism, which is one of the reasons for the push to Globalization, a KGB invention. Nor has America escaped it. For the sake of our country, the term Soviet Fascism should be accepted, analyzed, and discussed. Therefore my conclusion is two-fold: 1. Knowledge of Stalinist Russia is a must. 2. Investigation the Obama administration and the current activities of his shadow government is imperative. Both investigations, if successful, will have vital global ramifications…

I have to remind you my opinion about a list of military collaborations between the U.S. and Russia executed under the Obama/Putin joint venture:

Killing of bin-Laden
Invasion of Libya, conspiracy of Obama, Putin, and French Pres. Sarkozy.
Benghazi, murder of the U.S. ambassador Stevens.
“On 6 August 2011, a U.S. Boeing CH-47 Chinook military helicopter was shot down while transporting a quick reaction force attempting to reinforce an engaged unit of Army Rangers in Wardak province, west of Kabul, Afghanistan. The resulting crash killed all 38 people on board—25 American specialists … Fifteen of the Navy SEALs that were killed were members of the Naval… “

If investigated, the listed events will open up a huge panorama of activities of the DNC leadership directed against the American Republic. My two assignments are inextricably intertwined. President Trump was right speaking about “inherited mess.” The mess was so tremendous, he initially asserted, the “swamp” indeed was deeper and more harmful and dangerous. I dedicated many pages to this “swamp,” I called it the Obama/Putin joint venture. A chronicling of this joint venture has been presented in detail in Socialist Lies. It is a protocol and diary of the Obama’s regime from its beginning in 2008. American Intelligence failed to expose Obama and the Democrat Party for aiding Putin in many different occurrences overseas to the detriment of American interests, including the Opioid epidemic in America. My book reveals just that.

In this connection, I have to correct our media and politicians: Putin will not stop at restoring the Soviet Union—Putin wants to be a President of the World, like Stalin’s intent—hence awareness of Stalinism is imperative. Alas, America did not escape the implementation of some elements, and attributes of Soviet Fascism by Obama’s regime. Therefore, a person like Steve Bannon, who is talking about destruction of the administrative State, and who quotes Lenin by heart is extremely valuable to the Trump team. In our days—knowledge of the enemy is the best recipe for success…

To be continued at www.simonapipko1.com and drrichswier.com/author/spipko/