VIDEO: The Vortex — The Last Chance

TRANSCRIPT

No one in America who really, deeply cares about the future of the United States misses the point that what people on both sides are actually voting on is the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court.

For decades, and largely while political conservatives — including a hefty number of Catholics — were asleep at the switch, the Marxist Left was implementing a takeover of the country through judicial fiat. The Left resorted to the courts because they could not get done what they wanted through state legislatures. So, in an effort to usurp the will of the people, they populated the nation’s elite law schools with social radicals, some of whom, after decades, were able to rise high in positions within the federal judiciary.

By the time political conservatives caught on to the plan, it was too late. The Left sufficiently controlled the courts, including the Supreme Court, to force its will on the people. Once something becomes legal, in people’s minds, it tends to be more readily viewed as acceptable, even moral. Even formerly controversial issues take on an air of respectability, and opposition to them now becomes seen as narrow-mindedness.

But the composition of the High Court — the ages of various justices — brought the issue to a head in the 2016 presidential election. It was almost a certainty that the court could shift to the right, even marginally, if Trump was elected. So while the Left was alarmed, the Right was ecstatic at the possibility. After decades and decades of hard, grinding, thankless work, the possibility was coming into focus that Donald Trump in the White House might finally hand the brass ring to the cause of political conservatism.

And the issue was abortion. If Hillary were to win, it would be game over, potentially forever. And recall, during the 2016 race, there was already one vacancy on the court — the seat of Antonin Scalia — a conservative seat. Securing that seat with a liberal, as Obama had nominated in the person of Merrick Garland, would have been the death-knell.

Fast forward to 2020 and a rapidly aging, in-poor-health Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. As one expert told Church Militant, “The old gal will last one year. She isn’t going to last five.” If Trump wins re-election it is virtually guaranteed that he will replace Ginsburg, one of the most Marxist-minded, pro-abortion, anti-God justices ever to sit on the bench.

But here’s a question — something to consider: If the court tips from its current 5–4 to 6–3 conservative bent — or even possibly 7–2 — before Trump’s second term is over, and then would overturn Roe v. Wade, what would happen?

Pondering that possibility, and even planning for it to some degree, the Left is arming itself and speaking openly of rebellion. It seems not that far-fetched that the same crowd that starts fires on college campuses when conservative speakers arrive and violently riots in the streets under the banner of Antifa would have little compunction about making blood run in those same streets if the Court toppled abortion. Current whispers of civil war might become louder than just whispers.

If that happens, if something like that — even on a somewhat limited scale — were to occur, it would, by definition, become a noble cause: the defense of innocent life.

There is not an honest man or woman walking who does not know that the Left supports child-murder. That is the central motivating issue around which all of American politics have evolved since the days of Ronald Reagan. That has been the central issue of the attempt to unseat Donald Trump for going on three years now, even up to the relative Marxist-media hype surrounding the coronavirus scare.

This is relative to what, you may ask? It’s relative to the swine flu epidemic that went on for more than a year under Obama and killed thousands of Americans. Nothing was done by the media giants in that case like is being done now. They have seized on a serious issue and are perfectly happy to use it to try and destabilize Trump — they’ll try anything to destabilize him — and it’s all because abortion is always playing in the background.

Abortion is and has been the topic that has been responsible for shaping the national debate for more than 40 years. It caused the bedlam surrounding the Brett Kavanaugh hearings — even the pounding on the doors of the High Court once he was confirmed. It was the admitted issue when New York Sen. Chuck Schumer hurled his invective and threats against both Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch — actually threatening them —for which he never apologized. The case he was talking about? Abortion.

But this is what pro-lifers need to note, and note hard: Given the rapidly changing demographics of the country — an essentially morally rudderless young population, opposed to religion and unfamiliar with natural law, this election is the last chance to secure and lock down a pro-life court. Pro-life voters will simply be overwhelmed by sheer numbers of the socialist-loving lefties by 2024.

In the midst of all this — with everything on the table — do not look to the U.S. bishops to make this point. Too many of them are registered Democrats themselves and do not possess supernatural faith. They are enamored with the Party of Death — even child-killers who are baptized Catholics they love schmoozing with.

The marriage between political conservatives and theologically orthodox Catholics has brought this moment to reality. It has been a gigantic, uphill struggle — a fight for the ages — and is now the last great clash over the future direction of the nation we will see in our lifetime. The Right has arrived at a point of equal footing, or at least as equal as it’s ever going to get. The victory must be secured and it must be secured now, because the moment will never arrive again as long as any of us are breathing.

In 233 days, we will know our future.

Pray, fast and act like you’ve never done before.

It is your solemn duty before the Lord of Life.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Our Throw–Away Marriage Culture

Society today believes in instant gratification. We’re encouraged to chase our dreams and do whatever we want. As a result, we’ve changed the way we look at relationships. Couples might shack up together or rush into marriage without giving it a second thought.

Divorce rates are high, and the impact on families is even higher. In this post, we’ll look at how our throw-away attitude toward marriage is affecting family life.

Marriage is a Sacred Institution

What a lot of people forget is that marriage is a sacred institution. That’s not hard to understand. How could it be sacred with shows like The Bachelor being aired? The idea that you can not only find your perfect mate in such a charged setting over such a short period is ludicrous.

Unfortunately, it also gives couples the idea that marriage is easy. Considering that the average marriage lasts just eight years and only 33% of couples make it to their 40th anniversary, this is a false idea.

Unfortunately, getting divorced is as simple as getting married these days. If you don’t like your partner, you get a divorce.

Around 150 years ago, things weren’t quite that simple. If you wanted a divorce, you had to prove that your spouse had done something wrong. Divorce was far less prevalent then. If you were divorced, it caused quite the scandal.

Today, the situation is quite different. Everybody knows someone who is divorced. It’s become something of a social norm. And, unfortunately, it’s the family that suffers.

Why is Divorce Bad?

We’re not suggesting that people should stay in horrible marriages. If there’s abuse or infidelity involved, then it makes sense to remove yourself from the situation. What we’re concerned about, though, is the cavalier attitude toward divorce. We’ll use an example to illustrate the point.

Debbie and Andrew meet and fall in love. Debbie has a son from a previous relationship. Six months later, Debbie falls pregnant, so they get married. Things go okay for a while after the baby’s born. Then things go downhill.

Living with a new-born and a young child isn’t easy. Money is tight, and the couple fights a lot. Eventually, they want nothing more to do with one another and get divorced. Their son is just a year old.

What they’re forgetting is that their decision also affects the lives of both boys. The eldest child is upset because he’s never known his father. The youngest is too small to realize what’s happening.

Now, say that these two marry other people and have more kids. Debbie’s now got three kids with three different fathers. Whose rules do the kids abide by? Who do they see as their father? How do they move on to successful relationships without strong role models to grow up with? How do all the various parents work together for the good of the children?

Final Notes

Our throw-away culture is destroying the very idea of the nuclear family. Perhaps it’s about time that we start teaching our kids that happiness is something that you work toward. It’s not something that’s dropped into your lap.

If we can start to teach our children to honor good, old-fashioned family values and the importance of commitment, we’ll go far.

Click Here for our Divorce Statistics Infographic URL: https://legaljobsite.net/divorce-statistics/

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Muslim Stabs Four Random People. But Relax, Cops Say ‘Zero Evidence’ It’s Terror-Related

It’s funny how so many Muslims with “mental health issues” go on stabbing sprees, but shhhh – you’re not supposed to notice that. My latest in FrontPage:

It is insufficiently understood how much Leftist willful ignorance regarding the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat deform our response to it; a recent incident in Australia shows yet again how dangerous this denial really is. The Age reported Thursday that a man named Mohammad Ibrahim “stabbed four people, killing two, in random, ‘senseless’ attacks across the city’s inner-east.” But there’s nothing whatsoever to be concerned about: “Assistant Commissioner Glenn Weir said there was ‘zero evidence’ to suggest the attacks were terrorism related. Ibrahim had no criminal history and was estranged from the mother of his child.”

It may be that these attacks were not terrorism related. But the fact that Ibrahim had no criminal history establishes nothing. There was a point in every jihad terrorist’s life when he had no criminal history.

Likewise, the fact that Ibrahim was estranged from the mother of his child also establishes nothing about whether or not his attacks were terrorism related. Many men are estranged from the mothers of their children and yet do not go on stabbing sprees of random people. Some men also are jihad terrorists and are simultaneously estranged from the mothers of their children.

The perspicacious Commissioner Weir continued: “There’s nothing to indicate at this early stage that this is anything other than a random act of senseless violence.”

Maybe there isn’t. But the Islamic State issued this call in September 2014: “So O muwahhid, do not let this battle pass you by wherever you may be. You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops of the tawaghit. Strike their police, security, and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents. Destroy their beds. Embitter their lives for them and busy them with themselves. If you can kill a disbelieving American or European — especially the spiteful and filthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be….If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him.”

Now Commissioner Weir may be right: that call or something like may not have had anything to do with Ibrahim’s actions. But what if it did? In that case, how would what he did look any different from a “random act of senseless violence”? If his stabbings of random people were an act of jihad, as we have seen so very many times before, Ibrahim wouldn’t be carrying an ISIS membership card. He need not have had contact with any ISIS members to have heard about that call and decided to heed it.

The Age added: “Police revealed Ibrahim spoke to them in 2018 about his concerns that IS operatives from Mildura were out to kill him. He wasn’t taken in for an assessment at the time but was flagged on the police system as potentially having a mental health issue.”

Maybe Mohammad Ibrahim does have a mental health issue. But the fact that he thought that the Islamic State was out to get him does not in itself prove that he is some “moderate” who would never undertake violent jihad himself. And no one ever seems to ponder why it is that so many Muslims with mental health issues somehow get the idea that stabbing random non-Muslims on the street is the thing to do. To consider such a question, of course, would be “Islamophobic” on its face, and “Islamophobia” is the one vice that law enforcement and intelligence officials are determined to avoid at all costs.

Has the whole world lost the ability to think clearly? Will this incident be investigated properly, with examination of all contingencies? Almost certainly not. Today’s political and cultural climate, not just in Australia but all over what has up until recently been known as the “free world,” makes that virtually impossible.

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Hindu pilgrims from Pakistan refuse to go back, seek Indian citizenship under CAA

Fiction in a Time of Lies

Mulling the End of Iran’s Mullahcracy

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Andrew Gillum Entering Rehab After Miami Hotel Meth Incident

Failed Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum revealed on Sunday that he is entering rehab after being discovered last week in a Miami hotel room with a male escort and bags of meth, naked and too drunk to explain himself to police officers.

Gillum, who claimed he had merely drunk too much at a friend’s wedding earlier in the day, said in a statement Sunday night that the incident was “a wake-up call for me” and that he had decided, after conversations with his family and deep reflection, to seek help in rehab.

“Since my race for governor ended, I fell into a depression that has led to alcohol abuse,” he said, pledging to work to “heal fully and show up in the world as a more complete person. I want to apologize to my family, friends and the people of Florida who have supported me and put their faith in me over the years.”

If Gillum, who is married with three children, comes out as gay in light of this incident, he will be celebrated and exonerated by the left, though he will have destroyed the lives of his wife and children in the process.


Andrew Gillum

14 Known Connections

On a variety of key issues, Gillum:

  • strongly favors the expansion of Obamacare as a step toward a government-run, single-payer healthcare system;
  • strongly favors government-enforced affirmative action policies designed to compensate nonwhites and women for the effects of past and present discrimination;
  • strongly favors the implementation of a pathway-to-citizenship for illegal aliens;
  • strongly opposes Voter ID laws as racist schemes that are designed to suppress minority voting; and
  • believes that the availability of guns should be severely restricted, even for law-abiding citizens who have never been convicted of a crime, and that the 2nd Amendment does not guarantee Americans the right to possess a firearm.

To learn more about Gillum, click on the profile link here.


Search our constantly growing database of the left and its Agendas


EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Abortion: No Right to Choose for Nurses, No Choice for Mothers

Swedish nurses’ conscience case rejected by European Court of Human Rights.


Ellinor Grimmark and Linda Steen, two Swedish nurses who have been denied midwife posts for refusing to carry out abortions, have now lost their legal bid to take Sweden to court for violating their beliefs after they took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The nurses argued that being denied employment due to their beliefs against abortion was an illegal breach of their rights to freedom of religion and conscience. Despite this, the ECHR “declined to take up the case, with a panel finding that Swedish authorities acted lawfully.” (‘Swedish anti-abortion nurses lose court battle’, Telegraph, March 14, 2020).

Most people think of nurses as trained in the vocation of saving lives, but now, apparently, they must be trained in taking lives. Somewhere along the line this has become normal, since we used to have just “nurses” and now we have “anti-abortion nurses”.

Ms Grimmark and Ms Steen have been fighting their corner for four years, and it might be thought that the ECHR, founded to protect human rights, would look favourably on their case. But although the right to freedom of conscience is a recognised human right respected in all civilised nations, Europe’s highest court refused them a hearing.

The decision was described by religious freedom group ADF International – which has been supporting the pair – as a “dangerous departure from the Court’s purpose in protecting fundamental freedoms.” Ms Grimmark said:

“I chose to become a midwife because I wanted to help bring life into this world. I cannot understand why the Swedish government refuses to accommodate my conscientious convictions. I am now working in Norway, where my conscience is respected, but no-one can explain why Sweden cannot do the same.”

Rather than defending the right to conscience, however, the Swedish Association of Midwives defended the authorities’ right to refuse Ms Grimmark work, its president, Mia Ahlberg, telling the BBC that upholding her challenge might result in, for example, a Jehovah’s witness refusing to perform a blood transfusion: “It’s part of our professional competence – so the employer had a right to say ‘you cannot work here.”

That the Swedish midwives’ president is unable to distinguish between a blood transfusion, vital for saving life, and an abortion, which takes human life, is disturbing enough, but it’s of a piece with the attitude of her counterpart in the UK.

In 2014 Glasgow midwives Connie Wood and Mary Doogan went all the way to the Supreme Court to defend the right of midwives not be involved in abortion, only to discover two years later that the Royal College of Midwives’ president, Professor Cathy Warwick, had given the RCM’s backing to abortion provider BPAS’s campaign for all legal restrictions to be removed from abortion – without consulting thousands of midwives.

With the upper echelons of the medical profession seemingly taken over by abortion advocacy, the impression can be given that abortion has the blessing of medicine – a “trusted brand”.

And with the highest human rights court in Europe no longer interested in human rights – at least, human rights with which they disagree – it does not bode well for a young mother’s case to be able to keep vigil outside an abortion clinic and offer help to women attending the clinic.

Alina Dulgheriu this week lost her bid for the Supreme Court to hear her case against Ealing Council for imposing a Public Spaces Protection Order around an abortion facility in West London.

Ms Dulgeriu feels an obligation to offer the kind of help which she herself gratefully accepted when she was sacked by her employer and abandoned by her boyfriend. She is now the mother of a six-year-old daughter. She is considering taking her case to the ECHR, and Laurence Wilkinson, Legal Counsel for the London branch of ADF International, which is providing her legal support, commented:

“In refusing permission to appeal, the Supreme Court has denied Alina the opportunity to argue her case before the highest court in the country and failed to recognise the human rights violations caused by the Order. Free societies must be free to discuss even ideas some consider controversial rather than simply criminalising them. Evidence shows that hundreds of women – like Alina – have accepted the help offered by peaceful pro-life groups outside abortion facilities.”

Despite all the rhetoric about freedom and choice, not only must nurses fight for the right to conscience regarding abortion, but anyone who publicly disagrees with it or attempts to offer positive alternatives will be silenced if they try to do so in the place that really matters – outside the clinic, at the last minute.

No wonder a quarter of pregnancies in the UK now end in abortion. But instead of wondering if enough help is in place for these women, their desperate decisions have been greeted as a triumph for choice.

In politics, in government, in the media and in the health sector, and most especially in feminist circles, abortion has become the idea that is too big to fail, even when women themselves reject it.

COLUMN BY

Ann Farmer

Ann Farmer lives in the UK. She is the author of By Their Fruits: Eugenics, Population Control, and the Abortion Campaign (CUAP, 2008); The Language of Life: Christians Facing the Abortion Challenge (St Pauls, 1995), and Prophets & Priests: the Hidden Face of the Birth Control Movement (St Austin Press, 2002).

RELATED ARTICLE: Schumer Exposed the Democrats’ Abortion Extremism

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Professor, Punished for Not Using Preferred Pronouns, Appeals After Judge Dismisses Case

A professor at an Ohio university is appealing a federal judge’s ruling that he contends compels him to say something he doesn’t agree with.

“Professors don’t give up their First Amendment freedoms simply by choosing to teach,” said Travis Barham, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal aid group that represents the professor.

Nicholas Meriwether, a philosophy professor at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio, says he was “illegally disciplined” by his employer because he chose not to adhere to a male student’s insistence on being referred to with female titles and pronouns.

“Dr. Meriwether received a written warning … threatening him with ‘further corrective actions’ if he does not start expressing the University’s desired message,” Barham said in an email to The Daily Signal, adding:


In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>


These further corrective actions could include suspension without pay or termination. He is still employed at Shawnee State University, though he has this black cloud hanging over his head all the time. This punishment is illegal because it violates his First Amendment rights.

On Nov. 5, 2018, Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit on Meriwether’s behalf, maintaining that he should not be forced to use feminine pronouns and titles for a male student.

“Public universities have no business trying to force people to express ideological beliefs that they do not hold,” Barham told The Daily Signal. “Dr. Meriwether remains committed to serving all students with respect, but he cannot express all messages or endorse all ideologies.

“When the university tried to force him to do this and then punished him for exercising his rights, it violated the First Amendment,” Barham said.

U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott threw out the lawsuit Feb. 12, and Alliance Defending Freedom announced Thursday that it is appealing her decision.

Dlott, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1995, is senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

Emilie Kao, director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email that Meriwether is being robbed of his constitutional rights.

“Compelling a university professor to utter scientific falsehoods in the name of a political ideology is un-American,” Kao said. “The Constitution protects the freedom to speak according to one’s conscience. It must be protected on controversial issues like transgender ideology if diversity of thought and intellectual integrity are to be preserved.”

Jonathan Butcher, a senior policy analyst in Heritage’s Center for Education Policy, said in a written statement provided to The Daily Signal that “students and professors should be allowed to speak freely on public policy issues of the day and not fear reprisal from the university based on positions the school has decided to take on such topics.”

The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.

COLUMN BY

Rachel del Guidice

Rachel del Guidice is a congressional reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Rachel. Twitter: @LRacheldG.

RELATED ARTICLE: Boomer, Meet Millennial: Examining the News Through a Multigenerational Lens


A Note for our Readers:

This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>


EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

FLORIDA: Friend of Democrat Andrew Gillum found in Miami hotel is a Gay Porn Star [Video]

UPDATE:


The story of Democrat Mayor of Tallahassee gets worse by the day. It now appears that the man who Gillum was with in a Miami hotel is not only a self proclaimed gay porn star but also a male escort from the “Rent Men” website. Erin Coates a reporter from The Western Journal published the following video in a column titled Gillum’s Overdosed ‘Friend’ Was Actually a Gay Sex Worker: Report.

Coates reports:

More details about former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who narrowly lost the Florida gubernatorial race in 2018, and the “inebriated state” he was found in early Friday morning have been released.

Gillum was found in a Mondrian South Beach Hotel room in Miami Beach with Travis Dyson, a 30-year-old who identifies himself as a “pornstar performer,” according to WPLG, which cited his profile on a gay male escort website called Rent Men.

The news outlet also said Dyson had shared videos of himself with a muscular man identified as his boyfriend on social media, but his Instagram page appears to have been taken down as of Saturday morning.

Read more.

Jerry Iannelli and Jessica Lipscomb from the Miami News Times reported:

According to the documents, police responded to a cardiac-arrest distress call just before 1 a.m. at the Mondrian South Beach. When two officers from the Miami Beach Police Department arrived at the luxe hotel on West Avenue just north of 11th Street, they noted that Miami Beach Fire-Rescue was on scene treating a man for a possible drug overdose, but that the man, identified as Travis Dyson, was in stable condition.

The officers stated that the third man involved in the incident, Aldo Mejias, had lent Dyson his credit-card information to rent a hotel room yesterday afternoon and that the two were supposed to meet later that day. Mejias told the officers that he arrived at the hotel room around 11 p.m. and that Dyson opened the door and then immediately collapsed on a bed and began vomiting. Mejias said he began giving Dyson CPR and called 911.

Mejias told police Gillum was inside the hotel room “under the influence of an unknown substance.” Mejias said that while he was performing CPR on Dyson, Gillum was vomiting in a bathroom. Officers said that they tried to speak with Gillum but that he was “unable to communicate due to his inebriated state.”

Read more.

It appears, as more information comes available, that Andrew Gillum is in fact a decadent Democrat. Among the more noteworthy endorsers of his 2018 gubernatorial campaign were Senator Bernie Sanders and the activist groups Democracy For America and Our Revolution. Gillum’s organization, supported by the Florida Democrat Party, is an effort to get out the Democrat vote in 2020. Gillum’s his dangerous organization FLORIDA FORWARD ACTION remains in operation.

RELATED ARTICLE: A Nazi drug’s US resurgence: How meth is making a disturbing reappearance

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FLORIDA: Drunk Andrew Gillum Caught Up in Meth OD Incident

Failed Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum was reportedly involved in a suspected crystal meth overdose on early Friday at a Miami Beach hotel.

The Miami Beach Police report that officers found Gillum in a West Avenue hotel bathroom, vomiting and too inebriated to speak. Two other men, who some sources claim were naked, were also in the hotel room; one of them possibly overdosed on crystal meth, baggies of which police discovered in the room.

“I was in Miami last night for a wedding celebration when first responders were called to assist one of my friends,” Gillum said in a statement. “While I had too much to drink, I want to be clear that I have never used methamphetamines. I apologize to the people of Florida for the distraction this has caused our movement. I’m thankful to the incredible Miami Beach EMS team for their efforts. I will spend the next few weeks with my family and appreciate privacy during this time.”

Florida dodged a bullet when Republican Ron DeSantis defeated radical leftist Gillum to become Governor.


Andrew Gillum

14 Known Connections

Notably, on Gillum’s watch, the city of Tallahassee and its surrounding Leon County metro area had been plagued by the highest crime rate in Florida for each of Gillum’s four years in office up to that point. In 2017, Tallahassee experienced more murders than in any previous year in its history.

In October 2018, newly uncovered text messages and email records showed that Gillum, during an August 2016 trip to New York, had accepted a high-priced ticket to the popular Broadway show Hamilton from Mike Miller, an undercover FBI agent who was investigating government corruption connected with Tallahassee, where Gillum was mayor. Gillum responded to the release of the documents by stating, “The goal is obviously to use my candidacy as a way to reinforce, frankly, stereotypes about black men.”

To learn more about Gillum, click on the profile link here.


Search our constantly growing database of the left and its Agendas


RELATED ARTICLES:

Andrew Gillum linked to meth overdose incident in Miami hotel, police reports state

Andrew Gillum Involved in Alleged Crystal-Meth Incident in Miami Beach

EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Florida Man’s Life Ruined Because of False ‘Red Flag’ Laws

Watch the below video – this is what is happening under Florida’s Red Flag Law, SB 7026. and its unconstitutional Risk Protection Orders (RPOs).  Fifty four Republican Representatives voted for this terrible law and all but 6 FL Senators did the same.

QUESTION: Have you asked the Clerk of Court from your county how many of the RPOs issued resulting in ex parte seizures without Due Process were overturned or vacated the after the seizure hearing 14 days later?

Who is being held accountable when these reports to LE of someone being a threat are found to be lies?

Steven Linne for Florida House posted the video titled “Red Flagged – SB7026” below on YouTube.

© All rights reserved.

PODCAST: Understanding the Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land. Its importance cannot be overemphasized. It is what politicians, military personnel, law enforcement, judges, federal employees, and legal immigrants are sworn to uphold, e.g., “…and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.” It was created in 1787, ratified in 1788, and made effective in 1789. Since then it has become the model by which other countries have re-invented their government.

The first three words of the Constitution are, “We the people,” to indicate it was written to serve the interests of the people of the country, not a monarch or dictator.

The Constitution was produced by the second Continental Congress, but was preceded in 1781 by the Articles of Confederation, the first true constitution of the country. The weakness in this document was the lack of a strong central government, giving more power to the states instead.

Construction

There are essentially two parts to the Constitution:

  • The Main Body – specifying the mechanisms of the government.
  • Amendments – specifying the rights and freedoms enjoyed by the people, and changes made to the Main Body. The first ten amendments are referred to as “The Bill of Rights.” This was a clean way to separate the two parts of the Constitution, thereby making it easier to ratify the overall document. Whereas there have been some changes made to the Main Body, the Amendments have changed more frequently over the years. There have been 27 Amendments made to the Constitution, with the 21st used to repeal prohibition (the 18th amendment).

The Main Body defines the responsibilities of the three “separate but equal” branches of government:

  • The Executive Branch – as represented by the office of the President, along with the various agencies and departments controlled by the President’s cabinet.
  • The Judicial Branch – representing the Supreme Court and lower federal courts.
  • The Legislative Branch – represented by the Congress and responsible for passing laws in conformance to the Constitution. Interestingly, the Congress is referred to as “bicameral,” meaning there are two separate chambers; the House of Representatives (the lower House), and the Senate (the Upper House). Whereas the House is generally regarded as lawmakers from all walks of life, the Senators are typically senior politicians who offer advice and confirm presidential appointments.

These three branches offer “Checks and balances” over each other so one branch doesn’t become stronger than the others. For example, The Executive Branch nominates judges for the Supreme Court and lower courts, but the nominees must be approved by the Senate. The Senate must also approve the President’s nominees for cabinet secretaries, ambassadors, military leaders, and other agency appointments. Without this approval, the people cannot serve.

The Congress may pass laws, but the Supreme Court ultimately determines if the legislation conforms to the Constitution. If it does not, it can be dismissed.

The Congress must secure the President’s signature to enact legislation. Without the signature, the legislation is “vetoed” from being placed into law. The Congress can overturn the President’s veto by securing a 2/3 percent vote in both chambers of Congress. This is difficult to do, but has been done.

This is but a small sampling of the “checks and balances” at play in the Constitution. There are many more. Nothing like these “checks and balances” had been tried before. All of this is a a testament to the brilliance of the founding fathers who devised the Constitution. It is hard to imagine a team of lawyers in today’s world who could produce such a document with such eloquence and conciseness.

Ratifying the Constitution became a problem as antagonists challenged many clauses within the document. To overcome this problem, a series of articles were produced and distributed by newspapers throughout the country explaining the virtues of the various parts of the document. This was referred to as “The Federalist Papers” and written by James Madison (later to become the 4th President of the United States), Alexander Hamilton (later to become the 1st U.S. Treasury Secretary), and John Jay (later to become 1st Chief Justice of the Supreme Court), all under the pseudonym “Publius.”

The Constitution has been with us for well over 200 years and has withstood the test of time. Is it perfect? Of course not, there are some items that should be revisited, such as term limits for politicians, a balanced budget, changing the length of our electoral process, and more. But overall, the Constitution has served us well.

It is genius. Sheer genius.

Keep the Faith!

P.S. – Also do not forget my books, “How to Run a Nonprofit” and “Tim’s Senior Moments”, both available in Printed and eBook form.

EDITORS NOTE: This Bryce is Right podcast and column are republished with permission. © All rights reserved. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

A Day in the Senate with the Born-Alive Act

Hadley Arkes: For Democrats, abortion is a “right” that extends beyond pregnancy and entails nothing less than the right to kill a child born alive. 


The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act finally came before the Senate in the last days of February. This was the sequel to the Act passed in 2002, the Act that sought to cast the protections of the law on babies who survived abortions.

As the readers of this column know by now, that bill sprang from a proposal I had written for the debating kit of George H.W Bush in 1988.  By the time it was put in legislative form, the penalties were dropped, in part to avoid a veto from President Clinton (in 2000), but in part also to make the bill a pure “teaching” bill.”

The bill would break out to the public news that most people would find jolting.  Most people did not know that under Roe v. Wade and its companion case of Doe v. Bolton, the right to abortion would extend through the entire length of the pregnancy – and even when a child survived the abortion.

It turned out that there were far more of these babies surviving than we had known at the time.   But it was the mass of killings taking place in the abattoir of Dr. Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia that brought a new attention to the problem – and offered the moment to act.

With the support of Trent Franks of the Judiciary Committee in the House, I joined with some accomplished friends to draft a new bill, to restore the penalties that had been dropped from the original bill.  That move has made the difference for the Democrats – and further illuminated the landscape.

People curiously forget that when the original bill was enacted in 2002, the Democrats were in control of the Senate.  They did not like the bill, but they were willing to vote for such a modest measure carrying no penalties, especially if they could do it with a voice vote, with no one going on the record.

That is what makes it disingenuous for Democrats now to say that the bill isn’t needed because we already have a law that forbids the killing of  a child who survives an abortion. What comes into play now is an old aphorism of Lord Bracknell, roughly translated in this way: that “it would be superfluous to make laws, unless those laws, when made, were to be enforced.”

To add serious penalties, civil and criminal, for the killing of the child is finally to take this legislation seriously as legislation.

And when that was done, the dramatic change in the Democrats could  then be read in a vote so startling that even the Republicans seem struck dumb in how to deal with it.  With Republicans in control of the House, the new Born-Alive Act was brought to the floor in September 2015, when it passed  248-177.  It was brought again in January 2018, when it passed 241-183.  Every voting Republican voted for these bills, and every Democrat but five or six, voted in opposition.

And now, with the bill in the Senate, every Republican voted for it, along with three Democrats, while every vote in opposition came from Democrats, holding the line.   The bill garnered 56 votes, but short of the 60 needed to overcome the Democratic filibuster.

The Democrats had arrived at the most radical position yet on the matter of abortion – so radical that the Republican managers of the bill, along with President Trump, still haven’t quite figured out how to express it.

The matter was blurted out, almost in passing, by Sen. Patty Murray from Washington. She remarked that “Republicans are peddling a ban that is blatantly unconstitutional.”  That is, this move to protect children born alive is incompatible with that “right” proclaimed in Roe v. Wade. For virtually all Democrats now in Congress and national politics, that right to abortion is a right that extends beyond pregnancy itself and entails nothing less than the right to kill a child born alive.

That is the ground now on which the question should be called and fought out in the presidential election.  But President Trump hasn’t apparently grasped this gift that has been given to him.

And yet, neither has the sponsor of the bill, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who persistently failed to draw out the meaning of what his colleagues on the other side were revealing. Twenty years ago Sen. Rick Santorum asked Sen. Barbara Boxer  to offer the earliest moment when a newborn child could be protected by the law, and she said “when you bring your baby home.”

That answer became a source of embarrassment, as Boxer could never explain her way out of the problem. At every turn Sen. Sasse has passed up the chance to draw his colleagues into colloquies of this kind.  That would not affect the vote, but the confrontation could draw the attention of a wider public.

Twenty years ago, the beloved Henry Hyde was astonished that the National Organization of Women would come out so strongly against this modest bill.  But the other side knew that we were asking what was different about that same child five minutes earlier, before it was born – but then five days, five months earlier.

Hyde’s happy bewilderment revealed a state of affairs that still holds:  the other side understands this bill better than some of our own allies, because it understands the principle that lies at the heart of the thing.

COLUMN BY

Hadley Arkes

Hadley Arkes is the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at Amherst College and the Founder/Director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding. His most recent book is Constitutional Illusions & Anchoring Truths: The Touchstone of the Natural Law. Volume II of his audio lectures from The Modern Scholar, First Principles and Natural Law is now available for download.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Teacher Takes Union to Court for Ignoring Supreme Court Ruling on Dues

“Everything the union does is inherently political, and I could see that in the mailings I received,” says art teacher Greg Hartnett, who sued the Pennsylvania State Education Association over fees imposed on nonunion employees.


Pennsylvania’s largest public employee union needs to stop evading a landmark Supreme Court ruling, an art teacher argues in a lawsuit that could undo key provisions of state labor laws.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association continues to negotiate provisions to give it “fair share fees” in collective bargaining agreements, despite the fact that the highest court in the land ruled those fees unconstitutional, a lawyer who represents the art teacher told The Daily Signal in an interview.

“PSEA specifically has a history of thumbing its nose at Supreme Court precedent, and it has sometimes required litigation to make them comply with the court’s rulings,” Nathan McGrath, litigation director at the Fairness Center, said of the teachers union.

The Fairness Center, a nonprofit, public-interest law firm based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, represents art teacher Greg Hartnett and three other public school teachers who sued the Pennsylvania State Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association.

Hartnett and the others argue the teachers union shows “a willingness to challenge or ignore Supreme Court precedent,” and that the teachers should not be forced to pay the union’s fair share fees.

The case, Hartnett v. PSEA, is with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is expected to rule in a few months. The Fairness Center teamed with the National Right to Work Foundation to represent the four complaining teachers.

The brief filed in August argues that the teachers union has a long history of undermining and violating Supreme Court rulings. It cites several examples that occurred after the high court’s June 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which invalidated fair share fees, as being the latest in a series.

Related: A Year After the Supreme Court Rules Against Unions, What’s Changed 

“PSEA specifically has a history of thumbing its nose at Supreme Court precedent, and it has sometimes required litigation to make them comply with the court’s rulings,” McGrath said of the teachers union, adding:

Because of that, the fact that the PSEA and its affiliates are still negotiating fair share fees provisions into collective bargaining agreements after Janus is not actually very shocking to us. This seems to be par for the course for how [the unions] operate, and it’s required federal court cases in the past, and in some cases a very lengthy period of time, to get them to comply with what the Supreme Court has said.

U.S. Department of Labor records show the Pennsylvania State Education Association has about 180,000 members, more than any other government union in the state.

The Daily Signal sought comment from the teachers union on the Hartnett case and on the allegations that the union has a history of violating Supreme Court rulings, including the Janus decision. At the time of publication, the union had not responded.

Targeting Pennsylvania Law

Referring to the 3rd Circuit, McGrath said: “At the end of the day, we would like them to bring Janus to Pennsylvania and say that Pennsylvania’s fair share fee law, which is currently on the books, runs counter to what the Supreme Court has said and to declare the Pennsylvania fair share fee law unconstitutional.”

In the Janus ruling, the Supreme Court said state laws requiring nonunion government workers to pay fair share fees to a union violate the First Amendment rights of employees who do not support the political agenda of public employee unions.

In a press release, the Fairness Center estimates that in more than 70% of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts, public school teachers who opted out of joining the union were required to pay fair share fees to teachers unions to cover collective bargaining costs.

In the 2016-2017 school year, the fees were only 26% less than full membership dues, the center says.

Hartnett, who teaches art teacher in Homer-Center School District in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, and is the lead plaintiff in the case, previously was a member of the teachers union.

Hartnett, the father of five and an avid hunter, has taught since 1999.

He says that when it became apparent that the union’s political positions were in conflict with his own, he decided to go through the formal process of opting out of membership, which he described as “arduous and complicated.”

After the Supreme Court’s Janus ruling, Hartnett opted out of paying nonmember fair share fees.

“I came to see that the union’s platforms and positions were very liberal and very different from mine and I did not want to contribute to someone else’s politics,” Hartnett said in an interview with The Daily Signal, adding:

The collective bargaining process itself is very political, and when they say political funds are separated from fair share fees, I don’t believe it. Everything the union does is inherently political, and I could see that in the mailings I received. I believe in the freedom of choice for each individual to represent themselves.

Teachers who prefer not to be in the union but need liability insurance and legal protection have alternatives, Hartnett said.

“There are free-market alternatives to the problem of the PSEA,” he said. “It is possible for teachers to go out and get a better product for less money, but I’m not sure many teachers are aware of these options.”

Paycheck Protection

On the day of the Janus ruling, Rebecca Friedrichs, a former California public school teacher, made a prescient observation near the steps leading up to the Supreme Court.

Friedrichs told supporters that the high court’s decision to strike down mandatory union dues and fees was “just the beginning, not the end, of a very long fight.” Friedrichs told The Daily Signal.

In an interview, she said she “she ardently supports the Hartnett case,” which closely mirrors her own litigation.

Related: The Christian Educator Behind Teachers’ Fight for Free Speech at the Supreme Court 

Friedrichs, who taught elementary school students for 28 years in the Savanna School District in Anaheim, California, was the lead plaintiff in a suit opposing mandatory union dues and fees.

She joined with nine other teachers and the Christian Educators Association International to sue the California Teachers Association, the National Education Association, and several local unions. Like Janus, Friedrichs and the other teachers argued that the union mandates violated their First Amendment rights.

Friedrichs’ case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where oral arguments were held Jan. 11, 2016. With the death of Justice Antonin Scalia just a few weeks later, the court deadlocked in a 4-4 ruling that left California’s “agency shop” law in place until it was overturned in the Janus ruling.

But unlike Janus, the Friedrichs case explicitly asked the court to address the need for “paycheck protection” rules to prevent school districts from automatically deducting union dues from employees’ paychecks without their permission.

The former schoolteacher submitted an amicus brief in the Janus case, explaining why it was necessary for government employers and unions to obtain “affirmative consent” from employees before deducting dues or fees from their paychecks.

“We need paycheck protection, otherwise taxpayers will continue to pay for the collection of union dues,” Friedrichs told The Daily Signal, adding:

I submitted an amicus brief in the Janus case where I addressed the need for an opt-in rather than an opt-out arrangement where an employee needed to make a conscious decision to opt in to joining a union rather than going through the cumbersome process of opting out. This is not something Janus specifically asked for, but the court did deliver on this and said that employees must give their affirmative consent and consciously opt in to joining a union and paying union dues. But the other part of this is paycheck protection.

The Commonwealth Foundation, a free-market think tank based in Harrisburg, published a timeline of legislative efforts to implement paycheck protection, which would prohibit state and local government agencies (including school districts) from collecting union dues from the paychecks of government employees at taxpayers’ expense.

“Janus is the first domino and many others need to fall,” Friedrichs said. “Teachers unions are out of control. They’re not unions in the traditional sense and they are not representing teachers.”

The union label is misleading, she argues, because it is used as “a mask to advance a far-left agenda.”

“The unions are using the public schools to spread propaganda to undermine constitutional limited government,” Friedrichs said:

Unions are the root cause of the failure in our schools. They are also still finding ways to collect fair share fees, but they just don’t call them that. The Hartnett case is very important to help ensure the law is being followed and free speech rights are being protected. God bless them.

Friedrichs is the founder of For Kids and Country, a grassroots group of parents, teachers, students, faith leaders, and citizens who support education reform.

Legislative Reforms

Although his clients no longer pay fair share fees, McGrath said, he finds that teachers unions continue to make a concerted effort to undermine the Supreme Court’s Janus ruling.

“PSEA continues to work with their locals to negotiate fair share fee provisions into their collective bargaining arrangements that are being negotiated and signed after Janus,” the Fairness Center lawyer said. “It’s illegal language that’s being negotiated into these contracts. For the most part, PSEA controls negotiations for the locals on their behalf. They are largely dictating what goes into these collective bargaining agreements.”

While the Fairness Center continues to press its case, some Pennsylvania lawmakers have stepped up in an effort to reform the state’s labor laws.

Related: With Millions in Dues at Stake Across US, One Man Fights His Union for a Refund

State Rep. Kate Klunk, a York County Republican, introduced a measure (HB 785) that would require government employers to notify workers of their rights.

State Rep. Greg Rothman, a Cumberland County Republican, introduced a bill (HB 506) to allow government employees to resign from a union anytime they like, without a window to do so or any other restrictions.

“The aim of House Bill 785 is rather simple,” Klunk said in an email to The Daily Signal, adding:

It ensures workers who were once forced to pay into a public sector union know their rights, namely that they do not have to pay so-called fair share fees.

Though the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the ruling in the Janus v. AFSCME decision, not all workers know that they no longer have to pay these fees. My bill would make sure they are alerted to the change. My bill would also alert those who apply for public sector jobs that being a member of the union is not a condition of employment, and that as a nonmember they have no obligation to make any payments.

COLUMN BY

Kevin Mooney

Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter for The Daily Signal. Send an email to Kevin. Twitter: @KevinMooneyDC.


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‘We’re Not Closing Our Eyes’: Senate Panel Seeks Documents in Biden-Ukraine Investigation

A Senate committee is poised to issue a subpoena for documents as part of an investigation of the Ukrainian dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

The subpoena by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee almost certainly will move forward, as a spokeswoman for Sen. Mitt Romney said the Utah Republican is now on board after giving mixed signals on how he would vote.

“It is not our fault that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden got wrapped up in the whole Ukrainian story. But we’re not closing our eyes to this,” committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News Channel.

“Joe Biden has never adequately answered these questions,” Johnson added.

While Biden was President Barack Obama’s point man on policy toward Ukraine, his son was tapped for a seat on the board of Burisma Holdings, a major Ukrainian energy concern. Hunter Biden kept that board seat until last year, reportedly making more than $50,000 a month.

Joe Biden boasted in public in 2018 that he pressured the Ukrainian government to fire a state prosecutor who reportedly was investigating corruption at Burisma by threatening to withhold about $1 billion in U.S. aid.

When asked last year about the appearance of a conflict of interest, Biden said: “Everybody looked at this, and everybody’s looked at it and said there’s nothing there.”

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Senate’s primary oversight panel, is scheduled to vote Wednesday on subpoenaing Andrii Telizhenko, a former consultant with Blue Star Strategies and former staffer at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington.

The committee has investigated the Biden-Ukraine connection since November.

“What I’m hoping to be able to do within the next couple of months is gather enough information, verify it through things like this subpoena, and then issue at least an interim report so the American people can see what this possible corruption is,” Johnson, R-Wis., said in an interview last week with Fox News Channel’s Martha MacCallum.

Johnson referred to Washington-based Blue Star Strategies as a “well-connected, swampy consulting firm.”

Johnson notified the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, of the pending subpoena Feb. 24, CBS News first reported.

Peters objected to the idea, and in a Feb. 27 letter argued that the investigation “could be used to further disinformation efforts by Russians or other actors.”

Republicans have an 8-6 majority on the committee, but Romney had sent mixed signals on how he would vote.

“There’s no question that looking into Burisma and Hunter Biden looks political,” Romney, the lone Republican to vote to remove Trump from office in the Senate impeachment trial, told reporters Thursday.

“I think people are tired of these political investigations and would hope that if there is something that needs to be evaluated it would be done by perhaps the FBI or some other agency that perhaps is not as political as a committee of our body.”

However, by Friday, Romney was backing a subpoena.

“Sen. Romney has expressed his concerns to Chairman Johnson, who has confirmed that any interview of the witness would occur in a closed setting without a hearing or public spectacle,” Romney spokeswoman Liz Johnson said in a written statement.

“He will therefore vote to let the chairman proceed.”

Although the Senate committee is considering an interview with Telizhenko, no finite timeline has been set because the matter remains entirely in the fact-gathering phase, according to committee staff.

Blue Star Strategies, where Telizhenko previously was employed, is an international consultancy firm with offices in Washington, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Paris, and Vienna. It works with corporations and political groups.

The firm was contracted by Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company.

Burisma reportedly paid Hunter Biden at least $50,000 per month for serving on its board of directors while his father, as vice president, was Obama’s point man for Ukrainian policy.

The Obama administration’s State Department had concerns about corruption at Ukrainian energy companies, and Blue Star reportedly was trying to change that perception.

Ron Johnson said that documents obtained by the committee raise suspicions about the circumstances of the dismissal of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

In 2016, as vice president, Biden threatened Ukrainian officials that the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in aid unless the government fired Shokin.

Several State Department officials have contended that Shokin was not prosecuting corruption cases, and that, separate and apart from Burisma, U.S. officials supported his ouster.

Johnson told Fox News that Senate investigators need more information.

“There is a document, supposedly contemporaneous, that said that the contact by Blue Star to the prosecutor general’s office was all about apologizing for the misinformation campaign conducted against Shokin,” Johnson said, referring to a public relations effort to spread misinformation about the top prosecutor to the United States government.

Johnson also said he didn’t see why anyone would object to obtaining relevant records.

“I’ve said repeatedly, if there’s wrongdoing, the American people need to understand that,” Johnson said. “If there is no wrongdoing, or if it’s not significant, the American people need to understand that.”

Johsnon said his committee is trying to piece together a timeline, through documents, to address unanswered questions.

Speaking to an audience of foreign policy experts in early 2018, Biden recounted how, during a trip to Ukraine as vice president in March 2016, he threatened to withhold the $1 billion in U.S. aid if Ukraine’s government did not fire Shokin.

Biden told the gathering on Jan. 23, 2018:

I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in … ,’ I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a b—-, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.

The Democrat-controlled House impeached President Donald Trump on Dec. 18 for mentioning the Bidens and their potential conflicts in a July 25 phone call with recently elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

On Feb. 5, the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted Trump of charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

The Senate committee’s subpoena of Telizhenko would be for documents rather than testimony. The subpoena almost would be a formality, as Telizhenko has said he is willing to cooperate with Senate investigators.

However, Telizhenko can’t legally violate a nondisclosure agreement with Blue Star unless he is subpoenaed.

Telizhenko, who had been a low-level staffer at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, now works as a consultant in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, where Burisma also is headquartered.

Telizhenko reportedly accompanied Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani when the former New York mayor traveled to Ukraine last year to look into possible Ukrainian meddling in the U.S. presidential campaign in 2016.

Telizhenko reportedly has said that Oksana Shulyar, a top aide to Ukraine’s former ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, suggested Telizhenko should assist in Ukrainian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election in opposition to Trump’s candidacy.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.


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When Did the Church’s Moral Teaching Cease Being Relevant to You?

Randall Smith: You either habituate people in the Catholic virtues or watch the culture habituate them to vices – and get used to failure. 


Sometimes an article is just so important you have to draw people’s attention to it.  That article is “Why Faithful Catholics Get Divorced” by Tom Hoopes, written fifteen years ago, but re-published recently on the Crisis website.  It is well worth reading.

The article addresses intelligently a disturbing situation I have noticed for some years.  Forgive me for my naïveté, but I am still always shocked when I hear that a “traditional” or “conservative” Catholic couple has divorced.  It’s not that I find these people more at fault or the break-up any more or less tragic; it just surprises me.

This sort of thing is less surprising when a person or a couple are “nominal, check-the-box” Catholics.  Not less tragic; just less surprising.  Since such people have rarely if ever considered the Church’s moral teaching binding in any meaningful sense, if they start having marital problems, it is not surprising when they choose the usual societal “fix.”

Someone moves out.  There’s a divorce.  And the two parties go in their separate directions, sometimes one or the other into a new marriage, while the other remains faithful to their vows.  There are few things more tragic than this sort of abandonment which, in effect, creates widows and orphans.

My question is: What happened?  Not “what happened” in the sense of personal problems; these are none of my business.  I don’t deny the problems, and I know that as fallen creatures we all make mistakes.  It’s not that I “judge” people for having problems; this is very human and I assume everyone has them.  The question I have is: “When did the Church’s moral teaching cease being relevant to you”?  When did you decide, “Yes, I know the Church says x is wrong, but I’ve decided to do the opposite”?

The “x” in that equation could be divorce, abortion, contraception, in-vitro fertilization, sterilization, euthanasia, or economic injustice and abuse of one’s employees. The strange thing is not that someone who disagrees with the Church does one of these things.  The strange thing is when someone who faithfully attends mass and is ostensibly in full agreement with the Church suddenly turns around when the trouble lands on their own doorstep and simply exempts themselves from the moral teachings they previously championed.

The “traditional’ Catholic husband who abandons his wife and children for a younger woman and then continues going to Mass with his new partner while he applies for an annulment.  The “traditional” Catholic parents who, when they discover their daughter is pregnant, take her for an abortion so they won’t have to suffer the embarrassment. Or the good “traditional” parents I know who convinced their son that he had no obligations to the girlfriend he had gotten pregnant or to their child. So he abandoned them both.

Why do “conservative” Catholic parents with a son who has abandoned his wife and child not tell him:  “She is still our daughter and still welcome in our house; you are not until you do justice to your wife”?  Why would “conservative” Catholics who want the Church to keep divorced couples from receiving Communion turn right around and accept their unfaithful son back at their table, while severing contact with the woman to whom he pledged his fidelity, and still wishing to see their grandchildren, although they no longer show the proper respect to the children’s mother?

How can “conservative” Catholic businessmen treat their workers with anything less than the respect Pope St. John Paul the Great taught was requisite in Laborem Exercens and Centesimus Annus?  You think you can be a “faithful” Catholic by attending Mass regularly and saying rosaries or going to Opus Dei retreats and then cheat your workers?  Do you think God doesn’t see that?  Do you imagine the judgment on such “ostensibly” faithful people would be any less severe rather than more severe?  To whom much has been given, much will be expected.

So, let me get this straight?  You think God requires you to show up to Mass in a coat and tie and take Communion at an altar rail. But you’re not quite clear on the fact that God prohibits you from divorcing your wife or underpaying and abusing your employees?

Can anyone honestly claim, “Why, I didn’t know the Church said it is wrong to enter into a faux marriage with a spouse, have children, and then abandon them for another, ostensibly real marriage” that “feels more right”?

No one expects perfection, but Catholics are commanded to work on these things.  They have a Church, populated not just with priests, but with laypeople who can help.  Having trouble in a marriage?  Get help!  Why are you resisting?

You think God should just give you magic powers to “get over it” or that He should just “fix” your spouse for you?  That’s pride.  And it’s the primordial sin that leads to every other sin.  Was everything supposed to “be different” because we’re Catholics?  Who promised that?  Did you miss the Cross at the front of the Church?

What has become clear to me from spending years teaching moral theology is that most of our current efforts at moral conversion are feckless – not because of bad intentions or even necessarily bad teaching, but because we have allowed ourselves to divorce Church teaching from: (a) a fuller understanding of human nature and the dignity of the human person, and (b) from training in the virtues.

We keep thinking that “doctrine” or “spirituality” will do what only habituation in the virtues can do.  You can extend a marriage prep program another two or three classes, but they will be no more effective than the marriage prep courses are now.  I have an entire semester with students – a little over thirty classes – and it’s not enough.  You either habituate people in the virtues or watch the culture habituate them in vices – and get used to failure.

COLUMN BY

Randall Smith

Randall B. Smith is a tenured Full Professor of Theology. His book Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Guidebook for Beginners is available from Emmaus Press. And his book Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the Scholastic Culture at Paris: Preaching, Prologues, and Bib.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Pentagon failed to vet Saudi military recruit who murdered three Americans in jihad massacre in Pensacola

“Despite security screening of these individuals, it became clear in the wake of the attack that the federal government failed to pick up on clear warning signs, such as the attacker’s anti-American social media posts.”

Clearly the screening process is inadequate, in large part because of the Pentagon’s denial and willful ignorance regarding the motivating ideology behind the jihad threat. Pentagon officials know it would be “Islamophobic” to take note of such social media posts. They don’t want to see a big CNN exposé on “Islamophobia in the Pentagon,” featuring Hamas-linked CAIR’s Nihad Awad and Ibrahim Hooper lamenting the persecution of Muslims in the U.S. Armed Forces. And so three people are dead in Pensacola.

“Pentagon Failed to Vet Saudi Military Recruit Who Killed 3 Americans,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, March 4, 2020:

The Pentagon failed to adequately screen a Saudi military recruit who carried out a deadly 2019 attack at a U.S. military installation in Pensacola, Fla., officials testified on Wednesday.

Garry Reid, director for defense intelligence at the Pentagon, said during a public congressional hearing that a failure to properly screen and share critical information about Saudi military recruits led to the attack, which killed three American service members and wounded eight others.

In addition to relying too heavily on State Department vetting procedures, the Pentagon found in its review of the incident that gaps in federal law enabled the Saudi terrorist to legally obtain a firearm in the United States, despite not being a citizen or having an immigrant visa.

The attack at Naval Air Station Pensacola triggered a nationwide crackdown on foreign nationals participating in U.S. military programs. Despite security screening of these individuals, it became clear in the wake of the attack that the federal government failed to pick up on clear warning signs, such as the attacker’s anti-American social media posts….

The government-wide security review also found that “policies for international military student possession of firearms varied at the installation level, and that at the federal level, there are ways to bypass firearms restrictions for non-immigrant visa holders.”

These loopholes should be closed to prevent another attack, officials said.

Following last year’s attack, all Saudi Arabian military students in the United States for training were screened “using new procedures we had recently put in place as part of our personnel vetting transformation initiative,” Reid said. Twenty-one Saudis were also ejected from the country for misconduct as the result of an FBI investigation.

Reid said the new vetting procedures “produced only a small number of returns that required additional analysis within the Department of Defense.” He added that none of the returns “triggered any remedial action or further investigation by federal authorities relative to the current population.”…

Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), a combat veteran and the subcommittee’s chair, said in the hearing that more must be done to ensure an attack of this nature does not take place again. While the foreign military exchange programs are vital to building closer global alliances, they cannot come at the risk of American service members’ lives, she said.

“The attacker … arrived in the United States in 2017 and harbored anti-U.S. sentiments, which he broadcasted on social media,” Ernst said. “All the while he was able to purchase a firearm, access U.S. military installations, and ultimately carry out a deadly attack against Americans. We must do more to protect our military personnel.”…

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