Catholic and “catholic”

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Fr. Paul D. Scalia: The Church’s children should resemble her. We ought to strive to be catholic (universal) in our zeal, our mercy, and our embrace of Truth.

In today’s Gospel, our Lord likens the Kingdom of heaven to “a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind.” (Mt 13:44-52) This net, which gathers not just one kind of fish but fish of every kind, serves as a good description of what we confess every Sunday: the Church is catholic.

Now, most people probably think of “Catholic” as the brand name of a particular Christian denomination. Yes, we speak colloquially of the Catholic Church as distinct from the Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist churches, etc. But that’s a fairly recent designation, only since the Reformation. Before the Church was “Catholic” she was already “catholic.” It’s a truth we find expressed in the Church’s earliest years. The word “catholic” means universal, embracing and bringing all things together into a unity (from the Greek kata holos, “according to the whole).

Now, the distinction and relation of “Catholic” and “catholic” is important: one cannot be Catholic without also being catholic. To be a member of the Church means to share in her catholicity. So, what does that entail?

First, the Church is catholic – universal – in the most obvious sense: for all people. “Here comes everybody” is James Joyce’s famous description of the Church. She welcomes all comers, embraces and incorporates all people – “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, all peoples, of every race, nation, and country throughout the world.” (Rev 7:9) She leaves no group or kind of people beyond her mission and solicitude.

Now, catholic in this sense does not mean everyone thrown together willy-nilly, as you might toss all your clothes into the closet. Rather, it means all people brought together as one, as a unified whole. In the United States, we are now witnessing what happens to a society when its various peoples have lost their principle of unity. The Church, however – and, in the end, only the Church – is truly universal because she both embraces all people and makes them one body in Christ.

The implications of this universality should be clear. It means, first, that we welcome all people into the Church. Anyone who repents and believes is welcome regardless of any accidental qualities.  Further, this catholicity requires that we actively seek to bring the Gospel to all peoples, and all peoples to the Church.

Second, the Church is catholic in the sense that she forgives all sins. This is a consequence of her being the continuing presence of Christ Himself in the world.  Our Lord has authorized her to act and speak in His Name. He entrusted to her ministers His own power to forgive, a power limited only by a person’s desire to be forgiven.

Through the ministry of the Church, any of our sins, from the most trivial to the most severe, can be forgiven when we repent and ask forgiveness. Which also means that we should desire the extension of that forgiveness and reconciliation. Indeed, we should participate in the Church’s ministry of reconciliation. As such, our own personal forgiveness should extend as far as the Church’s, from the most trivial slight to the gravest sin against us. As regards forgiveness we can never say, “thus far and no further.”

Throughout her history, from Tertullian to Calvin, the Church has seen plenty of rigorists who would like to shorten the reach of her mercy. Like the slaves in the parable of the wheat and tares (Mt 13:24-43), they want a Church of saints not sinners. In the current “cancel culture,” the mobs of secular rigorists give us a sense of just how brutal a society is that desires pure justice (or what passes for it) and no mercy.

Finally, the Church is catholic in the sense that she possesses all truth. Everything necessary for salvation is found within her doctrine. All religions possess some aspects of the truth. Only Christ’s Church possesses the fullness of the truth.

Notice that the net in the parable brings in “all kinds of fish,” both the desired and the undesired. Similarly, the Church holds both pleasing truths (human dignity, forgiveness, heaven) and hard truths (sin, judgment, hell). To be Catholic means to assent to all that the Church teaches – not just to the parts we like.

The Church’s history is littered with heresies, a word that indicates the choosing of one truth to the exclusion of others (Greek again haerisis, not kata holos). Those who do so cease to be catholic, because they are embracing not the fullness of the truth but only the parts they like. If we call ourselves catholic, we must show ourselves to be truly catholic, embracing all truths — not just the convenient ones.

Mother Church’s children should bear a resemblance to her. So it is that we ought to strive to be catholic in our zeal for souls, in the reach of our mercy, and in our embrace of the truth.

COLUMN BY

Fr. Paul D. Scalia

Fr. Paul Scalia is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Va, where he serves as Episcopal Vicar for Clergy. His new book is That Nothing May Be Lost: Reflections on Catholic Doctrine and Devotion.

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

Personhood Florida’s Pro-life PAC Endorses Over 65 Candidates for the 2020 Primary and General Election

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Personhood Florida’s Pro-Life PAC has endorsed the following 65 Pro-life Candidates for the 2020 Primary and General Election:

2020 Federal ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
US Representative – District 19 REP Dane Eagle

2020 State ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
State Representative – Dist 27 REP Zenaida Denizac
State Representative – Dist 42 REP Fred Hawkins
State Representative – Dist 84 REP Eileen Vargas

2020 Brevard County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
City of Palm Bay Mayor NP Rob Medina
Republican State Committeewoman REP Kim Adkinson

2020 Citrus County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
Property Appraiser REP David Gregory
Superintendent of Schools REP Paul John Reinhardt
Supervisor of Elections REP Maureen “Mo” Baird

2020 Clay County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
Clerk of the Court REP David Coughlin
School Board District 2 NP Beth Clark
Superintendent of Schools REP Charlie Van Zant

2020 Flagler County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
Sheriff REP Rick Staly

2020 Indian River County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
Board of County Commissioners – Dist 3 REP Tim Zorc
School Board – Dist 3 NP Laura Zorc
School Board – Dist 5 NP Alla Kramer
Sheriff REP Charles Kirby

2020 Jackson County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
Superintendent of Schools REP Dallas Ellis

2020 Lake County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
County Commission District 1 REP Tim Sullivan
County Commission District 3 REP Kirby Smith
County Commission District 5 REP Josh Blake
North Lake Co. Hospital Board NE Seat 3 REP Ralph Smith
North Lake Co. Hospital Board NW Seat 5 REP Anita Swan
School Board Member District 2 NP Patricia Nave
School Board Member District 4 NP Betsy Farner
School Board Member District 4 NP Sandy Gamble

2020 Lee County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
COUNTY COMMISSIONER 1 REP MICHAEL J DREIKORN
PROPERTY APPRAISER REP MATT CALDWELL
SCHOOL BOARD 2 NON MELISA GIOVANNELLI
SCHOOL BOARD 3 NON BRIAN DIGRAZIO
SHERIFF NPA CARMEN MCKINNEY
SHERIFF REP JAMES A LEAVENS

2020 Manatee County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
Linda Ivell REP Republican State Committeewoman

2020 Marion County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
COUNTY COMMISSIONER – DIST 1 REP Mike Behar
COUNTY COMMISSIONER – 3 REP Bobby D. Dobkowski
COUNTY COMMISSIONER – 3 REP Jeff Gold
PROPERTY APPRAISER REP David Moore
PROPERTY APPRAISER REP Neil Nick Nikkinen
REPUBLICAN PARTY STATE COMMITTEEMAN REP John H. Townsend IV
REPUBLICAN PARTY STATE COMMITTEEMAN REP Randy Osborne
REPUBLICAN PARTY STATE COMMITTEEMAN REP William Richhart
SCHOOL BOARD – 1 NP Allison B. Campbell

2020 Martin County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
Property Appraiser REP Kelli Glass Leighton

2020 Okaloosa County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
County Commissioner, Dist. 1 REP Wayne Richard Harris
County Commissioner, Dist. 5 REP Richard Scott Johnson
County Commissioner, Dist. 5 REP Mel Ponder
Superintendent of Schools REP Ray Sansom

2020 Palm Beach County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
Republican State Committeewoman REP Cindy Falco-DiCorrado

2020 Pasco County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
County Commissioner – Dist 4 REP Gabriel (Gabe) Papadopoulos

2020 Santa Rosa County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
County Commissioner – Dist 1 REP Geoff Ross

2020 Sarasota County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
Sarasoto County Hospital Bd., At Large Seat 1 REP AUDIE ELIZABETH BOCK

2020 St. Lucie County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
City of Fort Pierce Commission, District 1 NP Kenneth Robinson
City of Fort Pierce, Mayor NP Donna Diehl Benton
City of Port St. Lucie, City Council District 2 NP David H. Pickett, Jr.
City of Port St. Lucie, City Council District 2 NP John Francis Haugh
County Commissioner, District 1 REP Betty Jo Starke
County Commissioner, District 5 DEM Fritz Masson Alexandre
School Board, District 4 NP Jason William Palm
School Board, District 4 NP Jennifer Anne Richardson
Sheriff REP Richard Williams, Jr.

2020 Volusia County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
County Council Member, District 3 NP Johan D’Hondt
County Council Member, District 4 NP Heather Post
Daytona Beach Commissioner Zone 4 NP Stacy Cantu
Edgewater Council District 4 NP Eric Rainbird
South Daytona Council Seat 4 NP Theodor Eric Sander
State Committeeman REP Santiago Avila, Jr.
State Committeewoman REP Debbie Phillips
State Committeewoman REP Maria Trent

2020 Walton County ProLife Candidates

Race Party Name
School Board – Dist 4 NP Jeri Michie
School Board – Dist 4 NP Marsha Winegarner

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The Cover-up of the Contaminated Blood Supply and Vaccines

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Dr. Judy Mikovits, a high-level researcher who worked in the government program to combat AIDS, discovered that the nation’s blood supply from healthy donors was contaminated with disease causing retroviruses from mice and monkeys and that the source was in vaccines given to infants and young people.

Originally from the East Coast, Mikovits got her BS from the University of Virginia, spent 22 years working for the National Cancer Institute and got her PhD in biochemistry from George Washington University. Her thesis, according to Wikipedia was titled, “Negative Regulation of HIV Expression in Monocytes.”

Finding out that the blood supply from healthy donors was contaminated would be a blessing, but this wasn’t something the vaccine industry and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) looked upon with favor.  A massive coverup was launched by both industry and the CDC to prevent the public from learning the truth.

We can immediately see why this discovery had to be covered up for it leads into all the warnings over the past several years by many scientists, medical experts, pharmacists and others of the dangers of vaccines.

Vaccine Dangers

The late Alan Stang pointed out in one of his books that one man whose name could not be revealed, had been high up in the medical establishment, and after retirement gave a very secretive interview to one whom he could trust.  He stated that if he had children that could not avoid being vaccinated, he would move to another country where vaccination was not compulsory. He also stated that there was no doubt in his mind vaccines being given to infants as well as other young children were definitely the cause of autism.

He went on to reveal why he could not risk going public with what he knew because of the power and money behind these vaccines. If he went public with the information, this power would come down on him in such a way that would affect not only his retirement, but very possibly his life.

Shane Ellison, a developmental pharmacist, and former contributor to News with Views, authored several articles which were published by News with Views that explained in detail the dangers involved with vaccination. In one article he warns against giving your child the HINI flu vaccine. Several other articles on the same subject should be read by everyone before subjecting their children to vaccines.

In the opening paragraph to Shane’s article entitled, Swine Flu Alert: Medical Chemist says, “Think Before You Vaccinate”, he states, “As a young chemist working in the chemistry labs of corporate America, I watched as they promoted cancer causing drugs as anti-cancer remedies (tamoxifen). I also witnessed the pharmaceutically complaint media convince the world that depression was a disease and you needed the so-called antidepressant drug Prozac to treat it. I began to wonder, how gullible are the masses?  The reaction to the swine flu scare answered this.”

Shane Ellison’s article, “Should I Vaccinate My Child?” is another necessary read.  He states, “Vaccine talk is riddled with shoddy science, emotional arguments, convoluted explanations and all out quackery. Very little common sense shines its way through the murky vaccine debate.”

Another extremely important Ellison article is, Modern Medicine’s Deceit and why I abandoned it.  Shane states, “Western Medicine has become a billion-dollar empire. Not out of keen science, but rather deceit. The end result has been one nation under drugs. This subjugation has set a standard of health in America that, by definition, is sick care disguised as health care.”

For years there has been evidence submitted to support the claim that a certain vaccine or vaccines are the cause of Autism. However, a series of massive public relations campaigns managed to prevent the evidence from being considered despite Democrat Robert Kennedy Jr.’s massive efforts.

Nevertheless, more claims and evidence of autism being the result of vaccines are surfacing every day. If Dr. Mikovits goes public, as she plans to with her exposure about the contaminated blood supply, it’s going to focus a lot of attention down the back-trail concerning the truth about vaccines, and especially the forced vaccinations of newborns and pre-school children.

When the vaccine industry and the CDC launched their cover-up campaign to prevent the public from learning about it, Dr. Mikovits told her superiors she would go public with her discovery. The next day, she was arrested and sent to prison without a warrant or any charges of a crime. The press reported that she removed government documents from the laboratory. What she removed, however, was her own personal notebook, containing her handwritten summary of meetings, deadlines, and appointments.

The story was an attempt to demonize her in the public mind so no one would believe her. She was warned that if she spoke to anyone about the contaminated vaccines she would go back to prison – for life. Now, she has decided to speak out at all costs. She says that all of this was orchestrated by Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of President Trump’s Coronavirus task force, and chosen by none other than Vice President Pence.

If it was, and I believe her for the simple reason that it plays into the modus operandi, of the agents of the New World Order agenda. And this fits Fauci to a “T.”

The Chosen Plandemic

The Deep State is a part of this agenda. According to the Birch Society Bulletin for July, the Deep State has long been preparing to use the fear of a pandemic to weaken American’s rights, erode the middle class, and lead our people into their One World Order.

One example of this, cited by the Birch Bulletin is “Event 201,” a tabletop exercise that simulated a pandemic. Held in New York City on October 18, 2019, just a week before the Wuhan coronavirus was exposed, Event 201 was sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  That alone should give everyone pause.

The by-invitation-only audience watched while the panelists engaged in scenarios simulating a worldwide pandemic and formulated what the globalists could do to solve the problem on a global scale. The simulation was based on a coronavirus as the cause of their pandemic. While coronaviruses are quite common, in light of the worldwide outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic only weeks after Event 201, it is interesting this was chosen for their scenario.

The Birch Bulletin further pointed out, “that many interactions within the American government health community involve the Chinese. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, gave $3.7 million of U.S taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan laboratory for coronavirus development, even after the United States declared a moratorium on such funding.” This is only one example of China using American funding for viral research.

The obvious question arises here as to why and for what purpose is the development of the coronavirus necessary? As we have seen, its only use has been destructive. Actually, from all the evidence we have seen it is quite evident that the Wuhan laboratory was purposely brought into existence for the very thing it is being used for at present – to destroy America, her president and to coerce nations into accepting the New World Order.

In addition, in 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the “Global Vaccine Action Plan” to guide the discovery, development, and delivery of lifesaving vaccines. The leadership council for this initiative included Dr. Fauci, Anthony Lake, executive director of  UNICEF, who failed in his attempt to become Bill Clinton’s head of the CIA due to his openly pro-communist proclivities; and Tachi Yamada, president of the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The plan called for ID technologies to track those vaccinated, conditioning people to accept the idea that they will need to prove their vaccination and health status before being allowed to engage in activities that heretofore were allowed by a free people without government restriction, such as the freedom to travel.

All this was only a part of the Birch report; there was much more along this same line.  I would urge everyone to join the Birch Society to receive both their bulletins and the New American Magazine.  Their research is impeccable.

What I have reported here is indicative of the proof of the conspiratorial interactions of many people who are involved in changing our republic into a one world communist totalitarian dictatorship. Americans (those who have a heart for America’s freedoms and liberties), should equate these vaccine pushing traitors as an armed invasion.  They are just as diabolical as BLM/Antifa and other destructive communist organizations.

Conclusion

Ironically, the commanding general of this invasion, Dr. Fauci, has been placed in authority over our defense against the invasion. How has this happened? It’s happening because President Trump doesn’t seem to know all his real enemies, and he has people surrounding him who have been placed there to pull the wool over his eyes.

We must continue to support Donald J. Trump for he is the only person we truly have on our side.  And don’t forget that he often plays chess while his enemy is playing checkers and even those of us who watch closely miss the cues of what he’s really up to.  The man is not a fool, and we desperately need him to continue to be at the helm of our government.

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VIDEO: President Trump Trump Wants to Send Education Funds to Parents if Schools Do Not Open

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President Trump wants education funding sent directly to parents to pay for whatever school they choose for their children–including “home school.”

CatholicVote posted the following video on YouTube:

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19 People Tuned In to Biden’s Livestream

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Only 19 People Watched Joe Biden’s Live Stream.

The ridiculous national polls have Joe Biden leading Donald Trump by double digits, some as much as 19 points. I find this a little hard to believe considering the complete lack of enthusiasm for a Biden presidency. On Wednesday he did yet another lame basement bunker live stream and only 19 people tuned in to watch. Is that were the polls are getting Biden’s 19-point lead number from? Live stream viewers don’t equal voters.

WATCH SEIU LIVESTREAM WITH JOE BIDEN:

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

VIDEO: Why I Painted Over the BLM Mural in NYC.

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This new episode of The Glazov Gang features Bevelyn Beatty, a Christian evangelist who is co-Founder of atwellministries.org.

Bevelyn explains Why I Painted Over the BLM Mural in NYC, revealing the war we’re in – and why she’s on the frontlines.

WATCH:

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VIDEO: The Problem in Portland Isn’t the Law—It’s the Lawlessness

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Despite the occasional looting, chaos, property damage, trespassing, rioting, graffiti, assaults, arson, and general mayhem, the media consistently assure us that Antifa “protesters” are “largely peaceful.” And since the majority of buildings in Portland, Seattle, and Denver haven’t been looted yet, who am I to argue?

Of course, it takes only a sliver of the population to transform downtowns into a mess and create quality-of-life issues for thousands of law-abiding citizens. And the mayors who surrender parts of their cities to left-wing “protesters” are tacitly endorsing lawlessness themselves.

There’s little doubt that if alt-right activists had occupied a few city blocks in Seattle or tried to firebomb a federal courthouse in Portland, we’d be in for feverish wall-to-wall media coverage, engulfed in a national conversation about the perils of right-wing radicalism. Every elected Republican would be asked to personally denounce the extremists to make sure they take implicit ownership of the problem.

When a few hundred angry tiki torch-carrying Nazis marched in Charlottesville, you would have thought the Republican National Committee had deployed the Wehrmacht. Those who led the riot were even asked to opine on CNN.

Two regimes are fighting an ideological war in America today. But what side are you on? And how can you sharpen up on how to defend your position? Learn more now >>

On the other hand, left-wing rioters—the people Chris Cuomo and other journalists compared to GIs landing on Normandy—are immediately transformed into apolitical actors, rogue “anarchists,” as soon as any violence starts.

Who knows? Perhaps the majority of citizens and businesses in Portland, Seattle, and Denver want their elected officials to let Antifa act with impunity. Or maybe some of those citizens and businesses will begin fleeing those cities. Whatever the case, it’s a local concern.

WATCH: Journalist Andy Ngo exposes the violence of the left:

To a point. If mayors do nothing to stop anarchists from tearing down federal monuments or from defacing, vandalizing, and attempting to burn down federal buildings, the feds have every right to dispatch teams of agents to restore order.

None of which is to deny that there are legitimate concerns about how law enforcement is conducting itself. I’m sympathetic to criticisms of the federal officers who operate in camouflage and in unmarked vans. Cops should display badge numbers and identification—if they truly aren’t doing so right now—otherwise civilians have no real way to hold those in authority accountable for their actions.

But the claim that Pinochet-like secret police have begun snatching Portland protesters off the street and making them disappear amounts to the arrest of one man, who refused to speak without his lawyer and was released a little more than an hour later without any charges.

If it were up to me, I’d leave Portland to the anarchists and their political accomplices. But federal law enforcement—including agencies such as the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; Immigration and Customs Enforcement; the Department of Homeland Security; the Marshal Service; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives—regularly operate across the country. Sometimes they make arrests, and sometimes they do so after going undercover.

This happens under every administration, every day, and it often happens for far less compelling reasons. As far as we know, cops haven’t broken any laws in the streets of Portland. The protesters who cover their faces have broken tons.

With this in mind, it’s been instructive watching many of the same characters who cheer on governors who take undemocratic emergency powers and shut down houses of worship without the consent of the people—and who sometimes arrest Americans for playing whiffle ball, attending church, or cutting hair—act as if policing portends the end of democracy.

The same people who incessantly clamor to empower the federal government when it suits their purposes now act as if protecting a federal courthouse is the Reichstag fire.

MSNBC’s John Heilemann says that President Donald Trump sending federal police into Portland is a “trial run” for using “force” to “steal this election.”

In a piece titled “Trump’s Occupation of American Cities Has Begun,” Michelle Goldberg, somehow still allowed to freely opine at The New York Times, says that “fascism” is already here.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls the police “stormtroopers” who are “kidnapping protesters.”

All of these contentions are ugly conspiracy theories, hyperbolic allegations meant to fuel partisan paranoia before an election. Even if we accept the criticisms of law enforcement, the driving problem, and it’s been happening to various degrees in a number of major cities, is that mayors are allowing “protesters” to trample on public and private property. They allow it because they share the same left-wing sensibilities.

But protesting should never be a license for anarchy.

COMMENTARY BY

David Harsanyi

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at National Review and the author of “First Freedom: A Ride through America’s Enduring History With the Gun, From the Revolution to Today.” Twitter: .

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A Note for our Readers:

These are trying times in our nation’s history. Two regimes are fighting an ideological war in America today, with polar opposite viewpoints on public policy and the government’s role in our lives.

Our friends at The Heritage Foundation asked world-class speaker, educator, and researcher David Azerrad to walk you through his research and outline the differences between the “two regimes” in our society today—conservatism and progressivism—and their primary differences.

When you get access to this course today, you’ll learn key takeaways like what it means to be a conservative, what “modern progressivism” is, how a conservative worldview differs from a progressive one, and much, much more.

You will come away from this online course with a better understanding of the differing points of view, how they align with your principles, and how to defend your beliefs.

Don’t wait—start taking “The Case for Conservatism” course online now.

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

Epstein floodgates open as judge rules explosive docs detailing Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex life can be UNSEALED in Virginia Giuffre’s defamation case within a week

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This is getting interesting.

Bill is hiding under Hillary’s immense pantsuit. Move over, Huma!

  • Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan ruled on Thursday to unseal more than 80 documents that Ghislaine Maxwell had wanted to keep under wraps
  • Preska said the documents – which will run to hundreds of pages – should be made public within a week
  • They include flight logs from Epstein’s jets, a deposition in 2016 in which Maxwell’s lawyers said she was asked ‘intrusive’ questions about her sex life
  • The documents also include police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home
  • It will include communications between Maxwell and Epstein from January 2015 when Virginia Roberts Giuffre made allegations about them in court papers
  • In the papers Giuffre claimed she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew three times when she was just 17 at Epstein’s command
  • The documents were part of a defamation lawsuit brought by Giuffre against Maxwell, which was confidentially settled in 2017
  • The case is separate from the criminal proceedings against Maxwell, who is accused of procuring girls as young as 14 for Epstein to abuse

By Daniel Bates For Dailymail.com, 23 July 2020

A judge today has ordered the unsealing of a vast tranche of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, which could shed light on his friendship with powerful men accused of having sex with his victims.

Judge Loretta Preska said that 80 documents – which will run to hundreds of pages – should be made public within a week.

The documents will include depositions from Ghislaine Maxwell, which could explain her alleged role in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

They could include details about Maxwell’s sex life that her lawyers have previously tried to stop from being released, relating to a seven-hour, 418-page deposition Maxwell gave which her legal team said was ‘extremely personal, confidential’.

In filings Maxwell’s lawyers have called the depositions a ‘series of (efforts) to compel Maxwell to answer intrusive questions about her sex life’.

The documents will also include communications between Maxwell and Epstein from January 2015 when Virginia Roberts made explosive allegations about them in court papers.

In the papers Roberts claimed she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew three times when she was just 17 at Epstein’s command.

The case is separate from the criminal proceedings against Maxwell, 58, who is accused by federal prosecutors of procuring girls as young as 14 for Epstein to abuse. She has pleaded not guilty and is due to stand trial next year.

A judge today has ordered the unsealing of a vast tranche of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein , which could shed light on his friendship with powerful men accused of having sex with his victims. The documents will include depositions from Ghislaine Maxwell , which could explain her alleged role in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation

They include flight logs from Epstein’s jets, a deposition in 2016 in which Maxwell’s lawyers said she was asked ‘intrusive’ questions about her sex life. The documents also include police reports from Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein had a home

Although the case is separate from Maxwell’s criminal case, one of the unsealed deposition documents is linked to her perjury charge.

The case ruled on Thursday was originally brought by Roberts, now a 36-year-old mother-of-three who lives in Australia and goes by her married name Virginia Giuffre.

She sued Maxwell in 2015 for defamation because Maxwell accused her of lying.

Roberts said in court filings that Maxwell recruited her and other girls into a sex trafficking ring for ‘politically connected and financially powerful people’.

The case was settled in 2017 for an undisclosed sum but media organizations sued for documents in the case to be made public.

Judge Loretta Preska said that 80 documents – which will run to hundreds of pages – should be made public within a week

During the hearing at Manhattan’s federal court, Judge Preska said Maxwell’s right to privacy was outweighed by the need for the documents to become public.

She went through the dozens of documents, which included Giuffre’s depositions and various dull-sounding legal papers.

The contents however could be explosive and may contain fresh evidence against the wealthy elite who socialized with Epstein.

After the ruling Maxwell’s lawyer Laura Menninger asked for a two week delay in the unsealing so they could file an appeal in the Second Circuit in New York.

Menninger said: ‘There have been some significant changes with respect to my client’s positions and perhaps known to everyone listening to this, while we were speaking about a potential ongoing criminal investigation (before), since that time Miss Maxwell has been indicted and a trial has been scheduled.

‘Now we are in a vastly different position and have grave concerns about our clients ability to receive a fair trial given the intense media scrutiny around anything that is unsealed’.

Giuffre’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley said she wanted the documents made public ‘as swiftly as possible’.

Judge Preska said if the Second Circuit had not ruled within a week then the files should be made public.

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Portland bans police from working with federal law enforcement

President Trump cancels the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville Florida Over Chinese Virus Concerns

WATCH LIVE: President Trump holds press briefing at 5pm

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

‘Fascist’: What Top Democrats Say About Federal Law Enforcement Help for Their Cities

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Democratic mayors and other leaders of some large cities have grown edgier in opposing President Donald Trump’s push to use federal agents to quell violence, using terms such as “resist” and “fascist.”

Some elected Democrats in affected cities have vowed to sue and even arrest federal agents as they criticize federal action to protect government property in Portland, Oregon.

For “Operation Legend,” the White House has announced plans to send federal law enforcement officials to Chicago; Kansas City, Missouri; and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Over the next three weeks, the Justice Department intends to expand the effort into Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee.

Two regimes are fighting an ideological war in America today. But what side are you on? And how can you sharpen up on how to defend your position? Learn more now >>

Democratic mayors and other leaders in these and other cities mostly object, according to news reports.

Marching with protesters Wednesday night in Portland, Mayor Ted Wheeler was tear-gassed by federal agents. Wheeler said he was “pissed off” and called the situation “flat-out urban warfare” wrought by the president.

Cities across the nation have seen various levels of unrest and violence since the May 25 death of a black man, George Floyd, in police custody in Minneapolis.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who heads one of America’s most violent cities, previously opposed intervention by federal officials. However, after Trump’s announcement Wednesday of “Operation Legend,” Lightfoot offered a more diplomatic comment.

“I’ve been very clear that we welcome actual partnership,” Lightfoot said. “But we do not welcome dictatorship. We do not welcome authoritarianism, and we do not welcome unconstitutional arrest and detainment of our residents. That is something I will not tolerate.”

Leo Schmitz, chief of public safety at the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, attended the White House event Wednesday announcing “Operation Legend.” His jurisdiction includes Chicago.

Before his announcement on putting down violent crime in cities, Trump had mentioned the possibility of sending federal law enforcement to New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, and Oakland, California, which are among U.S. cities with the highest crime rates.

“I’m going to do something—that I can tell you,” Trump told reporters Monday in the Oval Office. “Because we’re not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these—Oakland is a mess. We’re not going to let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats.”

That same day, Philadelphia officials provided some of the most aggressive rhetoric, even threatening to arrest federal officials in the city, making fascist comparisons, and vowing to “resist.”

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said: “My dad volunteered and served in World War II to fight fascism, like most of my uncles, so we would not have an American president brutalizing and kidnapping Americans for exercising their constitutional rights and trying to make America a better place, which is what patriots do.”

“Anyone, including federal law enforcement, who unlawfully assaults and kidnaps people will face criminal charges from my office. At trial, they will face a Philadelphia jury,” added Krasner, who was elected in 2018 with the help of a super PAC funded by liberal billionaire George Soros. “It’s the least we can do to honor those who fought fascism, including those who are fighting it even now.”

In another interview with Democracy Now, Krasner said:

These are Pennsylvania offenses over which the district attorney in Philly has jurisdiction over that area, and we can bring those charges. The law is very clear. We can proceed with those charges in state court. Under certain circumstances, they might end up being processed in federal court. But, initially, we can bring those charges. We can pursue them. And as much as possible, we can put those individuals in front of a Philadelphia jury, who might have something to say about those tactics.

[ … ]

I would say President Trump is definitely a wannabe fascist. I’m not sure he can spell the word, but he definitely is someone who’s in love with dictators.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney didn’t push back quite as hard, but still resisted the idea of federal law enforcement assistance.

“The president’s threat is wrong on many levels,” Kenney said. “To send federal agents to police U.S. cities that have not requested such aid can only impede the work of local governments and exacerbate already heightened tensions in these cities. And to target cities that are led by Democratic mayors is clearly a politicization of federal resources that should outrage all taxpayers.”

“While the city of Philadelphia has not received any formal notification that federal agents will be sent here,” the mayor said, “we would use all available means to resist such a wrongheaded effort and abuse of power.”

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that the city would sue to keep federal law enforcement out, Fox News reported.

“I want to be very, very clear that we will not allow this to happen,” de Blasio said, adding: “We are New Yorkers and we won’t take lightly if we see federal officers in New York City. If we do, we’ll be in court.”

Trump said “Operation Legend” is named for 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro of Kansas City, who was shot and killed in late June. His killer hasn’t been found.

Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith was among those attending the White House event Wednesday where Trump announced the operation.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, however,  called the law enforcement initiative “dog-whistling.”

“What we don’t support is an expanded and broadened mission, which is what we’ve seen in Portland and what we’ve seen hinted at in interviews from the president that look like a federal takeover of policing in Kansas City,” Lucas said, according to The Kansas City Star.

Sheriff Manuel Gonzales of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, a top law enforcement official in the Albuquerque area, also attended the White House event.

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, however, told CNN that the law enforcement operation is “about inciting violence.”

“You almost know that something is up because one, the president is talking about Albuquerque, which doesn’t usually happen,” Keller said, “but two, we’ve been told nothing and usually we get formal MOUs [memos of understanding], we get details, there’s task forces that are put in place. We have received no formal documentation on this at all.”

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said a federal presence would be divisive, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.

“With few exceptions, protests in Milwaukee have been peaceful,” Barrett said in a statement. “It is preposterous to suggest Milwaukee needs federal agents to quell unrest or manage peaceful protests. Their presence at this time could be counterproductive.”

After Trump named Cleveland as one city that would get assistance from federal law enforcement, Mayor Frank Jackson’s administration told the Plain Dealer newspaper that it “has not been made aware of any additional federal law enforcement resources coming to the city.”

“The Cleveland Division of Police has in the past and will continue to partner with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to combat violent crime in our neighborhoods,” the statement reads. “In [December], the Division of Police announced the Relentless Pursuit initiative, which is designed to combat violent crimes in our neighborhoods with our federal, state and local partners.”

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan told local media: “Early on, we made the decision [that] the bond between the Detroit Police Department and the community was strong enough we could handle the protests ourselves.”

Separately, Duggan issued a joint statement with Detroit Police Chief James Craig opposing federal assistance, which said:

There could be no possible justification for such an action. The Detroit Police Department has had the support of the Detroit community in making sure our city did not have a single store looted or a single fire started during the protests.

Unlike nearly every other major city in the country, the Detroit Police Department never requested assistance from the National Guard–we handled our issues as a community. We definitely have no need for any federal presence being sent in now.

Although Trump mentioned Baltimore earlier this week, a spokesman for Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young told the Baltimore Sun that the city had no indication that the Trump administration had moved on any plans to send federal law enforcement.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf accused Trump of trying to distract Americans from COVID-19.

“I don’t need law enforcement in Oakland; I need testing, I need personal protective equipment,” Schaaf said. “We need direct income support for people who are out of work, that’s what we need. This president seems to confuse a political bent.”

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

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

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When you get access to this course today, you’ll learn key takeaways like what it means to be a conservative, what “modern progressivism” is, how a conservative worldview differs from a progressive one, and much, much more.

You will come away from this online course with a better understanding of the differing points of view, how they align with your principles, and how to defend your beliefs.

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The Great Progressive Propaganda Machine

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David Carlin: Leftist propaganda is so well-coordinated that some believe a command-and-control apparatus lies behind the whole system.

A stable society is made up of people who largely agree on certain “self-evident truths.”  Now, it may be that these common beliefs are not truly self-evident, the way for example the proposition “the whole is greater than any of its parts” is self-evident.  But they are felt to be self-evident.  Almost nobody doubts them.  And if you are one of those rare persons who do doubt them, people will think you’re at least very odd and perhaps even dangerous.  They may wish to punish you for your dissent.  They may even wish to put you to death.

For most of human history these taken-for-granted beliefs have been the result of a slow and largely spontaneous growth.  But in the twentieth century the Communist Party (CP) in the Soviet Union demonstrated that it was possible to manufacture a social consensus suddenly and intentionally.  (Something very similar happened in Nazi Germany).  In the USSR, all organs of propaganda – newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, movies, radio, TV, schools, colleges, universities, and more – were controlled by either by the CP or by the state, which was in turn totally controlled by the CP.  Only messages approved by the CP got access to the general public; all political dissent was effectively silenced.

Of course the official propaganda didn’t persuade everybody.  But in the absence of counter-propaganda it persuaded vast numbers of people.  As for the unpersuaded, they were usually prudent enough to shut their mouths.  And if they were so imprudent as not to, they were either shot or sent to the Gulag.

This exact thing cannot happen in the United States since we are not a one-party state and we value freedom of speech, thought, press, and religion.  Largely on account of our Protestant heritage, we value the right of private judgment; in other words, the right to dissent, to think for ourselves.

But if the Soviet (or Nazi) model cannot exist here, something very like it can – and does. Let me call it the Great Progressive Propaganda Machine (GPPM).  It is made up of a number of apparently independent elements: (1) the mainstream journalistic media, both print and electronic; (2) the entertainment industry: movies, TV, popular music; (3) our leading colleges, universities, and law schools; (4) most of our public schools; (5) liberal Protestant and Jewish denominations; (6) the Democratic Party.

The propaganda message put out by this GPPM is so well co-ordinated that some people believe there is a conspiratorial command-and-control apparatus lying behind the whole system.  I myself don’t believe this, but I’m not surprised that many do.  It certainly gives the appearance of being controlled from behind the scenes.

And what is the content of the propaganda that the GPPM disseminates among the American public, especially among the younger generations thereof?

  1. That, with the exception of adultery (or equivalent kinds of infidelity), there is nothing morally wrong with sexual relations between (or among) two (or more) consenting adults provided they take reasonable precautions against disease and unwanted pregnancy.
  2. As for adultery, it is not intrinsically wrong; it is wrong only insofar as it involves deception and promise-breaking. Provided it is done with the express or tacit consent of the cheated-upon spouse, it is quite unobjectionable.
  3. That abortion is morally unobjectionable, and often admirable.
  4. That homosexual conduct is natural for many persons – those who are “born that way.” Hence homosexual conduct is not only morally permissible for such persons, it is virtually obligatory; for it would be a perversion of nature for a person having a nature-given (or God-given) homosexual orientation to abstain from conduct consistent with this orientation.
  5. That same-sex marriage is a splendid thing, fully as splendid as opposite-sex marriage.
  6. That if you object to homosexuality or same-sex marriage you are a hater.
  7. And if you object, not because you personally feel hatred, but because your religion tells you to object, then you have a religion of hatred.
  8. That a trans man/boy is a man/boy, and a trans woman/girl is a woman/girl.
  9. That voluntary euthanasia is morally unobjectionable, often admirable.
  10. That involuntary euthanasia is morally unobjectionable in many instances.
  11. That all conduct is morally permissible that does no direct and evident harm to others.
  12. That the USA is – not just in the remote past but even today – a profoundly racist country; it is and always has been a “systemically” racist society.
  13. That if you disagree with proposition #12 you are yourself a racist.
  14. That the typical white police officer is strongly prejudiced against black males, especially young black males, and is psychologically prepared to harass such males and even to inflict bodily harm on them.
  15. That the typical Donald Trump supporter is at a minimum deplorable and at a maximum a barbarian or fascist.
  16. That Christianity – at least in its ancient forms, e.g., Catholicism and Evangelical Protestantism – is an outdated and wicked religion (as implied by items #1 through #11 above).

How many Americans actually believe the items on this list of GPPM doctrines?  Well, most persons who earn their living within the GPPM are believers, or at least half-believers – though no doubt a few merely pretend to believe in order to keep their jobs.

Further, most young persons (ages 17-29) believe, especially young persons who aspire to being “cool.”  Many corporate executives, especially executives of really big corporations, either believe the items or have no objection to them; for if they were to object their businesses would be subject to public denunciation and perhaps even boycotts.  Better to “buy protection” by agreeing with the doctrines and contributing money to the cause.

As for the remainder of the American population – most of us are intimidated.  Like anti-Communists in Russia (and anti-Nazis in Germany), we have decided that discretion is the better part of valor.  We’ve decided to shut up and mind our own business.

But as millions learned under Communism and Nazism, cowardice – sooner or later – won’t protect you.

COLUMN BY

David Carlin

David Carlin is a retired professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island, and the author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America.

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

VIDEO: ‘This Operation Is Personal To Us.’ LeGend Taliferro’s Mother Asks Communities To Support Operation Legend

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The mother of a four-year-old boy who was shot and killed while he slept in a Kansas City, Missouri, apartment in June spoke in support of the Justice Department’s program to send federal officers to aid local law enforcement Wednesday.

LeGend Taliferro was shot on June 29, KSHB Kansas City reported. Shortly after his death, President Donald Trump launched a federal law enforcement operation called “Operation Legend” in Kansas City, and on Wednesday, Trump announced an expansion of Operation Legend to cities hardest hit by violent crime.

“Operation Legend is not to harass, it’s not to harm, or to hurt. It is to help investigate unsolved murders,” said Taliferro’s mother, Charron Powell. “This operation is personal to us. We want justice for our son and others. We have to take a stand in our communities and speak up to help this operation be successful.

WATCH:

As part of the expanded program, Trump said the Department of Justice will send hundreds of federal law enforcement officers from agencies including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals Service, Homeland Security, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to combat violent crime in Chicago, Illinois.

Trump said “we have no choice but to get involved,” after noting that local leadership is responsible for policing neighborhoods.

“In recent weeks, there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle, and dissolve our police departments. Extreme politicians have joined this anti-police crusade and relentlessly vilified our law enforcement heroes,” Trump said.

“To look at it from any standpoint, the effort to shut down policing in their own communities has led to a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders, and heinous crimes of violence. This bloodshed must end, this bloodshed will end,” Trump said. “Today I’m announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime.”

The DOJ will contribute more than $61 million in grants towards hiring “hundreds” of new police officers in cities that are the target of Operation Legend, the White House announced Wednesday.

“We will never defund the police. We will hire more great police,” Trump said.

Nationwide calls to defund the police followed George Floyd’s death after a Minneapolis police offer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, video of the incident shows.

COLUMN BY

KAYLEE GREENLEE

Reporter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

VIDEO: When the New York Times covered up one of communism’s worst atrocities

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A drama about the Holodomor, the 1930s genocide in Ukraine, is also a warning about fake news.

One of the great, universal truths is that everybody lies. From tiny white lies to great big whoppers, everyone does it, even babies. Don’t believe me?

“Sorry I’m late, traffic was terrible.”

“It’s so great to see you!”

“Doing well, thanks for asking!”

“I have read and agree to the above terms and conditions.”

These are just a handful of the easy, casual lies that we all offer up on an everyday basis. And much of the time, these kinds of lies are fairly harmless. These tiny deceptions are baked into most of our social interactions and, in many ways, grease the wheels of polite society. After all, how awkward and uncomfortable would our conversations be if we actually told the truth every time someone asked how we’re doing?

These are the lies we expect to be told and are expected to tell. And while I would personally like to see more honesty in everyone’s day-to-day interactions, I understand the purpose of these kinds of deceptions.

That said, the truth always matters. We may expect some level of insincerity in certain situations, but in others, honesty is more than simply suggested—it’s required.

When it comes to reporting news, telling the truth is vitally important.

The term “fake news” has been abused to the point of uselessness, but false reporting does exist and has for a long time. The information we receive through various media outlets and platforms is frequently critical for how we plan our days and how we plan our lives. When that information is false, intentionally or not, it can cause us very real problems.

Sometimes, the consequences are as simple and relatively benign as getting caught in the rain without an umbrella. Sometimes, though—and especially with intentionally misleading or false information—the results can be devastating to livelihoods and lives.

One of the most egregious examples of this was the coordinated cover-up of the Holodomor—a famine in the Ukraine deliberately created by the Soviet Union in 1932 and ’33.

In the span of a year, decreased output due to the forced collectivization of farms and the confiscation of foodstuffs by the Soviet army led to the deaths of between seven and ten million people, mostly ethnic Ukrainians. It was, in short, a genocide by means of starvation.

Freelance reporter Gareth Jones broke the story. He did what he was supposed to do as a journalist. He told the truth.

Unfortunately, Jones’s reporting shined an incredibly unflattering light on the fact that the news reports coming out of Moscow regarding the impressive successes of Soviet agriculture were false. Walter Duranty, the Moscow Bureau Chief for the New York Times, and the rest of the foreign press corps in Moscow promptly launched a coordinated campaign to discredit Jones’s reporting, despite the fact they all knew Jones was telling the truth.

Eugene Lyons, who was the Moscow correspondent for United Press at the time, even wrote in his 1937 book Assignment in Utopia:

Throwing down Jones was as unpleasant a chore as fell to any of us in years of juggling facts to please dictatorial regimes—but throw him down we did, unanimously and in almost identical formulations of equivocation. Poor Gareth Jones must have been the most surprised human being alive when the facts he so painstakingly garnered from our mouths were snowed under by our denials. … There was much bargaining in a spirit of gentlemanly give-and-take, under the effulgence of [Foreign Press Corps Soviet Official Konstantin] Umansky’s gilded smile, before a formal denial was worked out. We admitted enough to soothe our consciences, but in roundabout phrases that damned Jones as a liar. The filthy business having been disposed of, someone ordered vodka and zakuski.

It should be noted that both Duranty and Lyons were true believers in the communist cause and didn’t hesitate to use their positions as arbiters of truth to deceive the western world regarding the actual situation in the Soviet Union. As a result, around ten million people were starved to death during the Holodomor, and yet the Soviet Union continued to be propped up by Western governments and their investments. Furthermore, in total, approximately 100 million people have been killed by communist states since the Bolshevik Revolution which was allowed, in part, by the deceptions of professional “truth-tellers.”

This is not to say that bias, in and of itself, is to blame. Another great, universal truth is that everyone has some kind of bias. No matter how hard we try to be objective and relate only the facts, at least a little bit of that bias is going to show through. But there isn’t anything inherently wrong with having a bias, especially when it’s acknowledged.

The problems come when the bias in people we rely on to report the actual facts internally absolves them of telling outright lies to further their ideological goals.

This is not a problem of the past, either. Whether it’s an incident of claiming to have COVID-19 when they don’t or building an entire career out of fabricated “news” articles, the long and sordid story of falsified reports continues to this day.

This kind of “reporting” isn’t limited to simply lying, either. Blithely passing along uninvestigated press releases or unconfirmed allegations as fact also damages our trust in news media. Given how common such reporting is, it’s no wonder trust in news media in the US is only about 29 percent.

And then we wonder why so few people comply with suggestions and warnings given by the news media.

A commonly-offered solution to this problem with news media trust is fact-checking by a small handful of officially approved arbiters. However, the reason that Duranty and the New York Times, Lyons and the United Press, and the other members of the foreign press corps in Moscow were able to cover up the horrors of the Holodomor is precisely because only a handful of media outlets were considered legitimate.

Policies, regardless of who institute them, that centralize the distribution and judgment of truth would end up doing the opposite of what they intend. We would be right back to the bad old days of journalism where media monopolies could spread misinformation largely unchallenged.

It’s not hard to find some pretty spectacular fact-checking failures, and this is beside the fact that people tend to reject fact-checks that contradict their core beliefs regardless.

We in the US enjoy fairly robust legal protections for free speech and a free press, which, to be clear, is a good thing. But what can we do when reporters don’t do their jobs correctly?

The solution is not to curb or restrict speech that doesn’t meet certain criteria. And it’s certainly not to limit the sources of various kinds of information. The only way to improve speech is to encourage more speech. We need an actual marketplace of ideas where consumers of information are able to judge for themselves what sources of that information meet their quality requirements and which do not.

The solution isn’t a single, official voice of truth. It’s billions of voices. It’s the competition of different ideas and their purveyors. It’s individuals thinking for themselves and accepting the responsibility that comes with that.

The reason the true believers of the Moscow foreign press corps faked their stories was that they feared the truth would hinder the cause they’d placed their faith in. But if a cause can be crushed by the simple telling of truth, it’s not much of a cause at all.

The truth matters and the truth will out, even in our world of “fake news” and clickbait.

But only if we let it and only if we demand it.

This article is republished from The Foundation for Economic Freedom under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Jen Maffessanti

Jen Maffessanti is a Senior Writer at FEE and mother of two. When she’s not advocating for liberty or chasing kids, she can usually be found cooking or maybe racing cars. Check out her website. 

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

College women, take heed: Prioritize marriage and family!

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A marriage and relationship coach encourages young women to follow their hearts, prioritizing marriage and family.

In the last week alone, I’ve spoken with three millennial women (who reached out for coaching) who are all in the same boat: they’re up to their eyeballs in debt, having gotten degree upon degree due to the pressure they felt from their parents and the culture to do something big with their lives. To not let their intellect go to waste. To not worry about finding a man to marry or even having children because, well, they have bigger fish to fry.

These women aren’t just in debt—they’re crestfallen. All they want is to have a family of their own, but they’ve been so conditioned to believe marriage and motherhood constitutes a lesser life, they don’t dare admit this desire. I can’t tell you the number of single women who tell me they’d give up their career in a hot second for a husband and kids.

And it’s not just unmarried women. Many of the wives and mothers I hear from are working at professions they don’t care much about, and want more time at home to be with their kids and to live a slower-paced life. Problem is, they married men who lack ambition (either that, or they had it but took a step back to accommodate their wives’ ambition) and as a result the women became their family’s main breadwinner. And it’s a role most of them hate.

Their predicament was inevitable. For one thing, modern women weren’t taught to look for a man who can provide for a wife and kids. Women are supposed to take care of themselves! That’s the narrative with which these women were raised, so it never occurred to them to look at a man’s professional prospects.

Second, by delaying marriage indefinitely, these women wound up with fewer choices. Good men of strong character, who are conscientious and gainfully employed, tend to marry younger, family-oriented women. These women may or may not have a college degree and/or a career, but they nevertheless view work as a secondary value to their main priority: marriage and family.

Ergo, by the time the career-focused women are around 30 years of age, the pickings are slim. They can look for a man who’s as ambitious as they, and occasionally they will find him—but sheer math means many will not. So they settle on the best they can get: men who are nice and who are safe, but who lack the necessary drive to produce on behalf of their families.

And we can’t dismiss the reason why so many modern men lack drive: because they’ve failed to launch. What did we think would happen in a culture that hails women’s ambition and independence from men and tells men, both verbally and subliminally, that they’re superfluous?

It’s the culture, along with the previous generation of parents, who created this mess. They instilled all the wrong messages and all the wrong values in the modern generation. As a result, women and men are paying the price.

Still, I have hopes for the women of Generation Z. I think they’re witnessing all of this; and while this group has problems of their own—anxiety, mainly—I don’t believe they’ll end up in the same boat as their millennial sisters. I think they will marry earlier, and they will prioritize motherhood. A career will likely be part of their lives, but it will not be the focus of their lives. It will not be their raison d’être.

That’s the crux of the problem for the women who reach out to me: they were taught that their value lies in what they do, rather than in who they are—that if they don’t live lives the way men live theirs, they are failures. And it’s tearing them up inside. One woman broke down after admitting she has spent a decade getting two degrees she doesn’t even want.

This is madness. Going into debt to prove one’s worth and struggling to do what previous generations used to do with ease—find a man and settle down—is hardly progress. There’s nothing empowering about any of this. College women, take heed: Do not let this be your fate! Prioritize marriage and family. Make it the center of your life, and fit everything else in around that.

No offense, but I’d love to not hear from you ten years down the line.

Republished with the author’s permission. Read the original article at SuzanneVenker.com

Suzanne Venker

Suzanne Venker (@SuzanneVenker) is the author of five books and a relationship coach, as well as host of The… 

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America’s Top 20 Cities for Crime, and What Party Runs Them

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RELATED:

This piece was authored by The Daily Signal, and its content solely reflects the published views of The Daily Signal and its journalists.

Annoyed that Senate Democrats are blocking a police reform bill, President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the 20 U.S. cities with the highest crime rates are all run by Democrats.

“The Senate Republicans want very much to pass a bill on police reform,” Trump said during a Rose Garden press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda. “I would like to see it happen. We won’t sacrifice. We won’t do that. We won’t do anything that is going to hurt our police.”

The president added:

We have a record positive rating on crime, a record positive rating on crime this year. The best. You hear about certain places like Chicago and you hear about what’s going on in Detroit and other cities, all Democrat-run. Every one of them is Democrat-run. The 20 worst, the 20 most dangerous are Democrat-run.

A quick fact check shows that Trump is at least mostly correct. One ranking says the top 20 most dangerous cities are run by 18 Democrat mayors and two mayors who were elected in nonpartisan races.

According to the website Neighborhood Scout, which in January published a list of the 100 most dangerous cities in America, heavily Democrat Detroit tops the list. At No. 20 is Chester, Pennsylvania, also with a Democrat mayor.

Trump went on to refer to the so-called autonomous zone in central Seattle, where extremists have taken over six city blocks.

“We have one city, two cities in particular, worse than Honduras, worse than Afghanistan. These are cities within the United States, Democrat-run. Radical left-run. You see what’s going on in Seattle. Seattle of all places, who would even think that’s possible,” he said, adding:

The Democrats want to weaken very substantially our law enforcement, our police. Frankly, they want to defund [police departments], at least largely. Some want to defund and abolish our police. If nothing happens with [police reform], it’s one of those things. We had different philosophies. They want open borders. They want sanctuary cities. We don’t.

Here is the Neighborhood Scout ranking of the most crime-ridden cities and their mayors.

1. Detroit

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 20.0

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 50

Mayor:  Michael Edward Duggan, Democrat

2. Memphis, Tennessee

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 19.5

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 51

Mayor: Jim Strickland, Democrat

3. Birmingham, Alabama

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 19.3

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 52

Mayor: Randall Woodfin, Democrat

4. Baltimore

Violent crime rate  (per 1,000 residents): 18.5

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 54

Mayor: Jack Young, Democrat

5. Flint, Michigan

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 18.3

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 55

Mayor:  Karen Weaver, Democrat

6. St. Louis 

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 18.2

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 55

Mayor: Lyda Krewson, Democrat

7. Danville, Illinois

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 18.0

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 55

Mayor: Ricky Williams Jr. (nonpartisan election)

8. Saginaw, Michigan

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 16.7

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 60

Mayor: Floyd Kloc (nonpartisan election)

9. Wilmington, Delaware 

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 16.3

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 61

Mayor: Mike Purzycki, Democrat

10. Camden, New Jersey

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 16.2

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 62

Mayor: Francisco Moran, Democrat

11. Pine Bluff, Arkansas

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 16.0

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 62

Mayor: Shirley Washington, Democrat

12. Kansas City, Missouri

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 15.9

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 63

Mayor: Quinton Lucas, Democrat

13. San Bernardino, California

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 15.3

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 65

Mayor: John Valdiva, Democrat

14. Alexandria, Louisiana 

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 14.6

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 68

Mayor: Jacques Roy, Democrat

15. Little Rock, Arkansas 

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 14.6

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 68

Mayor: Frank Scott Jr., Democrat

16. Cleveland

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 14.5

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 69

Mayor: Frank Jackson, Democrat

17. Milwaukee 

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 14.3

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 70

Mayor: Tom Barrett, Democrat

18. Stockton, California 

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 14.2

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 70

Mayor: Michael Tubbs, Democrat

19. Monroe, Louisiana

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 14.1

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 71

Mayor: James Earl Mayo, Democrat

20. Chester, Pennsylvania

Violent crime rate (per 1,000 residents): 14.0

Odds of being a victim: 1 in 71

Mayor: Thaddeus Kirkland, Democrat

EDITORS NOTE: The post America’s Top 20 Cities for Crime, and What Party Runs Them appeared first on The Daily Signal. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Google Scam — Go to Google Search type in any 3 numbers followed by ‘new cases’. You will be shocked!

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Dear Trumpers, Patriots and Pro-Lifers:

WARNING: COVID 19 FAKE NEWS UPDATE:

Hands down, here is the biggest scam this country has seen since Trump became our President – Barr none, AG!

Beyond comprehension that something this outrageous and troubling can take place in this country! I have been doing a ton of research on the Covid pandemic and trying to see why these numbers have been spiking through the roof, especially here in Florida. You know it’s a Despicable Dem tactic that they have pushed in order to destroy this nation and defeat Trump in November! It’s the Damn Dems last ditch effort to defeat President Trump!

When I first saw this post, I could not believe it. I clicked on Google like the video asks you to and plugged in different numbers. And, it showed all those Covid 19 cases being fabricated right before my own eyes! You should see all the bogus numbers and articles focusing on FLORIDA when you plug different numbers in! Outrageous!! Disgusting!

Watch the below video and simply follow the directions and you can see for yourself!

These alarming numbers and follow up articles are all FAKE NEWS and this crap needs to be stopped immediately! President Trump & Governor DeSantis need to be aware of this travesty immediately!

Incredible that something this dangerous and vicious can be occurring in our beloved America right now, scaring the hell out of everyone!

GOD HAVE MERCY ON US!

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