Supreme Court Will Consider Whether A 40-Foot Cross Must Be Removed To Appease Atheists And Dishonor Fallen WWI Soldiers

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ANN ARBOR, MI – On Wednesday, February 27, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on whether to reverse the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decision which ordered the removal or disfigurement of a 40-foot tall cross erected in 1925 to memorialize the World War I service and death of forty-nine soldiers from Prince George County, Maryland.

The “Peace Cross of Bladensburg” located at the entrance to the town of Bladensburg, Maryland sits on a rectangular base which includes the words “Valor,” “Endurance,” “Courage,” and “Devotion.” A bronze plaque lists the names of the forty-nine fallen sons of Bladensburg. Above the names is the inscription: “This Memorial Cross Dedicated To The Heroes of Prince George’s County Maryland Who Lost Their Lives In The Great War For The Liberty Of The World.”

The Fourth Circuit ruled that the cross is the “preeminent symbol of Christianity,” and that while the cross may generally serve as a symbol of death and memorialization, it only holds that value because of its affiliation with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and thus violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The Thomas More Law Center (“TMLC”), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, engaged in the heated culture war battle over the meaning of the Establishment Clause, by filing an amicus brief (friend of the court brief) to save the Cross. The stakes are high. Crosses throughout the nation, including those in the Arlington National Cemetery, will be in jeopardy should the Supreme Court affirm the lower court decision.

This is the second amicus brief filed by TMLC. The first brief, filed in July 2018, asked the Supreme Court to review the Fourth Circuit’s ruling against the cross. Once the Supreme Court agreed to review the ruling, this second brief, filed on December 19, 2018, asks the Supreme Court to reverse the Fourth Circuit’s decision.

The federal lawsuit challenging the “peace cross” was brought in 2014 by three atheists who occasionally drove past the cross and claimed they were offended. TMLC’s brief authored by Erin Kuenzig addresses their claim by arguing,

“Allowing a historic war memorial to be destroyed to quell some momentary discomfort plaintiffs feel when they drive past the Bladensburg monument would do real and lasting harm to this country; it would send a message of disrespect to our fallen soldiers and their families, and it would deprive future generations of a treasured piece of history.”

TMLC’s brief also claims that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision shows a hostility toward religion, particularly Christianity, not intended by the Constitution.

Moreover, TMLC’s brief importantly points out,

“We cannot change the stories of the dead to appease the all too easily offended living. Any harm respondents feel they incur due to seeing the shape of a cross when they happen to drive past the Bladensburg memorial, pales in comparison to the real and lasting harm that destroying such memorials will cause to this country as a whole, to veterans’ families, and to the memories of the men and women who are honored by them.”

Clearly, use of the Latin Cross in 1925 reflected the custom in Europe during World War I where the cross became the principal grave marker in cemeteries where soldiers were buried as described in the opening lines “In Flanders Fields,” a famous poem of the time whose opening line begins “In Flanders fields the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row.”

In this case, the purpose of the cross is to honor the dead using a historical symbol of death and sacrifice. The decision to destroy this memorial, simply because the plaintiffs claim to be offended by the memorial’s Latin cross, evidences an intolerance to Christianity that is wholly inconsistent with our nation’s history and with the purpose and meaning of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

Click here to read TMLC’s brief filed on December 19, 2018.

Click here to read TMLC’s first brief.

Thank you for your continued support of the Thomas More Law Center. Your donations help us to be Battle Ready to Defend America!

EDITORS NOTE: This TMLC column with images is republished with permission. Photo: Algerina Perna /The Baltimore Sun via AP.

A Video Message from a Real Hollywood Hero

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“Something’s gone wrong, for all our vigilance and battle scars over the Bill of Rights, have we let the flame of freedom’s torch grow cold? Because there can be no torch to pass where there’s no flame.”

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EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA video with images is republished with permission. The featured image is by skeeze on Pixabay Pixabay.

Sanctuary Cities Support Corporate Welfare

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Newly elected congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez jumped for joy when Amazon decided not to build its second headquarters in New York City because of hostility that the company encountered when it was suddenly disclosed that in order to entice the mega-company to the Big Apple, a closed-door deal had been reached that would have given Amazon a three billion dollar tax break.

The unrelated backdrop for this is that it took place even as New York City is gearing up to implement a “congesting pricing” tax that would require drivers who drive their vehicles into midtown Manhattan during business hours to pay a sort of toll.

This will certainly impose a hardship on those who must drive into the heart of New York City, and cab drivers who are unable to pay their bills now will be devastated by this new fee slapped on them by politicians.

However, Amazon, one of the wealthiest corporations in the U.S. if not the world, would have been given a three billion dollar tax break! This takes chutzpah to a new level.

Ocasio-Cortez referred to that deal as a blatant example of “corporate welfare.” She was actually right about this. (Even a broken clock is right every 12 hours.)

On February 18, 2019 Fox News reported, “Bill de Blasio corrects Ocasio-Cortez’s claim about spending Amazon tax break money.”

Even as the laughter was dying down from Ocasio-Cortez’s supposed “reasoning” involving the non-existent “windfall” from the massive tax cut that would not be given to Amazon, New York’s Governor Cuomo was throwing a near temper tantrum, angered and frustrated that the deal had fallen through. Mayor Bill de Blasio, who had been involved with the negotiations and was initially angered by Amazon’s decision, decided to turn political lemons into lemonade by criticizing Amazon for not attempting to work out a compromise.

Cuomo bemoaned the loss of thousands of jobs that will not be coming to New York along with the shiny new second headquarters that Amazon had planned to build in Queens.

Clearly that backroom deal by the Democrat Governor and Democrat Mayor with Amazon would have constituted a blatant example of corporate welfare. However, these sweetheart deals are more often than not precisely how huge corporations that make huge campaign contributions throw their corporate weight around to get breaks when they want to set up shop in a particular city or state.

Certainly the issue of corporate welfare plays well in the public square.

There is, however, another and even more blatant, pernicious, pervasive and devastating form of corporate welfare: the displacement of millions of American workers by foreign workers and the suppression of wages for all workers.

Companies that hire foreign workers to displace American workers do so not because there is a real shortage of qualified Americans. They do so because the only thing “exceptional” about the great majority of foreign workers is that they are willing to work for exceptionally low wages under exceptionally adverse conditions, and here we are talking about not only illegal alien workers but foreign workers who enter the United States with appropriate visas such as the H-1B visa.

This helps to boost corporate profits and the wages of CEOs and other corporate leaders, literally at the expense of hapless American workers.

 I addressed this massive betrayal of America and Americans in my articles, “Open Borders Facilitate America’s Race To The Bottom: “Cheap labor” is anything but cheap” and “Corporate America’s War On The Middle Class: H-1B visa program being used to displace Americans.”

An abject lack of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents (there are about 6,000 for the entire country and half aren’t doing immigration law enforcement) guarantees that these important immigration laws go unenforced.  This lack of agents is entirely calculated and intentional on the part of the leadership of both political parties.

This was the underlying premise behind my article, “Sanctuary Country – Immigration failures by design.”

Democrats devised the outrageous notion of “Sanctuary Cities” to ostensibly protect “immigrants” from immigration law enforcement authorities, cynically claiming that they are being compassionate. In reality, “Sanctuary Cities Protect Crooked Employers And Human Traffickers: Exploitation of the vulnerable is anything but “compassionate.”

Indeed, “Sanctuary” jurisdictions are actually bastions of immigration anarchy that shield criminal aliens, human traffickers, transnational gangs, crooked immigration lawyers who participate in immigration fraud conspiracies and unscrupulous employers.

Among the biggest losers, in addition to the victims of the crimes perpetrated by criminal aliens, are American and lawful immigrant workers who lose their jobs to illegal alien workers who have been encouraged and emboldened to flock to those corrupt jurisdictions, confident that they will have little to fear from ICE agents.

Radical leftist politicians who demand that ICE be disbanded, seek an escalation of the most insidious form of “Corporate Welfare” at the direct expense of American workers and American taxpayers.

Politicians on all levels of government frequently promise that if elected they will “create jobs.”

What is seldom stated by the politicians and particularly political thugs such as Governor Cuomo who outrageously has referred to ICE agents as “thugs” is the need to “liberate jobs.” As you will see, we will see how jobs can be easily liberated, but first let’s consider that jobs are, of course, a big deal. Work is important. Work enables people to support themselves and their families. Work may actually help to define who we are as human beings. Being fired from a job can be extremely traumatic and even negatively impact the health of the person who loses his/her job.

One of the key elements of our nation’s immigration laws is to prevent foreign workers from taking jobs in the United States if they do not have the appropriate visa. In point of fact one of the statues comprehended within the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) is 8 U.S. Code § 1182 that enumerates the categories of aliens who are inadmissible into the United States.

Here is a section of that statute that specifically addresses the issue of protecting the jobs of American workers:

            (5) Labor certification and qualifications for certain immigrants

(A) Labor certification

(i) In general Any alien who seeks to enter the United States for the purpose of performing skilled or unskilled labor is inadmissible, unless the Secretary of Labor has determined and certified to the Secretary of State and the Attorney General that—

(I) there are not sufficient workers who are able, willing, qualified (or equally qualified in the case of an alien described in clause (ii)) and available at the time of application for a visa and admission to the United States and at the place where the alien is to perform such skilled or unskilled labor, and

(II) the employment of such alien will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed.

This is, in part, why aliens who apply for admission into the United States at a port of entry on temporary visas are questioned as to their financial capacity to pay for their expenses and to provide proof that they are planning to return to their home countries within the time period for which they are admitted into the United States.

Of course aliens who enter the United States illegally are subject to arrest and deportation by virtue of their having violated our immigration laws from the moment that they set foot in the country. However, aliens who seek gainful employment to which they are not entitled are also subject to deportation. 

Aliens who violate their visas are often referred to as “visa overstays.” However, most aliens who overstay their visas don’t do so just to do more sightseeing in the United States but likely to work illegally. What is almost never discussed by the media is that aliens who have not overstayed their nonimmigrant (temporary) visas but who violate the terms of their visas renders them subject to arrest and deportation. Aliens who work illegally commit such a violation even if they have no criminal history.

When I was an INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) agent my colleagues and I would, as a matter of routine, arrest such alien visa status violators if we found them working without authority at a factory or other employment venue.

I mentioned the need to “liberate jobs” earlier in this article. Those factory raids and similar workplace investigations resulted in the liberation of jobs. Removing illegal alien workers from those jobs freed up those jobs for American and lawful immigrant workers and also sent a clear message that any alien who would violate our border, immigration laws and/or their terms of their lawful admission into the United States would face serious consequences.

It was personally satisfying to remove an illegal workforce from a factory and then drive by that same factory later that day or the next day and see a line of job applicants waiting to be interviewed for a job.

Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said the enforcement our immigration laws created a climate of fear among the members of the immigration communities. Actually, such law enforcement actions created a climate of deterrence.

Politicians such as Andrew Cuomo have said that immigrants need to be protected from immigration law enforcement. In reality, aliens who abide by our laws have nothing to fear. Licensed motorists who drive their vehicles in accordance with motor vehicle laws need no protection from the police. However, drivers under the influence of drugs or alcohol or drive recklessly should not be shielded but arrested by the police. The very same principle must apply to aliens who violate our laws.

The Democratic Party used to support these efforts to protect American workers. However, today’s Democrats are nothing like the traditional ones. The old Democratic Party used to stand behind American workers like my dad, who was a tradesman. Today when Democrats stand behind American workers, those workers better look out!

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EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column with images is republished with permission.

Why Gender Dysphoria Must Remain a Bar to Military Service

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In normal usage, “discrimination” is an ugly word.

But discrimination has two meanings. The first and more familiar definition is “the treatment of a person or particular group of people differently, in a way that is worse than the way people are usually treated.” Discrimination of that sort is clearly unacceptable.

The second, less common usage is the “the ability to judge the quality of something, based on its difference from other, similar things.”

Earlier this month, several members of Congress introduced a bill to allow transgender individuals to serve in the military. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., one of the bill’s sponsors, said in introducing the bill, “President Trump’s ban on transgender service members is discrimination. It undermines our military readiness, and it is an insult to the brave and patriotic transgender Americans who choose to serve in our military.”

What members of Congress like the sponsors of this bill—and indeed, the American public—often seem not to grasp is that discrimination—the less common meaning of the word—takes place every day at military recruiting stations across America.

That’s neither unjust, nor prejudicial. And contrary to Gillibrand, who aspires to be our next commander in chief, it’s necessary to ensure the readiness of the military and protect at-risk individuals.

Some examples are in order. Have asthma? You’re probably ineligible to join the military. A depressive disorder? Sorry, no. Torn rotator cuff in your shoulder? Nope. Come back perhaps when it heals or is repaired. 

It’s the difference between an individual who is able to serve, and those for whom service presents a risk—either of not being able to complete military service or of doing so without incurring harm to themselves. In a strict sense, that’s discrimination.   

By law, the military can accept only “qualified, effective and able-bodied individuals.” That means people who are expected to need more than routine medical care or treatment are not qualified to join.

Without this lawful ability to “discriminate,” we would place our military in jeopardy of not being able to protect the nation.

That brings us to the issue of service by transgender individuals. Anyone who wants to serve their nation is worthy of our nation’s thanks, because not enough do. A mere desire to serve, however, does not equal qualification.  

What is often described as “Trump’s transgender ban” is anything but. Underreported is the fact that the policy that the Pentagon wishes to put in place—but that has been thus far been stayed by the court system—is far more permissive and evidence-based than the policy that existed for decades prior to June 2016, when President Barack Obama’s defense secretary, Ashton Carter, abruptly unveiled a new policy.

Before that, individuals who identified as transgender were automatically excluded from the military. Under the new policy devised by then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, the Pentagon makes a distinction between individuals who identify as transgender, and those who identify as transgender and experience gender dysphoria.

It’s necessary to get a bit technical here. An individual who is transgender is a person whose gender identity does not correspond to that person’s biological sex. Transgender individuals who suffer from gender dysphoria often “experience significant distress and/or problems functioning associated with this conflict between the way they feel and think of themselves (referred to as experienced or expressed gender) and their physical or assigned gender.” 

Unlike the previous policy, the new rules allow individuals who are transgender but not experiencing gender dysphoria to join and serve in the military.

Why does the policy prohibit service by individuals who experience gender dysphoria? It’s principally because exhaustive Defense Department clinical and U.S. survey data confirms that individuals with gender dysphoria attempt suicide at rates between eight and 10 times the average for individuals not suffering from gender dysphoria. 

Individuals with gender dysphoria experience severe anxiety again at between eight and nine times the rate of individuals without gender dysphoria. What’s more, there is no evidence that medical treatment, including gender-reassignment surgery, can remedy those challenges.

Military service is inherently stressful. It takes service members and puts them in unfamiliar, lonely, austere, and often hostile areas. Stress, anxiety, and suicide are already existential military problems. Indeed, the suicide rate for active-duty military members has been slowly rising over the past couple of decades.

At one point, it was lower than the U.S. national average. In 2015, however, in the active component, it stood at 20.2 per 100,000 service members, compared with the U.S. average of 13.3 per 100,000.

It would, therefore, be reckless and ill-advised to allow individuals demonstrably at a higher risk of suicide and anxiety to join the military and be subject to the increased stresses of military duty—both for the readiness of their units and for the safety of the individual.

Critics, in raising objections, ask why then can’t transgender individuals with gender dysphoria be allowed to serve far from the front lines, perhaps in a desk or office job? Surely, they say, that wouldn’t be stressful.

But the military doesn’t work that way.

In order for the military to be effective, to borrow an analogy, every player must be able to get on the field and play their position. If there were a job divorced from stress, it would be reasonable to ask why we would need a uniformed service member to fill it at all.

Still others ask how such a tiny fraction of the military force that would be transgender, if allowed, could constitute a risk to a force the size of the U.S. military.

That ignores the fact that the U.S. military often goes to war one squad, one plane, one ship at a time. Often, the performance of a single individual can mean the difference between mission success and failure.

Finally, those opposed to the restrictions point to examples of transgender individuals who have successfully served in the military, including those who have been decorated for bravery.

Kudos to these individuals for serving, and serving well. But the military must set entrance criteria based on broad evidence, as opposed to isolated examples. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that individuals experiencing gender dysphoria, if allowed to enlist, would present unacceptable risks to both a prospective military unit and to themselves.

Thus far, the courts have seen fit to substitute their judgment on military enlistment criteria in place of that of the commander in chief. That’s unfortunate.

What would be even more unfortunate is if a decision were made to permit individuals with gender dysphoria to serve in the military, and in so doing, took a reckless gamble with both the readiness of the U.S. military and the safety of those patriotic individuals.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Thomas Spoehr

Thomas Spoehr

Thomas W. Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general, is director of the Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. The featured image by Defence-Imagery on Pixabay.

China’s Expanding Political and Military Footprint in Africa

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As the saying goes, ‘Numerous grains of earth make a mountain, numerous drops of water form an ocean.’ As long as we keep advancing China-Africa cooperation, we will make even bigger achievements. (Excerpts from the joint interview Xi gave to media from BRICS countries in the Great Hall of the People on March 19, 2013.)

Whatever they say, it is a fact that the Chinese come to Africa not just with engineers and scientists.  They are coming with farmers.  It is neo-colonialism.  There are no ethics, no values.  Egyptian Parliament Member Mustafa al-Gindi

This series on China is a continuing effort to make Americans aware of China’s influence and interests throughout the world.  China has long used Western capital to challenge the might of the West.  Now it is moving forcefully, making demands of companies and countries, and expanding its influence.  In effect, the Chinese government offers to build (or rebuild) infrastructure in a country, in exchange for greater access to that country’s markets, as well as political allegiance, if not outright alliance.

Colonel Liu is a scholar at China’s National Defense University, an institution that trains future generals for the People’s Liberation Army.  Liu writes that China should strive to avoid directly antagonizing the United States too soon as the Soviet Union did in the Cold War. Rather, he advises that China influence U.S. foreign policy in such a way as to ensure that Washington behaves like Great Britain in the early 20th century. What happened to Britain in the 20th century? It declined and gave way to the U.S.

The Chinese dream is for China to be the world’s only superpower, unrivaled economically, militarily, and culturally.  Their “Hundred Year Marathon” is heading for completion by 2049. 

Chinese African Trade

Africa is the world’s second largest and second most-populous continent. It covers 6% of earth’s total surface area and 20% of its land area.  Africa and Chinese economic relations surpassed the U.S. in 2009 to become the largest trading partner of Africa.  Bilateral trade agreements have been signed between China and 40 countries of the continent. In 2000, China-Africa Trade amounted to $10 billion, and in 2014 had grown to $220 billion. In the first five months of 2018, China-Africa trade gained 17.7 percent year on year to nearly $82 billion dollars.  Link  

China has been Africa’s largest trading partner since 2009 when it surpassed the United States, mainly exporting machinery, electronics and textiles, as well as importing crude oil, iron ore, cotton and other natural resources. South Africa, Angola and Nigeria are its biggest trading partners in the continent.

China’s Investment in Africa

China has emerged as a key investor and a generous, ready and easy lender to African countries.  Beijing’s cumulative loans to Africa since 2000 amounted to $124-billion by 2016, according to figures compiled by the China-Africa Research Initiative (CARI) at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in the United States.  They’ve created 130,750 jobs from 2005 to 2016, but is it for Africans or for imported Chinese.

Angola, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo respectively, were the top beneficiaries of these loans. Angola’s oil-related loans worth $21.2 billion since 2000 total roughly a quarter of cumulative Chinese loans to the entire continent.

Some 3,100 Chinese enterprises have invested in Africa, working on projects in areas of transport, electricity, telecommunications, industrial parks, agricultural technology centers, water supply, schools and hospitals.

It involves more than 20 African countries and covers areas such as railways, highways, ports and power generation. In 2015, China announced 10 major plans for China-Africa cooperation to help the continent speed up industrialization and agricultural modernization.

Infrastructure construction has been one of the priorities in China-Africa cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, a development strategy adopted by the Red Chinese government involving infrastructure development and investments in countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.  The program is an estimated $5 trillion (pdf) infrastructure spending spree that spans 60-plus countries across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa.

China’s Debt Trap Diplomacy

Almost 40% of sub-Saharan African countries are in danger of slipping into a major debt crisis.  And the relationship between African nations and China is often seen as a significant part of the problem.

Eight nations will find themselves vulnerable to above-average debt: Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, the Maldives, Mongolia, Montenegro, Pakistan, and Tajikistan.  Pakistan and Nepal turned down Chinese infrastructure loans last year in favor of other sources of funding.

Economists and other international financial institutions are becoming increasingly worried that the Chinese Dragon under a carefully disguised “debt trap” diplomacy is burying many developing and poor countries in massive debt and then forcing the highly indebted countries to hand over some of their “key infrastructures” such as the case of Sri Lanka.  An egotistical president, an influx of foreign cash, and a massive pile of debt led to Sri Lanka handing over an entire port to China in December 2017, on a century-long lease.

That handover gave China a strategic foothold just 100 miles from its rival India, akin to how the Soviet Union’s foothold in Cuba raised US blood pressure during the Cold War. Chinese submarines have already appeared there.

One such African country that is exhibiting all the red flag signals of Sri Lankan and now Zambian way is Djibouti.  The country is projected to take on public debt worth around 88 percent of their overall $1.72 billion GDP, with China owning the lion’s share of it.

Djibouti lies more than 2,500 miles from Sri Lanka but the East African country faces a predicament similar to what its peer across the sea confronted in 2017, after borrowing more money from China than it could pay back.  Djibouti-China cooperation also includes a naval base on which China holds a 10-year lease at a cost of $20M annually. This allows Beijing to project power outside of Asia.

Most African states are ready to enthusiastically support China’s ambitions for militarizing its growing influence on that continent. Link

In November of 2018, two United States senators voiced alarm about the military and political consequences if China gains control of a port terminal in Djibouti, and said they were worried the move could extend Beijing’s influence on the Horn of Africa.  Djibouti, home to the US military’s main base in Africa, looks about to cede control of another key port to a Beijing-linked company, and the US is not happy about it.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Chris Coons are alarmed that Djibouti, heavily indebted to Beijing, was likely to cede the port’s operations to a Chinese state-owned enterprise.

Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, the senior US military officer for Africa, told a Congressional hearing in early 2018 that the US military could face “significant” consequences if China controlled the port at Djibouti. 

These countries that fall prey to China’s debt trap end up giving up control of major assets such as ports or roadways when they fund infrastructure projects with Chinese loans that they may struggle to pay back. 

China already has control of a huge port at the Suez Canal near Cairo.  Their goal is control at both ends of the Red Sea into the Mediterranean which includes the Horn of Africa at Djibouti. 

Africa’s Raw Materials

Opponents of China’s investments in Africa assert that it is exploitative for China to finance African infrastructure projects in exchange for the continent’s natural resources.  Well, that’s what China wants.  China wants acquisition of Africa’s raw materials like oil, iron, copper and zinc that it urgently needs to fuel its own economy and to increase China’s global political influence as well as the major growth opportunity presented by emerging market economies in Africa.

Mining and oil remain a primary focus of China’s investments; however, the country’s investments extend throughout virtually every market sector, including everything from infrastructure to food processing. China’s investments in the largely undeveloped infrastructure of African nations are particularly strong, encompassing key areas such as utilities, telecommunications, port construction and transportation.

The stakes in Africa are high due to the continent’s rich abundance in raw materials. Africa is estimated to contain 90% of the entire world supply of platinum and cobalt, half of the world’s gold supply, two-thirds of world manganese and 35% of the world’s uranium. It also accounts for nearly 75% of the world’s coltan, an important mineral used in electronic devices, including cellphones. The Communist Chinese have been expanding their military presence into Africa and rivaling the United States on investment and military activity there. Investment in the continent has also been a topic of discussion for the United States and China in its ongoing trade negotiations and political deliberations.

China is not only buying Africa by incurring a debt trap on various countries, they want control of this huge continent with its natural resources, ports, and military availabilities.

Communist Red China’s goal is world dominance and few want to recognize that fact.  After 70 years of China’s 100-year strategy to become the global superpower, America is finally realizing what they’re up against.

China’s Africa Exploitation

Many people believe China is moving toward capitalism, but this is wholly untrue.   Theirs is a communist centrally planned economy, with a five-year plan by the state planning body, the NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission) which is approved by the Communist Party. 

China is investing billions of dollars in Africa but Beijing has been accused of exploiting the continent’s vast mineral and energy resources, at the expense of local people. 

The African continent is a logical place for China to look to extend its geopolitical influence. China is already the preeminent power in Asia. India, traditionally a rival of China, is not a realistic choice for China to look for an increase in political influence, but the largely undeveloped countries of Africa represent a prime opportunity for China to significantly expand its global presence and influence in the world. The nature of China’s political motivations is partially revealed by its extensive investments in African infrastructure. If China can rise to a position where it exerts major control over essential economic elements such as the utilities sector and telecommunications in African countries, while also developing military influence, then it also holds considerable political alliance in those nations.

China flexes its political muscles in Africa with media censorship, and academic controls. When he announced another US$60-billion in financing for Africa last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised that the money had “no political strings attached.”

But a series of recent incidents, including cases of media censorship and heavy-handed academic controls, have cast doubt on that promise. China’s financial muscle is rapidly translating into political muscle across the continent.

Asia analyst Gordon Chang, during a recent congressional hearing, compared China’s growing influence to a “new form of colonialism.” “Once it locks in countries and makes them dependent,” said Chang, “Beijing gets their support for geopolitical goals, and one of these goals is undermining democracy.”

Conclusion

President Trump wants new agreements with China, and rightly so for the American people.  China initially received higher trade tariffs because they were given a “developing country status” in 2001.  Today is far different.  The understanding at that time was that as its economy grew, China would gradually adopt market-based economic principles and commit itself to the basic tenets of liberalized trade and globalization. But this has not happened.

National Security Advisor, John Bolton says, “China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in Africa captive to Beijing’s wishes and demands. Its investment ventures are riddled with corruption.”  Link

The President and Mr. Bolton seem to understand this.  However, with China there are never any guarantees.  A key issue is that in the past the Chinese have made all sorts of promises to address U.S. concerns that they later reneged on. Or, China has taken so long to act that when it finally did it made little difference.

It would be rather naïve on the part of the U.S. to agree to any Chinese promises in the current trade talks without also building a robust enforcement mechanism into any deal.  The key is to devise an enforcement mechanism that is agreeable to both the U.S. and China. Only then will a resulting trade deal be self-enforcing. 

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Dsndrn-Videolar on Pixabay.

Economist: The Green New Deal Is Built on Fear, Not Facts

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Last week, environmental activist and leader of the anti-carbon campaign group 350.org, Bill McKibben, sent a valentine to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey arguing that the Green New Deal, far from resulting in a return to the Dark Ages, would instead prevent exactly that.

He tells us that those opposed to the measure “have one plan for dealing with the popularity of the Green New Deal: scaring the hell out of people.” Predictably, however, McKibben does precisely what he accuses others of doing—purveying falsehoods and half-truths in order to frighten people into believing that the so-called cure for climate change is not far worse than the disease.

He begins by characterizing polling for the Green New Deal as “through the roof,” when the link he provides puts its approval at 43.7 percent (a plurality, sure, but through the roof?), and a survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change and Communication notes that “strong bipartisan support” for the measure corresponds to a whopping 97 percent of respondents who knew “a little” or “nothing at all” about it. He then links to a poll by The Nation that asked the question:

Would you support or oppose a Green New Deal to end fossil fuel use in the United States and have the government create clean energy jobs? The plan would be paid for by raising taxes, including a tax on carbon emissions.

That the question presupposes outcomes that have never happened before and are likely impossible (a massive retooling of energy provision in a decade and government creation of jobs on a net basis) is never deemed to be a problem.

McKibben then presents a gallery of horrors: Hurricane Katrina, “what happened in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, when most of the island went dark for months as workers struggled to rebuild power lines,” the California wildfires, the Syrian civil war, the Zika virus, child labor, and starvation. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

That, he says, is “what a modern Dark Ages looks like.” The chief problem with this list—at least related to those not factually wrong—is that even to the extent that these things may be in some way affected by climate change, the Green New Deal will do little if anything to address them.

The contention that climate change has resulted in stronger and/or more intense hurricanes is far from demonstrated. While one recent study purports to correlate climate change with a more rapid increase in hurricane severity since 1982 (a relatively short period given the length of the hurricane cycle and considering the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, commonly known as NOAA, found the findings to be “suggestive but not definitive”), NOAA released a report less than a week before Mr. McKibben’s diatribe that found:

In summary, neither our model projections for the 21st century nor our analyses of trends in Atlantic hurricane and tropical storm activity support the notion that greenhouse gas-induced warming leads to large increases in either tropical storm or overall hurricane numbers in the Atlantic…. Therefore, we conclude that it is premature to conclude with high confidence that human activity–and particularly greenhouse warming–has already caused a detectable change in Atlantic hurricane activity.

And, of course, the duration of power loss in Puerto Rico has had more to do with the poor infrastructure in place to begin with.

The notion that California wildfires are the result of climate change has largely been rejected, and globally, studies have shown that burn areas have been decreasing over the last couple of decades.

While it has been argued that the 2007-2011 drought that struck Syria has exacerbated the conflict, few if any characterize it as a direct cause (conflict began with protests demanding democratic reforms, the release of political prisoners, and an end to corruption; religious animosity has also played a material part). And the reference to the Zika virus presupposes a northern migration of mosquitoes that has not occurred and infection by a virus that has not been deemed a global threat since 2017.

As for the increase in child labor and starvation due to climate change, no such evidence exists—none. Quite to the contrary, child labor has been steadily declining, particularly in India and China due to their greater embrace of market reforms. As for starvation, it appears that Mr. McKibben has misrepresented data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO), which reports on “undernourished people.” That is not the same thing.

To put things in perspective, the percentage of undernourished persons plummeted from 14.5 percent globally in 2005 to 10.6 percent in 2015. Their most recent estimates put the figure at 10.9 percent in 2017. This small uptick is not attributed solely to climate change but also to multiple other causes. Conflicts around the globe including not just Syria but Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and a host of others not attributable to climate change have been a major factor, as has been the socialist disaster that is Venezuela.

Of course, if the UN’s IPCC climate sensitivity figures are correct, the most one could expect from a full implementation of the Green New Deal is reduced future warming of 0.137 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Having been shown the horror show of doing nothing, we are presented the unicorns and rainbows of the Green New Deal.

“What the future looks like is electric cars,” we are told, “[that] outperform combustion vehicles on every metric.” Apparently, he has never heard of the range constraints, particularly in colder weather, of electric vehicles or the higher average costs of repair. 

And we are told that “they cost less to own and operate,” but there is a caveat to that left unmentioned. According to a University of Michigan study, it costs, on average, about 43.4 percent as much to operate an electric car than it does one with an internal combustion engine, as electricity is so much cheaper in relative terms.

But the likelihood of that remaining the case once the Green New Deal eliminates electricity generation from fossil fuels (currently 63 percent) and nuclear sources (currently 20 percent) rapidly approaches zero.

“What the future looks like is mass transit,” we were told two days after the California governor canceled much of the boondoggle that is the high-speed rail project. You can’t make this stuff up.

McKibben would have you believe that adopting these things is “easy to do” and “costs pennies on the dollar compared to the future,” but as he demonstrably cannot get his facts right about conditions as they exist now, I find it hard to accept his assessment of the future at anywhere near face value.

Given that a mere 3 percent of those surveyed had heard “a lot” about the Green New Deal, it seems the most effective plan for dealing with its current popularity is to simply present the facts. You won’t be getting them from Bill McKibben.

COLUMN BY

William E. Fleischmann

William E. Fleischmann

William E. Fleischmann is an economist and financial professional with more than thirty years of experience in banking, insurance, and healthcare. Bill has a passion for economic history and, in particular, the extensive harm done by minimum wage laws.

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MSNBC Host Says There’s A “Need To Scare People” On The Issue Of Global Warming, Promotes New Alarmist Book

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EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is by geralt on Pixabay.

Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger In Her Own Words

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The Margaret Sanger Papers Project lists a series of quotes attributable to the founder of Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger. Given the current debate on infanticide it may be appropriate to revisit what Margaret Sanger said about her beliefs on eugenics, women, race, the weak and birth control.

Here are Margaret Sanger’s own words:

On criminals

“America . . . is like a garden in which the gardener pays no attention to the weeds. Our criminals are our weeds, and weeds breed fast and are intensely hardy. They must be eliminated. Stop permitting criminals and weaklings to reproduce. All over the country to-day we have enormous insane asylums and similar institutions where we nourish the unfit and criminal instead of exterminating them. Nature eliminates the weeds, but we turn them into parasites and allow them to reproduce.” – Burbank, quoted by Sanger in “Is Race Suicide Possible?” (1925)

On poor and “unfit” women

“The poor woman is taught how to have her seventh child, when what she wants to know is how to avoid bringing into the world her eighth.” (Pivot of Civilization, 116).

As an advocate of Birth Control, I wish to take advantage of the present opportunity to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the “unfit” and the “fit”, admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation to the mentally and physically fit though less fertile parents of the educated and well-to-do classes. On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.

Birth Control is not advanced as a panacea by which past and present evils of dysgenic breeding can be magically eliminated. Possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupidly cruel sentimentalism. – Sanger, “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda,” Birth Control Review, Oct. 1921, 5.

Give the women of the poorer classes a chance also to limit and control their families, and it will be found that in very many cases the material is equally good. The difference is that, like plants crowded too close together on poor soil, there is no chance to develop and the whole families are left impoverished in mind and body. Give room for each [to] grow and all may become fine and healthy American citizens. – “A Better Race Through Birth Control” (Nov. 1923)

On white supremacy

“The object of civilization is to obtain the highest and most splendid culture of which humanity is capable. But such attainment is unthinkable if we continue to breed from the present race stock that yields us our largest amount of progeny. Some method must be devised to eliminate the degenerate and the defective; for these act constantly to impede progress and ever increasingly drag down the human race.” – A Better Race Through Birth Control” (Nov. 1923)

The potential mother is to be shown that maternity need not be slavery but the most effective avenue toward self-development and self-realization. Upon this basis only may we improve the quality of the race. – Sanger, “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda,” Birth Control Review, Oct. 1921, 5.

The Negro Project & FDR’s New Deal

By the late 1930s, the birth control activists began to focus on high birth rates and poor quality of life in the South, alerted to alarming Southern poverty by a 1938 U.S. National Resource Committee report which asserted that Southern poverty drained resources from other parts of the country. Starting in the mid-1930s, Sanger sent field workers into the rural South to establish birth control services in poor communities and conduct research on cheaper and more effective contraceptive….The birth control movement also looked to Southern states as the ideal region in which to secure funding under New Deal legislation and to establish birth control services as part of state and federal public health  programs….

In 1937, North Carolina became the first state to incorporate birth control services into a statewide public health program, followed by six other southern states. However, these successes were clouded by the failure of birth controllers to overcome segregated health services and improve African-Americans’ access to contraceptives. Hazel Moore, a veteran lobbyist and health administrator, ran a birth control project under Sanger’s direction and found that black women in several Virginia counties were very responsive to birth control education. A 1938 trip to Tennessee further convinced Sanger of the desire of African-Americans in that region to control their fertility and the need for specific programs in birth control education aimed at the black community. (Hazel Moore, “Birth Control for the Negro,” 1937, Sophia Smith Collection, Florence Rose Papers.)

On Forced Sterilization

“I admire the courage of a government that takes a stand on sterilization of the unfit and second, my admiration is subject to the interpretation of the word ‘unfit.’ If by ‘unfit’ is meant the physical or mental defects of a human being, that is an admirable gesture, but if ‘unfit’ refers to races or religions, then that is another matter which I frankly deplore.”

Eugenics today is known as the study of “genetics.” Merriam-Webster defines genetics as, “a branch of biology that deals with the heredity and variation of organisms.” So did Eugenics.

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Why This Abortion Survivor Had to Thank President Trump

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Margaret Sanger, seated behind desk. Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Margaret Sanger Collection [reproduction number, e.g. LC-USZ62-12345].

Behold, A Green Horse

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“Behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” – Revelation 6:8

The original New Deal (1933-’36) was a series of programs, public works projects, financial reforms and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, designed to rescue the U.S. from the Great Depression.  The artfully-name Green New Deal, proposed by Democrat-socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), is a series of drastic changes designed to divert the US from the path of improvement and greatness set by President Donald J. Trump, and propagate Obama’s disastrous and divisive policies.  

President Trump’s focus on energy has been removing the Obama era’s burdensome energy regulations so that we are now experiencing an unprecedented boom in domestic oil production and energy independence.  We are exporting more oil than importing for the first time in 75 years.   Trump has been so successful, in fact, that Obama has tried to assume the credit in the hope of salvaging his eight years of failure.  The unscientific, childish Ocasio-Cortez endorses the climate change hoax, blaming every winter storm and summer hot spell on corporate America and on cattle with normal gastrointestinal activity.  As clearly clarified by Paul Driessen on cfact, “AOC wants to lead the world in economic suicide, environmental degradation, plummeting living standards, shorter life spans and societal upheaval.“

Her desire to raze, rebuild, and refurbish every building with, allegedly, non-polluting solar or wind-power equipment, would create an insurmountable debt.  Considering the revelation that she is supported by anti-American, globalist and Nazi-sympathizer, George Soros, it may be that she hopes to erase all remnants of our national history, a common aspiration for every tyrannical regime that has not the ability to improve on what others have achieved.  Alexandra has described herself in divisive intersectional terms, as a Puerto Rican descendant of African slaves, Indigenous people, and Spanish colonizers.  She does not call herself an American and seems to have no affinity for the welfare of our country and our fellow-Americans.

It is not uncommon for a conquering power to burn (or replace) books and destroy historic sites and monuments, and to erase their essential cultural knowledge and evidence of existence.  Today we have leftist instructors who have stopped teaching America’s history and Antifa groups and students tearing down our memorial statues, recalling the disposal of artifacts under the Temple Mount, the ruination of the Buddhas of Bamyan, and the damage done to Christopher Columbus images. Every edifice has an architectural style and history that, serving as a memorial to the earlier generations and an inspiration to succeeding ones, we have the duty to protect.  But under the ruse of energy replacement, O-C would demolish all and replace with communist-style, regulated, mean living quarters – if, indeed, she would rebuild anything at all. 

Her plan could well be more sinister. 

Her program calls for the complete cessation of all methods of transportation that rely on fossil fuels, leaving many millions of people jobless in manufacture, warehousing, sales, and product shipments, thereby returning us to the backwardness of previous centuries.  Without air travel, international business becomes virtually impossible.  Without shipping, we could not manufacture or trade with the world.  Without trucks, we would have few internal shipments, including food stuffs.  Without cars, our ability to travel within our own country would come to a standstill, save bicycles, among the most vulnerable in road accidents in China.  O-C proposes a high-speed rail, such as the disastrous Fast Train project in California, where the cost overruns are becoming world-record setting – hair-brained or intentionally meant for financial collapse.

Following O-C’s destruction of cattle, junior Senator Cory Booker (D) would impose his vegan food choices on the rest of the country.  Therefore, in addition to losing cows (beef, milk and all dairy products, and foods that require those ingredients), he opposes chicken and eggs with a misplaced sense of morality, since he clearly does not consider the health and welfare of his fellow citizens.  Neither is he concerned about the inevitable burgeoning prices for other foods that must replace what had been our necessities.  

With O-C’s destruction of the transportation, beef and dairy industries, and Booker’s destruction of the poultry industry, and the various feeds grown for their animals, the number of unemployed would reach an insuperable level.  The burden of feeding the populace would fall on low-wage, labor-intensive grain, vegetable and fruit growers, and be subject to the variations of climate and weather. 

Despite our current all-time low employment achieved under Trump, the better educated, highly skilled might not be employable if O-C’s madness were implemented.  She assures that everyone would be an employee of the government, as pharaoh’s monarchy employed its slave labor.   O-C’s proposed 70- to 90-percent tax rate might also be reasoned as the citizens’ paying themselves.  Our country would become a Welfare State.  

Elizabeth Harrington, in The Washington Free Beacon, assures us that each federal (or monarchial) job comes with:

  • a salary (befitting what lifestyle?)
  • paid vacation (to go where and how?)
  • retirement benefits (at what age, amount, and nature and extent of services?)
  • adequate housing for all (surely not the equal of the elites’ mansions), and
  • access to nature (the land overrun with wild fruit, weeds and garbage, now a food source in Venezuela, and queueing up to obtain necessities with the hope that there will be enough for those strong enough to endure the wait.  Bernie Sanders thinks bread lines are a good thing.)
  • healthy food (barely adequate or generous?  Without the master’s obligation to feed the worker, we would be heading toward the starvation of Stalin’s peasants, or Hitler’s untermenschen, or Pol Pot’s agrarian workforce.)

Again displaying her intersectionality biases, in case life is not Utopian, her plan calls for “reparations for all but white men.”

A review of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) indicates that Russians rate their housing at 4.8, compared to the US at 8.7; their income at 0.9, compared to the US at 10.0; and their life satisfaction at 4.2, compared to the US at 7.8.  I cannot help but wonder, with some trepidation, where O-C’s Green New Deal would place us.

Roosevelt’s Works Projects Administration (WPA) employed millions of unskilled people for construction of public buildings and roads – a storm of great activity and inventiveness.  By grim contrast, O-C’s administration would engage low and unskilled laborers to systematically raze our architectural achievements – edifices designed with the charm of Baroque, Colonial, Neoclassical styles, and more – and replace them with a depressing energy-efficient sameness in every town and city.  The streets would have to be an unimaginable grid of steel tracks to support the massive public transportation system, and a blight of charging stations everywhere for State-approved electric vehicles.

As a set design of the bleakest futuristic Science Fiction films spring to mind, we are being herded to the ever-closer socialist dream of a controlled society, where individual choice is disallowed by the State, and our lives lead unwaveringly to a predetermined destination. 

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by christels on Pixabay.

REAL RACISM IN CHICAGO! Farrakhan Praises AOC, Omar & Tlaib [Video]

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While the media is still telling us that Donald J. Trump and his supporters are racists, even after the Jussie Smollett’s FAKE hate crime, it’s ignoring the antisemitism from the Left’s new superstars.

Where are the condemnations from party leadership … or anyone?

This is what evil Jewish hatred looks like – Louis Farrakhan at his weekend seminar in Chicago. Farrakhan is fueled by the Democrat Marxists because the DNC will not condemn him and his vile rhetoric.

Hat Tip to Damon Rosen for this news analysis.

RELATED ARTICLE: IPT Launches Two-Part Series About Anti-Semitism on the Left

EDITORS NOTE: This United West video is republished with permission. The edited featured image is by jimmikehank on Pixabay.

VIDEO: Colion Noir Sounds off on Jussie Smollett’s Efforts To Fan the Flames of Racism

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The agenda-driven coverage of Jussie Smollett proves that the media and race-baiting socialists like Kamala Harris and Maxine Waters fan the flames of racism and division in America. If they cared about real people, they’d devote half as much time to covering the violence that hurts all Chicagoans, instead of one fraud who they used to divide our country.

For the Truth about what really matters in Chicago, watch Colion Noir Tell the Story of Chicago’s Forgotten.

RELATED ARTICLE: Jussie Smollett Indicted On 16 Felony Counts By Grand Jury 

EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA column with video and images is republished with permission.

Celibacy is the Answer, Not the Problem

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Fr. Carter Griffin: Like bloodletting by medieval doctors, those who would “cure” priest sex abuse by eliminating celibacy deprive grace from holy orders.

Many Catholics, even the most faithful, seem to have given up on priestly celibacy. In our post-sexual revolutionary age, many view celibacy as an unhealthy repression of sexual drives, fostering the epidemic of clergy abuse today. According to this line of thinking, if we want to get rid of clerical abuse, we must get rid of celibacy.

It is a solution that, in the words of one literary critic, is “neat, plausible, and wrong.”

Many Catholics, even the most faithful, seem to have given up on priestly celibacy. In our post-sexual revolutionary age, many view celibacy as an unhealthy repression of sexual drives, fostering the epidemic of clergy abuse today. According to this line of thinking, if we want to get rid of clerical abuse, we must get rid of celibacy.

It is a solution that, in the words of one literary critic, is “neat, plausible, and wrong.”

Celibacy is not the problem. Clerical sexual abuse is no more caused by celibacy than adultery is caused by marriage. Both are violations of sacred promises, promises for which the Lord guarantees his help to live faithfully. To put it differently, allowing priests to marry would not prevent sexual transgressions. Marriage is regrettably no stranger to scandal or sexual abuse.

The problem is not celibacy but celibacy lived badly. It is caused by priests not living chastely. The proper response is not eliminating celibacy but demanding that priests, like married people, live up to their vocation.

In fact, celibacy itself is a precious and irreplaceable gift to the Church. It is usually defined negatively as “not getting married.” But it is a positive choice, a powerful way of loving with a singleness of purpose and a unique openness of heart. It enables a priest to live his spiritual fatherhood with particular force and efficacy.

The spiritual benefits of priestly celibacy have for centuries enriched the Church and even the wider culture. Were celibacy to be abolished in this moment of exasperation, we would not only fail to solve the problem of sexual abuse but also deprive future generations of innumerable graces of spiritual fatherhood that come to us through priestly celibacy.

How, then, to explain the current storm of scandals? The story is not a pretty one, but there is good news in the end.

First of all, for decades there was astonishingly little scrutiny for men entering priestly formation. A demonstration of academic aptitude and a pastor’s recommendation were usually enough. No thorough investigations into moral character and spiritual maturity, no references, no psychological examination.

The Church repeatedly insisted that men with persistent homosexual inclinations should not be admitted to the seminary (the latest official document that addressed it, incidentally, was approved by Pope Francis in 2016). Nevertheless, such men were admitted in great numbers.

Most priests with same-sex attractions, of course, are not guilty of sexual abuse and live faithfully. Still, the great majority of priest abuse cases involve the homosexual abuse of boys and young men. However controversial, the wisdom of the Church’s resolve has become crystal clear in hindsight. Disregarding it has had shattering consequences in the lives of thousands of young men over several decades.


Ordination Ceremony, Lyon Cathedral (Cérémonie d’ordination dans la Cathédrale de Lyon) by Edgar Degas, c. 1900 [Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, England]

Second, seminarians for years received woefully inadequate formation for chaste celibacy. According to the testimony of priests formed in those years of turmoil, primarily the 1970s and 1980s, the interior life and ascetical practices needed to sustain healthy chastity were not widely inculcated. Many men were even ordained under the false impression, reinforced by their seminary faculty, that the requirement for celibacy would soon be lifted.

In some seminaries, depraved cultures of sexual license among seminarians and even faculty corrupted vulnerable young men or drove away in disgust those who were seeking virtue. To make matters still worse, in many seminaries theological dissent and liturgical experimentation was rampant, leading to a hypocritical double standard that men carried with them into the priesthood.

Intellectual infidelity invariably breeds moral infidelity. If I can bend the teaching of the Church to my own opinions, preferences, and whims, why should that arrogance be limited to dogmatic propositions and liturgical norms? Why not moral precepts too? The dissent that festered for decades in theological faculties has taken a devastating toll on the Church, not only in doctrinal and liturgical confusion but also, I would argue, in sexual abuse.

Finally, once ordained, some priests who grew up in this climate of lax duplicity were, unsurprisingly, unfaithful. And their superiors seldom censured them for it in any meaningful way. Some were repeatedly transferred to new assignments; almost none were dismissed from the priesthood. Many bishops lost their nerve and their self-confidence. The sheer extent of clerical corruption was a painful embarrassment to bishops and, as a result, there arose a culture of deep secrecy that is now coming to light.

That, thank God, is not the end of the story. Many priests and bishops, against all odds, remained faithful through those bleak decades, and today we honor their heroic witness. Then came the 1992 landmark document Pastores Dabo Vobis in which St. John Paul II proposed a bracing portrait of priesthood and of seminary formation.

In the ensuing years, it was implemented unevenly throughout the world, but the upward trend in the quality of formation was unmistakable. Standards of admission in most dioceses have risen and the quality of formation in most seminaries has improved dramatically. Though many of our people do not realize it, the reform of the clergy began well over two decades ago.

There is still work to be done. Since priestly celibacy is a privileged way of living spiritual fatherhood, we must continue to improve our selection and formation of future priests in light of that paternity. They should have a confident masculine identity and a normal, healthy desire for marriage and fatherhood, the mature capacity to forego these great goods in order to focus on supernatural fatherhood, and possess, or show aptitude for, the human qualities and virtues of the best natural fathers.

Once ordained, priests should be held to the highest standards of chastity. Violations should be addressed consistently, promptly, and fairly, with the seriousness that befits a severe breach of trust against one’s spiritual family. Chastity – serene, deep, and joyful – at the service of priestly fatherhood is without a doubt the path to genuine reform in the priesthood.

Medieval doctors, with the best of intentions, often treated diseases by draining the blood of their patients, unwittingly depriving them of the very nutrients that they needed to get well. Those looking to cure the disease of sexual abuse in the Church by draining her of the grace of celibacy would do little to cure the disease, and yet deprive the Body of Christ of spiritual nutrients needed to return to health.

If we wish to address the problem of clergy sexual abuse, we should begin by expecting the same fidelity from our priests that we expect from everyone else, and call them to embrace, through the gift of celibacy, the blessings of priestly fatherhood that we need today more than ever.

COLUMN BY

Fr. Carter Griffin

Fr. Carter Griffin

Father Carter Griffin is a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington. Since 2011 he has been engaged in the selection and formation of seminarians at Saint John Paul II Seminary in Washington, DC. Father Griffin is a graduate of Princeton University and a former line officer in the United States Navy. His upcoming book, Why Celibacy?: Reclaiming the Fatherhood of the Priest, will be published by Emmaus Road this Spring. A different and longer version of this column may be found on the First Things website.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is by GerDukes on Pixabay. © 2019 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.

Trump Draining the Economic Swamp

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If you go back in time and look at the footage of citizen Trump, you will find that Donald Trump has been on point from day one. From the Oprah interview to the NY supreme court as an expert witness during the S&L crisis and everything in between. As stated by Q, America needed to be resurrected. Our Constitutional Republic needed to be restored. Back in 2014, the plan was set and the rest is history. Trump has come aboard to restore the power to the people as intended by our founding documents. And so, along with many other areas being addressed, draining the economic swamp has now begun.

The global financial reset is underway, albeit mostly behind the scenes. The market meltdown may now have been delayed ensuring a Trump victory in 2020 as Trump now is controlling the Fed. Dangers and opportunities through this reset are evident and I will post on this over the months and short years ahead.

The existing controlled and rigged debt based economic and monetary model is being disassembled. You cannot MAGA without controlling your currency. Trump is now going for the jugular and he, (we), will win once again. Let the force be with you sir.

Now I get it, many say this cannot and will not happen and I for one completely disagree. We have been programmed to believe this. And I too, was in that camp, pre-Trump. Well, my friends it’s a new day dawning. The great awakening is upon us as is the light of God. We are winning and draining the economic swamp will soon be (perhaps within a couple of short years), another item to be filed here, in promises kept.

No Longer

The old model of which Trump and company has begun to seize control, will soon be taken out. No longer will there be a debt based monetary system. Sound money will be restored. No longer will the bankers fund both sides of endless manufactured wars, reaping the profits and the harvest. No longer will our constitution and bill of rights be shredded. No longer will we the people be controlled by debt, debt slaves. Face it. We are debt slaves. No longer will we be taxed on our income. No longer will a private for profit banking cartel control our currency as this is in fact a violation of our constitution. Yes, President Trump will lead us back to sound money. Gold may become the de facto currency, so watch gold (and silver) as Trump restores in due time , sound money and crushes the power of the central banks. No more digital fiat. Over the many months to come, the President will expose the Fed and the central bank debt based monetary system. Watch. You will see. This will take some years, but this too will soon come to light. Now it may be confusing along the way. There will be many mixed signals and signs day by day along the way. So stay truly informed. In order to do this you must change the channeland build an arsenal of truth news versus fake news. Americans are  starving for truth. Seek and ye shall find. This will restore your faith, hope and trust. This will help raise your tone level from apathy, anger, fear etc., to perhaps becoming an informed, empowered and engaged and active citizen. If nothing else, you will at least feel better.

In Closing

I will keep this post short and sweet as this is a subject that is rather complex as Trump takes on the Federal Reserve, IMF and the Central Banking Rothschild dynasty. I will be posting content along the way to play my part in keeping us informed. Put on your seat belts. Be prepared. And get some popcorn and enjoy the show! Visit these supportive and insightful links below. Stay the course. Trust the plan. Pray for and support our President.

Q Plan to Save the World

Q We are the Plan

Q From Dark to Light

Video: Global Reset I

Video: Global Reset II

Global Financial Reset

Weekly Address: Draining the Economic Swamp

EDITORS NOTE: This John Michael Chambers column with images is republished with permission.

Ripping the Mask off KGB Activity in Our Midst

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Once upon a time there was a country named the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—the USSR. Actually, there was no real union and the country collapsed December 26, 1991. The West cheered the collapse, announcing victory and the end of the Cold War. The notion of “the Soviets” was forgotten and the words the Soviets have disappeared from our lexicon. That was a crucial, international mistake in the West, because the collapsing part was the Socialist economy, which couldn’t compete with capitalism, while the other part, the Soviet System-a hard line leftist regime stayed largely intact. Now we are paying a dear price for our incompetence and lack of action. Knowledge is Power!

In fact, nothing substantial was changed in Russia, except the name of a country. We are dealing now with the Russian Federation under the leadership of a former KGB counterintelligence officer Vladimir Putin. The old regime of the Soviet System is running the country: Socialist economy that had collapsed was replaced by oligarchic-crony capitalism under the KGB’s leadership. Moreover, a substantial number of problems continue to plague the world as they have for a hundred years—Soviet Socialism is fighting capitalism of Western civilization and its bastion, the American Republic. Writing about that for a long time and analyzing the current events, I have renamed Soviet Socialism as Soviet Fascism.

Anyone who has observed the general political climate in America knows that conspiracy theories surrounding allegations that President Trump has connections to the Russian government abound. I too am uncovering a kind of conspiracy, from an opposing point of view and aisle —about the constant collaboration of the Democrat Party and its members with Russia, about the Obama/Putin conspiracy, and about attempts to undermine Trump’s presidency, attacking him and all members of his family personally for the last three years. As a former Soviet attorney, I know the real reason for the Dems doing that—“Offense is the best defense” and this is the only way for the Dems to survive. They have to cover up their criminal conduct over the last several decades.  

Yes, There is an Axis of Evil

I wrote this in my column two years ago: “Knowing the Russian methods, agenda, and its proclivity to mold Soviet style charlatan-leaders around the world to engineer cadres of fifth columnists, I believe there are two types of people committing betrayals: Those who do not like the political system established by our Founding Fathers and are trying to transform it– they are currently collaborating with the KGB to destroy the country, and those people who haven’t a clue about the KGB infiltrations, hence becoming their unwitting accomplices. Both groups constitute a huge help to President Putin, who is running the anti-Trump show… “

Using the term KGB, I mean the entire Russian Intelligence Service–a collective image of several Intel agencies. Those three letters are familiar to the vast majority of Americans and they really represent the Soviet Gestapo, the mighty vehicle of dispersing globally the ideology of Soviet Socialism, I renamed Soviet Fascism. American foreign policy blunders and fatal mistakes by our top Intel, have greatly helped the KGB to spread their ideology in the 20th century. Their methods are easily recognizable: lies, fraud, deceit, cheating, and the like. They are charlatans fooling, deceiving, and indoctrinating decent people.

Look at the world of the year 2019: Stalinist North Korea, Communist China, Russian mercenaries in Syria and Ukraine, the terrorist Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and all their affiliates, Iran, the Taliban, socialist Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have now established the critical mass for an Axis of Evil, fighting for control and power under Kremlin’s umbrella and ideological leadership. Watch Pakistan and Turkey, they are on their way to join the Axis. All of them adhere to the ideology of Soviet Fascism, inculcated by Moscow over many decades–they are all the enemies of a peaceful, prosperous world, using the same tactics, strategy, methods, and tricks taught by the KGB—dispersing their ideas globally… If you want to know how to deal with the above mentioned countries, you must know KGB’s methods, as each country is fighting on different fronts under the same leadership…

I am giving you this information for a reason. If you haven’t read my books and columns, you don’t know that the KGB started their infiltration into the Middle East in the 1950s. Yasser Arafat was recruited by the KGB in 1957. Many tribal based Islamic terrorist groups have been created in the Middle East since then and they are all (men and women) under Russian leadership and coordination. Watch now how Islamism intertwined with radical Socialism is fighting Western civilization. A major wave of infiltration into America, with the subsequent recruitment and corruption of its citizens started in the 1960s, predominantly under the supervision of KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov…  

Do You See What I See?

American Dems did not escape the KGB influence and infiltration they were attracted by it; I’ve been reporting this for the last thirty years. Based on the historical reports, there were several if not many “Red Flags” to deal with the KGB. We did not—the Dems ate up the Soviet propaganda, giving them the Soviets time to multiply and do overwhelming harm to our institutions and laws. We have to understand the gravity of the mistakes that were made, so this never happens again. Russia is the foremost enemy of Western civilization while the KGB is in power and Andropov’s design is alive and well, still working on destruction of capitalism on American soil today…   

Trump called his intelligence leaders “passive and naive” after reading reports about their testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Passive—definitely, but I would use another adjective—incompetent. If not, then they ignored the “Red Flags” deliberately. Now, Democrats are seizing on President Trump’s latest feud with his intelligence chiefs to cast themselves as the party that is taking national security more seriously today. This an attempt to divert your attention from the crime the Dems have committed for decades. Here is an example of several “Red Flags” showing the Dems’ working under the KGB’s supervision in Virginia …

There is a real political crises in Virginia in February 2019. At first, it was an attempt to enact a late-term abortion law by Governor Northam, then a racist photo of him came to light. Today, the three top Democrat officials in command, the top of the State power, have been incriminated in different scandals. It is hard to believe the depth of State corruption in Virginia. Yet, in my writings about radical socialism that only hurts people for the last thirty years, I just called it Soviet Fascism and analyzed the action of the former Virginia’s Governor Terry McAuliffe. What you know today is only half of Virginia’s story. I’ll try to give you the rest…

Terry McAuliffe was a prominent member of Clinton’s mafia, inculcating and corrupting everybody around in the State of Virginia for many years. Today, I saw him acting and speaking like a typical mafia apparatchik, lying, cheating, always harming the American interests, as designed by Andropov. Let me give you the current story missed by the FBI, and maybe missed deliberately.

The Anti-Defamation League described the event this way: “A torchlight rally by white supremacists that descended into violence in Charlottesville in August 2017, drew participants from at least 35 states and spoke to the ability of the self-described alt-right fringe movement to mobilize adherents nationwide.” The analysis of 200 participants came one day after Richard Spencer, the leader of the demonstration on Aug. 11 and 12, 2017 returned Saturday with fewer than 50 followers to the home of the University of Virginia as it celebrated its bicentennial and posted a video of a planned, 10-minute “flash mob.”

The next day, President Trump stated: “those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.” President Trump is right. In my opinion, the event was orchestrated by an un-American criminal cabal, a false flag collaboration of the DNC with KGB’s political operatives. It was done to undermine Trump’s presidency in the best traditions of Stalinist methods and tricks. I can identify two members-coordinators of criminal cabal: Terry McAuliffe and Andrew McCabe. The FBI had missed this “Red Flag”. I have written about the agenda of Clinton’s mafia for decades. To grasp the details, please read in this e-magazine my column Revelation, April 26, 2018.

When Roger Stone complained about the fascist tactics of his arrest with 27 armed men, George Stephanopoulos insisted that it was “a standard operation.” And he is right, it is a standard operation of the KGB in the fascist regime of Russia. And when I saw it in America, Andropov’s design and his legacy stunned me. In front of me was his complete combination of the media working with security forces—the way Andropov planned them acting together… Please remember, it was Bill Clinton, who made political operative, George Stephanopoulos, a member of the media: you saw the result. Just read my books and columns to know who George really is…

I purposely showed you the inextricable connection between Dems, FBI, and the KGB acting in cahoots for the last several decades. Trump is right again about the Dems: “Dems ‘Killing Great State of Virginia.’” I would add: This is not the face of Virginia, but the historical face of the Democrat Party. There is another vivid example of radical Socialism in a criminal cabal–the Dems, FBI, and KGB’s connection. Like in Stalinist Russia, the war against all religions was permanent, but the Catholic Church was dismantled at once and completely by Stalin. That same culture war waged by Soviet fascism is now raging in America: Bill O’Reilly and others warned us constantly. The episode with the Covington Catholic High School boys in January 2019 was a sequence in the ongoing culture war waged by the criminal cabal of Socialist mafia:

“One of these days, conservatives are going to wake up to the fact that we are in a cold WAR against the left in this country. Maybe then they’ll stop falling for these obvious decoys. But even the shameful, deceptive, biased media still has the capability of surprising us, apparently, because what they did to a group of students from Covington Catholic High School … was nothing less than despicable. Maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised, given what this very same media did to Brett Kavanaugh last year. But damn, this was disgusting. This was reprehensible. This was the “enemy of the people” with their masks fully off.” The Left Views MAGA Hats as Equivalent to KKK Hoods, UnFiltered Patriot, Posted 20 Jan 2019

I agree with every word written above—it is naked Truth for me—a collaboration of the criminal cabal with the media. Yet, I have mine, a very different approach to the events that occupied media for several days in the end of January 2019. It is the same culture war going on for decades…

Second Lady Karen Pence recently took a job at a Christian school, and a negative leftist propaganda blast against Christianity followed the event immediately. Soon after that the second religious topic piled in on top of the first: the controversy was followed by another blow for Christian education when Catholic schoolboys were accused of being rude to a Native American and Army veteran, Mr. Phillips. You know the essence of the story, as framed by the media. I don’t want to repeat it. My focus is the negative force of the criminal cabal fighting Christianity, as this force is very familiar to all people coming from the Socialist countries to America. The entire incident was engineered during the March for Life in January 2019, where people celebrated life.

This is not the first time Phillips thrust himself into this kind of confrontation.  “In 2015, Phillips was verbally attacked by a group of Eastern Michigan University students who were dressed as Native Americans during a theme party near the town of Ypsilanti, according to news reports,” wrote the Washington Post. “Phillips had approached the group, informing them that their celebration was racially offensive, a local Fox News station reported. One of the students threw a beer can at him, Phillips told the news outlet.”

Who is Mr. Phillips in reality? As I found out, he is not a Vietnam veteran as he claimed, and his aggressive approach to the kids from the Catholic School had a definite motivation. With his militant drum-bit, his face with a stern antagonistic expression, he was provoking the kids to act. For me he was a typical leftist provocateur-activist. And it wasn’t only his group of people acting destructive against the kids. By a “pure” coincidence, another, no less suspicious group of people has appeared in front of the Catholic kids—the Black Hebrew Israelites. I had never heard of them and found a description of their provocative actions during the incident:   

“A group of half a dozen (Black) Hebrew Israelites had, in fact, been goading and preaching at both the Native Americans and high schoolers, using profanity and highly provocative language, for nearly an hour.” Who are the Black Israelites at the center of the viral standoff at the Lincoln Memorial? By Sam Kestenbaum, January 22, 2019.

Meanwhile, a Catholic student quietly urged classmates to refrain from making any comments that might aggravate the situation created by Phillips and the Black Hebrew Israelites. I believe this is the actual picture of the incident and my intent is to identify the organizer-coordinator of the ‘coincidental encounter’—someone who arranged this meeting of the three groups on the March for Life to provoke the Catholic kids wearing red caps Make America Great Again. The actions of the aggressors, speak for themselves—to attack and provoke children of a Catholic School, wearing the red caps to accuse Catholic Church of racism.  A simple piece of cloth—the red MAGA caps have become the main target for thugs in the Socialist mob. It was clear to me–the incident was pre-arranged by the same anti-Trump campaign run by Putin’s KGB…

The recent wave of racist statements, wearing of blackface, KKK photos, and anti-Semitic remarks by Democrats currently holding public office are fueling racism in the United States today. This is a vivid demonstration of the ideology of Soviet Fascism the Dems adhere to.  As a matter of fact, since President Reagan, Republicans have never been aggressive enough defending capitalism against the ideology of Soviet Fascism, fighting only the symptoms of this ideology. The first thing for Republicans to do is that of fighting the nucleus of the problem and calling a spade a spade–the real name of the ideology is Soviet Fascism. The Republicans have a duty to educate Americans and the world in the aggressive, vicious, and merciless   ideology of Soviet Fascism that is striving to take over the world by spreading a fraudulent Soviet Socialism globally.

Don’t Allow Andropov’s Design for America Succeed!

My books and columns have given you ample of examples how the evil ideology influenced an ill-informed population with propaganda, hoax, deception, and fraud. This is the way Socialist mafia proceeds, as Socialist ideology itself represents a gigantic fraud, a well-decorated and wrapped in false promises fraud. Socialism takes—Capitalism creates. Just look at the “Green New Deal” –a colossal fraud aimed at stopping the social mobility of Trump’s capitalism, which has already shown the remarkable ability of a free market economy to resurrect this nation from Obama’s Socialism. Do you remember Andropov’s design? I believe Soros is behind the Deal, sponsoring the fraud. To grasp it you have to read my writings to know why and when Stalin invented Political Correctness to fight opposition. The Dems are doing just that, using PC, lying and deceiving you to subvert American capitalist economic system today…  

Andropov’s plan is working well and Americans are more open to socialism than ever before in our nation’s history. That would seem to indicate that Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are the future of the Democratic Party. Trump’s attitude may not please moderate voters, but his approach to the issues is a lot closer to the mainstream of America than anyone presenting a real threat to him in 2020. As the Democrat Party morphs into the party of “Abolish ICE,” “open the borders,” “give away healthcare,” “give away college,” and “guarantee everyone a green job,” they are going to find themselves well outside the political mainstream. And there’s no doubt that this is an accurate view of where the “promises” primaries are headed. The Democrat Party is obsessed and possessed by identity politics—the main Stalinist formula to divide and conquer. Just watch the Dems’ candidates for 2020, a constellation of ignorance intertwined with arrogance and fraud to deceive you–A very dangerous combination!!!

It is an ironical situation in America today: the Party, a major national leader, which has been soft on Socialism/Communism for four decades, allowing criminals to infiltrate all aspects of America’s society, destroying and betraying our values system, is running the House today and proclaiming itself a “guard of national security.” What a shame and fiasco! They are like the phony victim and provocateur Jussie Smollett—they are totally responsible for all enormous destruction of the American system produced from within during the last 3-4 decades! They have to be exposed like he has been! By the way, Nigeria is a country being run by the KGB the way Venezuela was for the last 3-4 decades… Both are KGB’s scams. Today, Soviet Fascism is going on all around us, by hoaxes, from Tawana Brawley to Jussie Smollett to stage and inflame the race issue to damage our society…Our Intel is still sleeping and the coup against President Trump is going on…

Many people asking why Smollett did that. I have my answer to racial crime committed: It is politically motivated act, a criminal plot, which manufactured a hoax by staging and inflaming racism in America to blame President Trump! This is a case that intertwined politics, law, culture, and ideological agenda to get rid of Trump’s presidency. In my opinion, there are more bad actors in this crime outside the action or one of the three is a political operative with the idea. The action and method are well planned with all elements of Soviet Fascism: lies, fraud, deception and identity politics. Someone within the Law Enforcement in Chicago had a whiff of the ideology and appointed 24 investigators to the case. Bravo to him or her! Now the country will grasp the variety of methods and tricks used by Soviet Fascism fighting Trump and our capitalist economic system for the last decades…  

Yes, the Dems and ignorant Republicans are responsible for all devastating events our nation has experienced for the last decades and until they are out of power the following disasters events will continue: Mass shooting, shooting in the schools, an open season on the police officers, the crime on the Southern border, new Caravans will be formed the way the European Muslim invasion was executed by the KGB. Two hundred-year war of Socialism against Capitalism had been brought to America’s soil by two American Manchurian Presidents and the ideological battle will be resolved here, on the American soil, if we want to survive…

The leaders like Trojan Horses, Bernie and AOC, an energetic kindergarten girl with a diploma in economy will pop up to deceive and defraud you. They are acting and speaking in unison, as if trained by the same KGB’s school. It is not a coincidence that 16 Governors are against Trump’s national emergency. In fact, the national emergency was supposed to be declared after Clinton’s presidency in the first day George W. Bush took the office to prevent the attack on 9/11—our embassy in Moscow was warned… But Bush’s intelligence saw a soul in Putin’s eyes. What a shame!

Considering two American Manchurian Presidents, plus the examples I have presented in my writings, you can evaluate for yourself the depth of the KGB infiltration on the American soil. For many years, I am writing about the main problem of the world–the ideology of Soviet Fascism–a logical continuation of the ideology of Socialism/Communism. Don’t be surprised by Rep. Ilhan Omar and her Anti-Semitic statement—Anti-Semitism is an integral part of Soviet Fascism. Islamism and Socialism are fighting together against Western civilization, by Andropov’s Globalism and open borders. Our Congress has a lot of Socialists, now they have several Islamists working together for the Dems. Don’t be surprised by the terrorist activities in Omar’s district. This is the problem of a modern pluralistic America and the world today—The KGB never sleeps…

My column was close to be completed when a cascade of bombshells in the air stopped my writing. I needed to digest and analyze the news. It took me several days to grasp the general tendency of the events. As I understood the agenda, Putin’s KGB had prepared for the massive ultimate battle to get rid of dully elected President Trump. The upcoming 2020 election will be that last battle to defeat him. I see the KGB’s actual attempt to coordinate and weaponized all fronts of the war against capitalism to this upcoming election. It will be done through the Democrat Party, its DNC, and all 2020 candidates for the presidency, (some of them are sponsored by the KGB), plus an army of political operatives, socialist mafia, and activists-propagandists. Watch money coming from abroad and from billionaires like a KGB agent–George Soros…

In addition to this, I united under the name of the “Axis of Evil” the entire lingering global threat that America and Americans face from transnational gangs, drug cartels, Islamism, socialist mafia, and international terrorist organizations. If you read my books and columns, you know that all thugs mentioned above are acting with KGB’s teaching under the Russian umbrella.  Meanwhile, don’t underestimate AOC and Bernie, both are vocal, speaking in unison as students of the same KGB’s school, and both very efficient propagandists of Soviet Socialism, I renamed Soviet Fascism. Watch how the media amplifies their voices, making them the hero-leaders of the American future, advertising both. The Republican leadership has two immediate tasks:

  1. To learn the ideology of Soviet Fascism and disseminate the knowledge among the American public.
  2. To present to the public the work of Tom G. Palmer: The Morality of Capitalism.

Those two sources will expose the Dems’ Socialist mafia for what it really is and help Republicans to win the 2020 election.

My fellow Americans! God gave us this last chance to save our county—President Donald J. Trump! Don’t allow Dems’ Socialism to take over the American Republic. Fight the ideology of Soviet Fascism and save the legacy of our Founding Fathers and the American Republic!

Knowledge is Power! Good Luck my beloved America the Beautiful!

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

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Javardh on Unsplash.

Tennis Great Navratilova Excommunicated from LGBT Group for Defending Basic Biology

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Martina Navratilova, the most dominant women’s tennis player of all time, has been removed from the advisory board of Athlete Ally, an activist group for LGBT athletes.

Her offense? Penning this op-ed that claims men who change their gender and compete in women’s sports have an unfair advantage based in biology.

Navratilova, who is a lesbian, wrote:

To put the argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organisation is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires. It’s insane and it’s cheating. I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her. It would not be fair.

Simply reducing hormone levels — the prescription most sports have adopted — does not solve the problem. A man builds up muscle and bone density, as well as a greater number of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, from childhood. Training increases the discrepancy. Indeed, if a male were to change gender in such a way as to eliminate any accumulated advantage, he would have to begin hormone treatment before puberty. For me, that is unthinkable.

Apparently, recognizing the innate physical differences between men and women is blasphemy under the left’s transgender ideology dogma. Athlete Ally released this statement on Navratilova’s excommunication:

Athlete Ally unequivocally stands on the side of trans athletes and their right to access and compete in sport free from discrimination. Martina Navratilova’s recent comments on trans athletes are transphobic, based on a false understanding of science and data, and perpetuate dangerous myths that lead to the ongoing targeting of trans people through discriminatory laws, hateful stereotypes and disproportionate violence.

As an organisation dedicated to addressing root causes of homophobia and transphobia in and through sport, we will only affiliate with those committed to the same goal, and not those who further misinformation or discrimination in any way.

Now, it comes as no surprise to see leftist groups like Athlete Ally turn on their own. However, it is a surprise to see many major corporations funding this group’s radical position. These corporate sponsors, through their donations, are essentially endorsing an ideology that says not only can men become women by simply feeling that way, but women should also be forced to compete directly against men on an uneven athletic playing field.

Does “toxic masculinity” include stealing women’s places in sports?

Below is a partial list of Athlete Ally’s corporate sponsors. You can view the rest here.

$5,000+ or in-kind corporate and foundation funders.
Adidas (2.1 – Lean Liberal)
Citibank (1 – Liberal)
Coca-Cola (1- Liberal
Gatorade (1.3 – Liberal)
HBO (1.7 – Lean Liberal)
KPMG (2.3 – Lean Liberal)
MillerCoors (2.1 – Lean Liberal)
NBA (2.7 – Lean Liberal)
NBCUniversal (1 – Liberal)
Northern Trust
Northwestern Mutual (2.4 – Lean Liberal)
Under Armour (2.3 – Lean Liberal)

Employer Matching Gifts

BNY Mellon Corporation’s Community Partnership (1.6 – Liberal)

Goldman Sachs (1.3 – Liberal)

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (1.9 – Liberal)

Microsoft (1- Liberal)

Oracle Corporation (2.1 – Lean Liberal)

Help us continue highlighting how corporations support the left’s agenda by becoming a 2ndVote Member today!

EDITORS NOTE: This 2ndVote column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is by Shutterstock.

VIDEO: Vatican Sex Summit — Day 3

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by Michael Voris, S.T.B.  •  ChurchMilitant.com.

Church Militant has learned exclusively of a secret meeting that occurred with a good number of papal nuncios last night.

The point of the meeting was to air their grievances among each other at how the Vatican simply ignores whatever bad behavior of priests or bishops they report — meaning bad sexual behavior.

The nuncios, we were told — a somewhat sizable group of them who are here because of the sex summit — are extremely upset and angry and didn’t really discover the scope of how the Vatican was ignoring their reports until they just started talking with each other informally.

That is quite a development. It’s not exactly sure what recourse the various nuncios have, but that they are feeling dismissed, ignored and their reports trivialized is absolutely certain.

They are ticked off, frankly, and so are quite a few other people.

We’ve been told by various folks who work in and around the Vatican that things have never been this bad. Priests are afraid to wear cassocks, afraid that if they look “too traditional” they will be reported to the Vatican.

Various individuals are being followed and their movements monitored. Rooms are bugged, phone lines are tapped and the Vatican more and more resembles North Korea, as one cleric termed it to us.

Sources tell us that the level of homosexual activity here is off the charts. The Swiss Guard, for example, is a regular target.

One source told us that grooming attempts and sexual advances by various archbishops are so off the charts that each year’s new recruits should be given a week-long class on how to handle it.

And don’t forget, this is the new Rome, the “Rome of Mercy” — mercy apparently for lying, covering up, homosexualist prelates who hate the Church, but no mercy for anyone else, especially those who uphold Tradition.

One of the more interesting developments to come out this week — speaking of homosexualist clergy who hate the Church — Fr. Thomas Rosica was busted plagiarizing multiple sources.

Yep, the Vatican’s English-speaking liaison to the media simply ripped off lines from various sources in a speech he gave at Cambridge earlier this month.

But he didn’t stop at just plagiarizing. He actually plagiarized out of context, using the moment to charge that the testimony of whistleblower Abp. Viganò was lies, which is rich considering he was passing off as his own words many other people’s words in his speech.

In just one example, quoting out of context, he called Viganò’s testimony a “diabolical masterpiece,” a term first credited to a bishop and repeated by a cardinal referring to the crisis, notViganò’s testimony.

When caught red-handed, in typical unaccountable fashion, he apologized, accepted full responsibility and then turned around and blamed his interns.

And the tidbit about Abp. Viganò brings us back to the secret meeting of nuncios last night.

They are the keepers of many secrets, and if a group of them suddenly decided to do what former nuncio to the United States Viganò did last August, the Vatican could be in quite a mess.

As media scrutiny intensifies, it came up a couple of days ago that another papal inner circle member, Indian Cdl. Oswald Gracias, on two occasions himself left victims unprotected and did not go to the police, perhaps even breaking Indian law which mandates such action.

In one case, a family reported to him in 2015 that their son had come home from serving Mass and told them he had been raped by the priest.

They contacted him, and then Gracias simply left for Rome that same night and did not inform police. He found out sometime later from one of his auxiliaries that the family had ended up reporting it themselves.

Gracias also looked the other way when he was informed that one of his priests offering retreats for women had molested one woman, and Gracias just left him in service and did not report anything to the police.

It is example after example of this constant drip, drip, drip of offense and cover-up and ignoring that the laity, good priests and now apparently the nuncios are simply not going to stand for any longer.

To add insult to injury, Gracias is present here at the summit in so-called “listening sessions,” hearing accounts of victims’ suffering.

Which begs the question: If one of the Pope’s inner circle can’t listen and pay attention in his own diocese back home to these horrible things and follow the proper course of action, why is his sitting here in Rome going to make a difference?

The evil, the hypocrisy, the cover-up and the lies, the police state, the fear, the indignant attitude, the lack of good will — all of it is being laid bare case by horrible case.

Unfortunately, until real action is taken, Catholics are going to have to endure this sordid filth being exposed day by day.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant column with images is republished with permission.