VIDEO: State Department will ’empower’ atheists and humanists, but no mention of helping Christians or Jews

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Here’s this week’s episode of Shout Out Patriots: ​Federal tax dollars to “promote atheism worldwide”

When Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana made the startling revelation on June 30 that our U.S. State Department was using taxpayer money to fund a program to “promote atheism worldwide,” the news was met with little fanfare, criticism, or outrage.

As quickly as the story hit the news, it vaporized in a blink of an eye, perhaps faster than that shocking news story of Joe Biden taking showers with his daughter, Ashley, that lead to her sex addiction.

But imagine if the State Department was caught funding a program to send Christian missionaries worldwide to spread the Gospel of Christ.

There would be lawsuits, congressional hearings, and a complete media meltdown.

The State Department said its atheist outreach program was funded through its Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) in the form of one or two $500,000 grants.

The objective was “to combat discrimination, harassment, and abuses against atheist, humanist, non-practicing and non-affiliated individuals.”

There was NO mention of the grant helping combat the abuses of foreign powers against Jews or Christians, such as those living in Pakistan or China.

“It is one thing for the Department to be tolerant and respectful of a wide range of belief systems, and to encourage governments to respect the religious freedom interests of their citizens.

“It is quite another for the United States government to work actively to empower atheists, humanists, non-practicing, and non-affiliated [individuals],“ Congressman Banks, along with 14 other Members of Congress, wrote to Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.

In this episode of Shout Out Patriots, our team raises questions about the constitutionality of the State Department’s atheist and humanist outreach program and whether that taxpayer money actually went where it was intended.

Perhaps that money never left the United States. Instead, maybe it’s sitting in the coffers of radical atheist and humanist groups inside America, ready to fund crippling lawsuits against Christians and Jews for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Who knows for sure? But one thing we do know, the State Department is in no hurry to cough up answers to Congressman Banks’ hard-hitting questions.

©Martin Mawyer, Shout Out Patriots. All rights reserved.

Cancelled Ahead Of Time

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It was 1988.

The gallery was located at the former town house where Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn used to live.  The walls had the reverberations of Watergate intrigues.  Now, it was under a new ownership, who converted the historic— or infamous — townhouse into an Art Gallery which was located very closed to Dupont Circle.

The new owner was a dentist who loved the arts. I had met her before at one of my previous art exhibitions.  She had admired my work.  One day, she called and asked me if I wanted to exhibit at her gallery.  I went to see her space.  The exhibits were held in the rooms downstairs. She, her husband, and children lived upstairs. When she showed me her living quarters I was able to see the all-pink bathroom of Sally Quinn!  Even the bidet!  I never thought “Sally” will have such a color in her bathroom!

After a 20-year career exhibiting in Washington, DC with a variety of my collections inspired by Egyptian art, I had been invited on an official visit to Egypt by the Ministry of Higher Education in Cairo in 1978 and given special pass to visit the Cairo Museum all the times I wanted, and an interview with its Director.  Also the government gave me a car and a chauffeur for trips around Cairo.

The first expedition was to the pyramids in Giza. When I was alone in the chamber, I was able to lie down inside the sarcophagus in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid.  Then, I was taken to the Step Pyramid at Saqqara.  Later, they took me to Luxor, Karnak, The Valley of the Kings, Aswan and Abu Simbel and other important archaeological sites.

I had an interview published by the leading Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram.  Also interviews and photos of my art were published in many international publications.  The authorities in Pharonic Egypt had valued my work.

So back in Washington ten years after my trip to Egypt, I decided to have a retrospective of my paintings in my new friend’s gallery.  And I had room for exhibiting 105 pieces.  This exhibit looked very good!

For some reason, unlike in Egypt, and despite my career as an artist with 20 years of exhibitions and regardless of honors from experts as well as very good comments from the public not a single Washington, DC “critic” had been willing to review my work until then.

This time, as usual, once again my exhibit was completely ignored by art critics.What was the reason? Perhaps I was too shy?

This was the time of Boy George and other unusually dressed singers and artists.  I decided that maybe I needed a “gimmick” to at least attract the attention of those subjective individuals who call themselves “critics.”

So I tried my scheme. I dressed outrageously for the first time at an art center in Maryland mansion having a group show.  I went alone, leaving somebody in the car outside in case I had to escape in a hurry.  To my surprise, I was a success and managed to be the center of attention.  Not that I wanted to be, I am the opposite of that!  I was doing that of pure necessity, only to finally get some publicity for my work!  So although it was a success, I left with a sense of relief…that no one had called the police.

Afterwards, I read that People Magazine was having its 10-year anniversary party at a historic mansion in Washington, DC.  What an opportunity for publicity. The problem was that it was by invitation and I didn’t know of anybody who received one!

But necessity does wonders.  I decided to try to repeat my previous success and dressed outrageously.  Because whatever will be will be.  The house was on a hill in Washington. My platform shoes were killing me as I walked. I was concerned that I would fall down before reaching my target.  I went with a friend who was holding me during the climbing of the hill. I was hoping that I didn’t have to make a running escape, because we didn’t had an official invitation.

I had been present at an art exhibit that didn’t require an invitation in that same historical mansion before.  So I had an idea of the floor plan.  I had to walk up to some steps to enter the foyer.  And if allowed, go upstairs via the grand stairway.  Before departing, my friend had asked me whether I had an invitation.  I replied, “Of course.” I lied.  If I had told him the truth he would have refusde to go with me.  But before we entered the mansion I told him, “Follow me—whatever happens and whatever I do.”

I made my entrance.  Disbelieving eyes immediately turned to me.  A man and a woman came running to see who in the hell I was, and if my companion and I were on the guest list.  The man asked for my name, which I gave him.  Of course, he went up and down the invitation list a few times but could not find my name anywhere.

“I received an invitation,” I said calmly.

And I pretended to look in what was not a pocket in my outfi,t and said, “Oh I must have left it at home.”

Turning to my companion I asked him, “Do you have it in your pocket?”

“I do not, you didn’t give it to me.” He nervously said.

“Well,” I said, “I guess it is at home…”

The gatekeeper and the woman with him told me “wait a second” and went away I don’t know where in a big rush.  Not long after they came back and announced, “Welcome.”

And we went upstairs very, very slowly because I was worried that I would have an accident because of my platform shoes and fall down the stairs.  Many curious people in attendance followed me with their eyes, trying to figure out “who was that strange vision who made that entrance.”

In the main room, their eyes were on me again and I didn’t see any familiar faces.  I walked around, pretending to look at the photographs of the front covers of People magazine over the last 10 years.  Some people approached me out of curiosity and smiled like they approved my look.  I smiled back, but didn’t introduce myself, remaining aloof.

After a while, a lady came over to introduce herself.  She told me she owned a castle in England, and invited me to visit.  I let her talk all she wanted to, and replied in simple monosyllables.  Later, while some of the invited guests were leaving, the lady kept talking me excitedly, when two skinny little women walking side-by-side who reminded me of the Godzilla Mothra Twins appeared like magic. Then they came in my direction.  Fortunately they interrupted the woman with the castle in England!

They said they were very interested in me.  They were People Magazine reporters. And they asked all kind of questions, trying to find out more about me.  I finally broke down under their questioning, and mentioned that I was an artist specializing in Egyptian Art of the Pharaonic era. They might have guessed, since I was wearing three necklaces I bought in Luxor in 1978—but they didn’t.

I tried to continue the conversation about Egypt but they keep asking me where I was born.  I didn’t have a typical Spanish accent, because I was had been an actor in my country and in Spain.  So I told them that I had lived in Europe and continued my conversation about Egypt.  But they kept interrupting me, asking, “Are you Italian?’”

I said, “No.”

And tried to continue talking about my artwork.

“Are you French?”

I replied, “I lived in Paris, but I am not French.”

You may wonder why I was so insistent upon the maintaining mystery of my origin. So I will tell you. My friend, the late and well-known writer, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, had advised me to keep mum way back when I lived in Madrid, Spain, as a young man, in 1966. He told me: “The art world, and the publishing world, are dominated by left-wing Marxists and Communists, so if you want to be in the arts do not mention that you are Cuban — because it will close all the doors for you.”

Based on his advice, as soon as I began exhibiting in the United States, I decided to write in my published biographies that I was born on a Caribbean island… but not mention which one.

But these People Magazine Godzilla Mothra little twins were pressing me about my birthplace. They were so curious that I forgot the advice of Cabrera Infante, and began to blab.

I finally said, “On a Caribbean island.”

But they didn’t leave me alone with that, and asked, “Which island?”

I wanted to say “None of your business.”

But I didn’t. I failed because I didn’t want to be rude. After many more questions about which island, asked in many different ways, I finally blabbed the magic name, “Cuba.”

As automatically as two persons at once can be, they did an immediate about-face movement and abandoned me instantly. I felt like a used piece of toilet paper that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the salon.

I decided to leave immediately. My friend had to follow me as I walked extra carefully out the door in my platform shoes.

My friend Cabrera Infante had been right. Obviously, the People Magazine reporters had deserted me in a flash because they saw I was not a lover of the “Cuban Paradise” that Fidel Castro made of my island.

The Marxists and American left think that any Cuban should be in Cuba supporting Castro instead of living in the U.S. as a Cuban-American.

So, there was nothing else I could do in the art world of the country which I had become a citizen.  I was a non-person.  I did not exist as an artist to them, no matter what.  And that was the moment I decided not to bother exhibiting my work here any longer.

For I had found myself completely “canceled” decades before the “Woke” cancellations in America today.  Because I was a Cuban-American who did not like Castro, I had become a non-person who was treated as if he did not exist.  It was pretty much like in the Soviet Union, except for the gulags and firing squads.

At that instant, I knew my career as an artist in America had come to an end.

AUTHOR

Homer Terence

EDITORS NOTE: This Spider & The Fly column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Inveterate Liar Schiff Looking to Replace Pelosi as House Speaker

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Breitbart News reports that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who propagandized about the debunked Russian collusion hoax for years and is now doing the same about the sham January 6 show trial of his political opponents, is campaigning to become House Speaker.

Schiff reportedly “is gauging members’ interest and planting the seed” to gain enough support to potentially replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as leader after the midterms. Conversely, Pelosi has been “grooming” Schiff as a possible successor.

Some in the Democrat caucus are opposed to Schiff because he does not fit the “intersectional” qualities the Democrat party fancies. Intersection opposition to Schiff reportedly includes Reps. James Clyburn (D-SC) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who have allied themselves closely with Pelosi’s reign as speaker.

One of Schiff’s potential motivations to become leader of the Democrat caucus is to protect his image. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who is likely to become House speaker after Republicans reclaim the chamber, has promised to cancel Schiff’s committee assignments upon victory.

“You look at Adam Schiff—he should not be serving on Intel when he has openly, knowingly now used a fake dossier, lied to the American public in the process and doesn’t have any ill will [and] says he wants to continue to do it,” McCarthy added.

Adam Schiff

27 Known Connections

Schiff Lies Repeatedly to Promote the Trump-Russia “Collusion” Hoax

In a March 22, 2017 interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, Schiff claimed there was “more than circumstantial evidence” that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign had colluded with Russian government operatives to tilt the election in his favor. When Todd asked Schiff if he had “seen direct evidence of collusion,” the congressman replied: “I don’t want to go into specifics, but I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial and is very much worthy of investigation, so that is what we ought to do.” From that point forward, Schiff established himself as one of the Democrat Party’s leading voices demanding Trump’s impeachment, repeatedly proclaiming to the media that the evidence against the president was overwhelming. For example:

  • In December 2017, Schiff told CNN: “The Russians offered help, the [Trump] campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help and the president made full use of that help. That is pretty damning, whether it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of conspiracy or not.”
  • And in May 2018, Schiff told ABC that the Russian trolling of Democratic National Committee emails was “like Watergate in the sense that you had a break in at the Democratic headquarters, in this case a virtual one, not a physical break in, and you had a president as part of a cover up.” Schiff subsequently said that Trump’s crime was of “a size and scope probably beyond Watergate…”

To learn more about Adam Schiff, click here.

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

The World’s Most Dangerous Idea Explained

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If there is no right and wrong, we sail through perilous waters.

I think that I have nailed the World’s Most Dangerous Idea. It’s Dialetheism.

Never heard of it? You are not alone. Most people haven’t. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t subscribe to it. It’s a kind of sophisticated version of moral relativism.

Here’s an example of dialetheism at work. A recent issue of Scientific American ran a very unscientific opinion piece, “What Quantum Mechanics Can Teach Us about Abortion”. It was written by an abortion doctor in Salt Lake City, Cara C. Heuser, who may know a lot about obstetrics and gynaecology, but about quantum mechanics not so much maybe.

Quantum mechanics is basically pretty easy to understand, as fans of Marvel films know. Many of their heroes’ superpowers and many of their plot lines incorporate gobbledygook about quantum mechanics. Dr. Heuser may have learned a thing or two from Marvel scripts. “Is light a particle or a wave?” she asks. “Quantum mechanics, a discipline within physics, has demonstrated that both are true. Sometimes light acts like a particle, sometimes a wave.”

Similarly, she explains:

“That these two seemingly irreconcilable beliefs could come together gives me hope that similar harmony could be achieved in the discussion of other deeply polarizing topics, including abortion.”

Even though she performs abortions, Dr Heuser believes that she is serving the cause of life by helping women through difficult pregnancies. This leads her to conclude triumphantly:

“Particle and wave, abortion providers and ethical physicians, pro-life and pro-choice.”

Actually, the fact that light considered from one point of view is a wave, and from another point of view is particles does not mean that it is both at the same time and in the same respect. It means that there is something missing in our understanding of light. Waves and particles are complementary, not contradictory, features of light.

Quantum physics can’t solve moral questions because killing an unborn child is not good from one point of view, and bad from another. It’s just bad. Its effects may be both good and bad, but not the act itself.

Dr Heuser’s Marvel-ous insight is a handy illustration of dialetheism – that contradictory statements can both be true. “The Empire State Building is in New York” and “the Empire State Building is in Los Angeles” are both true.

If this were actually the case, all of Western philosophy would tumble down. Ever since Plato and Aristotle there has been nigh-universal acceptance of the Law of Non-Contradiction, that A and not-A cannot both be true.

However, as a defence of abortion, the notion of dialetheism is catching on.

A philosopher at Wofford College, in South Carolina, Katherine Valde, recently published a brief article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, in which she defended her own decision to have an abortion.

She didn’t do this for what might be regarded as compelling reasons:

“My abortion didn’t save my life or allow me to finish school. It just let me live a life I wanted. And, for whatever reason, that isn’t supposed to be enough.”

Why, she asks, does she need to have a reason? Isn’t the fact that she wants it good enough? Rod Stewart provided an anthem for dialetheism in his song: “If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right.” Dr Valde dresses up this sentiment in philosophical garb. She writes:

“I’m tired of the defense of abortion that relies on the idea that there are good and bad reasons to get abortions…”

Unsurprisingly, as a professional philosopher, Dr Valde is fascinated by “the possibility of metaphysical dialetheism- that there might be contradiction in the world itself.”

What if dialetheism is true? There can be no difference between good and bad, right and wrong. What can justify jailing the perpetrator of the Buffalo mass shooting? What will happen to morality? No dialetheist will ever seriously defend torturing babies – but it will be hard to explain why it’s evil. And inevitably there will be more people who torture babies. Ideas, you know, have consequences.

There is a maxim in logic, ex absurdo sequitur quodlibet, from a contradiction you can derive whatever you want. Ideas built on contradiction are pure fantasy. That’s why the gobbledygook of the Marvel Universe is so popular. You can get whatever you want from it. But that’s also why it’s not reality!

The emergence of dialetheism is one of the most corrupting consequences of defending legalised abortion. It’s easier to argue that right and wrong don’t exist than to defend a decision to take an innocent life.

AUTHOR

Michael Cook is the editor of MercatorNet. He lives in Sydney, Australia. More by Michael Cook

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

Anyone Who Says America is a ‘Democracy’ is a Closet Communist

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“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” — John Adams, The Letters of John and Abigail Adams

There are many who are worried about the fate and future of our Constitutional Republic. We are among those concerned.

Since the election of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. there has been a concerted effort to undermine our Constitution and with it America’s Republican form of government.

A Republic is a form of government in which a state is ruled by representatives of the citizen body. Modern republics are founded on the central idea that sovereignty rests with the people.

When the sovereignty of the people is taken away so to are the rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

There’s a constant myth that is used by citizens, politicians, academics, in books, the media, on social media and in documentary films saying that America is a Democracy.

Nothing could be further from the truth and the intent of America’s Founding Fathers.

According to quote trackers Bartleby and the Yale Book of Quotations in the notes of James McHenry, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention was this statement,

“A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”

The Founder’s Political Spectrum

Most people use the political spectrum of Left vs. Right to measure political parties. This unfortunately distorts the true reality of what must be measured: government power not political parties. Government is defined as “a system of ruling or controlling” therefore the founders needed to find a way to measure the coercive power or systematic control of government over it’s people in or to find a medium, balance being “People’s Law”. This this their political “yardstick” so to speak.

There are three types of law on the Founder’s Political Spectrum:

  1. Ruler’s Law – dominated by the ruling power; typically identified as a tyrannical monarchy.
  2. People’s Law – government is kept under the control of the people and political power is maintained at the balanced center with enough government to maintain security, justice, and good order, but not enough to abuse the people.
  3. No Law – chaotic confusion and anarchy.

RULER’S LAW   ⇒   PEOPLE’S LAW   ⇒   NO LAW

Tyranny     —      People’s Law   —       Anarchy

The Bottom Line

On November 2nd, 2020 we published a column titled “America In Peril — America 2020 Predicted in 1961.”

In 1961, W. Cleon Skousen, former FBI agent and author of international bestseller “The 5,000 Year Leap”, released “The Naked Communist” which detailed the 45 specific goals necessary to undermine the republic and replace our Judeo-Christian heritage with a godless Marxism.

We warned then that we were at a tipping. We warned that as government grew so did rulers law.

We have seen since the inauguration of  Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. government powers growing exponentially.  We have warned that as Biden drops in the polls he, his administration and his policies become more and more radical.

Since Biden’s inauguration we have gone from prosperity to stagnation to inflation and now to a recession.  All caused by the “rulers laws.”

Watch this shocking exposé, the stunning accuracy of Skousen’s predictions, and what we are now facing in America.

Franklin wrote, “Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either.”

If anyone says the word democracy, they are by definition a closet communist.

Conduct your own analysis, pray, and vote in the 2022 midterm elections.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

WATCH: America in Peril

©BuzzSaw Media. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Says America On ‘Right Path’ As Report Shows Two Consecutive Quarters Of Declining GDP

Founding Father James Madison on the Chopping Block?

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Tragically, slavery has been around from the beginning of time. It is still practiced even today in some places where Christianity is not dominant or has not been dominant. But while slavery was a fact of life in the 1700’s—not only in colonial America, but all over the world—it was the system put in place by America’s founding fathers that eventually led to its dissolution.

But that doesn’t matter to the woke mob, which insists that historical figures be held to today’s standards, and which seeks to tear down America’s history and rebuild it on a neo-Marxist foundation.

Thus, the woke crowd goes after any founding father in any way associated with slavery. Most recently comes the attack on James Madison, a key architect of the Constitution.

The New York Post reports on an overhaul of Montpelier, the house of Madison, noting that a $10 million grant from “left-leaning philanthropist” David M. Rubenstein has put slavery and racism center-stage, shoving Madison’s authorship of the United States Constitution off into the wings. “Instead, blindsided tourists are hammered by high-tech exhibits about Madison’s slaves and current racial conflicts.”

Tourists visiting Montpelier may be coming to learn about the Constitution, but they are sorely disappointed. One describes it as, “A one hour Critical Race Theory experience disguised as a tour.”

And so it is that, in James Madison’s own home, our fourth president and a key architect of the Constitution is relentlessly attacked for not living up to today’s standards.

Madison, though a slave-owner, helped create a framework for one day abolishing slavery. By the standards of their contemporary world, America’s founders were deeply progressive in their desire to eliminate slavery—and far out of step with most of the rest of the world.

Much of the freedom we enjoy today gets back to those men and women who settled America for religious liberty and then the founding fathers who implemented Biblical principles to create America. Madison played a key role.

He attended the Presbyterian College of Princeton, New Jersey (now Princeton University) rather than the Anglican College of William and Mary, where sons of Virginia were expected to attend. He learned directly under Rev. John Witherspoon, who also later turned out to be an important founding father.

Perhaps, the most important lesson that James Madison took home from his Princeton education was the firm belief in the Biblical doctrine of man’s sinfulness—and its implications for political science.

John Eidsmoe, author of the landmark book, Christianity and the Constitution, points out: “One thing is certain, the Christian religion, particularly Rev. Witherspoon’s Calvinism, influenced Madison’s view of law and government.”

Madison once wrote, “All men having power ought to be distrusted.”

After the Constitutional Convention, but before the document was ratified, Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay wrote letters to the editor of newspapers in the state of New York, using the pseudonym Publius to argue for ratification. These letters were gathered together later and are known as the Federalist Papers and reflect the genius of American political science.

The Federalist Papers don’t quote the Bible directly, but they express a Biblical worldview on man’s nature and the potential corruption of power.

What is the essence of tyranny according to James Madison, author of Federalist #47?  The answer is having all three branches of government in the hands of one or a few.

In Federalist #51, he argues that “if men were angels,” government wouldn’t even be necessary. But since men aren’t angels, government is necessary. Furthermore, we also need protection from the government, since it is run by men, not angels.

In Federalist #42, Madison explains the Constitutional provision that would allow the federal government to abolish the slave trade 20 years after its ratification: “It ought to be considered as a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate forever, within these States, a traffic which has so long and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy.”

Americans need to learn the true history of our rich past. Yes, America has a checkered past with slavery and segregation. But so does the rest of the entire world—and the principles of founders like Madison were on the forefront of ending these evils. As America’s greatest civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., observed in his outstanding “I Have a Dream” speech, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.”

We will not move toward a positive future if we distort our past, as the woke mobs now do. As James Madison himself once said: “A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”

Trump Authorized National Guard for Jan. 6 but Congress, D.C. Didn’t Request Its Use, Former Aide Says

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Lies exposed.

Trump authorized as many as 20,000 Guard troops for use on Jan. 6, 2021, during a meeting several days earlier. The offer of troops was rejected by Bowser and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), he said.

Trump Authorized National Guard for Jan. 6 but Congress, DC Didn’t Request Its Use, Former Aide Says

Under the law, a president can’t order domestic deployment of Guard; local officials must request it

By Joseph M. Hanneman, The Epoch Times, July 25, 2022:

A claim by the vice chair of the House Jan. 6 Select Committee that President Donald Trump didn’t order the use of National Guard troops in the District of Columbia on Jan. 6, 2021, is true because that would have been a violation of the law, former Pentagon chief of staff Kash Patel says.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) told Fox News’ Bret Baier that Trump “never issued any order to deploy the National Guard to protect the Capitol.”

Patel said that Trump authorized up to 20,000 National Guard troops for use in D.C. or elsewhere on Jan. 6, 2021, but the use of those troops was later rejected by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the U.S. Capitol Police.

Under the law, the president can’t order the deployment of the military for use inside the United States, Patel said. At the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, unrest, Patel was chief of staff for Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller.

“She knows the truth—45 [Trump] authorized the National Guard days before Jan. 6, and Pelosi and Bowser rejected it,” Patel told The Epoch Times. “Cheney knows it’s unconstitutional for any president to ever order the military to deploy domestically. He may only authorize their use, then there must be a request.
“By her own quote, she has cleared Trump of the very thing she has accused him of from Day 1—an insurrection,” Patel said. “So, yes, Trump never made that illegal order. He followed the law.”

Authorized 20,000 Guard Troops

As Patel explains in the new EpochTV documentary, “The Real Story of Jan. 6,” Trump authorized as many as 20,000 Guard troops for use on Jan. 6, 2021, during a meeting several days earlier. The offer of troops was rejected by Bowser and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), he said.

Under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, the U.S. military can’t be used domestically for enforcing laws or keeping order. Part-time citizen-soldiers can only be used under certain conditions.

“The Supreme Court said two things must happen,” said Patel, the host of “Kash’s Corner” on EpochTV. “One: the President of the United States has to authorize, not order, the use of the National Guard.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser rejected President Trump’s offer of National Guard troops on January 6 in this letter a day before.

‘Once that happens, step two has to happen as well before they can be deployed,” he said, “and that is a request from the head of state, the governor, or in this case, Mayor Bowser because it’s Washington, D.C. Or federal law enforcement needs to request the National Guard to be deployed.

“If those two things don’t happen, then any issuance of the National Guard would be literally unconstitutional.”

According to the U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General’s report regarding the events of Jan. 6, 2021, the use of National Guard troops was discussed during a White House meeting on Jan. 3, 2021.

In attendance were Miller, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Mark Milley, presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Patel.

“The President told Mr. Miller that there would be a large number of protestors on January 6, 2021, and Mr. Miller should ensure sufficient National Guard or soldiers would be there to make sure it was a safe event.”

Patel said at the end of the meeting that Trump brought up Jan. 6, 2021.

“President Trump pivoted and said, basically, ‘Hey, what are you guys doing for security’—I’m paraphrasing here—‘for anything that might happen on Jan. 6?’

“He said, ‘If you need up to 20,000 National Guardsmen and women, not just in Washington, D.C., but anywhere in the country, you have my authorization,’” Patel recalled.

The Defense Department then took the presidential authorization to the U.S. Capitol Police and Bowser.

“Mayor Bowser, in writing, pursuant to her own letter that we released from her, sent to the Department of Defense, declined to issue any more National Guardsmen and women,” Patel said.

The same authorization was taken to the Capitol Police, which declined additional National Guard personnel, Patel said.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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The Real Story of January 6 | Documentary

Biden’s Cybersecurity Czar Says ‘Systemic Racism’ Is Major Threat to US Security

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Florida School Board Member ID’s 75 Books with Pornographic or Inappropriate Material in Library

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Only 75? Looks like Democrats have been resting on their degenerate laurels.

Florida School Board Member ID’s 75 Books with Pornographic or Inappropriate Material in Library

By: Allen Moro | Jul 27, 2022

More than 70 books with pornographic and overly sexual content were discovered in a Florida school’s library, according to a concerned mother and school board member.

Ashley Gilhousen, a Clay County School District board member, is calling for “disciplinary action” for whoever is responsible for allowing children to be exposed to pornographic material.

“I don’t think there’s any justification for it,” Gilhousen told Fox News. “And I can tell you my own research in our school library so far I’ve identified 75 books that I’m working to challenge to get off of ourselves.”

In an interview with Fox, Gilhousen presented a series of examples of books that were available to children at the school.

One of the books, “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison describes a boy who remembers participating in oral sex as a 10 year old.

“I’m disgusted that anybody would think that that’s appropriate material to have in a school library,” Gilhousen, who is a mom of three boys, said. “There needs to be disciplinary action for anybody who offers this kind of material to a child.”

Gilhousen also described some of the literature in the library as “politically driven agenda-type books.”

“Julian is a Mermaid,” a book found by the school board member, is recommended for elementary school children and regarded as an introduction to gender fluidity.

The story features a boy who puts on lipstick and jewelry then goes to an NYC mermaid festival where he can finally express himself.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

The Splendor of the ‘Splendor of Truth’

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Stephen P. White: Instead of following St. John Paul II to liberation and salvation, the new dispensation reduces the moral life to this: “What is the least I can do and be saved?”

August of next year marks the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of Pope St. John Paul II’s magisterial encyclical on moral theology, Veritatis Splendor. The approach of this anniversary presents an opportunity to rediscover an encyclical that provides a powerful antidote to much of the moral and doctrinal confusion in the Church today.

It’s precisely for this reason that not a few Catholics would like nothing better than to see Veritatis Splendor demolished, root and branch.

The 30th anniversary of Veritatis Splendor will arrive just a few months before the opening of the Synod on Synodality in Rome. It’s no secret that many Catholics see the synod as an opportunity to hold a referendum on certain, entirely predictable, aspects of the Church’s moral teaching. The Synod’s Relator General, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, has recently indicated that the Church needs to rethink its opposition to homosexual acts in order to account for new “sociological-scientific” advancements.

Set aside, for the moment, the ridiculous claim that the Church’s understanding of the nature of human sexual acts is contingent upon “sociological-scientific” anything. One of the great refrains of Veritatis Splendor is St. Paul’s admonition to the Church of Rome: “Do not be conformed to this world.” This is not only a moral warning, though it is that. It’s also a warning against a worldly view of man, which forces a separation between freedom and truth, obedience and love.

A culture that combines radical notions of individual autonomy with a Gnostic rejection of the built-in meaning of material (and, therefore, bodily) reality is a culture in need of conversion, not indulgence. Such a culture, like the one that dominates the West today, is not simply corrosive of the moral life; it’s a culture inoculated against the reality of the Incarnation.

In an interview from earlier this year, Spanish theologian, Julio Martinez, S.J., candidly laid out the project he and other moral theologians are engaged in. “It is fundamental to untie the knots ‘Veritatis Splendor’ made in Catholic morals.” Those knots, he insisted, originated in the failure of Humanae Vitae to discern the circumstances of family life “in an accurate way.”

Only by moving beyond Veritatis Splendor and Humanae Vitae, can Amoris Laetitia be reinterpreted in ways that revolutionize Catholic moral theology. Such a revolution would free moral discernment from the constraints placed on human conscience by the moral law and the Church’s insistence on the objective moral character of certain acts.

Just this month, a kerfuffle arose at the Pontifical Academy of Life over the publication of a volume of essays on various bioethical issues which seemed to contradict (you guessed it) Humanae Vitae and Veritatis Splendor. One member of the academy Dr. Mónica López Barahona, who also serves on its Board of Directors, insisted that the text did not reflect the consensus of the academy and the way it was published and presented caused “scandal and embarrassment.”

What does all of this add up to? That’s difficult to say. There are some rumors that Pope Francis might be working on a new encyclical on bioethics, one which might revisit certain themes of Humanae Vitae. Those are just rumors at this point, liable to exaggeration according to one’s hopes or fears for such an encyclical.

Perhaps the growing sense that this pontificate is drawing to a close has created a heightened sense of urgency among those who see Pope Francis – rightly or wrongly – as their last, best hope to eradicate the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council provided by his predecessors and, with it, the moral/theological project embodied most definitively in Veritatis Splendor.

Underlying many of the criticisms of Veritatis Splendor is the belief that it is not mercy about sin we require, but liberation from the yoke of the moral law itself. Such a mindset completely obscures the reality that the moral law is the surest path to true freedom. Instead of seeing the moral law as a means of our liberation and salvation, the new dispensation reduces the moral life to precisely the sort of small-minded legalism that concerns itself primarily with the question, “What is the least I can do and be saved?”

Such an approach relies on conscience and discernment – both essential to the moral life – but denies them the tools and formation necessary for their proper operation. Vice chains us to sin, dulling the conscience and clouding our discernment. In fact, it is precisely because our refusal to obey the moral law blinds our conscience and distorts our faculties of judgment that the Church insists our culpability for even heinous sins may be partly mitigated. Are we to boast that our moral decrepitude has been dipped in the healing waters of mitigated culpability?

Obedience to the moral law is the surest path to freedom – the freedom to become who we were made to be, to love God and neighbor as we ought. That’s why God engraves the law on our hearts, reveals it to us in Scripture, and then give us the Church to safeguard and pass on the same. And that’s why Veritatis Splendor can insist, “human freedom finds its authentic and complete fulfilment precisely in the acceptance of that law.”

Our Lord says to his disciples, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” That’s not a test; it’s a promise.

Many Catholics today seem to think that freedom exists in the “spaces between” the moral teachings of the Church. They seem to think freedom exists in being allowed the most possible wiggle room. This is a childish, and indeed, legalistic, view of morality that makes us slaves to the law. When satisfying the requirements of the law becomes an end in itself, mercy becomes nothing more than lowering the threshold by which the minimum requirements of the law are satisfied.

Veritatis Splendor is a powerful corrective to such thinking, and an ever-timely reminder of the moral life to which we are called, for which we were made, and by which, through grace, we are saved.

You may also enjoy:

Robert Royal’s Social “Science” at the JPII Institute

Elizabeth A. Mitchell’s The Dubia Were Answered

AUTHOR

Stephen P. White

Stephen P. White is executive director of The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America and a fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing article is republished with permission. © 2022 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

VIDEO: ‘I Am Kamala Harris. My Pronouns Are She and Her. I Am a Woman Sitting At the Table Wearing a Blue Suit.’

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Yes, it has come to this. History will record that the Vice President of the United States, a heartbeat away from leading what they used to call the free world, opened a meeting on July 26, 2022, by stating with the utmost seriousness: “I am Kamala Harris. My pronouns are ‘she’ and ‘her.’ I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.” She even looked down at her lapel as she said “wearing a –” and paused briefly as if to verify that the suit was still blue and hadn’t started to identify as gray or black while she wasn’t looking.

When we were kids in the 1960s and 1970s, we thought that by the 2020s, we’d be driving around in star cruisers and flying to the moon for dinner. Instead, we have to announce to a waiting world whether we are male, female, or something else altogether, and the color of our clothing.

Harris, of course, wasn’t being gratuitously ridiculous, or at least any more than she usually is. She was addressing a “Roundtable with Disability Advocates,” and everyone else who spoke also began by stating their pronouns and what they were wearing. This was apparently intended to be an attempt to make blind people feel more included; when Greg Price responded to this spectacle with “wtf lol,” Kendall Brown, who describes himself/herself (who knows these days?) as a “healthcare advocate fighting to defeat Republican supermajorities,” shot back: “It’s an event commemorating the Americans with Disabilities Act, you mean-spirited ghoul. Attendees decided to help blind participants feel more included by using visual language when introducing themselves. Straight up, there is no difference between the childhood bully mocking disabled kids on the playground and sh**ty dudes like @greg_price11 mocking disabled adults who are just trying to make the world a tiny bit friendlier for one another. How dead inside do you have to be to mock disabled people trying to be more inclusive of disabled people at an event for disabled people?”

Brown might have a case if all Harris had done was announce what color suit she was wearing, although it’s silly to think that blind people will feel more “included” if everyone begins speaking by announcing his or her choice of attire. There have been blind people throughout history, including some people of immense achievement (Homer, Galileo, John Milton, Jorge Luis Borges, Helen Keller, Andrea Bocelli, Ray Charles, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Stevie Wonder, and on and on), and I’m not aware of a single one in any time or place who ever said, “I sure would feel a lot more included if y’all would tell me what you were wearing.”

This was just silly pandering and virtue-signaling, and Harris’ adding in the pronouns made it even worse. Blind people can hear if someone is male or female, but not in the Left’s fantasy world, in which Rachel Levine and Caitlyn Jenner are women and they have to tell you so because it isn’t obvious just from hearing their voices. It was marginally reassuring that Harris acknowledged that she is a woman, but just by engaging in the act of doing so, she showed that she accepts the pervasive madness and thinks that it is altogether fitting and proper for a human being to preface his or her or xis remarks by announcing his or her or xis gender.

The video of Harris solemnly intoning that she was a woman wearing a blue suit was also reminiscent of some of her previous enunciations of the blazingly obvious, as when she said: “So, Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically, that’s wrong.” Basically. Harris, in fact, has a reputation for articulating things that others would never think were worth saying, as when she famously this, but about what is still unclear: “The significance of the passage of time, right? The significance of the passage of time. So when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time … there is such great significance to the passage of time.”

Yes, and to her (checks lapel) blue suit. Our age will be remembered as one of a peculiar society-wide flight from reality, and pronouncements such as Harris’ declaration of her gender and what she was wearing will stand as indications of how pervasive the fantasies really were. One day, we’ll wake up from all this, just as Salem woke up from the witch trial hysteria. Until then, Kamala Harris and other Leftists will continue their valiant war against facts that once were and will one day again be obvious.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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

The Same FBI Moles Pushing Russiagate Are Protecting Hunter Biden

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We often think of institutions as inherently corrupt. And some are. But within the FBI it’s very much a case of political agendas being played out by certain figures.

“Highly credible” whistleblowers have come forward to a senior Senate Republican alleging a widespread effort within the FBI to downplay or discredit negative information about President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, according to letters reviewed by CBS News.

“The information provided to my office involves concerns about the FBI’s receipt and use of derogatory information relating to Hunter Biden, and the FBI’s false portrayal of acquired evidence as disinformation,” GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley wrote FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland on July 25. “The volume and consistency of these allegations substantiate their credibility and necessitate this letter.”

Grassley, the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the whistleblowers alleged that legitimate streams of information and intelligence about the president’s son were characterized as likely disinformation or prematurely shut down leading up to the 2020 presidential election.

Some of that involves known players.

FBI supervisory intelligence agent Brian Auten opened in August 2020 the assessment that was later used by the agency, according to the disclosures. One of the whistleblowers claimed the FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Washington field office, Timothy Thibault, shut down a line of inquiry into Hunter Biden in October 2020 despite some of the details being known to be true at the time.

A whistleblower also said Thibault “ordered closed” an “avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting,” according to Grassley, even though “all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants.” The senator said Thibault “ordered the matter closed without providing a valid reason as required” and that FBI officials “subsequently attempted to improperly mark the matter in FBI systems so that it could not be opened in the future,” according to the disclosures.

Whistleblowers alleged investigators from an FBI headquarters team “were in communication with FBI agents responsible for the Hunter Biden information targeted by Mr. Auten’s assessment” and that their findings on whether the claims were true or disinformation were placed “in a restricted access sub-file” in September 2020, according to the senator.

The connections of course run in both directions.

The new information comes after Auten was involved in the Trump-Russia investigation, including interviewing Igor Danchenko, the alleged main source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier in 2017. Congressional sources confirmed to the Washington Examiner that Auten is the “Supervisory Intel Agent” from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 2019 report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse.

All of this is connected. From Russiagate to protecting Joe Biden, Democrat political allies within the DOJ colluded to cover up for Hillary and now for Biden.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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

Trump To Sue CNN

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Former President Donald Trump notified CNN of his intention to file a lawsuit against the network for “repeated defamatory statements” in a statement Wednesday.

Ifrah Law, a Washington-based law firm, filed a Notice of Intent ordering the network, under Florida Statute § 770.02, to “publish a full and fair correction, apology, or retraction” in published pieces or broadcasts that allegedly made “false statements” about the former president. The notice warned that failure to issue an apology will result in a lawsuit.

“Failure to publish such a correction, apology, or retraction will result in the filing of a lawsuit and damages being sought against you, CNN,” the document warned.

Trump warned he will be suing other media outlets that have “defamed and defrauded the public” about the 2020 presidential election results.

“I have notified CNN of my intent to file a lawsuit over their repeated defamatory statements against me,” Trump said. “I will also be commencing actions against other media outlets who have defamed me and defrauded the public regarding the overwhelming evidence of fraud throughout the 2020 Election. I will never stop fighting for the truth and for the future of our Country!”

The notice accused CNN of allowing claims that Trump was “illegitimately elected” in the 2016 presidential election to go unchallenged. It then raised accusations that CNN “fed a narrative” that repeatedly defamed Trump’s character before and after the 2020 presidential election.

The document stated that CNN inaccurately branded Trump as a “liar” and likened him to Adolf Hitler and communist leaders by labeling his election fraud claims as the “Big Lie.” The network has coined the term “Big Lie” in relation to Trump more than 7,700 times since January 2021, the document said.

“In this instance, President Trump’s comments are not lies: He subjectively believes that the results of the 2020 presidential election turned on fraudulent voting activity in several key states,” the document said.

The document alleged that the network treats Trump unfairly in comparison to other public figures, including Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, Jussie Smollett and Andrew McCabe. It then argued that the former president’s questions about election integrity are legitimate, given that True the Vote reportedly found evidence of illegal, fraudulent votes in states such as Georgia and Arizona.

The outlet published several headlines either defaming or negatively depicting the former president. Headlines negatively depicting the former president included, “Trump’s growing recklessness is a ticking time bomb,” “Trump’s Jan 6 plot appears darker and more dangerous by the day,” “Trump’s Big Lie is changing the face of American politics,” and “Trump’s Mental Health becomes an issue again.”

CNN declined to comment on the potential lawsuit.

AUTHOR

NICOLE SILVERIO

Media reporter. Follow Nicole Silverio on Twitter @NicoleMSilverio

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

Which Burns Faster, Wind Turbines or EVs?

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It’s been a rough couple of weeks for climate true-believers.  If you’re one of them, buckle up, you’re about to get red-pilled:

A wind turbine in Texas caught fire and was destroyed after being hit by lightning.  The 800 pounds of oil in the gear box produced a column of thick black smoke.  Firefighters are not prepared to handle that kind of blaze.  Before you dismiss this as a one-off, you should also know Mother Nature can destroy wind turbines with 200 mile-per-hour wind gusts in hurricanes.  Wind turbines are only designed to handle 160 mile an hour winds.  The flexible blades can bend, curve backwards, hit the tower, and destroy the whole thing.  And you want to put more turbines in the Atlantic Ocean, smack dab in the middle of Hurricane Alley?

So much for romancing the turbines. But there’s always electric vehicles, right?  A new electric bus caught fire and was destroyed in a bus parking lot in Connecticut.  Those fires are hard to handle, too. Fire officials said, “Lithium-ion battery fires are difficult to extinguish due to the thermal chemical process that produces great heat and continually reignites….”  This happened one day after the Governor celebrated a new law phasing in electric vehicles for the state fleet.    Fires aren’t the only problem. If you buy a used EV and the battery quits, you will find a replacement battery will cost you more than the used EV did in the first place.  And you won’t be able to get a replacement without condoning forced labor in China.  You’re not in favor of slavery, are you?  But don’t let me spoil the party. I’ll leave that to the countries having second thoughts about EV mandates because of the cost, the hit to living standards, the lack of infrastructure, and the wishful thinking behind them.

Oh well, there’s always solar panels, right?   Never mind that their output can decrease 25 percent if it gets too hot outside.  Worn-out panels end up “in landfills, where in some cases, they could potentially contaminate groundwater with toxic heavy metals such as lead, selenium and cadmium.”  That’s according to the left-wing Los Angeles Times, by the way.

Oh well, at least we’re getting rid of coal, right?  Hate to break it to you, but China is building coal-fired power plants like there is no tomorrow, more than the rest of the world combined.  Germany is turning back to coal after its disastrous green energy policies which shut down 14 nuclear power plants produced the highest household electricity bills in the world, and resulted in over-dependence on Russian gas.  World coal-usage continues to go up, not down.  So you can super-glue yourself to the Mona Lisa all you want, but the fact of the matter is whatever we do here in the West isn’t going to make any difference to climate change, not one bit.

Gee, all these problems nobody ever talks about.  Oh well, at least our leaders have their hearts in the right place, right?   Actually, no.   Biden’s green energy transition is being led by green energy investors who are dictating government policy to enrich themselves.  For example, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was on the board of an electric car company and, in May, pocketed a cool $1.6 million from exercising stock options in the company.  John Kerry – Saint John Kerry – has green energy investments in China.   Hunter Biden owns a stake in a Chinese company that assisted in the purchase of a cobalt mine, cobalt being necessary for electric car batteries.  Did the ‘Big Guy’ Joe Biden get 10 percent of this deal, too?  Green-friendly ESG funds are moving into fossil fuel investments, profiting from the mayhem green energy policies have produced.

And you thought these people were environmentalists and true believers. Joke’s on you. You’ve been played.

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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The Israeli Journalist Who Visited Mecca Should Be Worried

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Muslims are usually determined to avenge humiliation, and they know how to be patient.

Most non-Muslims have difficulty understanding why they are not allowed to enter Mecca. Israeli journalist Gil Tamari certainly appears to have lacked understanding when he secretly entered the city after covering U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, causing a scandal with potentially important ramifications for Israel-Saudi relations.

The legal prohibition on non-Muslims visiting Mecca is based on a Quranic injunction (Surah 9, verse 28). Since Muslims believe that the Quran is the word of God, no human authority, whether religious or political, can change this ruling. Non-Muslims who enter Mecca are therefore defiling Islam’s most important holy place, as Tamari did.

To complicate matters, Islam has no Pope-like central figure. So, even if the Saudis decided to table the issue for the time being, others—such as a “lone wolf” terrorist—perhaps opposed to the Saudi regime, could take up the charge to defend the honor of Islam. Indeed, throughout the history of Islam, individual Muslims and sects have interpreted the Quran as they chose, resulting in insurrections and assassinations that have often threatened Muslim regimes. This means that extremists might try to take revenge against Tamari personally.

Further complicating this picture, most of the Muslim world has a strong sense of honor and shame. Tamari, as well as the Saudi Muslim taxi driver who brought him to Mecca, shamed the Saudi government, which is responsible for protecting the sanctity of Mecca and Medina from such desecrations. Any Muslim who besmirches the honor of another person or group of people can often provoke blood feuds between two people, their families, their clans, their tribes and their religious sects that can last for generations. Muslims often brood for centuries until these slights have been avenged.

How does this manifest itself? One example can be found in Osama bin Laden’s post-9/11 speech. In that speech, he alluded to an event that had happened 80 years earlier. Since Americans tend not to have a sense of history, senior American government officials scrambled to find out what bin Laden meant. To those familiar with Muslim history, however, it was obvious what he was talking about. It was a reference to early 20th century Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk’s then newly-established secular Republic of Turkey, which abolished the Caliphate—that is, the leadership of the entire Sunni Muslim world.

The title “Caliph” was one of the many titles held by the Ottoman Sultan, and from a Sunni point of view, his most important one. Thus, Muslim extremists still revile Ataturk and his comrades, whom they claim were installed as Turkey’s leaders by the infidel West in order to destroy Islam. The 9/11 attack on important Western symbols of power—the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as the unsuccessful targeting of the U.S. Capitol—were an act of revenge against the center of non-Muslim power, the U.S., thus avenging the abolition of the Caliphate.

Furthermore, bin Laden’s choice of September 11 to carry out the attack was of symbolic importance. On that date 318 years before, a Christian army at Vienna defeated the Ottoman Muslims, who were on a march to conquer all of Europe for Islam. From then on, Islam was in retreat. Over the ensuing centuries, non-Muslims recaptured almost all of southeastern Europe. The humiliation of this defeat had to be avenged, and the attacks on American symbols of power were that vengeance.

Again, this might sound absurd to us, but Muslim cultures understand the value of patience and know how to wait until they believe the appropriate opportunity has arrived to take revenge. We often dismiss and belittle this way of thinking as primitive, but it is how Muslim cultures understand the world. We ignore it at our peril.

Analyzing how Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) handled Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia shows that the opportunity for revenge can often come more quickly. Back in October 2018, journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Thereafter, then-candidate Biden blamed MBS for the murder, even though no “smoking gun” was found that proved MBS responsible. The Saudi government denied his involvement, but MBS remained silent. However, as a product of his culture, he must have hoped the opportunity to avenge this insult would present itself, and he knew how to wait for it. It was wrong to interpret his silence as acquiescence.

Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia provided MBS with the perfect opportunity. Accordingly, the Saudis humiliated Biden in every possible way. Right from the beginning, the way Biden was greeted at Jeddah airport was a snub. The Saudis sent the provincial governor to meet him, instead of Biden’s protocol counterpart—King Salman. But since the king is infirm, MBS should have been the one to greet the president. To the Muslim world, that he didn’t could not have sent a clearer signal that he was getting back at Biden for having blamed MBS personally for Khashoggi’s murder.

Moreover, Biden’s primary goal was to convince the Saudis to increase oil production. The answer was a polite but emphatic no.

Finally, Biden wanted to take credit for the Saudi decision to open its airspace to Israeli planes. But the Saudis announced their decision before Biden reached Saudi Arabia, denying the president the opportunity to do so.

In the case of Gil Tamari’s visit to Mecca, we can see this same phenomenon at work. The Saudis have found and arrested the taxi driver who took Tamari to the holy city, even though the journalist did his best to blur the driver’s image in a video he filmed. Only God knows what will be the driver’s fate. Not only will he pay for his transgression, but he has brought enormous shame on his family. Moreover, if Tamari’s visit was such an unimportant incident, the Saudis would not have invested so many resources in order to find the driver. Thus far, the Saudis and MBS have been almost totally silent on this matter. But again, we should not misinterpret this as acquiescence.

What about Gil Tamari himself? As mentioned above, Muslims often brood over humiliation and wait for a time when the object of their anger either is or looks weak. Then they strike.

As a result, Tamari and others who defame the honor of Islam should be worried. Those who offend Islam are vulnerable to revenge attacks that could occur at any time. Tamari now has a target on his back. Whenever a Muslim seeking to avenge the honor of Islam believes he has the opportunity to do so, violence could ensue.

Tamari is probably safe in Israel. But should he travel to Europe, he might not be so lucky. As it says in the Talmud, a moment of pleasure can ruin an entire life. Tamari clearly enjoyed himself in Mecca, but he might pay for that pleasure by having to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life.

©Harold Rhode. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: That Stupid Stunt In Mecca

Chloe’s Story: Puberty Blockers at 13, a Double Mastectomy at 15

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Laying bare the iniquity of doctors and psychologists who exploit the confusion of children and adolescents.

The California State Assembly has been studying a bill, SB 107, to declare the state a sanctuary for minors who have been denied transgender -affirming medicine and surgery elsewhere.

SB 107 would permit insurance companies, physicians, and contractors to disregard subpoenas about child custody if the child is being medically treated for gender dysphoria. It would also ban health care providers from providing medical information requested from another state if that state has a policy allowing civil action to be taken against individuals who perform “gender-affirming health care” on children.

A young California woman, Chloe Cole, has testified before legislators in her own state, in Louisiana, and in Florida about her experience at the hands of gender-affirming doctors. She began to transition to a male at 13; she had a double mastectomy at 15; and she detransitioned at 17. Her brief speech lays bare the iniquity of doctors and psychologists who exploit the confusion of children and adolescents.

This is the text of her address in Louisiana. It is heart-breaking.

My name is Chloe Cole, and I am from the Central Valley of California and a former transgender child patient. I am currently 17 years old and was medically transitioning from ages 13-16.

After I came out to my parents as a transgender boy at 12, I consulted a pediatric therapist in July of 2017 and was diagnosed with dysphoria by a ‘gender specialist’ the following month. The healthcare workers are trained to strictly follow the affirmative care system, even for child patients, in part because of California’s ‘conversion therapy’ ban. There was very little gatekeeping or other treatments suggested for my dysphoria.

When my parents asked about the efficacy of hormonal, surgical, and otherwise ‘affirming’ treatments in dysphoric children, their concerns were very quickly brushed aside by medical professionals. I didn’t even know detransitioners existed until I was one.

The only person who didn’t affirm me was the first endocrinologist I met. He refused to put me on blockers and expressed concerns for my cognitive development. However, it was easy to see another endocrinologist to get a prescription for blockers and testosterone, just like getting a getting a second opinion for any other medical concern. After only two or three appointments with the second endocrinologist, I was given paperwork and consent forms for puberty blockers (Lupron) and androgens (Depo- Testosterone), respectively. I began blockers in February of 2018, and one month later, I received my first testosterone shot. I received Lupron shots for about a year.

After two years on testosterone, I expressed to my therapist that I was seeking top surgery, or the removal of my breasts. I was recommended to another gender specialist, who then sent me to a gender-affirming surgeon. After my first consultation with the surgeon, my parents and I were encouraged to attend a ‘top surgery’ class, which had about 12 Female-to-Male (FTM) kids. I was immediately struck by how early some of them seemed in their transition and how some were much younger than I was; I was 15 at the time and had been transitioning for 3 years.

In retrospect, the class inadvertently helped to affirm my decision because of the sense of community provided by seeing girls like me going through the same thing. Despite all these consultations and classes, I don’t feel like I understood all the ramifications that came with any of the medical decisions I was making. I didn’t realize how traumatic the recovery would be, and it wasn’t until I was almost a year post-op, that I realized I may want to breastfeed my future children; I will never be able to do that as a mother.

The worst part about my transition would be the long-term health effects that I didn’t knowingly consent to at the time. I developed urinary tract issues during my transition that seem to have gotten worse since stopping testosterone. I have been getting blood clots in my urine and have an inability to fully empty my bladder. Because my reproductive system was still developing while I was on testosterone, the overall function of it is completely unknown. I have irreversible changes, and I may face complications for the rest of my life.

I was failed by modern medicine.”

Did Chloe give informed consent to these life-changing procedures? Is her experience really different from the atrocities committed by German doctors at Auschwitz or American doctors in the Tuskegee syphilis studies?

AUTHOR

Michael Cook

Michael Cook is the editor of MercatorNet. He lives in Sydney, Australia. More by Michael Cook.

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