VIDEO: Hong Kong’s Freedom Protestors are Making Democrats Grimace

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During his farewell address from the Oval Office, Ronald Regan referred to the country he loved as “that shining city upon a hill … a magnet for all who must have freedom.” A century and a quarter earlier, Abraham Lincoln, on the verge of signing the Emancipation Proclamation, sent a letter to Congress in which he referred to America as “the last best hope of earth.”

Now threatened by the kind of ironfisted crackdown common to every communist nation in history (no exceptions), the people of Hong Kong see the great United States of America as that shining city upon a hill.

In the days since China threatened harsh action against the growing protest movement, freedom-loving Hong Kongers have defiantly waved U.S. flags at massive demonstrations in the city that finds itself in the crosshairs of the world’s most heavily-armed communist nation.

Not everyone sees America as that shining city on a hill, the last best hope of mankind. China certainly doesn’t see America that way, nor do other totalitarian countries, such as Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela. And neither does the modern Democratic Party, which decades ago stopped seeing their country as the greatest land of freedom the world has ever known.

That’s a tough charge, so please allow me to justify it.

Democrat icons of the 1960s—Adlai Stevenson, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, George McGovern, Hubert Humphrey and JFK, to name a few—were genuine American patriots who loved their country and saw it as a force for good, both at home and abroad, a sentiment shared by an overwhelming majority of that era’s rank and file Democrats.

Such is no longer the case.

According to Gallup, less than a third of today’s Democrats are extremely proud of their country. Less than a third, and trending sharply downward.  Democrats have soured on the place Lincoln saw as the last best hope of earth, the only country that ever went to war with itself to end the scourge of slavery.

Just as ominous as the precipitous drop in love of country among Democrats, an astounding 77% of today’s Democrats have fallen under the spell of socialism, according to a survey by Public Opinion Strategies. In other words, a solid majority of Democrats believe America’s 2-party capitalist system must be torn down and replaced with single-party socialism.

Must America be fundamentally transformed?

From ending slavery and dismantling segregation to Brown v. Topeka Board and the $22 trillion War on Poverty, no country in the history of the world has ever done more than this country to right the wrongs once committed against an oppressed minority of its own citizens.

Despite the remarkable racial progress since the 1960s—a fact no one can intelligently deny—the modern Democratic Party leaves no stone unturned at trying to con black Americans to believe that even after all these years, their country is still a racist hellhole, as it most definitely was in the 1960s.

Through its identity politics election strategy, the modern Democratic Party has not only tried to turn black Americans against their country, it has done the same with other “victim” groups it created, telling members of each group that their deeply-flawed country has it in for them.

Identity Politics

To overthrow a capitalist society, The Communist Manifesto calls for fomenting a titanic struggle by pitting a large victim class against alleged oppressors. In the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks rose to power by pitting the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. Over the last half-century, the Democratic Party has taken the concept of Marxist/Leninist class struggle to a new level through its use of identity politics. The term refers to politically subdividing the electorate into multiple factions (voting blocks), whose members are indoctrinated to believe that they have been singled out for persecution due to systemic prejudice against the identity group to which they belong. To wit: People of color are persecuted by racists & white supremacists, women by sexists & misogynists, refugees & illegal immigrants by xenophobes, Muslims by Islamophobes, gays & lesbians by religious bigots, the 99% by the 1%, and so on. The self-serving narrative of identity politics is that caring, inclusive and tolerant Democrats will righteously defend the members (voters) of each identity group from the constant onslaught of outrages inflicted by a country that has lost its way.

According to the most admired leader of the modern Democratic Party, the America of today is so flawed that things can be made right only through its “fundamental transformation.” At a July 2008 campaign rally, presidential candidate Barack Obama used that term when he vowed to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.”  If you’ve never seen the 10-sec. video, click on the preceding link. It’s chilling.

When Obama vowed five days before his first election to fundamentally transform the nation he soon would lead, few who voted for him thought to ask, transform it to what? America always needs improving, but is it such a sorry place that it must be fundamentally transformed?

Apparently so, according to Obama.

To fundamentally transform a nation means to bring about profound changes to its principles, values and institutions.  In the case of America, that means doing away with its two-party capitalist system in favor of single-party socialist rule that promises to cleanse society of oppression and provide a honeyed existence to all.

Sadly, Democrats have turned on that shining city on a hill, the last best hope of mankind. But not so the freedom-loving people of Hong Kong, who are waving American flags in defiance of tyranny, which you can bet your last dime is causing Stage 4 grimacing to the party of post-Americanism.

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RELATED VIDEO: ANTIFA attempts to stop a Canadian prof. from speaking because he believes classical civilization is the best

The Human as Guest?

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Robert Royal: At the Synod, humans are termed “guests” on earth. In fact, we are God’s creatures, meant to be here as much as any created thing.

Synods almost always move within established boundaries and the subjects they take on, the very language they use, are largely predictable. But a new term popped up at the Amazon Synod in the last few days that may be significant. Various sources say that the synod participants have been talking about changing our mentality from thinking of ourselves as the lords and masters of nature to our (allegedly) true position – as “guests” in the world.

As with much else that happens in discussions of ecology, this has its positive and negative sides. The positive side, a very positive side, is that it repudiates a centuries-old view that corrupted the Scientific Revolution at the very start. Rene Descartes spoke of making ourselves “masters and possessors of nature.” Francis Bacon went even further advising we “put nature on the rack for the relief of man’s estate.”

Now, needless to say, these assertions are naked brutality, not a Christian view. The false belief that the Bible – and not the early stages of the Enlightenment – sanctioned such callous supremacy has for more than a half-century now led a significant segment of environmentalists to think Christianity is responsible for environmental degradation, and should therefore be repudiated.

A Biblical view of nature begins at the beginning, with Genesis, where we are told “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (1:28)

The Hebrew word for “dominion,” the Bible scholars say, is pretty strong, the kind of rule a king – a good king – has over his realm. But it’s worth reminding ourselves that, prior to the advent and spread of modern technologies, nature was not always a loving mother to our race, but a stern foe. To this day, some people seem to think it’s unnatural when there are floods, droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, bizarre weather patterns. The truth is those things have been part of conditions on the earth since long before we ever came on the scene.

*

So the dominion of which the Bible speaks maybe be strong, but it is the strength of the steward who will make the desert bloom, cultivate the land, care for the animals, as he or she must do if we are to live on earth at all.

I have no idea where this notion of “guest” – the Italians have been saying ospite – came from. It seems to aim at humility and deference towards nature, which would be fine in and of itself. But the fact is that we are not guests here; we’re not like someone staying in a hotel or private home at the forbearance of the owners. We are meant to be here – we Christians and Jews believe, on the basis of divine revelation – and therefore we have an essential role to play.

I have said here before: the Amazon synod is not wrong to raise questions about the human treatment of nature because nature is not the purely materialistic thing (matter and energy interchanges) that the technological/scientific worldview presents to us. It’s useful at times to look at nature that way in order to achieve various goods. But that kind of science, which is not all of science by any means, cannot say anything about what’s central to human life: free will, intelligence, purpose – and finally, love.

So when synod participants talk about shifting from a technocratic paradigm to an ecological one, they’re actually harking back to a true Biblical perspective.

That’s if – and it’s a large if – we do not think of ourselves as some sort of encrustation on the land, as the more radical environmentalists seem to believe. Unfortunately the Vatican has largely drawn on the most radical environmental figures – not exclusively, but a lot – in developing ideas about our relationship with the Creation. It’s often turned to population controllers who advocate contraception and abortion, and – so far as anyone knows – has not much sought to help develop currents of thought and practice that do not regard us as a guest in the world – if not a pest.

It pains me to say this but some of our best intentioned Catholics seem to be so weighed down by abstract kinds of guilt (not the guilt that once existed over personal sins) that they only see Christian culture and the Western civilization to which it helped give rise as toxic, toxic all the way down. Poisoned by “dominion” in the Bible,  poisoned by colonialism, racism, sexism, slavery, genocide – all terrible things to be sure. But it is because of our Christian roots that we know that many things that have happened in Western culture, as in other cultures, are not exactly sterling examples of virtue and benevolence.

It would only compound those errors if we were now to regard ourselves as a mere “guest” on this planet. God has not told us that such is our lot in the world. Rather, it’s our responsibility to be his stewards, as I argued here the other day, until the true king comes again.

It will be worth watching if this talk of being guests continues to rise in prominence over the next week because, under the guise of humility, it tends toward yet another ideological distortion of human life on this planet.

We are not guests, we are creatures, God’s creatures, as much meant to be here as the rivers, the rainforests, the mountains, and the seas. More than they are, in fact. It’s a challenging prospect, but we should not shrink from, but embrace it.

COLUMN BY

Robert Royal

Dr. Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing, and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent book is A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century, published by Ignatius Press. The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West, is now available in paperback from Encounter Books.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 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.

President Trump is protecting Americans from Big Government

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During the Obama Administration, it became common practice for Federal agencies to target and penalize American families and small businesses. They got away with it by hiding behind vague, often secret interpretations regarding how ordinary citizens should comply with the government’s own maze of bureaucratic regulations.

When President Donald J. Trump took office, he pledged to turn the page on Washington’s regulatory overreach, giving the American people a government that’s finally accountable to its citizens. Building on that promise, the President signed a pair of Executive Orders today to ensure that the abuses that took place under the last Administration can never happen again.

Americans will no longer be kept in the dark.

First, Agencies will have to place their guidance documents on easily searchable public websites, allowing any American access to them. The government will be required to permit citizens to give their input on these guidelines, and they will have the ability to ask agencies to withdraw guidance they believe is wrong. Second, agencies will be strictly prohibited from enforcing rules that have not been made publicly known.

These common-sense changes come alongside the President’s historic efforts to cut burdensome red tape. In his first week in office, he issued a challenge to his Administration: For every new regulation introduced, 2 old ones must be cut.

That goal has been met—to say the least. As of today, the tally is 14 regulations that have been cut for every significant new one implemented. That makes for the largest deregulatory push since Ronald Reagan was President.

Unlike Obama, President Trump is protecting Americans from Big Government.

Acting OMB Director: “Trump Keeps Promise to Tame Bureaucracy That Runs Roughshod Over Americans”

President Trump signs ‘game-changing’ trade deal with Japan

During the U.N. General Assembly last month, President Trump continued to fight for fairer trade deals for American workers. The results of that hard work came to light Monday, when the President signed a pair of groundbreaking deals at the White House.

“These two deals represent a tremendous victory for both of our nations,” President Trump said. “They will create countless jobs, expand investment and commerce, reduce our trade deficit very substantially, promote fairness and reciprocity, and unlock the vast opportunities for growth.”

President Trump: This is a groundbreaking achievement for the U.S. and Japan

America’s farming community is the big winner from the first of Monday’s agreements, which dramatically expands their market access. Before this deal, Japan was already America’s third largest agricultural export market—accounting for $14.1 billion in food and agricultural exports last year. The terms are even better now, as Japan will eliminate or reduce tariffs on approximately $7.2 billion in U.S. agricultural goods.

Once the agreement goes into effect, more than 90 percent of American agricultural imports into Japan will be duty free or receive preferential tariff access.

“In the United States, these deals are a game-changer for our farmers and our ranchers . . . [they] will now be able to compete fairly in Japan against major competitors worldwide,” the President said.

The second deal signed on Monday focuses on digital trade, setting the same “gold standard” digital trade rules that are found in the President’s landmark United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). Vital online commerce will now be expanded, which brings a significant boost to the already roughly $40 billion worth of digital trade between America and Japan. It ensures America will remain a global leader in digital.

The President’s deal with Japan is a win for American farmers and businesses.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘There can be no reward’: Beto O’Rourke supports punishing religious institutions for views on sexuality

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VIDEO: The Vortex — Vatican Stealing Millions. Where’s the money?

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TRANSCRIPT

I’m Michael Voris coming to you from Rome, where, in the midst of the controversial Amazon Synod, we are also chasing down other unrelated stories as well.

Each day, we will bring you an update on the synod proceedings, but as we said, there’s much more to report from Rome than just the synod.

One of those stories, which has just been dropped by the Catholic media world, is the ongoing scandal involving the finances of the Papal Foundation.

Church Militant has learned exclusively that board members and the overall membership have been lied to by members of the U.S. hierarchy about a certain $25 million.

Here’s the background first.

Last year, soon after the news of McCarrick broke and grabbed headlines all over the world, it came out that the charitable organization, the Papal Foundation, had been manipulated by McCarrick, in part, to send a $25 million grant to the Vatican.

Directly involved in McCarrick’s plotting was Cdl. Donald Wuerl, the point man in getting the board of directors to approve the loan.

The money was supposedly earmarked for here, the IDI hospital in Rome. IDI stands for the Immaculate Dermatological Institute in Rome.

Owing to the Church’s long-standing presence and involvement in charitable work here in Italy, it is not uncommon at all for the Vatican to have deep involvement with hospitals all over the country.

The problem with IDI is that it has been scandal-plagued for years — massively in debt, hundreds of millions of Euros.

There was a time recently when it was so heavily in the red that employees were not being paid and held a strike in the hospital’s parking lot demanding pay.

So when McCarrick and Wuerl approached the board of directors of the Papal Foundation in the United States to fork over $25 million, many of them balked, concerned that money they had all personally put up to assist the Pope’s personal charities was being misspent.

Eventually, Wuerl was abe to sufficiently twist arms and hoodwink the lay members for the board that they agreed to at first an $8 million grant, and then a second payment of $5 million for a total of $13 million.

That second payment was railroaded through by Wuerl on a secret ballot.

When news started circulating among lay members of the foundation that something iffy was going on, many of them demanded the $13 million be returned to the foundation, especially in light of the breaking scandal of sex abuse cover-up by so many bishops.

One of those bishops was Michael Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, outed as a homopredator and thief. Bransfield, it turns out, was dipping into not only his own diocesan funds to support a lavish lifestyle but also Papal Foundation monies.

He had access to the funds because he was president of the foundation, and if you are getting the picture that this whole thing seems like one big ripoff scam, you’re not far off.

Bransfield used almost $10,000 of Papal Foundation money to rent a private jet to fly to the funeral of one of the original lay founders of the board. But none of that was disclosed to membership. It has come out in light of the scandal surrounding Bransfield in his home diocese.

Now here’s the gigantic news.

When members demanded at the beginning of this year that the $13 million be returned, they were assured by Wuerl and company that it would be. Months went by and nothing happened.

When members started asking difficult and uncomfortable questions about why the money still had not been returned seven months later, they were told that someone had decided the $13 million would not be returned in whole but converted into a loan.

Who the loan was made to was not made clear. Was the loan directly to IDI hospital which is so far in debt no one in Italy would give them a loan? Or was the loan made to the Vatican, who would then give the money to IDI? To this day, it’s unclear.

But there is a lot unclear about this loan, and members have started asking very uncomfortable questions. In fact, this past August, an email was circulated among a huge number of Papal Foundation members asking some very pointed questions about the “loan.”

Church Militant was eventually shared on the email, which is explosive, revealing what appears to be a “fake” loan.

Close to a hundred members were shared on this email, and it’s causing a stir behind the scenes. These Catholic millionaires want to know where their money is. The email in question reveals a series of questions about the specifics of the loan and the answers are, well, unbelievable.

Question: What is the necessary collateral to justify this loan? Answer: There is no collateral.

Question: Who prepared the load agreement? Answer: Cardinal Parolin’s letter of intent to repay is our only agreement.

Parolin is the Vatican secretary of state, the second most powerful man in the Vatican. That indicates that this scheme goes all the way to the top of the Vatican.

Question: Who is the party responsible for this loan? Answer: The Vatican, we hope, on some level.

Question: Signer on the loan? Answer: None.

Interest rate charged on the loan? None.

When will the loan be amortized, meaning when do payments begin and over what time period?

Answer: Cardinal Parolin stated that they would endeavor to start to repay us in 2022.

What penalty will be assessed if payments are not made? Answer: None.

So what do we have here – total stonewalling from the Vatican about what amounts to a theft of at least 13-million dollars from the Papal Foundation – involving Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin.

No answers; only deflection, lies and/or incomplete, misleading statements.

Members privately tell Church Militant that the board got bamboozled by a fast-talking Theodore McCarrick, a strong-arming Donald Wuerl, a thieving Michael Bransfield, and the whole thing is being nicely covered up and stonewalled by Cdl. Parolin.

And as stated earlier, there isn’t the slightest bit of evidence where this money is.

So one immediate question needs to be asked. Did Cdl. Parolin, in cooperation with members of the U.S. hierarchy, cook up a scheme to essentially steal $25 million from charitable Catholic U.S. millionaires and then divert the funds away from the supposed recipient and just keep the money in the Vatican bank?

It’s a very solid question because the Vatican ran nearly $80 million into the red last fiscal year.

Could this have been a scheme to try and alleviate that debt?

What we do know is the Vatican is bleeding money and all Papal Foundation funds first come here to the Vatican where the Pope’s men then distribute the money. But what if they don’t actually distribute the money?

A shady “loan” is raising all these questions.

Was it a loan? Was there ever a loan? Why was the promise to simply return the money broken and eight months later members informed about the supposed loan?

And perhaps the two most important questions: Where is the $13 million? And is Pope Francis’ number two man involved in a scheme to pilfer millions of dollars from unsuspecting generous Catholics in the United States?

Cardinal Sean O’Malley is now the new president of the Papal Foundation — placed, not elected into that position, by Donald Wuerl.

These are questions he needs to answer.

Members also tell us that all this scandal for the past year is taking its toll.

In years past, the foundation would get two or three new members a year, promising to give a million dollars to the Pope’s charities.

In the past couple of years, only one new member has joined, according to sources.

Likewise, a sizable number of members have simply stopped sending in their annual pledges — understandable.

One line from the email best sums up the entire fiasco: “This is typical of business as usual from the hierarchy of the Church.”

It appears theft can now be added to the list of crimes and immoralities happening here under the Francis papacy — unaccountable, zero transparency, lies, cover-up, deflections.

RELATED ARTICLE: AMAZON SYNOD REPORT — LOTS OF APPLAUSE (FOR REVOLUTION) And it IS revolution.

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

Judicial Watch Uncovers Rosenstein Email to Mueller: ‘The Boss’ Doesn’t Know We’re Talking

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Rod Rosenstein, formerly the deputy attorney general, is a key figure in enabling, at a minimum, the Deep State’s seditious attacks on President Trump.

More proof is in new documents uncovered by a Judicial Watch lawsuit.

Specifically, we forced the release of 145 pages of Rosenstein’s communications that include a one-line email from Rosenstein to Mueller stating, “The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions.” They also include “off the record” emails with major media outlets around the date of Mueller’s appointment.

We filed a lawsuit to get these documents after the Department of Justice failed to respond to our September 21, 2018, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

We were seeking any and all e-mails, text messages, or other records of communication addressed to or received by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein between May 8, 2017, and May 22, 2017.

The time period referred to in this suit is critical. On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memo to President Trump recommending that FBI Director James Comey be fired. That day, President Trump fired Comey. Just three days later, on May 12, Rosenstein sent an email assuring Robert Mueller that “The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions.” (It is not clear if the “boss” is then-AG Sessions or President Trump.)

In a May 16, 2017, email, sent the day before Mueller’s appointment, Rosenstein emailed former Bush administration Deputy Attorney General and current Kirkland & Ellis partner Mark Filip stating, “I am with Mueller. He shares my views. Duty Calls. Sometimes the moment chooses us.”

The next day, May 17, Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

During the same period, between May 8 and May 17, Rosenstein met with then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and other senior Justice Department FBI officials to discuss wearing a wire and invoking the 25th  Amendment to remove President Trump.

The documents also show that, again during the same time period, Rod Rosenstein was in direct communication with reporters from 60 Minutes, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. In an email exchange dated May 2017, Rosenstein communicated with New York Times reporter Rebecca Ruiz to provide background for this article about himself. Ruiz emailed Rosenstein a draft of the article, and he responded with off-the-record comments and clarifications.

  • In an email exchange on May 17, 2017, the day of Mueller’s appointment, Rosenstein exchanged emails with 60 Minutes producer Katherine Davis in which he answered off-the-record questions about Mueller’s scope of authority and chain of command:

Rosenstein: “Off the record: This special counsel is a DOJ employee. His status is similar to a US Attorney.”

Davis: “Good call on Mueller. Although I obviously thought you’d be great at leading the investigation too.”

  • On May 17, 2017, in an email exchange with Washington Post journalist Sari Horwitz with the subject line “Special Counsel,” Rosenstein and Horwitz exchanged:

Rosenstein said, “At some point, I owe you a long story. But this is not the right time for me to talk to anybody.”

Horwitz: “Now, I see why you couldn’t talk today! Obviously, we’re writing a big story about this Is there any chance I could talk to you on background about your decision?”

These astonishing emails further confirm the corruption behind Rosenstein’s appointment of Robert Mueller. They also show a shockingly cozy relationship between Mr. Rosenstein and anti-Trump media reporters.

Here’s some more background on the incredible finds from this one Judicial Watch lawsuit:

On September 11, we released 14 pages of records from the Department of Justice showing officials’ efforts in responding to media inquiries about DOJ/FBI talks allegedly invoking the 25th Amendment to “remove” President Donald Trump from office and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offering to wear a “wire” to record his conversations with the president.

On September 23, we released a two-page memo, dated May 16, 2017, by then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe detailing how then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire into the Oval Office “to collect additional evidence on the president’s true intentions.” McCabe writes that Rosenstein said he thought it was possible because “he was not searched when he entered the White House.”

As the “coup” targeting President Trump continues through the House impeachment abuse, it is important to remember that its origins are in the Deep State agencies – especially the FBI and DOJ.

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

Britain Get Talking!

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These are my views as a woman living in England, on how the culture and spirit of my country has changed over 50 years.   Why the country does not feel protected or strong any more, how it has lost, and is losing it values and decency, and how we are daily losing our free speech.

I couldn’t quite believe what I was listening to, or not listening to as the case might be, when this weekend some television presenters across the UK decided to go silent for a minute in order to promote conversation, and get Britain talking about the nation’s mental health.   It was stated that anxiety and depression in children has risen by 48% since 2004!

As silence reigned across the airwaves, apparently giving people the opportunity to talk to each other about their problems, the brief irony of not being indoctrinated with conflicting beliefs and statements made from the well-known faces blankly staring back through the TV screen, had been a welcome relief instead.

You see, some of these presenters are extremely inept at silencing people and tying them up in knots when they do not follow the politically correct narrative of the day.

The silence last night, although only momentary, was impregnated with this ‘Truth’.

And as I listened to the growing statistics of people both young and old who suffer with depression and anxiety with no-one to talk to, I wondered just how prepared our society is to really listen to some other core factors which are avoided, silenced and kept away from the public and especially our children in our never ending suppression of ‘Truth’?

The intended creation of confusion through a steady stream of brainwashing, and the suppression/dismissal of ‘facts’ has surely been a massive contributor in what is called our present day mental health problems.

In our advanced technological age where people are continuously connected to each other, surely it is not necessarily our isolation from others, although it is a contributing factor, but it is the growing distance from which we now stand, separated from an inward source connected to common sense, fact and rational against the influence of a ‘common purpose’ ideal. It is this ideal which labels people bigoted if it does not go along with its narrative.

Yes, some of those people who pretend to love everyone and think we should talk are really bullies, and they have no real patience or time whatsoever for those who might see more rationally.

Another mental health charity states the cause of our suffering is British reserve!

With the promotion of contempt towards anything which promotes moral character, values and sanity, British reserve is now a myth, and it is not causing people to suffer in silence. Political correctness, is just one of the branches with is at the real root cause of our silence and our suffering.

Brexit – The Betrayal

One of the main changes in British characteristics which I have observed during the course of my life is how courtesy or consideration towards others has been used against us in order for other people to get their own way.  There is no trick or emotion that a person without a conscience or any consideration towards others will not use against you.

The battle between kindness and the total displacement of any genuine and individual identity has ruthlessly left many people, and in particular an older age group, totally dismissed and their once respected voices are now silenced in respect to another generation who blames them for not fighting harder for their ‘climate’.

Today’s propaganda about climate change which is questionable on so many levels is turning the youth against adults to state that “the older generation will die of old age, the younger generation will die of climate change”! Really. There are a few world wars which may contest that statement.

It is a sad reality that many older people, who have made it through our poisoned environment, never used air travel, never had a car, survived on rations, and never had the privilege of using today’s modern technology in the UK today, as younger people do.   Many old people will often say they are really glad they will be leaving this earth because they are sick and tired of what they ‘see’ and ‘hear’

Brexit, in 2016, when 17.5 million people voted to leave a construct called the EU, is also the defining moment where it has become evidently clear that those voices really didn’t matter or count, even if certain politicians pretended they did…….

Who do you say I am?

Certainly another one of the biggest injustices today is the disregard which is being shown to parents who do not wish their children to receive RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) in schools to children who are sometimes as young as 4 years old.   Used as a vehicle to promote LGBT values, it is reported that many concerned parents also consider the new teaching to be a tool to state sponsored sexual grooming and abuse.   It is a lie that the material helps children who suffer from gender dysphasia.   It is creating it.

I have viewed some of the material which is shown to young children and it does attempt to influence very young boys to think they could be ‘gay’ if they don’t like playing with girls.   (Perfectly natural when you are a young boy)  The material also suggests that it is natural for boys to wear dresses if they ‘feel’ like it.

It is disturbing and very cruel that parents are being labelled bigoted, rather than being concerned or caring about the material which is highly suggestible to their children. Recent demonstrations made against a school in Birmingham, highlighted the fact that the parents who demonstrated were Muslim; however, the concern being expressed throughout the country is from a large cross section of society, including LGBT people, and also various religions, including Christianity.

In light of this, it is reported that guidelines made by the Department of Education in respect of objectors, have been distributed to schools.   It is claimed it offers preventative measures on demonstrations which may be organized; how to ensure rapid response from law enforcers, how to work with faith leaders and politicians, and how to work legally in applying for injunctions and/or anti-social behaviour orders.

Regardless of the obvious concerns beings expressed by many concerned parents and professionals, the state is ploughing ahead with its plans regardless of Protocol 1, Article 2 of the European Convention of Human rights, which is in English law under the Human Rights Act 1998.

“In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.”

No-one is really talking about the immense distress that parents are experiencing.  In some cases, very young children are being encouraged to use hormone blockers without their parent’s permission or knowledge.

The statistics for fatal blood clots, suicidal behaviour, brittle bones and sterility potentially created by hormone blockers, and the statistics for people who suffer from trans-regret are also not mentioned in the information being provided to children.   Many people do not know that there is a huge ‘ex-gay’ community who are also silenced.

Whilst this section of society stays quiet, it is reported the BBC, have, however, been talking quite openly to teachers and informing them there are 100 genders or more that 9 – 12 year olds can choose from.

Whilst celebrating diversity, there are so many people who are not allowed to speak on this matter.   Political correctness has ensured these people will really suffer in silence……….

The Shedding of Blood

One could not help but make some connection between the recent pictures of the red-robed, ‘Extinction Rebellion’ activists who are being allowed to passionately demonstrate against global climate and wildlife emergencies across cities in Europe, and the symbol of red they are using.  There is the shedding of blood from 8.6 million abortions in England and Wales which have occurred over the last 50 years. Those silent voices together with the silenced voices of the parents who have suffered from mental health problems as a result of their choice is one particular horror which is distinctly kept as low key as possible.

The red-robed extinction rebellion activists have chained themselves to railings, stopped traffic, and received the highest exposure possible. Whilst adults and now a growing number of children will happily lie down in the road to take a stand about climate change and animal welfare, they may never be exposed to the filming of abortions or hear about the cruel way babies bodies are torn apart and used to experiment upon.

It is reported that a coffin with a plaque ‘Our Future’ was parked in Trafalgar square by a climate change activist. In many respects they fail to see that their extinction is already being devised through means other than the climate.

Are climate change activists a useful distraction against abuse which is really taking place?

The horror of how mankind is encouraged to destroy itself and how we are subjected to silence about that injustice through social manipulation, is perhaps our greatest shame of all; but all is not lost. Urgent action is needed. Our hope is a reconnection from the place where we fell.   Restoration is possible.  We need to be aware of the slyness of evil and how it operates.  Children’s lives depend on it, and they need to know we really care.

The silence which was instigated over the weekend is a good place to be.  Truth originates from there.   It was where it all began.

Let’s talk about it …………

RELATED ARTICLE: UK Court Deems Christian Doctor’s Belief In Two Genders “Incompatible With Human Dignity”

© All rights reserved.

Read the White House’s official response to Speaker Pelosi and Democrat leaders

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This evening, the White House sent an eight-page letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrat leaders, responding to the unprecedented, unconstitutional “impeachment inquiry” launched against President Donald J. Trump.

The letter, written by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, lays out how Democrat leaders designed a politically motivated inquiry that violates the constitutionally mandated due process protections:

You have denied the President the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witnesses, to receive transcripts of testimony, to have access to evidence, to have counsel present, and many other basic rights guaranteed to all Americans. You have conducted your proceedings in secret. You have violated civil liberties and the separation of powers by threatening Executive Branch officials, claiming that you will seek to punish those who exercise fundamental constitutional rights and prerogatives. All of this violates the Constitution, the rule of law, and every past precedent. Never before in our history has the House of Representatives—under the control of either political party—taken the American people down the dangerous path you seem determined to pursue.

The facts are clear. The House Democrats’ “impeachment inquiry,” undertaken without a single vote of authorization by the full House—an astonishing breach of precedent—is constitutionally invalid and violates both basic due process rights and the separation of powers. By the admission of its own advocates in Congress, it plainly seeks to reverse the election of 2016 and to influence the election of 2020. Not only is there no legitimate basis for the inquiry, but the committees’ actions in pursuing it themselves raise serious questions that demand full transparency with the American people.

Read the White House’s full response to Speaker Pelosi and Democrat leaders.

How President Trump is securing our border—without Congress’ help

At a White House briefing today, Acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan announced the fourth straight month of a sharp decline in illegal immigrant apprehensions along America’s southwest border.

In September, just over 52,000 apprehensions occurred—a stunning improvement from the 144,000 in May.

 Acting Commissioner Morgan: The President’s actions are working.

How did this happen? It’s not because Congress finally stepped up after decades of broken promises and inaction. Instead, President Trump combined stricter enforcement of long-neglected laws with tough negotiations between the United States and its neighbors to the south. Today, for example, Mexico is helping to address the flow of illegal caravans that had been marching unimpeded through Mexico to the U.S. border.

Part of this renewed enforcement, of course, includes building the wall.

The work is far from finished, however. The underlying cause of our country’s immigration crisis—incentives in our laws to circumvent America’s safe, legal, and fair immigration system—are still there. If Congressional Democrats continue to insist on outsourcing control of our borders to criminal smugglers and cartels, both American citizens and migrant families will suffer.

“The bottom line: We still need Congress to pass meaningful legislation to address our broken legal framework when it comes to immigration,” Acting Commissioner Morgan said. “And while Congress has failed to bring a single piece of meaningful legislation to the floor, this President and this Administration is doing exactly what he promised to the American people.”

Watch: The media won’t report it, but our Border Patrol officers are saving lives!

 Mile by mile: We are building the border wall.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Left’s Real Impeachment Wish

Ukraine Whistleblower Appears to Skirt Law by Going Straight to Rep. Adam Schiff’s Office

Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, says “I’m not siding with anybody”

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It is foolish in the extreme, and ultimately self-defeating, to keep troops anywhere indefinitely, with no end point, no plan for victory, no clear goal — that just saps the nation’s resources and produces no good result. Anytime we leave Syria or anywhere else, anti-American elements will do their best to capitalize on our absence. But if the answer to this is to keep troops everywhere, then they will never come home, and we will need to send them into many more countries than those they’re currently in.

That way lies madness. And destruction. What is needed instead is a massive reevaluation of the basic assumptions of U.S. foreign policy, so that our energies, and our armed forces, are directed much more efficiently than they are now to blunting the force of the global jihad. We can hope that with the withdrawal from Syria, that reevaluation is on the horizon.

“Trump says he’s ‘not siding with anybody’ with Syria withdrawal,” by Kathryn Watson, CBS News, October 7, 2019:

Washington — President Trump didn’t let intense Republican criticism of his decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria rattle him Monday, insisting he made the right call in deciding to leave the unstable region to Turkey and other actors.

Experts and the president’s own allies like Senator Lindsey Graham fear the decision to withdraw from the region will endanger Kurdish allies there, with Turkey threatening to overwhelm them. Mr. Trump, asked why he’s siding with authoritarian Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over Kurdish allies, insisted he’s not siding with anyone and is adhering to his campaign promise of “America first.”

“I’m not siding with anybody. We’ve been in Syria for many years. You know, Syria was supposed to be a short-term hit,” the president said in the Roosevelt Room, where he signed two trade agreements with Japan.

The president said he’s leaving the region in the hands of Turkey, Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria — which is exactly what allies fear. Mr. Trump explained that he campaigned on pulling the U.S. out of needless wars in the Middle East, and noted the worst part of his job is writing to families of American soldiers who died….

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

Pelosi Hasn’t Really Started the Impeachment Process

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Does an impeachment inquiry require a vote of the full House of Representatives? President Donald Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., maintain that it does. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., claims that it doesn’t.

Pelosi is correct that the Constitution doesn’t explicitly require it. It simply gives the House the “sole Power of Impeachment.” But the gravity of even considering impeachment, fundamental principles of fair and impartial justice, and preserving our republican form of government, do require it.

Pelosi alone announced on Sept. 25 that the House was opening an impeachment inquiry, directing six different committees to investigate the president. This is radically different, and much more partisan, than how this serious step was taken in the past.

In 1974, like today, a Republican was in the White House and Democrats controlled the House. On Feb. 6, the full House voted 410-4 to authorize an impeachment investigation of President Richard Nixon by the Judiciary Committee. Similarly, on Oct. 8, 1998, the full House voted 258-176 for the Judiciary Committee to open an impeachment investigation of President Bill Clinton.

Pelosi’s claim that there is no “House precedent that the whole House vote before proceeding with an impeachment inquiry,” therefore, is simply false.

Other than declaring war, there is no more serious undertaking by the House of Representatives in our constitutional republic. Why? Because through impeachment, the House is charging a president with misconduct so serious that he should immediately be removed from office. In other words, the House is effectively seeking to neutralize the choice—and the votes—of the American electorate.

That is an extraordinary action, especially in a system of government based on the people electing their own leaders. And it’s also the reason that impeachment alone cannot remove the president; that requires conviction by two-thirds of the Senate (67 senators). Neither of the presidents who were impeached—Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1999—were convicted and, therefore, stayed in office.

In an Oct. 3 letter, McCarthy asked for a vote of the full House. He reminded Pelosi that the Judiciary Committee report on the Clinton impeachment investigation said:

“Because impeachment is delegated solely to the House of Representatives by the Constitution, the full House of Representatives should be involved in critical decision making regarding various stages of impeachment.”

An investigation to determine, in the words of the Clinton resolution, “whether sufficient grounds exist” for impeachment should be authorized by the body with the “sole Power of Impeachment”—the House of Representatives. Moreover, such a resolution should, as it did for the Clinton impeachment investigation, outline the rules under which it will be conducted.

McCarthy asked important questions that Pelosi’s announcement did not answer. Will the ranking minority member of the investigating committees have the authority to issue subpoenas and to question witnesses, or simply be ignored by the majority? Will the president’s lawyers be able to attend all hearings and depositions; to present evidence; to object to the admittance of evidence; to cross-examine witnesses; or to recommend witnesses to be interviewed?

As McCarthy says, if Pelosi says “no” to these questions, then she will be “denying the president the bare minimum rights granted to his predecessors.” Doing so would indicate that Pelosi and these committees do not intend to provide the fundamental due process rights we extend even to those accused of wrongdoing in our courts.

All Americans have an interest in the integrity of our government and the legitimacy of its actions. Departing from precedent; single-handed directives; freewheeling roving investigations by multiple committees; and running roughshod over the minority undermine that interest.

On the other hand, that interest is served by the entire House considering and authorizing an impeachment inquiry; a transparent investigation; authority for both the majority and minority committee members to investigate, subpoena, and call witnesses; and outlining the scope of the investigation.

America’s Founders did not put impeachment into the Constitution as a partisan tool to be used for overturning an election. How this process is conducted today will reveal who in the House of Representatives agrees with them.

Originally published in Fox News.

COMMENTARY BY

Hans von Spakovsky

Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. Read his research. Twitter: .

Thomas Jipping

Thomas Jipping is deputy director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

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End Impeachment Secrecy

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A Note for our Readers:

In the wake of every tragic mass shooting or high-profile incident involving gun violence, we hear the same narrative: To stop these horrible atrocities from happening, we must crack down on gun laws.

But is the answer really to create more laws around gun control, or is this just an opportunity to limit your Constitutional right to bear arms?

The researchers at The Heritage Foundation have put together a guide to help you better understand the 8 Stubborn Facts on Gun Violence in America.

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

GET YOUR FREE COPY NOW! >>

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

MSNBC’s Las Vegas Anti-Gun Rally

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On Wednesday, anti-gun news outlet MSNBC, along with their partner organizations Giffords and March for Our Lives, hosted nine Democrat candidates for President for what was billed as a “Gun Safety Forum.”  Most of the time was spent by candidates and anti-gun activists railing against guns, NRA, and occasionally, President Donald Trump.

As one can imagine, there really wasn’t much new discussed, as candidates continued to try to convince Democrat voters that each is the most anti-gun choice.  At times, it seemed like a fight might break out over who had the most outrageous scheme to disarm law-abiding Americans.

Everyone seemed to agree on “universal” background checks, “red flag” laws, and that there is an “epidemic” of gun violence in our country.  But as each candidate took the stage for their individual allotted time, most tried to separate themselves from the others.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, one of the higher polling lower tier candidates, started things off, trying to draw a connection between passing new gun laws and combatting “white nationalism.”

Buttigieg also promoted gun licensing, as well as “red flag” laws and “universal” background checks.  Attacking NRA, he made the patently false allegation that our association represents the interests of gun manufacturers, rather than our 5 million dues-paying members.

Mayor Buttigieg also talked about banning semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15, making the confusing statement that such things should not be sold “anywhere near an American school or neighborhood.”  He seemed to clarify later that he was not talking about limiting where gun stores could operate, but meant he wanted to ban these popular rifles.

While trying to sell the constitutionality of banning some of the most commonly owned firearms in America, he made two bizarre comparisons.  First, he said that people can own slingshots, but not nuclear weapons, followed by stating that water balloons are legal, but predator drones are not.  It’s hard to imagine a more ridiculous comparison than one between children’s toys and actual weapons of war while discussing the Second Amendment.

His support of banning AR-15s, however, did not, at this time, include support for the type of confiscation scheme that has been promoted by one of the other candidates.  More on that later.

Former HUD Secretary and San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro was next. He promoted increasing the tax on ammunition to further drive up its cost and supported the banning of so-called “assault weapons,” but fell short of calling for their confiscation.  Instead, he promoted a voluntary “buy-back” scheme, followed by registering those not turned in and tracking their future transfer, similar to the way fully-automatic firearms are currently regulated.  While he did not mention fully incorporating them into the National Firearms Act (NFA) protocols, that seemed to be where he was heading.

Next was New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.  He stated support for banning and confiscating semi-automatic firearms, pushed so-called “safe” storage laws, and promoted his scheme to implement a federal licensing program for gun owners.  He went so far as to call out all of his opponents that don’t support his position, claiming anyone who does not support licensing “should not be a nominee from our party.”  He then went on to pat himself on the back for pushing “the most ambitious” gun plan.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has been leading the pack in some polls, then spoke.  She promoted the idea of limiting firearm purchases to one-a-month, and also suggesting a 7-day waiting period before a law-abiding citizen could take possession of a lawfully purchased firearm.  She also threatened a federal investigation of NRA—a clear attempt to quash our right to free speech, and that of our more than 5 million members.

Following Warren was former Vice President Joe Biden. While Biden had been the favorite in the race, at one point commanding a lead of more than 25-points over his closest rival, his advantage has all but disappeared.  Biden again raised his make-believe idea on gun control—mandating guns that can only operate utilizing “biometric markers.”  He also pushed a ban on the manufacture of AR-15s and similar rifles, coupled with regulating those that are currently owned under the NFA.  This scheme has been promoted by representatives of Giffords, one of the sponsors of the event, so Biden was clearly playing to the audience.

His presentation was marked by the usual rambling, odd tangents, and self-promoting hyperbole to which we’ve grown accustomed.  At one point he stopped in the middle of praising those behind March for Our Lives to clumsily transition to talking about the federal restrictions on hunting migratory waterfowl; pointing out that there is a limit of three shells in your shotgun when in the field.  That brought him to discussing putting limits on the number of rounds one can have in other firearms.  Biden seems to be struggling with determining an arbitrarily acceptable limit on ammunition capacity, so maybe he’s now testing out the idea of using three.

Former Texas Representative Robert Francis O’Rourke, who self-identifies as “Beto,” took the stage after Biden.  He specifically called out Mayor Buttigieg for not supporting his gun confiscation idea, all but calling him a coward.  He seemed to imply the same about Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (R-N.Y.) and Senator Chris Coons (D-Del) for their questioning the level of support for the disarmament scheme.

O’Rourke also pushed the popular lie among the anti-gun crowd that AR-15s and similar semi-automatic rifles are “weapons of war.”  He even made the outrageously false claim that such firearms are “sold to the militaries of the world.”  Of course, this is just an evolution of what gun-ban advocate Josh Sugarmann began promoting in the late ‘80s, when he wrote about so-called “assault weapons”:

“The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”

Of course, millions of law-abiding Americans own semi-automatic rifles, while fully-automatic firearms are strictly regulated under the NFA, and are what is actually “sold to the militaries of the world.”

He also claimed that, when the Second Amendment was ratified, it took “three minutes to reload a musket.”  In fact, someone in the 18th century who was familiar with their musket could fire and reload it two- to three-times a minute.  While that fact has little to do with the debate over gun control, what O’Rourke ignores is the more relevant fact that those privately owned muskets were no different than the muskets used by those in “the militaries of the world.”

The bottom-tier candidate waited until near the end of his time to break out two of the shticks for which he has become somewhat famous; profanity and high school-level Spanish.

Another bottom-tier candidate, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, was next, although she didn’t really bring anything new to the discussion.  She mostly echoed the same, tired gun-control ideas promoted by those who came before her.  Perhaps that is why she has been struggling throughout most of her campaign to generate more than 1% support in the polls.

Businessman Andrew Yang, who can’t seem to achieve much more than mid-single digit support in spite of promising to give people “free” money, had some curious ideas.  He appeared to support Biden’s “biometric markers” idea, and mentioned expanding on the Booker notion of licensing by promoting a multi-tiered licensing program, although he didn’t offer real details on that while on stage, other than there would be different licenses for different guns.

Yang also mentioned wanting to keep track of people who own multiple firearms, but also offered no details on accomplishing this to the audience.

Two particularly odd ideas stood out.  First, in order to counter the impact of organizations like NRA, he suggested giving every American $100.00 of what he referred to as “Democracy Dollars.”  People could give this money to lawmakers and candidates to help influence their votes, which sounds a bit like buying votes.  While we do not support the notion of buying votes, perhaps Mr. Yang did not consider the fact that NRA has five million members.  Does he really want to add more than half-a-billion dollars that could be used to support the campaigns of candidates that support the Second Amendment?

His other odd idea, which may be better described as troubling, was the suggestion that gun manufacturers be fined every time one of their lawful products is used by a criminal.  One presumes he is not suggesting the same penalties for the makers of any other lawful products commonly used by criminals.  If he did, then he would likely be accused of trying to bankrupt the entire manufacturing industry, rather than just those that manufacture firearms.

One other odd statement he made, but also didn’t go into any real details about, was implying that criminals who use firearms to kill others are somehow victims.  This line of thought deserves no additional commentary.

Finally, California Senator Kamala Harris spoke, offering nothing substantively new.  She reiterated her desire to use executive action to implement many of her schemes.  Perhaps hoping to avoid the ire of O’Rourke, she made clear that she supports his approach to banning and confiscating AR-15s and similar semi-automatic firearms.  Some of the candidates who took the stage mentioned their version of supporting the Second Amendment included, at least to some extent, the right of self-defense.  Harris, however, spoke only of respecting the Second Amendment as it relates, in her mind, to the tradition of hunting.

Ultimately, this anti-gun rally produced what would be expected of an event run by an anti-gun news outlet and anti-gun organizations.  The same gun control ideas that have been promoted ad nauseum by radical extremists for years, or even decades.  It was at least slightly interesting to see at what lengths candidates will go to try and out-anti-gun one another, especially considering the controlled environment where there was no chance of facing any sort of push-back.  Especially from citizens who still respect the Constitution, individual freedom and our right to keep and bear arms.

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EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Brennan Questions ‘Stability’ of the U.S. Under Trump

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On NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, former CIA Director John Brennan said “there is a real question about the stability” of the United States under President Trump .

Asked how the CIA would assess the stability of the American government right now as if it were a foreign power, Brennan replied, “We would look at it as a very corrupt government that is under the sway right now of this powerful individual who has been able to just corrupt the institutions and the laws of that country.”

Asked if the U.S. was a stable democracy, Brennan answered, “I think it’s no longer a democracy if an autocrat has it in his hands… Given the tremendous political instability here which is consuming the government now, it’s not able to take care of the issues that it need to address, whether it be on the domestic front or the foreign policy front. Yes, there is a real question about the stability.”

The country would be a great deal more stable if Deep State subversives like Brennan hadn’t spend Trump’s entire term attempting a coup.

John Brennan

17 Known Connections

In a March 2015 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Brennan refused to refer to the Islamic State (ISIS, a.k.a. ISIL) terror group as an “Islamic” entity. Said the CIA director:

“[Q]uite frankly I am amused at the debate that goes on [that] unless you call it [Islamic terrorism] what it is, you don’t know what you’re fighting. And let’s make it very clear that the people who carry out acts of terrorism, whether it be Al Qaeda or the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [ISIS], are doing it because they believe it is consistent with what their view of Islam is. It is totally inconsistent with what the overwhelming majority of Muslims throughout the world [believe]. And so by ascribing it as a Muslim terrorism or Islamic extremism — I think it does really give them the type of Islamic legitimacy that they are so desperately seeking, but which they don’t deserve at all. They are terrorists, they’re criminals. Many of them are psychopathic thugs, murderers, who use a religious concept and masquerade, mask themselves, in that religious construct. And I do think it does injustice to the tenets of religion when we attach a religious moniker to [ISIS]. The Muslims I know … The people I’ve worked with throughout the Middle East most of my career find just disgraceful that these individuals present themselves as Muslims…. The words we use can have resonance … [W]hat they [ISIS terrorists] do has no basis in any upstanding religions.”

To learn more, click on the profile link here.

RELATED ARTICLE: John Brennan Traveled to Ukraine On Fake Passport, Was It To Get Dirt On Trump?

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

PODCAST: CrowdStrike and the Impeachment Frenzy, Ukraine reopened the Burisma-Biden probe in 2018, Minimum Wage Has Trade-offs . . .

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GUESTS AND TOPICS:

Ryan Young, Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). His writing has appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, The Hill, Investor’s Business Daily, Forbes, Fortune, and dozens of other publications. He is a frequent guest on radio programs, been interviewed by outlets including The Huffington Post and Voice of America, and been cited in media outlets including ABC News, CNN, and London’s City AM. He formerly hosted the CEI Podcast, and writes the popular “This Week in Ridiculous Regulations” series for CEI’s staff blog.

TOPIC: Minimum Wage Has Trade-offs

George Parry Contributor to The American Spectator, The Federalist, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. George is a former federal and state prosecutor. George served as: Special Attorney for the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, U.S. Department of Justice 1972-1978; Unit Chief, Investigations Division, Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office 1978-1983; Special Organized Crime Prosecutor, Blair and Cambria counties (central Pennsylvania) 1983-1992; Legal Analyst, KYW-TV 1988-1998; George now has a private trial practice in Philadelphia.

TOPIC: CrowdStrike and the Impeachment Frenzy

Robert Romano, Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government. He grew up in a suburban Long Island township, Rocky Point, where he graduated from high school. He studied and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Stony Brook University with the Class of 2008. In his free time, he composes music on piano, paints oil on canvas, and writes fiction. TOPIC China Tariffs.

TOPIC: Ukraine reopened the Burisma-Biden probe in 2018

For the Soul of America, “Shifty” Schiff Must Go

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Folks, I do know about you, but I am extremely annoyed. I grew up believing in Superman’s America which stood for truth, justice and the American way. But when I see blatantly corrupt politician Adam Schiff in charge of a bogus investigation to impeach our obviously innocent president, something has gone terribly wrong in our country. My heart is heavy for my beloved country and the rule of law.

Allow me to recap for soccer moms and dads who are busy earning a living. Fake news media and Democrats launched another lie-filled treasonous silent coup to remove Trump from office.

On TV, Adam Schiff lied to the world, claiming that during a phone call Trump threatened the president of Ukraine. Schiff said Trump told the Ukraine president that if he did not dig up dirt on Joe Biden, he would hold back funds from Ukraine.

To the horror of Schiff, Democrats and fake news media, Trump made the unprecedented decision to publicly release the transcript of the phone call between him and the Ukraine president. The transcript proved that everything Schiff reported Trump said was a lie.

In an America in which truth and justice rule, Schiff would be politically tarred and feathered and run out of Washington DC on a rail.

Incredibly, Schiff is celebrated by fake news media and Democrats. Ignoring the truth in the transcript, Democrats are still leaving Schiff in charge of their investigation to impeach Trump which is based solely on Schiff’s fabricated version of Trump’s phone call. Not only is this insane, it is infuriating.

This is not our America folks. We cannot and must not allow Shifty Schiff to arrogantly go unpunished and wreck havoc on Trump’s presidency. At the very least, Schiff must be fired from leading his bogus impeachment investigation.

News coverage of fake news media and Democrats’ insane campaign to impeach Trump is like watching the Emperor’s New Clothes. Knowing the Emperor was naked, all his subjects pretended to love his new outfit. A confused little boy spoke the truth, yelling, “The Emperor is naked!”

Washington DC knows Schiff’s impeachment investigation is based on lies. And yet, fake news media, Democrats, never-Trump Republicans and Conservatives are behaving like Schiff has evidence to impeach Trump. Where are the Republicans with the courage to stand up for truth and justice? In essence, yelling, “Schiff is naked!”

Despite Trump’s actual words during the phone call published for the world to see, fake news media and Democrats are behaving like the transcript does not exist. Atrociously, they are promoting Schiff’s made-up version of what Trump said, hoping to deceive voters.

Fake news media and Democrats are attempting to establish a new precedent. I realize fake news media and Democrats have always spun the words of Republicans. But Schiff writing his own version of what Trump said during the phone call and boldly presenting it as the president’s actual words is a whole new level of arrogant evil deception on the American people.

Be of good cheer folks. God promises evildoers will get their just rewards. Shifty Schiff and his treasonous homeys will fail again in their never-ending campaign to destroy our president.

Trump will be reelected in 2020. However, we must remain engaged, each of you doing your part to insure victory in 2020. It can be as simple as sharing with your neighbor a few of the long list of great things Trump has achieved for America. It is crucial that we counter fake news media and Democrats’ lies and non reporting of Trump’s unprecedented achievements.

Trump has our economy booming. The Labor Department reported that unemployment is 3.5%, a 50 year low. Wages are skyrocketing. Hispanic unemployment continues to plummet to historic lows. Black unemployment is at its lowest ever. 

Your fellow patriots joined me, lending their singing voices to enthusiastically sound the rallying cry for our president. The Trump Train 2020 Song website is LIVE! Enjoy the song. Here is the link to the Facebook page. Please like and share.

So, I jumped into my car to run to the post office. Over the radio, ABC News reported that Trump said the call for impeachment is a sham. The reporter continued saying, “But the allegations are backed up in the record of the phone call.” That is a blatant lie. The transcript (record of the phone call) exonerates Trump. Do you see the massive coordinated campaign of deception and lies against our president?

The battle for 2020 is on! Let us, “Trust in God and keep your powder dry.” Oliver Cromwell.

© All rights reserved.

What You Need to Know About the Transgender Case at the Supreme Court

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This interview, which is lightly edited, originally aired on “Problematic Women.”

Lauren Evans: Welcome back. Virginia and I are in the studio today with religious liberty superstar Emilie Kao. Emilie is an attorney and director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation and has spent the past 14 years fighting for religious liberty. Welcome to the show, Emilie.

Emilie Kao: Thank you, Lauren.

Evans: There’s a case that will be heard by the Supreme Court where a man who identifies as a woman is alleging sex discrimination after being fired from their job at a funeral home. Can you tell us more about this case, Emilie?

Kao: Yes. The Harris Funeral Homes case originated when a male employee of a funeral home wanted to start presenting as a woman. He wanted to start dressing as a woman, and the funeral home has a sex-specific dress code, which is legal.

The funeral home owner, Thomas Rost, was very concerned, not only about his employees, his female employees, who might have to share bathrooms with the male employee, but also about the effect on the people whom the funeral homes serve. Because these are people who are grieving at a time when they’re very focused on their emotional loss, and it could be very distracting and even disturbing for them to see a man dressed as a woman.

So when the employee refused to comply with the dress code according to his sex, they decided to part ways with him and offered him a severance package.

What happened next was that the employee and the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, got involved and sued the funeral home. And the case has percolated up through the courts. They lost in the lower court and now it’s gotten to the Supreme Court.

Virginia Allen: Emilie, I want to ask you just to provide a definition for sexual discrimination.

Kao: The correct way to understand discrimination on the basis of sex—it is when one person is treated more disfavorably than a person of the other category.

So if you have a person who is male who is treated worse than a person who’s female because of their sex, that is sex discrimination. If you have a female who is treated worse than a male, that is sex discrimination.

Sex discrimination is not merely when you treat two people differently because we treat males and females differently all the time. That’s why we have some of the other sex-segregated spaces and events that we’ve talked about before. That’s why we have sex-segregated bathrooms. We have sex-segregated sports. Because the courts and the American people have realized men and women are different, and so there’s nothing discriminatory about having sex segregation in appropriate ways, sex-segregated spaces, sex-segregated events that involve a person’s physical capacity.

But what the people in the Harris Funeral Homes case are arguing on behalf of the employee who is identifying as transgender is that he was treated more poorly because of his status as a person who identifies as transgender.

He’s a male who wants to dress as a female. He’s a male who wants to use female restrooms. But that is not sex discrimination because the funeral home would have treated somebody of the opposite sex the same way if they manifested in the same way that this employee is.

So if you were a female employee of that funeral home and you wanted to identify as a male and use the male restroom and wear the male clothing that’s required by the dress code and be referred to as a male, the treatment would be the same of that female employee. So that’s why this case does not actually qualify for the sex discrimination category.

Evans: What was crazy to me about this case is that no laws were technically broken, correct?

Kao: Well, the claim of the EEOC and the employee is that the funeral home owner has violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.

The whole theory of the transgender-identifying employee is that sex actually means gender identity, which there’s nothing in the text that says gender identity. But they have a theory that sex should mean gender identity.

So they’re essentially saying that the EEOC can redefine sex, and they now want the Supreme Court to redefine sex. And the Supreme Court should stay in its own lane, which is to interpret the law, not make the law, which is Congress’ duty.

Allen: So, Emilie, this case is going to come before the Supreme Court on Oct. 8, where it will decide, hopefully, whether federal civil rights law that bars job discrimination on the basis of sex protects transgender people. What do you think we can expect?

Kao: I think you can expect from the funeral home side that they will say Congress should stick with the original public meaning of what the word sex meant in 1964. And that is it established a way of interpreting the law that the court should refer to the original public meeting, which means, what did a regular person in the general public understand sex to mean, not what did a particular member of Congress think?

I think everyone pretty much agrees that in 1964, the word sex meant biological sex, male or female, not a person’s subjective self-perception of their gender, which is what gender identity means.

So I think that there will be a lot of discussion about the procedural part, which is, what is the correct role of the Congress versus what is the correct role of the courts?

As your listeners may know, the Congress has actually been trying to amend the Civil Rights Act recently through the Equality Act to add the classes of sexual orientation and gender identity. So the fact that the Equality Act is being introduced in Congress sort of begs the question, “Well, if sex already meant gender identity, why would you have to add it through this legislation?”

We also know that through the decades, Congress has actually dealt with the question of gender identity. Sometimes they have added it to legislation like the Violence Against Women Act, but sometimes they have declined, they have projected the addition of the term gender identity. So the historical record’s pretty clear. Congress knows that gender identity and sex are two different things.

Allen: So if SCOTUS rules that gender identity does not apply to federal civil rights law, will that create a roadblock for Congress to move forward with the passage of the Equality Act?

Kao: I think it will clarify what the current understanding of the Civil Rights Act should be, and I think it will make it more difficult for the EEOC to continue to politicize these cases. But I don’t think it will make it more difficult in a procedural sense for Congress to try and pass something like the Equality Act.

However, I do think it could make the public support for something like the Equality Act change. Because I think one of the interesting things about this case is that it will bring to the forefront some of the issues that we’ve talked about, how gender identity essentially erases women as a coherent category in the law.

We’ve seen the manifestation of this in several cases like the homeless shelter in Alaska. They were sued because they would not allow a man into a space that was reserved for women who’d been battered, and abused, and trafficked. The whole theory behind the male plaintiff’s case was that he was being discriminated against on the basis of gender identity.

So we see from that case that when you introduce the idea of gender identity, it erases the protections in the law for women, for their safety, and privacy. And there are a number of other cases with women’s sports and with, unfortunately, a girl in a public school in Georgia being sexually assaulted after the school adopted a transgender bathroom policy.

Allen: Emilie, I’m glad that you brought up the Alaska case about the homeless shelter. I want to get into that for a moment. Let me just give a little bit of background to our listeners if they’re not familiar.

The Hope Center is a Christian nonprofit women’s homeless shelter in Anchorage, Alaska. Right now, we have some great news that we just received this week that they are now free to continue serving homeless women without the threat of looming legal action or even being shut down.

The reason why that threat arose to them was in January 2018, a drunk and injured man dressed in a pink nightgown tried to gain access to the Hope Center. During the day, the center does serve men and women by providing them with meals, laundry, and shower services, job skills training, and clothing. But in order to provide a safe space for homeless women, the shelter at night does only house women.

So when this intoxicated, biological man identifying as a woman came knocking on the center’s door after hours, the Hope Center sent the individual to the hospital to get the care he needed. They even paid for the taxi. But then the Hope Center faced a complaint from the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission claiming that the center had discriminated against this individual because of his gender identity. This appeared to be an attempt to attack the center’s Christian beliefs.

At that point, the Christian nonprofit legal defense firm Alliance Defending Freedom stepped in to help and they filed a lawsuit in federal court on the center’s behalf. In August, that court issued an order that temporarily stopped the city from misplaying this law against the Hope Center.

So, Emilie, I want to ask you, how big of a win is this, and do you think this is actually the end of this case or will there be maybe an appeal?

Kao: I think it’s a very big win, not only for the Hope Center but for similarly situated women’s shelters and other spaces for women around the country. I think it’s a great precedent. My understanding is that there was a settlement. So if there was a settlement, I don’t expect that this will be relitigated.

Evans: One thing that I’ve learned since this case has come out is that Anchorage actually has a higher than normal population of women who have been sex trafficked because it’s kind of a middle point between Russia and the United States. So … these women, they need a safe space.

How unique is this case, and are faith-based women’s homeless shelters under attack pretty much everywhere?

Kao: Unfortunately, this is not a totally unique case because we’ve also seen a case in California called Poverello House, I believe it is a secular women’s shelter, where the women were forced to shower with a man who was apparently making, they allege, lewd comments toward them in the showers.

It was actually the women in that case who sued because they did not want to be housed with a man and have to share intimate facilities with a man.

So I think that, unfortunately, wherever we see these laws that have sexual orientation and gender identity in addition to the other protected categories, there is the possibility that women’s safety and privacy will be compromised in spaces that used to be for their protection.

Evans: The name of the act is the Equality Act, and it puts, I think, our listeners and people who believe in religious liberty in a hard place when somebody is like, “Man, why aren’t you for equality?”

So what is kind of misunderstood about this case, and what are some talking points that our listeners can use when put in this hard place of wanting to love all people but wanting to protect women?

Kao: I think the term equality has been misused. I think that one basic thing you can say is that all people have dignity and deserve to be treated with respect. All people have equal status, but not all ideas have equal status. And we don’t have to agree on all ideas.

What the Equality Act would do is basically adopt a government orthodoxy on sexual orientation and gender identity. Now, those two categories are distinct from many of the other categories that are protected in the Civil Rights Act. So if you think of race and sex, those are both biological and immutable traits. Gender identity is a person’s subjective perception of their own sex, which people have the freedom to believe that, but people also should have the freedom to disagree with that, to say, “Well, I think you actually are either a male or a female,” and they don’t believe in gender fluidity.

Then, the category of sexual orientation, again, that also involves a person’s behavior or their conduct, which we are free to have different opinions about behavior and conduct. That is not an immutable characteristic. So, unfortunately, what the Equality Act would do is it would lead to a government orthodoxy, and that will lead to the punishment of dissenters.

Some of those dissenters will be people who have religious convictions. Some of those dissenters will be people with moral convictions. And some of those dissenters, as we’ve seen from the women who oppose the Equality Act, their objections are based on science and based on concerns for women’s safety, and privacy, and equality.

So, unfortunately, the Equality Act would establish a nationwide orthodoxy and punish disagreement.

Allen: Emilie, with cases like the Hope Center case, do you see this as the left weaponizing anti-discrimination law and then using that to attack faith-based organizations?

Kao: I think that the treatment of people of faith over the past few years by the left, especially by organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and actually some members of Congress, has been incredibly intolerant.

You look at some of the rhetoric, the way that they describe people like Jack Phillips, the baker from Colorado. In Colorado, some of the government officials compared him to a Nazi and a slave owner. When you look at the targeting of organizations, businesses like his, with boycotts and picketing and not only that but death threats, harassing phone calls.

That’s, unfortunately, not an isolated incident. We’ve seen that with many of the wedding vendor cases, many of the cases involving sexual orientation and gender identity. There’s been verbal harassment, and economic threats, boycotts, and also sometimes threats of physical violence.

So, unfortunately, I think our culture is at a point right now that the left’s intolerance of religious beliefs about sexuality, and marriage, and even sex differences is increasing. So the use of these laws to punish people for disagreement, I think, is part of an overall picture of increasing intolerance toward people who simply hold the view that marriage is between a man and a woman and that there are two sexes, male and female.

Evans: Emilie, we talk a lot on the show about the Equality Act and these transgender issues, but at the end of the day, we’re blessed in the United States to have the First Amendment that protects our right to religious liberty. A lot of people in the world don’t have that First Amendment protection, and you [look at] a lot of issues talking about international religious freedom. And I know President Trump made a speech … at the U.N. about international religious freedom.

Can you give our listeners kind of an update about what’s going on around the world with these religious freedom issues?

Kao: President Trump gave a landmark speech and elevated religious freedom at the U.N. General Assembly to a level that it’s never been elevated before, which is very critical because the U.N. tends to downplay the importance of religious freedom even though over 80% of the world’s population lives under serious restrictions of religious freedom. So it really put the U.N. on notice and many of the countries that are the worst violators of religious freedom on notice.

I thought a particularly interesting part of the event that he held was to spotlight the survivors of religious persecution, and some people who were there had family members who are still in prison in places like China and Iran.

So I think that the Trump administration has added at the U.N. General Assembly to the work that it’s been doing for the past few years with the International Religious Freedom Ministerial Summit that Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo and Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback have hosted.

They’ve done a great job on building multilateral cooperation. Their summits have brought together government leaders from over 100 countries, and it has fostered more cooperation in places like the Middle East, and Asia, and Europe to combat religious freedom violations.

Allen: Emilie, I want to take just a moment to let you share a little bit about an event that’s happening at The Heritage Foundation next week. Earlier in the show, Lauren and I took some time to talk about the epidemic of child abuse through child pornography. And there is an event that you’re hosting next week at Heritage that addresses this crisis. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Kao: Thanks, Virginia. Yes, we are very concerned about this growing epidemic of children being sexualized by adults through culture, and education, and health care. Sometimes, this is actually as a result of government-led initiatives, which means that it is actually the use of taxpayer money.

So we will be looking at issues like pornography and trafficking, also the introduction of comprehensive sexuality education in public schools, the introduction of sexual orientation, gender identity curriculum, the transgender policies, and private facilities like bathrooms and locker rooms, and the increasing politicization of health care for children with gender dysphoria that’s leading to harmful treatments of testosterone and surgeries on children. So we will be bringing together thought leaders from around the country to discuss these issues with one another.

Hopefully, this will be a great way for parents to learn about what they can do. We’ll be introducing the national parent resource guide on the transgender trend, which is a very helpful tool for parents, gives them practical steps that they can take if a transgender policy is being introduced in their school district, ways that they can talk to their school, and it tells them what their rights are.

So we’re really looking forward to bringing together all of these experts from around the country to find solutions to this growing epidemic.

Allen: When is the event taking place, and how can people register?

Kao: The event is Wednesday, Oct. 9 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. They can watch online, and they can register on the Heritage website. We will have three panels on culture, education, and health care, in that order.

>>> On Wednesday, Oct. 9, The Heritage Foundation and Family Policy Alliance will co-host a Summit on Protecting Children from Sexualization to examine these issues in-depth. The summit also will debut the National Parents Resource Guide on the Transgender Trend. RSVP for the event or watch the livestream here.

We really encourage all parents to tune in at some point to this summit because it will give them an overview of how children are being targeted for sexualization, will give them practical tools to fight back, and it will introduce them to some of the federal and state policies that can help solve some of these problems.

Evans: If you are a podcast person, all Heritage events are turned into podcasts. You can listen to it. It’s almost immediate, usually takes an hour or two for us to get it uploaded. Also, a lot of the participants in the panel will be doing interviews with The Daily Signal, which will run throughout the week and probably into next week.

Allen: Thank you so much, Emilie, for joining us. We really appreciate your time and you sharing your expertise with us.

Kao: Thank you.

COLUMN BY

Lauren Evans

Lauren Evans is the multimedia producer for The Daily Signal and The Heritage Foundation. Send an email to Lauren. Twitter: @laurenelizevans.

Virginia Allen

Virginia Allen is a contributor to The Daily Signal. Send an email to Virginia. Twitter: @Virginia_Allen5.

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VIDEO: The Vortex — Pagan Prayer and Tree Planting at the Vatican — Where is this all heading?

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TRANSCRIPT

And yes, controversial is the most apt term to describe these proceedings.

For example, on Friday, which happened to be First Friday, Pope Francis oversaw a tree-planting, Mother Earth-worshipping ceremony in the Vatican Gardens performed by Amazonian natives.

A group of natives opened up a blanket representing Mother Earth and placed various little statues around the perimeter.

Then, a feathered female shaman lifted her hands in the air and began some prayer ritual to some deity, or Mother Earth, or whoever — but definitely not Jesus Christ.

As the female shaman prayed to whoever or whatever, the rest of the group knelt down in prayer or worship — again, not to Jesus Christ, Lord of the Universe.

The entire sham was covered over by saying the ritual was a consecration of the Amazon Synod to St. Francis, on whose feast day this abomination occurred.

The hijacking of St. Francis by the modernists in the Church and turning him into an effeminate garden ornament is one of the greatest spiritual crimes of the century, but that’s for another Vortex.

There was nothing, absolutely zero, Catholic about this pagan rite carried out just yards from where St. Peter was crucified upside down for the Faith, making this sacred ground.

And big-name modernist members of the hierarchy were present — Brazilian Cdl. Cláudio Hummes, leader of this synod, and Philippine Cdl. Luis Tagle, another supporter of the Church having an Amazonian face.

Of course, Pope Francis was present, who looked extremely awkward when the female shaman went over to him and slipped a black ring onto his finger.

That black ring is a tucum ring, and it actually has a double meaning; it’s part of the whole Mother Earth worship system, but it is also associated with liberation theology.

The shaman’s encounter with the Pope wrapped up with a pretty awkward fist-bump-looking exchange.

And if that wasn’t enough, the next woman pagan worshipper, carrying a wooden statue of a naked pregnant woman, didn’t even know how to make a proper sign of the cross.

But hey, if you’re going to have a Church with an Amazonian face, then you don’t need to know how to cross yourself, you just need your rattle and your Mother Earth blanket, as well as a hefty dose of pagan prayers.

Other gods being prayed to on holy ground, officially watched over by the successor of St. Peter, is yet another example of how far from tradition this pontificate has moved.

When a cardinal relayed to us last week that “there is no faith left in Rome,” he actually may have been understating the issue.

If only it was a question of just no faith.

This is pagan faith, worshipping not actually gods, since there are no other gods, but demons, as St. Paul warns the early Catholics in Corinth when the issue arose of eating meat sacrificed to idols: “I mean that what they sacrifice, [they sacrifice] to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to become participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and also the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons.”

Yet, this is precisely what a Church with an Amazonian face, to quote the non-stop blather emanating from the Vatican, looks like.

The likes of Cláudio Hummes are using the power of the Church to try and destroy the Church.

They have some non-Catholic vision of the Church being not tied to the same principles and truths that have been divinely revealed, or taught throughout the 2,000 years of sacred history, but rather a Church that takes on the appearance and practices of the world and local culture, whatever that looks like.

The Church has oftentimes adopted some local practices or customs from various cultures. The city of Rome itself is a testament to that.

When the Church was freed from persecution by Constantine, and eventually granted the city’s basilicas, which were government buildings, to be used as churches, they didn’t start worshipping the gods of Rome.

Aspects of Roman law and culture and so forth were slowly incorporated into the life of the Church as She emerged from being an underground Church, but She never prayed the prayers to the Roman gods.

What occurred in the gardens of the Vatican this weekend was pagan worship and prayers — period.

And any pretense that it was all fine and OK and no big deal is just that: a pretense.

In a way, it’s more than symbolic, the tree that Francis planted here and then stood in silent prayer before.

It’s a living symbol, a concrete expression of modernism, paganism, worldliness — all of them — boring their roots deep into the Church.

A future pope would be well-advised to grab hold of that tree one day and rip it up by its pagan roots.

Realize that we are going to have to suffer through all of this kind of stuff at least until the next Conclave, which doesn’t itself look too promising to bring any relief.

This past weekend, the Pope made 13 new cardinals, 10 of whom are under 80 and therefore eligible to vote for his successor.

Following Saturday’s elevation, the College of Cardinals is now, for the first time, stacked with a majority of Francis appointees — virtually, although not completely, guaranteeing that Francis II will be who walks out on the loggia at the next papal election.

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