ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP

Reflections on the Counter-Revolution 

in America

By: Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness

March 31, 2025

When Donald Trump entered office, he faced a number of choices that confronted the last three Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. They all had the choice to either shrink government and reduce deficits or slow government growth while cutting taxes.

They had the choice of using American power to restore deterrence by invading belligerents (e.g., Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan) or targeting enemies without deploying ground troops to change governments.

Republicans could either impose tariffs to ensure trade balances and fair trade or argue that free, even if unfair, trade was in the U.S.’s interest by lowering consumer prices, keeping domestic producers competitive, and assuming foreign subsidies were unsustainable.

They had the choice to either reverse the left-wing domination of culture or moderate its fated influence.

They could have shut down the open border and eliminated illegal immigration or publicly condemned it while tacitly maintaining an influx of hundreds of thousands per year for the corporate world, rather than millions.

In general, no Republican president of the past 50 years sought to radically reduce the size of government and balance the budget. None closed the border and began deportations. None avoided optional ground wars while solely hitting aggressors from the air. None led a cultural counter-revolution to reverse the left’s long march through our institutions.

Why?

Because to have done so would have constituted a veritable cultural counter-revolution that would incur an unacceptable level of hatred and resistance from the entrenched left—defined by the nexus of the media, bureaucracies, campuses, foundations, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and the Democratic Party. The latter were deemed just too formidable—and dangerous—to confront in a single term, if ever.

Or so it was felt by prior Republican administrations. So, most stayed clear and sought to deregulate, cut taxes, keep illegal immigration to about 30,000 or so a month, and use rhetoric to oppose the left’s cultural revolution.

Not so with Trump. The target of four years of lawfare in his wilderness years, he has now become a true counterrevolutionary determined not to slow down the progressive trajectory of the last 60 years but to end it and return the U.S. to the center—at least as now defined by a balanced budget, reciprocal fair trade, full use of all modes of energy, a closed border, legal only immigration, no optional ground wars abroad and a fierce effort to end the woke/DEI/ESG/Green New Deal leftwing orthodoxy.

Will it work?

The left’s revolution had become so deeply institutionalized that the once-bizarre had become the politically correct norm: three, not two, sexes; illegal aliens de facto not different from American citizens; a country without borders; massive debt and trade imbalances propped up for years by near-zero, de facto interest rates; and nation-building abroad as the country’s interior at home was hallowed out.

Trump is currently waging a 360-degree, 24/7 effort to undo at least the last 20 years of the most recent manifestation of the leftist cultural revolution inaugurated by Barack Obama.

Given that war and the economy often determine the legacy of a president’s tenure, Trump’s success or failure will hinge on several factors:

1) Flooding the Zone – Can he achieve sufficient massive cuts to the federal workforce and federal spending to realistically project a balanced budget in 2-3 years? Can he use tariffs to adjudicate rough trade parity without panicking Wall Street and reduce our huge trade deficit—while stimulating the economy through increased energy production, some tariff income, massive inflows of foreign capital and private-sector jobs, deregulation, and tax cuts? And in addition, can he end the war in Ukraine while denuclearizing Iran without blowing up the Middle East? The answers remain uncertain because no one has really attempted all of these measures simultaneously.

2) Speed – Speed is of the essence. He must see most of his major counterrevolutionary steps enacted this year while avoiding a recession before the midterms. Otherwise, he may see a new Democratic majority House in 2026 that will do nothing but issue subpoenas, conduct investigations, and impeach him. The Democrats seem to have little desire to offer a comprehensive counter-agenda that would reflect their own ideas on how to achieve balanced budgets, a secure border, a deterrent foreign policy, fair trade, and energy dynamism. For now, bizarrely, these new Jacobins are de facto Trump’s allies by becoming so unhinged, often so repugnant in their smutty rhetoric and street violence, and so angry without constructive alternatives that the counter-revolutionary Trump seems centrist in comparison.

All know that Trump’s agenda of cutting the size of government, balancing the budget, deregulating, achieving trade parity, expanding gas, oil, nuclear, and hydroelectric energy, and leveraging massive foreign investment in the U.S. will soon result in a booming economy. But the question is, how long will the bitter medicine of cutting spending, federal jobs, and the size of government, forcing trade symmetry, and shocking voters with layoffs and deregulation last? Or, to put it another way, will the new oncologist be allowed to apply sufficient harsh radiation and chemotherapy to a near-terminal patient to see him recover?

3) The Supreme Court. The Supreme Court must restore our constitutional tripartite government. The court must stop allowing the brazen lower-court judiciary’s hijacking of U.S. foreign policy and national security—and do it within the next month or so. Otherwise, a group of minor federal judges, some 300-400 unelected but cherry-picked liberal appointees, will essentially be running the country. Power has gone to their narcissistic heads, and they grow ever more emboldened as special activist lawyers—funded by foundations and political action committees—send them an endless stream of marching orders and writs. Currently, a once-unknown but now megalomaniac Judge Boasberg believes he is a more powerful adjudicator of U.S. foreign policy and national security than the combined power of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, and the President. And he may be right.

4) No Margin of Error – Trump has no margin of error, given the thin congressional margins and the left-wing cultural juggernaut.

So far, his nascent counter-revolution has been largely disciplined and well-managed. But he can afford no more avoidable psychodramas like the still inexplicable Signal leak to the likes of a hyper-partisan Jeffrey Goldberg.

Cabinet officials should grow more silent but carry even bigger sticks. The entire messaging of Team Trump must be sober, even tragic, without braggadocio. The latest Fox interview by Brett Baier of a reflective, soft-spoken Elon Musk and his DOGE team did more to win the public over to their thankless but critical task than all the grandstanding on social media or chainsaw theatrics.

They need to remind Americans that the Trump team did not open the border but is now forced to close it if the country is to exist.

The public needs to recall that it is recklessly easy to allow entry to 12 million illegal aliens but almost impossible to find them all in a country of 345 million.

It is not hard to borrow and spend, but it is unenviable and unpopular to cut and save.

It is much less trouble in Washington to dine with and leak to media celebrities, become a power couple on the A list, and play tit-for-tat and don’t-rock-the-boat than to become a despised disrupter on behalf of far-away people in rural Kansas, along the southern border, or in the inner-city without lobbyists, national audiences, or a fat checkbook.

It is easy to smile, pal around, and hand out money and commitments abroad at summits while foreign leaders welch on their military commitments and run up unsustainable trade surpluses with the US. But it is quite another thing to demand from our allies and neutrals trade parity, reciprocity, and keeping defense commitments as prime ministers and their state media damn you as either crazy or sinister.

In sum, we are witnessing the greatest effort to reinvent or, rather, restore the U.S. since the first 100 days of FDR’s radical New Deal revolution. It can succeed even against the street theater nihilism, mainstreamed vulgarity, neo-terrorism, lawfare, and the congressional circus arrayed against it.

But success hinges on speed and audacity (“L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!”), the rapid reassertion of its constitutional duties by the Supreme Court, constant discipline to prevent needless errors and leaks, calm and tragic explication and messaging rather than boastful high-fiving, and a constant reminder that their desperate opposition wishes to destroy this last effort to stop what had become sheer madness.

RE: Bishop Strickland: Addressing Concerns About Statements Regarding the Conclave

philsevilla
Mar 17, 2025, 8:38 AM (4 days ago)
to philsevilla

Well done, Bishop Strickland. In times like this, the clear, ambiguous voice of a good shepherd is necessary and critical in defending the magisterial teachings of the Church, pointing out the grave responsibility of the Catholic bishops to raise their voices when Church governance strays from moral and just norms in accord with canon law and the teachings of Christ.

It is not morally righteous for the Vatican and members of the Catholic hierarchy like Cardinal McElroy to attack President Trump and litigate against the President’s urgent efforts to clean up the corruption in USAID funding after audits have exposed billions provided to large tax funded projects which are immoral, wasteful, violate U. S. laws, and are hostile and detrimental to the interests of the United States.

The deep entanglement of the Church’s mission with billions of dollars in government funding is a grave threat to the independence and worthy separation of Church and State as enumerated by our founding fathers in the constitution of the United States. The Church should be the conscience of the nation, not a mere bureaucracy, bought and paid for agency of the federal government or any other government.

The voice of the Church is muted and compromised in speaking openly and forcefully about government policies and programs if there is an appearance if not a concrete manifestation of contractual conflicts of interest.

The Church’ conscience must always be clear in examining any conflict between the Divine and natural law when justifying the acceptance of government aid and largesse.

Moral compromise with government agencies can never be tolerated and condoned by Church leaders. In this regard I point to the compromises the Vatican has accepted with the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party and repeated signaling with ambiguous positions and posturing with advocates of the homosexual ideology and opening authoritative pontifical institutes and consultative bodies in the Vatican to abortion and environmental extremists and ideologues.

Bishop Strickland is on the side of Heaven’s angels when speaking truthfully about the deep state in the Catholic Church. Let us support him and pray for him.

In Jesus, we trust.

Phil

Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S23+ 5G, an AT&T 5G smartphone

——– Original message ——–
From: Claudia Schoener claudia_schoener@yahoo.com
Date: 3/16/25 9:23 PM (GMT-06:00)
To:
Subject: Bishop Strickland: Addressing Concerns About Statements Regarding the Conclave

Dear Family of Faith,

As the title states, Bishop Strickland is supporting the concerns of another author regarding the next Conclave. This writing is 6 pages long, as he explains the possibility of the next Conclave being “rigged”.

I just listened to a traditional Catholic, I think it was Kennedy Hall, that the Cardinals are trying to put off the Conclave until Cardinal Sarah is past the age (in a few months) to be elected as our next pope.

Peace and Blessings+
Claudia

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Addressing Concerns About Statements Regarding the Conclave
BISHOP JOSEPH STRICKLAND
MAR 15

READ IN APP

The points that John Paul Meenan has made in Catholic Insight in the article “Caveat LifeSite: Incipient Schisms,” are definitely worthy of consideration as, although bishops or theologians may have opinions about a Pope’s legitimacy, it is true that it is not their role to determine it definitively. The Church as a whole – especially the College of Cardinals and the bishops in communion with the Pope – would be the proper authority to judge such matters. However, by my endorsement of the mentioned article and the statements I have made, I am simply echoing traditional Catholic teaching that a heretic cannot be a valid pope, a position that has been discussed by theologians for centuries. Rather than being schismatic, I am in actuality defending the faith and fulfilling my duty as a successor of the apostles.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly” (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 33, a. 4, ad 2). Similarly, St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church, taught that “a manifest heretic is automatically deposed from all ecclesiastical offices, including that of the papacy.” These are not new ideas but part of the Church’s theological tradition.

In view of the grave crisis in the Church in which we now find ourselves, I would ask Mr. Meenan at what point he thinks the bishops SHOULD speak out – after we find ourselves in the situation of which Archbishop Fulton Sheen spoke when he said that a counter-church would be set up “which will be the ape of the Church” with “all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content”?

Silence in the face of grave error is a sin. Pope St. Felix III said, “Not to oppose error is to approve it, and not to defend truth is to suppress it.” And St. Catherine of Siena, a Doctor of the Church, famously exhorted Pope Gregory XI to be courageous: “Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues! I see that the world is rotten because of silence.”

Due to the nature of today’s crisis, bishops have a grave duty to warn the faithful. Many Catholics are confused, scandalized, and led astray. A bishop who speaks out, even at personal risk, is not being schismatic – but rather he is doing what countless saints and Church Fathers did before him. The real danger is in bishops who remain silent while souls are lost.

For years now, most bishops and cardinals have been completely silent as the Deposit of Faith has been attacked over and over, and in many cases, totally pushed aside. This papacy has made it clear that silence is required, and that no questions are allowed, and in fact if they are asked, none will be answered – at least not definitively.

For an example of this, I point to the responses of Pope Francis to the two sets of dubia he received from cardinals. The first dubium, in 2016, regarding Amoris Laetitia asked whether Amoris Laetitia allowed Holy Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics without annulments. Pope Francis did not give any direct response to this dubium, although his silence was seen by some as an implicit answer. The second dubium in 2023 was regarding doctrinal clarity on several topics including the possibility of blessing same-sex unions, whether divine revelation can change over time, and whether synodality can alter Church doctrine. Pope Francis responded, but not in the traditional “yes” or “no” format – but rather in an open-ended way which seemed to avoid clear doctrinal affirmations. And this has indeed become the norm in this papacy.

It seems that silence is not only the response of this papacy but also the response demanded of every priest, bishop, and cardinal who would seek to clearly and charitably defend the Deposit of Faith when ambiguities are brought forth from Rome. If this admonition to be silent is not heeded, in fact, then my own removal as Bishop of Tyler is a good example of what will happen – often with no reason given. But we must acknowledge that truth cannot change, and the Deposit of Faith is Truth. An attack on the Deposit of Faith is an attack on Christ Himself – He who is Truth Incarnate. And so the Deposit of Faith must be defended at all costs, regardless of where – or from whom – the attacks originate. “Then Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it.’” (Matthew 16:24-25).

It seems we are now in a time in which silence is demanded, and it is indeed silence that is threatening the Church. Throughout history saints, theologians, and even Church documents have warned against false prudence – remaining silent when truth must be defended.

The idea that a papacy – or any Church leadership – would demand silence of those who seek to defend the perennial truths of the faith is troubling, especially when doctrinal or moral issues are at stake. When a crisis is present, silence is not neutrality – it often enables the very errors that threaten the faith. When bishops are afraid to defend doctrine, as has occurred in this papacy, truth is no longer safeguarded. Historically, the Church has always debated theological issues – sometimes fiercely – but this papacy seems to demand silence and submission without discussion which contradicts the Church’s tradition of reasoned discourse.

St. Paul confronted St. Peter when Peter’s actions caused confusion (cf. Galatians 2:11-14). And Canon Law states that the faithful, including bishops, “have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church.” (Can. 212.3).

Therefore, if a bishop believes the Church is facing a grave crisis – such as the possibility of a heretical pope or a manipulated conclave – then remaining silent, I believe, is negligent rather than obedient. In fact, I would argue that silence has led to:

· The spread of doctrinal ambiguity on issues like the Eucharist, marriage, and human sexuality.
· The rise of liturgical laxity among clergy and laity.
· A weakening of Catholic identity, as some teachings are de-emphasized in the name of ecumenism or synodality.
While bishops should normally work within the hierarchical structure, there are times when public warning is necessary.

The concern about an invalid election is a theological discussion that has been debated for centuries. While the Church recognizes that a pope must be a Catholic and not a heretic, I agree that the process for dealing with such a situation is not left to private judgement. However, I feel it is important to recognize that we are now in a time of unparalleled danger in the Church and, therefore, a warning is needed.

In endorsing an article about the next conclave, and in setting forth the argument that if a heretical candidate is elected, then the election could be invalid, I was stating we could be facing an emergency situation in the Church, and I was making a public statement about what I believe could potentially happen in this situation. In response to Mr. Meenan’s concerns, I would state that my statements do not have a direct canonical consequence as I have not formally refused to recognize a pope chosen in a future conclave, and that questioning a pope’s legitimacy is different from refusing submission to a validly elected pope. The Church has always recognized that we must have the freedom to openly discuss matters – even difficult ones – if we are to come to a deeper and more thorough understanding of theological and doctrinal issues (e.g., Ecumenical Councils, writings of saints, etc.).

I have felt it important to make these comments because I feel a moral obligation to raise concerns prior to the next conclave so that the cardinals might consider these issues and address them with the seriousness and gravity due to such important matters. My intention was and is not to declare myself the final judge of a future pope’s legitimacy, but rather to ensure:

· The cardinals are reminded of their grave responsibility – A conclave is not just a political process, but a sacred duty to elect a pope who will faithfully guard and transmit the Catholic faith. By speaking out, I hoped to prompt reflection among the cardinals about their duty to elect someone who is truly Catholic in belief and in practice.
· A warning against possible problems in the election – Since there are valid concerns about heretical candidates and/or pressures from external influences, I felt it was necessary to call attention to this issue before any election happens. Some historical examples show that disputed papal elections have occurred throughout history, and the Church has had to deal with challenges to legitimacy before (e.g. the Western Schism).
· To address what I fear will be confusion among the faithful – If a pope were elected under questionable circumstances, it could cause great division and scandal within the Church. By raising concerns now, I hope that if something questionable does happen, the Church will be better prepared to address it, rather than reacting in a state of crisis.
· Not an act of schism, but a call for discernment – I am not acting in defiance of the Pope nor do I reject papal authority; I am merely issuing a warning. I am not claiming personal authority to declare a pope invalid and, therefore, I am not stepping outside Church teaching but rather expressing a theological concern.By stating that if the next conclave were to elect a pope who was a heretic or not truly Catholic, he would not be a valid pope, I have put forth an argument that is rooted in longstanding Catholic teaching that a manifest heretic cannot hold ecclesiastical office, including the papacy – a position affirmed by theologians and saints such as St. Robert Bellarmine. I felt, and continue to feel, I must speak out as so many of my fellow bishops today remain silent in the face of doctrinal confusion and moral corruption within the Church. Silence allows error to spread unchecked, harming the faithful. Saints like St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, and Pope St. Felix III have warned that failing to oppose error is equivalent to approving it. By speaking up, I am fulfilling my duty as a shepherd to defend the truth, protect souls, and call the Church to a deeper fidelity in Christ – something that is desperately needed in our time.
I had hoped, by my statements, to appeal to the duty of all the bishops and cardinals, as successors of the Apostles, and to remind them that silence in the face of grave error is a betrayal of their office and a danger to souls. Therefore, I would like to once again make a plea to them:

Your Excellencies, where are your voices? The Church is in crisis! Souls are being led astray by doctrinal confusion, moral corruption, and open disregard for Sacred Tradition. As successors of the apostles, you have been given the sacred duty to guard the Deposit of Faith and shepherd the faithful. But too many of you remain silent while wolves ravage the flock.

I would like to remind you of the words of Pope St. Felix III: “Not to oppose error is to approve it. Not to defend truth is to suppress it.” The faithful are looking to you for clarity, for courage, and for the voice of the Good Shepherd. Will you speak up, or will you remain silent as the Church suffers?

Your silence will not be forgotten – but neither will your courage, should you choose to stand for Christ and His truth. Do not fear the loss of human approval, for we will one day stand before the judgment seat of God. Choose now whom you will serve.

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland

Bishop Emeritus

Iran and the MAGA Response

Can Trump disarm Iran in the nuke of time?

By: Brian Mark Weber

The Patriot Post

March 14, 2025

President Donald Trump inherited a hot mess when he returned to the White House in January. To name a few of the fires, runaway inflation, rising consumer prices, widespread crime, and an open southern border all plagued our nation.

Amongst the plethora of problems Trump inherited are hotspots around the world where regional conflicts could turn into global war. One of these hotspots is Iran, a country whose desire to become a nuclear power was thwarted for many years, only to have American presidents pave the way for their nuclear ambitions.

Instead of putting pressure on Iran’s leaders, Barack Obama and Joe Biden gave them a nuclear deal and ransom money for hostages to boot. This appalling appeasement of Iran only emboldened them to grow into a legitimate threat to the region and global stability. Now, as Miranda Devine writes at the New York Post:

“After four years of shady appeasement by the Biden administration, Iran’s bloodthirsty regime is under pressure again — and just in the nick of time, before it finesses its nuclear weapons capability.”

That capability is stronger than ever.

“Iran has sharply increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium in recent weeks, according to a confidential United Nations report, as Tehran amasses a critical raw material for atomic weapons,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “Iran is now producing enough fissile material in a month for one nuclear weapon, according to the report.”

Increased pressure is coming from the Trump administration, which finds itself responsible for cleaning up Obama and Biden’s mess and stopping the situation in the Middle East from exploding. Recently, President Trump sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, seeking a deal to keep Iran from further developing a nuclear program that’s reaching a critical point of no return.

Time magazine reports:

 “Trump’s overture comes as both Israel and the United States have warned they will never let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, leading to fears of a military confrontation as Tehran enriches uranium at near weapons-grade levels — something only done by atomic-armed nations.”

In the letter, Trump vowed to pressure Iran to come to a deal regarding its nuclear program and asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to go for the jugular by crippling Iran’s economy.

 “Bessent accused Iran in a statement Thursday of using its oil revenues to fund the development of a nuclear program, produce ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles and support terrorist groups in the Middle East,”CNBC reports.

But sanctions alone may not suffice to impede Iran in continuing its nuclear program.

Politico reports:

“Trump has said he prefers to make a deal with Iran rather than ‘bombing the hell out of it,’ but his top security adviser, Mike Waltz, stressed more recently that ‘all options’ remain on the table and that Washington will be satisfied with nothing less than a total dismantling of Tehran’s nuclear program.”

Still, Trump made this clear in his letter, of which he said: 

“Something is going to happen one way or the other. I hope that Iran — and I’ve written them a letter, saying I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing for them.”

Another approach to initiate change in Iran is from within by restoring democracy. According to Just the News:

 “[A] coalition of over 150 bipartisan lawmakers … introduced a bill that supports the Iranian people’s resistance movement, which is fighting for regime change in the Middle Eastern country. The resolution supports National Council of Resistance of Iran President-elect Maryam Rajavi’s 10-point plan for the future of Iran, which hopes to establish a secular, democratic and non-nuclear Iranian republic.”

It’s a complicated situation that requires strong leadership, but Trump wants peace above all else. Is there any reasoning with Iran?

“Even Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, in a speech in September opened the door to talks with the U.S., saying there is ‘no harm’ in engaging with the ‘enemy,’” according to PBS. His “enemy” at the time, though, was helping to fund all of the Iranian octopus arms of terror. He may have changed his tune now that he has a real enemy. Time will tell.

There might be a glimmer of hope. Just last month, Reuters reported:

“Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said that U.S. concerns about Iran developing nuclear weapons were not a complicated issue and could be resolved given Tehran’s opposition to weapons of mass destruction.”

Or maybe he’s just blowing a lot of hot air.

Either way, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Those actions were a lost cause as long as Obama and Biden gave Iran a long leash, but President Trump’s strong leadership might be enough to shorten that leash a lot. If he can pull it off, the world will be a safer place, and Trump might just cement his place in history as one of the singular presidents of peace.

Setting the Precedent:

Mahmoud Khalil’s Deportation Case

By: Emmy Griffin

The Patriot Post

March 14, 2025

Former Columbia University grad student Mahmoud Khalil is the first student agitator to be arrested and hopefully deported in connection with the riots on the Ivy League campus. Khalil was taken into custody last Saturday and was moved to Louisiana to facilitate a swift deportation. However, that deportation was stayed by Southern District of New York Judge Jesse Furman, who stated that Khalil won’t be deported “unless and until the Court orders otherwise.” His hearing was last Wednesday.

In the interim, we have learned more about Khalil. He was born in Syria to Palestinian parents and is an Algerian citizen. He received his undergraduate degree from the American University of Beirut, worked for the British government at its embassy in Beirut, and worked for an NGO called Jusoor as well as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which should be classified as a terrorist organization. UNRWA workers aided in the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and even held hostages for Hamas.

This was Khalil’s résumé, and yet he was still allowed into the country on a student visa to complete a master’s degree at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Khalil argues that ICE falsely arrested him. He holds a green card and is not currently in the United States on a student visa. When ICE took him into custody, it purportedly told him that his student visa, not his green card, had been revoked.

While it is unclear how long Khalil has held a green card, he likely applied for it during the process leading up to his marriage (his wife is a U.S. citizen). Regardless, the essential point is that because of his role in the Columbia campus “protests” (read: riots), his permission to reside in the U.S. is being revoked.

“If you tell us that you are in favor of a group like [Hamas] … we would deny your visa,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained. “No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way. So when you apply for a student visa or any visa to enter the United States, we have a right to deny you for virtually any reason.”

Khalil’s other argument is that his acting as a negotiator and participator in the “tentifada” and other illegal protests on camps were within his rights. As a green-card holder, he asserts that his ideological positions, free speech, and freedom of association were violated.

Much of his arguments hinge on his rights as a noncitizen of the U.S. As National Review’s Andrew McCarthy explains, Khalil is a lawful permanent resident (LPR), “a status in which the alien enjoys the most robust protection that our law provides for non-Americans.” However, an LPR does not have the same rights as an American citizen. Free speech and freedom of association don’t apply. The biggest perk of being an LPR is that you have due process rights and are entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge who makes the final call regarding deportation.

Many have speculated that the grounds for revoking Khalil’s green card were based on supporting and promoting terrorists like Hamas. However, Secretary Rubio has decided to lay the grounds for deportation on the provision in §1227 of immigration law subsection ((a)(4)(C)), which states:

In general, an alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.

Mahmoud Khalil does represent a national security risk. Furthermore, his actions do adversely affect foreign policy, as he and others like him denigrate America’s staunchest Middle East ally, Israel.

Khalil is fighting back in other ways apart from his immigration hearing. On Thursday, he sued Columbia University and its women-only institution, Barnard College, for releasing disciplinary records to the House Committee on Education and Workforce. The committee was interested in knowing which students had expressed or acted on anti-Semitism to the extent that they faced disciplinary action.

Khalil and seven other anonymous individuals are claiming they have been doxxed and otherwise harmed by this student list being given to the committee.

While this legal drama plays out, pro-Hamas “protests” have erupted all over the U.S. yet again. The imbroglio that garnered the most attention this week happened yesterday when rabble-rousers invaded Trump Tower and occupied the dining hall. The group, Jewish Voice for Peace, is about as Jewish as a ham sandwich; its members wore red shirts with slogans like “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel” and sported signs that read “Fight Nazis not students.”

Ninety-eight people were arrested by the NYPD.

Khalil’s immigration hearing will hopefully culminate in deportation and be the first of many. These leftist agitators have been a terrible blight on American university campuses, and administrators have only themselves to blame for not immediately quashing them the second the already reprehensible protests turned into destructive riots.

If you do not take an interest 

in the affairs of your government, 

then you are doomed to live under 

the rule of fools.

Plato

Is the Jig Up for Elite Higher Education?
In their hubris, the universities began a series of
blunders that may now end them as they once were.

By: Victor Davis Hanson
The Patriot Post
March 14, 2025

Over the last three decades, elite American universities have engaged in economic, political, social, and cultural practices that were often unethical, illegal — and suicidal.

They did so with impunity.

Apparently, confident administrators assumed that the brands of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and other elite universities were so precious to the nation’s elite movers and shakers that they could always do almost anything they wished.

By the 1970s, non-profit universities had dropped pretenses that they were apolitical and non-partisan. Instead, they customarily violated the corpus of iconic civil rights legislation by weighing race, gender, and sexual orientation in biased admissions, hiring, and promotions.

Graduation ceremonies became overtly racially and ethnically segregated. The same was true for dorms and “theme houses.” So-called “safe spaces,” in the spirit of the Jim Crow South, reserved areas of campus solely for particular races. Affluent foreign students often openly protested on behalf of designated terrorist groups like Hamas.

First-Amendment-protected free speech all but vanished on elite campuses. Any guest speaker who dared to critique abortion on demand, Middle East orthodoxy, biological males dominating women’s sports, or diversity/equity/inclusion (DEI) dogmas was likely to be shouted down, or on occasion roughed up.

University administrators either ignored the violence done to the Bill of Rights or quietly approved when their rowdy students were turned loose on supposed conservatives. But in their hubris, the universities began a series of blunders that may now end them as they once were. They began gouging government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation by grabbing anywhere from 30 to 60 percent of individual campus grants as “overhead.” Yet they usually charged most private foundation grants a far more modest 15% surcharge — as if a lax government did not object to overcharging.

They pushed for a vast expansion of the student loan program, whose portfolio of federally guaranteed loans reached $1.7 trillion. However, once the federal government guaranteed student loans against default, universities began jacking up their fees and tuition well above the annual rate of inflation.

Elite universities did not grasp that the more they began warping their curricula with DEI gut courses, radical green agendas, and postmodern race and gender theories, the less time they had to offer students their once gold-standard general education curricula of Western Civ, history, literature, philosophy, math, and science.

Soon employers started to notice that the new therapeutic courses were also married to race and sex-based admissions. The SAT and ACT were, for a time, dropped. So were comparative rankings of high school grade point averages. Soon, once iconic degrees were no longer any guarantee of the ability to write and speak well, think analytically, or compute competently.

Employers often began to prefer graduates from those state schools where DEI was muted, admissions were competitive, and teaching remained rigorous and non-ideological.

Finally, after October 7, 2023, growing antisemitism on campuses became unapologetic, overt, and violent. Thousands of Middle Eastern guest students brazenly cheered on Hamas terrorists. The campus Marxist orthodoxy that Jews and Israel were “victimizing white people” and Palestinians were noble “non-white victims” ensured that Jewish students were chased and physically attacked on campuses.

A disgusted public watched invertebrate administrators either greenlight the antisemitic violence or ludicrously deny it. So, there was bound to be a public reckoning. And now it has arrived.

Congress will soon pass legislation taxing the annual multimillion-dollar income from multibillion-dollar endowments at 15% to 20%.

There will be no more “overhead” or “surcharges” on government campus grants allowed larger than 15%. Those two reforms alone could cost some of the wealthiest campuses nearly a half billion dollars a year in lost income.

Racially offensive DEI programs will disqualify schools from federal support.

Foreign student guests who break U.S. laws or violate university rules will have their visas yanked and be shown the door to go home.

Campuses will have to abide by the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the Bill of Rights or forgo federal funds.

All these remedies enjoy broad public support.

For the first time in memory, most Americans disapprove of current higher education. Only 10% of Americans believe an Ivy League degree makes them a better American worker.

Universities have very little leverage in a nation of declining fertility, fewer youths choosing college, and a federal government with $36 trillion in debt.

They can return to the original mission of offering rigorous, meritocratic, and disinterested education, guarantee constitutional protections for all on campus, and slash their vast administrative bloat.

Or, if not, they are free to continue as they are, ensuring only further mediocrity, public dislike — and eventual irrelevancy.

Missing Those Good Old Alternatives
to Trump?

By: Victor Davis Hanson
(Emphasis added)

Part One – February 26, 2025
Given the left-wing hysterical responses to all of Trump’s thirty-day-old initiatives, let us remember what just a few months ago were the alternatives.

1) War. The Biden non-strategy for the Ukraine war was to provide enough aid for Ukraine to continue, but not enough to win and incite nuclear Russia.

There was scant talk about the humanitarian questions of 1.2-1.5 million Ukrainian and Russian dead, wounded, missing, and captured. The implicit but unstated Biden intention was to fight the war endlessly to the last Ukrainian, if need be, or until the Putin regime was fatally bled out. No one knew exactly how much money we gave Ukraine, given President Zelensky claimed that what he had received and what was purportedly given to him were off by many millions.

It was until recently taboo to note Zelensky had canceled elections, habeas corpus, opposition parties, and independent media. In Zelensky’s defense, our media said Churchill did not hold elections until the last few months of the Pacific War. But they omit that he did hold elections during a world war—and lost! Moreover, Churchill did not cancel habeas corpus or ban opposition parties as is now true in Ukraine.

Europe’s previous strategy was to talk tough, do little, and hope the U.S. would handle the negotiations—until it did that and thus could be damned for doing so. Biden treated Europe as if it had met its treaty obligations under NATO’s rearming requirements, was an equal partner in supplying Ukraine in its wars on Europe’s borders, and was indifferent to its $230 billion trade surpluses and asymmetrical tariffs.

Under the previous administration negotiating with the monster Putin was deemed far worse than allying once with a 20-million-murdering Stalin or formerly courting the greatest mass murderer in history, Mao Zedong.

As for the war against Israel, the Biden policy was to keep trying to overthrow the Netanyahu government, threaten it with arms cutoffs when back on the offensive, restore aid to Hamas, and court Iran with hopes of a new Iran deal, while letting it get rich on oil sales to subsidize Hezbollah and the Houthis. They got a theater-wide war for their efforts.

2) Border. The Biden policy was to keep it wide open, lie that it was closed, and damn anyone as a xenophobe and racist who opposed 12 million unaudited illegal aliens swarming the country.

Do we remember Biden’s impounding of congressionally approved funds? Yes, Biden did that by refusing to continue building the wall despite a congressional mandate and funding resolution to build it.

Worse, he let the already delivered steel rust or sold it off. The Left complains now about the “billions” of dollars needed to deport criminals and other illegals—never the vast hundreds of billions of dollars over the last four years to house, provide health care, and feed twelve million who entered illegally, for the most part without high-school diplomas, English, skill sets or criminal background checks.

No one knows when or if the Biden administration would have ever stopped the influx—at 15, 20, or 30 million more illegal aliens. Or when there were neither any left in the jails of Venezuela and Colombia nor impoverished in southern Mexico?

Part Two – March 4, 2025
3) Pentagon. The military was declared not to be chronically short by 30-50,000 recruits each year—simply by readjusting the required manpower levels downward.

Do we remember the monthly sound-off of a retired admiral or general (Mark Milley was the latest example) screaming that Trump was a “fascist,” and during the Trump presidency, that he was a near Nazi, liar, coward, Mussolini, and an Auschwitz sort of camp builder—all in violation of Article #88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice? Why are active and retired generals and admirals suddenly quiet? Is it that they suddenly believe Secretary Hegseth might finally enforce the UCMJ?

The greatest humiliation in a half-century in Kabul was entirely forgotten—no big deal, no need to investigate any culpability. No one dared say the disaster in Afghanistan was the green light for Putin to invade Ukraine. The lessons from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East were not to be prods to reboot procurement; the only problem was borrowing more money for new $14 billion carriers and $100M jets.

The Pentagon’s chain of command increasingly saw its new role as cultural and social—to fast-track DEI reverse racism, three genders, radical green mandates, and abortion on demand in the way a clumsy and slow-poke Congress never could. And now? The alpha generals who rode the DEI wave are now the omegas, given they placed race, gender, and sexual orientation above military efficacy.

4. Debt. The way to manage the $37-trillion debt and $2 trillion annual deficits was to keep politicizing the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, risk more hyperinflation, and pay off the annual interest debt with cheap rates and debased currency. We were headed for history’s usual solution for bankrupt nations: inflate the currency in Weimar fashion to worthlessness, renounce the debt and descend into Third-Worldism, or begin confiscating private wealth in Soviet and Cuban style—or all three combined.

Or was it more like musical chairs? Each administration doubled the debt, hoping the music would not stop on their watch, and they would find themselves without a chair.

5. Deep State. To keep feeding the unaudited federal bureaucracy we were to keep raising taxes and borrowing more money to send millions of dollars into the Wuhan lab that nearly wrecked the U.S. economy and killed one million Americans.

We were to keep paying 8 percent of the anti-American BBC budget. As good cultural imperialists, we were to keep promoting LGBTQ+ issues throughout traditional societies abroad and subsidizing most groups in the Middle East who wished to destroy us. We spent millions of dollars of aid trying to force gay marriage on the Greeks and Cypriots who wanted none of it.

Did anyone worry—did anyone even know—that the Biden proxies gave $2 billion in assorted “green” grants to be overseen (with no doubt ample pass-through deductions and overhead charges) by election-denialist Stacey Abrams?

What exactly was the status prior of her foundation/PAC? In truth, it had $100 in its coffers; yet when Biden left office it had increased by a magnitude of $20 million to $2 billion. Was it her sex novels or her ability to lose elections and claim she won them that so impressed Biden to entrust her with our $2 billion?

Was it so great that the Biden people took the taxes paid by 100,000 households (the average American IRS bite per household is $20,000) and turned their collective earnings over to Stacey Abrams?

Was the Biden idea to pour cash into leftwing coffers to use the deep state to do what could not pass Congress? Or was it nihilism—spend so much money, print so much money that taxes would have to go up, and thus “spread the wealth”?

THE CATHOLIC MONITOR

SEARCH

Bp. Gracida: “[2013]..moment that Francis appeared..many Catholics besides myself were shocked & dismayed..There was never universal acceptance of..Bergoglio & Nick Donnelly: “[W]hen..[first] Bergoglio appeared..Catholics..stricken with a sense of dread”
March 15, 2025

Nick Donnelly@ Proctectthe Faith 13 March 2013 — when Jorge Bergoglio appeared on the loggia

Thousands of Catholics around the world were unaccountably stricken with a sense of dread & horror

It was a supernatural warning from heaven that great evil was being unleashed on the Church

I remember a sense of growing unease and disturbance as I watched him stand on the loggia looking at the gathered faithful in silence

I’m convinced now that it was a warning from heaven brought by my guardian angel
Image
3:36 AM · Mar 14, 2025
·
10.5K
Views

Famed Catholic Bishop Rene Gracida… Bishop Rene Gracida was a courageous WWII airman, monk, friend of Pope John Paul II and the “Savior of EWTN”. – The Gateway Pundit [https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/famed-catholic-bishop-rene-gracida-calls-faithful-pray-god-protect-deliver-president-trump-enemies/]

Almost immediately almost every word publicly uttered by Francis shocked Catholic sensibilities, such as telling the woman with several children to “stop breeding like rabbits.” Many Catholics withheld their “acceptance” and adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

Then the Amoris Laeticia debacle unfolded and now an even larger percentage of Catholic around the world began to express reservations about the ‘papacy’ of Francis the Merciful. There was never universal acceptance of the validity of Jorge Bergoglio. – Bishop Rene Gracida

Matt Gaspers
@MattGaspers
Replying to
@DCudihy
The validity of the 2013 conclave is theologically certain based on the fact that Francis was peacefully and universally accepted as the true Pope following his election. For a thorough treatment of this subject, see 👇
Quote Tweet

Matt Gaspers
@MattGaspers
·
Dec 31, 2022
This lengthy and thoroughly sourced article first appeared in @cathfamilynews as a two-part feature (Sept–Oct. 2016 issues): http://trueorfalsepope.com/p/is-francis-or-benedict-true-pope.html…

Topics covered include: Benedict’s Resignation, Francis’ Election, Peaceful & Universal Acceptance, Dogmatic Facts, etc.
Image
6:58 PM · Jan 2, 2023

Catholic Family News Editor Matt Gasper’s apparent only proof of the validly of Francis’s papacy is layman John Salza’s claims that Francis was “universally accepted”:

“In no case were any of these antipopes universally accepted by the entire episcopacy following their election, as in the case with Pope Francis.”

[http://www.trueorfalsepope.com/p/annbarnhardt-is-liar-and-fool-byjohn.html?m=1]

Salza’s editors at the Gasper Catholic Family News, the Remnant and most Catholic media are not allowing free debate and argument on the validity of the papacy of Francis in their publications. So, this seems like a good time to see if their greatest theologian of all time will answer five simple yes or no dubia questions and then respond to Bishop Rene Gracida’s rejection of their and Salza’s teaching since he would have to be part of that great and powerful infallible teaching of “universal acceptance”:

1. Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales said ” The Pope… when he is explicitly a heretic… the Church must either deprive him or as some say declare him deprived of his Apostolic See.” Was St. Francis de Sales a Sedevacantist or a Benevacantist? Answer: yes or no.
2. “Universal Acceptance” theologian John of St. Thomas said “This man in particular lawfully elected and accepted by the Church is the supreme pontiff.” Was John of St. Thomas for saying “the supreme pontiff” must be BOTH “lawfully elected and accepted by the Church” a Sedevacantist or a Benevacantist? Answer: yes or no.
3. Do you think that a “supreme pontiff” if “universally accepted” is still Pope if, to quote papal validity expert Arnaldo Xavier de Silveira on “dubious election[s]”, that he is “a woman… a child… a demented person… a heretic… a apostate… [which] would [thus] be invalid[ed] by divine law”? Answer: yes or no.
4. Renowned Catholic historian Warren Carroll agreed with Bishop René Gracida on the determining factor for discerning a valid conclave for a valid papal election besides divine law. Carroll pronounced:

“But each Pope, having unlimited sovereign power as head of the Church, can prescribe any method for the election of his successor(s) that he chooses… A papal claimant not following these methods is also an Antipope.”

Are renowned historian Carroll and Bishop Gracida for saying this Sedevacantists or Benevacantists? Answer: yes or no.

5. Is Bishop Gracida really only a pawn of the legendary and notorious “Sedevacantist and Benevacantist” mastermind Ann Barnhardt for convincingly demonstrating that there is valid evidence that Pope John Paul II’s conclave constitution “Universi Dominici Gregis” which “prescribe[d].. [the] method for the election of his successor(s)” was violated and must be investigated by Cardinals? Answer: yes or no. [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/06/5-dubia-questions-for-steve-skojec.html]

Moreover, on March 23, 2019, Bishop Gracida who would have to be part of such a “universal acceptance” demonstrated that Salza’s statement is false:

WHY DO INTELLIGENT MEN PURSUE THE APPLICATION OF AN OBSOLETE CONCEPT “UNIVERSAL ACCEPTANCE” TO THE PROBLEM OF THE INVALIDITY OF THE PAPACY OF FRANCIS THE MERCIFUL IN THIS DAY AND AGE OF INSTANT ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AROUND THE WORLD

WHY DO INTELLIGENT MEN PURSUE THE APPLICATION OF AN OBSOLETE CONCEPT “UNIVERSAL ACCEPTANCE” TO THE PROBLEM OF THE INVALIDITY OF THE PAPACY OF FRANCIS THE MERCIFUL IN THIS DAY AND AGE OF INSTANT ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AROUND THE WORLD

I am in receipt of an email from Steve Skojec, publisher of the website OnePeterFive in which he defends his posts in which he argues for the validity of the election of Francis the Merciful on the basis of the “universal acceptance” of Francis’ election by the world’s Catholic population.

The idea of “universal acceptance” of the election of popes of the past may have had it’s origin in the first centuries of the Church when popes were chosen by acclamation of the assembled citizens of Rome, and perhaps later when the princes and kings of Europe decided on the legitimacy of papal contestants in the time of the Avignon captivity of the papacy.

But the idea of “universal acceptance” as the principle determining the validity of Francis’ claim to the Chair of Peter is absurd in this day of instant electronic communication. There is not a world-wide Pew or Gallup poll that can determine the degree of “acceptance” of the Bergolian regime as valid by the world’s Catholic population.

From the moment that Francis appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica improperly dressed and accompanied by men of known or suspected homosexual orientation many Catholics besides myself were shocked and dismayed.

Almost immediately almost every word publicly uttered by Francis shocked Catholic sensibilities, such as telling the woman with several children to “stop breeding like rabbits.” Many Catholics withheld their “acceptance” and adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

Then the Amoris Laeticia debacle unfolded and now an even larger percentage of Catholic around the world began to express reservations about the ‘papacy’ of Francis the Merciful. There was never universal acceptance of the validity of Jorge Bergoglio.

One thing is certain, the popes of the Twentieth Century were aware that the election of future popes was now no longer subject to the interference of kings and princes as in the past, now the corruption of the democratic processes for choosing the heads of nations was threatening the papal conclaves of the Church. Pope Paul VI, perhaps alarmed by the forces for radical reform of the Church follow the lead of his recent predecessor and published a revision of the Apostolic Constitution which governs papal conclaves.

It is unthinkable that Pope Saint John Paul II was unaware of the plotting that began with the St. Gallen Mafia in the early 1990s.

His magnificent Apostolic Constituion, Universi Dominci Gregis, was his prescient action to head off the corruption of the conclaves of the future. Yet, the rot at the center of the hierarchy had progress to such point that Jorge Bergoglio was almost elected instead of Joseph Ratzinger, but the St. Gallen conspirators succeed in 2013 with the election of Francis the Merciful.

What is the sure test of the validity of the election of a cardinal to the papacy? It is not the medieval concept of ‘universal acceptance.’ It is compliance with the law of the Church. The Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis is the only law in effect since it was published by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1992.

If there is one characteristic that is common to the leadership of the Church since the Second Vatican Council is disregard for law, all law, divine law and canon law. Men who would be architects of the Church of the Future ignore the law of God and the law of His Church. That is why some cling to the outmoded concept of ‘universal acceptance’ of a man who obtained the Chair of Peter through the manipulations of many who by their immoral lives reveal their contempt for law, all law, including Divine Law.

His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, having known a prodigious amount of information on this,
was fully knowledgeable in the details of dogmatic and doctrinal principles which previous
to his Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis, could and would be applied to resolve
questions about the validity of a particular historic Papacy, and that His Holiness categorically
and specifically intended to dispense with, and utterly to preempt, the need for, and use of,
any principles which had been applied historically to resolve ambiguities and doubts
about the incumbency of any Pontiff putatively emerging from a Conclave to which His
Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis applied.

This means that because the status of Monsignor Bergoglio can be determined completely
by a fair and just application of Universi Dominici Gregis without reference to any guidance
external or extrinsic to such Constitution, having recourse to such historic doctrinal and
dogmatic concepts, e.g., universal acceptance, is neither material nor relevant, and never
necessary or proper for the rational discernment of the question of whether or not
Monsignor Bergoglio was validly elected as a true Roman Pontiff. The “scienter” Promulgation determines this certainty of discernment confined within the “four corners” of the Constitution:

“This Constitution . . . is to be fully and integrally implemented and is to serve as a guide
for all to whom it refers. As determined above, I hereby declare abrogated all Constitutions
and Orders issued in this regard by the Roman Pontiffs, and at the same time I declare
completely null and void anything done by any person, whatever his authority, knowingly
or unknowingly, in any way contrary to this Constitution.”[Promulgation Clause, Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis]

This language does not admit of any exception, and certainly not an exception based on
the degree to which a putative Pope has “acceptance” as such. “Universal acceptance”
originated in an age before the printing press, a time when what was required was known
by few and what was performed was understood by even less. It simply has no place
in discerning a Conclave called subject to Universi Dominici Gregis. What Skojec,
Does not seem to understand is that, long in advance and lawfully, His Holiness, Pope
John Paul II, has forbidden anyone from resorting to “universal acceptance”
or any other principle extrinsic to Universi Dominici Gregis to discern the outcome of papal election.

Thus, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, having known a prodigious amount of information on this,
was fully knowledgeable in the details of dogmatic and doctrinal principles which previous
to his Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis, could and would be applied to resolve
questions about the validity of a particular historic Papacy, and His Holiness categorically
and specifically intended to dispense with, and utterly to preempt, the need for, and use of,
any such principles which had been applied historically to resolve ambiguities and doubts
about the incumbency of any Pontiff putatively emerging from a Conclave to which His
Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis applied.

This means that because the status of Monsignor Bergoglio can be determined completely
by a fair and just application of Universi Dominici Gregis without reference to any guidance
external or extrinsic to such Constitution, having recourse to any such historic doctrinal and
dogmatic concept, e.g., universal acceptance, is neither material nor relevant, and never
necessary or proper for the rational discernment of the question of whether or not
Monsignor Bergoglio was validly elected as a true Roman Pontiff. The “scienter” Promulgation
determines this certainty of discernment confined within the “four corners” of the Constitution:

“This Constitution . . . is to be fully and integrally implemented and is to serve as a guide
for all to whom it refers. As determined above, I hereby declare abrogated all Constitutions
and Orders issued in this regard by the Roman Pontiffs, and at the same time I declare
completely null and void anything done by any person, whatever his authority, knowingly
or unknowingly, in any way contrary to this Constitution.” [Promulgation Clause, Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis]

This language does not admit of any exception, and certainly not an exception based on
the degree to which a putative Pope has “acceptance” as such. “Universal acceptance”
originated in an age before the printing press, a time when what was required was known
by few and what was performed was understood by even less. It simply has no place
in discerning a Conclave called subject to Universi Dominici Gregis.

Some do not seem to understand that, long in advance and lawfully, His Holiness, Pope
John Paul II, has forbidden and anyone from resorting to “universal acceptance”
or any other principle extrinsic to Universi Dominici Gregis in order to discern the outcome.

[https://abyssum.org/2019/03/23/why-do-intelligent-men-pursue-the-application-of-an-obsolete-concept-universal-acceptance-to-the-problem-of-the-invalidity-of-the-papacy-of-francis-the-merciful-in-this-day-and-age-of-instant-elec/]

Pray an Our Father now for reparation for the sins committed because of Francis’s Amoris Laetitia.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.

Francis Notes:

– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:

“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)

Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”

[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]

– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html

– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html

– If Francis betrays Benedict XVI & the”Roman Rite Communities” like he betrayed the Chinese Catholics we must respond like St. Athanasius, the Saintly English Bishop Robert Grosseteste & “Eminent Canonists and Theologians” by “Resist[ing]” him: https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/12/if-francis-betrays-benedict-xvi.html

– LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:

The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.’”

– On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:

“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”

– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:

“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.

Election Notes:

– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]

– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html

– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1

– A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1

What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”:
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1%5D

Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.

Pray an Our Father now for America.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

February 15, 2025
Special Edition
The Left Goes from Madness to Irrelevance,
By: Victor Davis Hanson
February 5-12, 2025

Various polls show historical lows of public support for the Democratic Party, ranging from 31 to 41 percent approval.

Yet, at the same time, during a recent Democrat leadership conference, various panelists unanimously claimed that racism and sexism alone accounted for the defeat of Kamala Harris.

Do they think, then, that white male Joe Biden would have defeated Donald Trump or at least done far better than Harris? In fact, as Biden exited the nomination, he polled worse against Trump than did Harris—a black female polling higher than a white male.

The same irrational disconnect was evident during the recent wild Senate confirmation hearings. Democratic senators, in raucous fashion, shouted down and interrupted nominees like Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Kash Patel—in a way that was not true of the past Republican audits of Biden’s 2021 nominees.

Senators Schiff and Warren were the most egregious in their rudeness and came off the worst for it. Their outbursts had some general themes.

All were utterly unaware of their own unethical past and current shortcomings. The more Adam Schiff screamed at Patel, ordering him to turn around in his chair as if he were some sort of minion, the more Republicans remembered all the reasons why Schiff had been censured by his House colleagues: for chronically lying about the Russian collusion hoax and for lying that he had not any contact with the whistleblowers and his accomplices that fueled the first Trump impeachment.

The so-called Schiff memo accusing the Nunes majority report of the House Intelligence Committee was itself fraught with lies. And so, as expected, Schiff was exposed as a mythologist long ago by the inspector general’s report detailing his untruths. In any state other than California, his record of falsity would have ended his career; but in California, his controversial lies that Trump was a Russian puppet won him a Senate seat.

Elizabeth Warren screeched at Robert Kennedy for suing the pharmaceutical companies—until he pointed out that she, the supposed leftwing heroine, along with socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, were, in fact, the two largest recipients of Big Pharma money.

Many of the Trump nominees were accused of wanting to weaponize the government. Apparently, the senators were afraid that once in power, the Trump cabinet would do exactly what the Biden IRS, FBI, CIA, Pentagon, and DOJ had done: use the powers of their offices to wage lawfare and bureaucratic harassment of Trump and his supporters. In other words, the senators knew that if they were Trump and had suffered what they had dished out to him, and if now they were again in power, they know they would retaliate against themselves.

Otherwise, the Democrats were clueless that nominees like Hegseth, Bondi, and Patel were frequent guests on televised news and podcasts. Thus, they were experienced interviewees who had mastered modern media repartee and impromptu give-and-take. All the nominees had prepped studiously for the confirmation hearings.

In contrast, the Democrats winged it, and most were inept auditors anyway. So, naturally, they came across as unprepared and arrogant. They remained clueless about how they grated and repelled in the televised hearings—like petulant adolescents assuming their heated screaming substituted for light and clarity.

What did the Democrats not ask or care about? None wanted to hear RFK, Jr.’s strategies to combat an epidemic of obesity and diabetes. Few, if any, wished to listen to Patel outline his plans to reform a weaponized FBI. Bondi was not asked about her views of the most critical challenges facing the Department of Justice.

In sum, after the pathetic performance of the Democratic “lions” of the Senate, the already rock-bottom public views of the Democrats will only go lower.

In their limited self-reflection, the Left keeps looking for reasons why they have lost the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court—and both the Electoral College and popular vote.

In lieu of confronting the frightening truth that their message is largely antithetical to the values and wishes of the majority of American people, they search and search for quick fixes: just one more Trump-Hitler comparison, yet one louder, more gross outburst at Kash Patel, perhaps just a few more invectives like “racists!” and “sexists!” to explain their losses.

Yet deep down, they know why the American people are tiring of them. And it is not just their obnoxious messengers, senators Adam Schiff, Elizabeth Warren, Mazie Hirono, and Tim Kaine, whose rudeness, ignorance, and incompetence during the nominee hearings were reminders of the Democratic descent.

Nor was the problem trying to get away with another four years of foisting an enfeebled Joe Biden on the country, to serve a second term as a waxen veneer for the hard Left revolutionary agendas of the Obamas, the Warren-Sanders neo-socialists, and the woke squad—open borders, millions of illegal aliens, unlivable blue cities, massive deficits, green extremism, woke venom.

So, it is not the off-putting or comatose messengers or even the obnoxious methods of the current Democrat hierarchy that explain the party’s historic low polls and recent losses. Had a Warren, Sanders, or Kaine headed the ticket in 2024, they would have still lost. Even a so-called moderate Democrat, Josh Shapiro, could not have saved them.

The message, not the messenger, lost the Democrats and the American people.

Democrats did not enjoy 50 percent approval on a single issue. A sane party would have recalled its 1996 Democratic National Convention agenda, which called for secure borders, legal-only immigration, support for law enforcement, strong national defense, and fiscal sobriety aiming at balanced budgets. All that won Bill Clinton an easy victory over Republican candidate Bob Dole.

Instead, Democrats since the beginning of the Obama era have figured that by veering hard left on social issues like abortion on demand, glorifying illegal immigration, transexual chauvinism, and the unworkable and dangerous new green deal, they would capture the youth vote for a generation.

Instead, they had no clue that their own disastrous record of high inflation, interest rates, insurance costs, and gas and food staple prices trumped cultural issues and led to splitting the youth vote almost evenly between Trump and Harris.

Democrats also felt that by normalizing illegal immigration and an open border, a new cohort of 12 million illegal aliens from south of the border would energize the Latino vote. The new influx would ensure that the massively changing demography of America would continue to flip red states blue, as it has in the past, with states like California, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico.

In fact, open borders had almost the opposite effect. The more the world’s impoverished swarmed border towns and Mexican-American communities—jamming health care services, flooding the schools, spiking crime, trafficking children, and empowering gangs—the more Hispanic Democrats would not vote like Democrats but instead punish them.

By parroting “abortion,” “abortion,” “abortion” nonstop, the more the Left figured they had locked up huge majorities of women voters. Clueless, they never understood that women know better than men what hyperinflation looks like at the grocery store and gas pump. They value safe streets and the freedom to be secure from random criminals.

As a result, Harris failed utterly to capture the margins in old Democratic constituencies needed to offset the party’s huge loss of male and white voters.

Democrats mostly see Americans merely as a conglomeration of separate tribes: blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, gays, women, transsexuals, and upscale bicoastal whites. In their tribalist views, all the groups are seen as more loyal to their own tribal members than they are either to other tribes or to America itself.

In what they call “intersectionality,” Democrats believe that they have to fuse and weld together the disparate bands by tailor-made concessions to each. So, Leftists, in the manner of Roman emperors bidding for the loyalties of the Praetorian Guard, then barter for the support of each tribe by promises of various entitlements, exemptions, and policies. They do not see voters as universally human with identical desires and aspirations, who embrace shared national wishes for affordable housing, food, transportation, power, fuel, and health care that transcend what differences they may appear to hold by their respective superficial appearances.

In contrast, Trump and the MAGA movement likewise appreciated the various tribal and special interest groups in America. But, in contrast to Democrats, they sought to unite all factions by their shared concerns over crime, inflation, affordable housing, border security, and deterring enemies abroad. Those worries would trump their individual racial or gender differences that then became incidental, not essential, to who they were. In sum, Trump, of all people, substituted class concerns for racial and sexual tribalism and mirabile dictu, and proved far more ecumenical in attracting new constituencies than past “moderates” like the Bushes, John McCain, Bob Dole, and Mitt Romney.

The more such Republican inclusiveness won out, all the more furious Democrats weirdly turned on their own tribalist constituencies to blame them for the November loss. So, the Obamas charged that blacks suffered from false consciousness—in Marxist terms of not knowing what “really” was good for them (unless they listened to their master tutors, Barack and Michelle Obama).

Party hacks blamed Hispanics for “selling out” their elite liberal patrons by voting to close the border and keep their communities safe and prosperous. Some clueless leftists thought Trump should close the border to punish apostate Mexican Americans, unaware that the majority of the latter wanted the border closed.

The hard-left women of The View damned “white women” for supposedly voting in ways that were too materialist—like ensuring safety for their children, affordability for their households, and honor and pride for the country. They, too, were in an echo chamber as their shrillness, quasi-racism, and incompetence bled their audiences. Indeed, for the first time in history, pay-to-watch Fox News in the Morning, hosted by African American Harris Faulkner (The Faulkner Focus), captured a larger audience than the free-to-watch The View.

In sum, the Democrats are atomized, each faction steadily smaller and shriller than a possible whole—all fighting with one another, none willing to conduct an autopsy of what went wrong.

Or is it worse than that—given the Democratic National Committee just elected hard left Minnesotan Ken Martin, known previously for tweeting that then President Trump was guilty of treason, by citing the demonstrably false story that Russians were giving the Taliban bounties for killing Americans and that Trump had done nothing about it? Martin comes to the DNC from running the Minnesota Democratic Party and on the recommendation of his close friend Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. However, note that Walz was one of history’s most inept vice-presidential candidates and contributed to the 2024 Harris defeat. And Martin did not reverse Minnesota’s bleeding of leftist viewers; in fact, Harris got fewer votes in Minnesota in 2024 than Biden had in 2020.

Perhaps the best simile is that the Democrats are acting like addicts and cannot break from their woke-DEI drug that they apparently must inject to survive—even as they accept that such fixations are lethal habits that are killing their own party.

Nevertheless, like all end-stage addicts, Democrats feel that perhaps just one more hot shot, just one more powerful, pure fix, will send them into nirvana rather than finally to oblivion. And so, they have forgotten nothing and have thus learned nothing.

If you do not take an interest
in the affairs of your government,
then you are doomed to live under
the rule of fools.
Plato

From: Peter Kwasniewski from “Tradition and Sanity” traditionsanity@substack.com
Date: Thu, Feb 13, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Subject: Pius X to Francis: From Modernism Expelled to Modernism Enthroned (Part 3: Conclusion)
To: lifetreemail@gmail.com

Pius X to Francis: From Modernism Expelled to Modernism Enthroned (Part 3: Conclusion)
Examples of Ratzingerian dialectics and Bergoglian evolutionism
PETER KWASNIEWSKI
FEB 13

LISTEN TO POST · 22:25
In Part 1, I looked at the origins of Modernism and formulated a definition, with the help of Cardinal Mercier. In Part 2, I traced its fundamental problem back to a false philosophy that undermines supernatural faith in a definite divine revelation and discussed how the Oath Against Modernism was dismantled by a pope, Paul VI, who seemed suspiciously eager to embrace at least some of the ideas condemned by it. In this concluding part, I will look at some examples of how the evolutionism characteristic of the Modernist view plays out in the current pope and in his predecessor. Lastly, I will connect the dots between what I shall call Black, Scarlet, and Lavender Modernisms.

Francis as doctrinal evolutionist

One of the characteristic features of Modernism is its reliance on an evolutionary model of thought, in which truth is not static but dynamic: the Church does not possess the Truth at any given moment, but is ever searching for it, and ever stumbling upon new aspects of Truth that can even amount to a reversal of what the Church used to hold as true.¹

We can see this approach vividly in Pope Francis, who maintains that the Church was actually wrong for 2,000 years in her support of the use of the death penalty, since we “now know” that the death penalty is contrary to human dignity, and therefore always and everywhere inadmissible (but this can be true only if it is per se malum, something evil in and of itself; for if it were not, it would sometimes be admissible). Or rather, it is perhaps more accurate to say that for a Modernist, the Church at a more primitive period of the development of human consciousness was right to promote the death penalty — it was bound to look legitimate to culturally immature people — but now in our stage of higher consciousness, which involves the apprehension of universal human rights, the brotherhood of all men, the non-divine source of political authority, and the universal benevolence of the Creator-God, we can see that the death penalty is wrong. Or so it may be for our particular phase of consciousness; evolution could lead us once more in a surprising direction, you never know.

Another example is the false teaching of the eighth chapter of Amoris Laetitia, which overturns the hitherto unbroken exclusion from reception of the sacraments of Catholics who are living in an objective state of adultery. The Modernist, however, would say that notions of mortal sin, objective sinfulness, worthiness, preconditions for sacramental reception, have all “evolved” under the influence of an ever-more comprehensive grasp of God’s merciful love, which “stops at nothing” (as they would say) and “is never earned or lost by our actions,” etc. Note that there is always a grain of truth in the midst of these errors, for otherwise they would have not the slightest plausibility for any intellect, however dim.

The universalism espoused by Francis in Abu Dhabi, in Singapore, and in many other places is yet another example: the Church once taught that it alone possesses and teaches the true religion given to us by God for our salvation, but “now we know” that God speaks to man through all religions and goes beyond them all, so each is a path to salvation for those who follow it sincerely. At best, Jesus is the “privileged path” of salvation, as Bishop Robert Barron said.² One can detect here the influence of the subjective, emotional, and pragmatic theory of religion Pius X diagnosed in Pascendi.

One could multiply such examples of modern teachings, present already before the Council but emerging into the open afterwards, that bear this evolutionary stamp. Br. André-Marie writes:

Where Kant made all things static, Hegel introduced a dynamic element into his metaphysics (like Heraclitus). For Hegel, all things evolve in the dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. History, truth, thought, indeed all reality is explained by this principle. In the history of thought, the Hegelian dialectic gives rise to “Historical Consciousness,” an acute awareness of change as a constant, describing all reality as in continual development. It further produces “Historicism,” the theory in which general laws of historical development are the determinant of events. In this theory, all things are subject to progressive evolutionary processes.³

Cornelis Jacobsz, Dialectica (source)
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Hegelian dialectic in Ratzinger

Indeed, we can see how even Benedict XVI’s theory of the “hermeneutic of continuity” imports or retains an element of Hegelianism. In the famous address he gave to the Roman Curia on December 22, 2005, he spoke not of a “hermeneutic of continuity” (although he used that expression at other times),⁴ but of a “hermeneutic of reform, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us.”

As Brian McCall explains, this is not quite as promising as it might sound:

Benedict XVI is arguing that the object of belief can change over time as long as the Church remains the same subject proposing those developing beliefs. It seeks revisions of teaching over time through a process that keeps the structure of the Church in place.⁵

So, although Benedict in the same speech rejects what he calls the “hermeneutic of rupture” that makes of the Church during and after the Council a totally different entity with totally different beliefs from the Church before the Council, he goes on to say that in regard to more contingent matters such as the Church’s relationship with the modern world, there is in fact a blend of rupture and continuity — certain ruptures are necessary in order to secure a deeper continuity, as it were. Or in his words: “It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists.”

Let me give some examples of how this Hegelian dialectic works in Ratzinger.

1. In his book Principles of Catholic Theology, Ratzinger called the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, a “countersyllabus” to Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors.⁶ The Thesis is Pius IX’s Anti-Liberalism; the Antithesis is modern Liberalism; the dialectical process is the struggle to integrate modernity into Catholicism; the resulting Synthesis is a Higher Liberalism that is somehow also Catholic.
2. In the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum and the accompanying letter to bishops, Con Grande Fiducia, we have a Thesis: the Tridentine Roman rite; an Antithesis: the Novus Ordo; a dialectical process: “mutual enrichment”; and an eventual Synthesis: a future Roman rite that is both old and new, with the supposed “best qualities” of each.⁷
3. In the position Benedict XVI takes about heaven, hell, and purgatory in the encyclical letter Spe Salvi, we can reconstruct the latent structure this way. Thesis: the historically dominant view that the human race is a “massa damnata,” in other words, a race justly destined for perdition due to original and actual sin, from which a minority is saved. Antithesis: the universalism of Origen, David Bentley Hart, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Bishop Barron: either everyone will be saved, or at least it’s reasonable to hope that that will be the case. The dialectical process is the ever-widening inclusiveness of salvific grace. The final Synthesis: most people are saved, though the few who are terribly wicked, like Hitler and Stalin, are lost; they cannot sit at the same heavenly banquet.⁸
4. Regarding human evolution, the Thesis is that man was created directly by God and woman by God from the first man, and the whole human race takes its origin from this pair. The Antithesis is that human beings are nothing but a cosmic accident, the unplanned outcome of material particles interacting by chance. The Synthesis is theistic evolution, where God somehow upholds and directs the random material process until at some point He intervenes to establish “first humans,” whose parents were non-humans.

We see this kind of dialectical pattern throughout Joseph Ratzinger’s writings; it is very true that as different as he is from Cardinal Walter Kasper, they share a profound core of Germanic philosophy but apply it in different ways. Kasper, for example, describes the shift from the apostolic period to the post-apostolic period of the early Church councils as a “continuity in discontinuity,” where the original kerygma or message of salvation was translated into Greek categories of thought in order to be “adapted to the mentality of the day”; and he says that this is what every age must do: translate the Gospel into a new language, discarding no longer relevant or meaningful concepts and adopting novel ones to fit the requirements of the times.

Now, I have spent a good deal of time talking about the history, personalities, and philosophical method of Modernism because if we do not see these things clearly, we will not be able to recognize the wide range of forms — at times, sophisticated and subtle — that Modernism assumes in our own day. There are out-and-out Modernists like Kasper, but there are also many who have been influenced or formed by Modernism perhaps without even realizing it, or who believe they can somehow “salvage” or “rehabilitate” its “positive aspects” while still maintaining Catholic orthodoxy and tradition (Ratzinger, I think, would fall into this category, as would most so-called Catholic conservatives).

As I have been at pains to show, Modernism is not a tidy, closed system that must be held or rejected in full; rather, it is a mish-mash of ideas about how faith and religion operate, how salvation occurs, how Scripture is formed, how dogmatic definitions emerge and are refined, how the law of development of thought — the expansion and refinement of the moral conscience — compels the modernization of human beings and their institutions, including the Church. It’s unlikely that one will find all of these views equally in all who might be called Modernists or semi-Modernists; it’s even more unlikely that everyone who holds such views will be aware of their origins and their implications.

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Three waves of Modernists

Nevertheless, there are those individuals who are very well aware of what they are doing and how they intend to determine the future of the Church. I suggest we think of them in three categories: the Black Modernists of 120 years ago; the Scarlet Modernists of 60 years ago; and the Lavender Modernists of today.

The Black Modernists of 120 years ago were men of the cloth, like Alfred Loisy and George Tyrrell, who embraced rationalism, scientism, historicism, revisionism, and relativism. These men and their writings and conferences made it possible for an attitude of distrust, suspicion, and contempt toward tradition to make headway in the Church. Their views prompted a growing restlessness for Church reform and often for liturgical reform — a movement that Pius XI and Pius XII tried to moderate and placate in their pontificates, with mixed results.⁹

It was John XXIII who, though personally of a more traditional piety, made the fatal mistake of convening an ecumenical council at a time when the neo-Modernist agenda had picked up steam once again (we can see this by examining mid-twentieth-century theologians like Rahner, Congar, Chenu, Küng, Schillebeeckx, Häring, De Lubac, and Ratzinger, among many others), and then compounded his error by allowing these periti and their bishops to cancel out the preparatory documents of the Council, staging a “coup” that determined its fundamental direction and cast of mind.

At this point, sixty years out from the end of Vatican II, we could speak of Scarlet Modernists, in the sense of bishops and cardinals of that period who, usually of impeccable personal morality and a strong sense of duty, were sympathetic to more progressive or liberal points of view at the Council — and even more can we speak of bishops and cardinals consecrated or created in the decades immediately after the Council, who would most fully implement its vision, normalizing milder forms of the ideas condemned in Pius X’s Pascendi — a version that might be called “soft Modernism,” which is the theological soundtrack to “beige Catholicism” (to use a phrase of Bishop Barron’s).

This Modernism is, in fact, nothing less than the Creed of the Anti-Church, the operative principles of the churchmen and ecclesiastical structures that are masquerading as the Church of Christ and living parasitically off of her historical capital and financial assets. We can recognize the Anti-Church by its self-contradictory traits: the dogmatic undogmatism, the rigid laxism, the exclusive inclusiveness, the systematic antischolasticism and eclecticism, the anti-traditional spirit that has by now practically become a substitute tradition, since it has been around long enough to win a certain veneer of respectability (note that the politicized canonizations of several Vatican II popes were a crucial step in transmitting the pretense of divine approval).

Intellectual errors followed by ecclesiastical restructuring — including the episcopate-destroying pursuit of “collegiality” and “synodality” — and the betrayal of the sacred liturgy have led to the moral vacuum, or worse, the demon-infested vacuum, that we now know as the clerical sexual abuse scandal, which it would be more proper to call the “abuse pandemic.” The sexual abuse epitomized in former Cardinal McCarrick and now sustained by his well-placed collaborators in the USCCB and at the Vatican is of course bound up with the vice of sodomy, which has always flared up in the worst periods of Church history: times when knowledge, virtue, and commitment to Christ had dissipated, when the Faith was like a tiny spark nurtured by a faithful remnant, out of which reform and renewal eventually came by God’s great mercy.

This is why I speak of today’s “Lavender Modernists”: they have much in common with the two preceding types, the Black and the Scarlet, but they are altogether worse, for they combine intellectual infidelity, institutional ambition, liturgical corruption, and moral depravity. And in this way, they are the promulgators and precipitants of the Great Apostasy.

The ultimate model and cause of fidelity: Jesus Christ fastened to the Cross; behind him, pious Aeneas carries his father from burning Troy; in the foreground, dogs serve as symbols of loyalty — Jacob Matham, after design by Hendrick Goltzius (source)
The response of faithful Catholics

How, then, do we combat this multi-generational parasite of Modernism? In a time of such confusion and wickedness, one thing is absolutely clear: we must hold fast to the settled and articulate tradition of the Church:

in her doctrine, which we find in all of the ecumenical Councils that taught dogmatically and in the Catechism of Trent and all the good catechisms of the past;
in our moral life, according to the constant teaching and example of the saints;
above all, in the Church’s authentic age-old rites of worship, be they Eastern or Western.
This is what we are asked to do: remain faithful to the inheritance we have received, prior to the period of anarchy. The one and only safe path is to stick to what we know to be certainly true; to implore God’s help and intervention daily; to entrust ourselves to the Virgin Mary; and never to abandon the Church of Christ for imaginary greener pastures elsewhere. What good could any move away from the Catholic Church accomplish? It would only remove good people from what they need the most and where they are most needed — the visible Body of Christ — and would only contribute to the growing anarchy.

What is needed is steadfast attachment to the Bride of Christ in spite of her marred countenance on earth, unswerving loyalty to her eternal Head, total acceptance of the doctrine He entrusted to her in its integrity. In short, we need to do what St. Pius X taught us to do over a hundred years ago. Truth is perpetually youthful, with a radiant countenance of beauty and delight; it is error that grows prematurely old, gnarled, and hideous.

There is more need than ever for the counterwitness of Catholics who speak the truth with love, and live it with joy. These will be the torchbearers who bring the light of the Faith into the remaining decades of the twenty-first century and beyond, while the Modernist sect (for that it what it is) implodes upon itself. After all, as our Lord said in no uncertain terms: Veritas liberabit vos, the truth will set you free (Jn 8:32). He Himself is that truth — Ego sum via, et veritas, et vita (Jn 14:6) — and His Church is the “pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

Because of the flight from God that began with Adam’s rebellion and worms its way into the children of Eve, we will not be surprised if the world prefers the slavery of subjectivism to the truth that sets us free: “The time is coming when people will not endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths” (2 Tim 3:3–4). Surely it is not too much to ask of loyal Catholics that they not follow suit; that, instead, they seek out, study, and promote sound doctrine in all faith and humility; that they turn away from fashionable modern myths to embrace a heritage of perennial truths; that they accumulate teachers who, unashamed to be lowly pupils in the school of Christ, feed upon every word that comes from the mouth of God, and nourish their disciples with the same life-giving food.

A sober examination of the Church on earth at this time discloses the existence of a major “schism.” Yet, contrary to the propaganda of the progressives, it is not faithful and traditional Catholics who are in schism, but those members of the hierarchy and of the laity who, under the intoxicating influence of Modernism, have abandoned the rock of truth and the ark of salvation. We cannot expect them to be humbly admitting their errors and repenting of their sins. This, surely, is an apocalyptic storm from which only an omnipotent God can deliver us, in answer to the prayers He calls forth from our weary but unvanquished souls. As Archbishop Viganò says:

The Church is shrouded in the darkness of modernism, but the victory belongs to Our Lord and His Bride. We desire to continue to profess the perennial faith of the Church in the face of the roaring evil that besieges her. We desire to keep vigil with her and with Jesus, in this new Gethsemane of the end times; to pray and do penance in reparation for the many offenses caused to them…. We know…that even the “synthesis of all heresies” represented by Modernism and its updated conciliar version can never definitively obscure the splendor of the Bride of Christ, but only for the brief period of the eclipse that Providence, in its infinite wisdom, has allowed, to draw from it a greater good.¹⁰

Our growth in holiness through trials, our recommitment to prayer, our study and proclamation of the truth, our grateful adherence to all that God has lavished upon us in our Catholic Tradition — may all this be the evidence in our own lives that He has indeed drawn from the crisis a greater good.

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1
For a superb treatment of the defined dogmatic truths to which Modernism is opposed, see Lamont and Pierantoni, Defending the Faith, 103–13, 268–69.

2
See “Is Jesus Christ the ‘privileged way’ to salvation—or the only way?,” LifeSiteNews, December 17, 2018.

3
“What Did St. Pius X Mean When He Called Modernism ‘the Synthesis of All Heresies’?,” Catholicism.org, September 9, 2007.

4
For documentation, see “The Ongoing Saga of ‘the Hermeneutic of Continuity,’” New Liturgical Movement, November 26, 2013—written at a time when I still believed that Francis might continue in the same line as Benedict, and also that Benedict’s own line was unobjectionable. The passage of time together with further study has clarified much.

5
McCall, A Voice in the Wilderness, 109.

6
“If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text [Gaudium et Spes] as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus…. [T]he Syllabus established a line of demarcation against the determining forces of the nineteenth century: against the scientific and political world view of liberalism. In the struggle against modernism this twofold delimitation was ratified and strengthened…. Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789” (Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, trans. Sr. Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987], 381–82).

7
See my lecture “Beyond Summorum Pontificum: The Work of Retrieving the Tridentine Heritage,” Rorate Caeli, July 14, 2021.

8
See the Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi (November 30, 2007), nn. 44–46; cf. my article “On Hell: Clarity Is Mercy in an Age of ‘Dare We Hope,’” OnePeterFive, August 7, 2019.

9
Modernists were not uniformly in favor of liturgical reform or experimentation. Since their concern was to deny the literal meaning of dogmas and to emphasize subjective religious and ethical experience, it was easy enough for them to revel in the religious symbolism the traditional rites provided. At the same time, Modernism’s general evolutionary framework, in which mankind’s present condition and future state are seen as superior to the past, readily lends itself to liturgical aggiornamento. Ironically, we see in the official policy of the Society of St. Pius X an inversion of the Modernist problem: the focus is placed so strongly on “doctrine” that liturgical deformation, such as the Pius XII Holy Week (a trial run for the Novus Ordo), is accepted without protest. It’s as if they maintain that a pope can be an absolute monarch with no responsibilities to the Church’s tradition of worship, as long as dogma is untouched; he could create a new liturgy de novo and it would have to be accepted if no doctrinal objections could be made to it. Such is the essence of liturgical nominalism and voluntarism; and such a view is not Catholic.

10
A Voice in the Wilderness, 157; 256.

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January 20—Novus ordo seclorum?
(New Order of the Ages)
By: Victor Davis Hanson

Part One – January 21, 2025
How do we explain that the world is turning upside down after November 5, 2024, and will continue following January 20, 2025?

Symptoms?

Take the media?
The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and others suddenly did not endorse their usual left/Democratic presidential candidate this election. So, many of their writers are now fired or resigned in anger or fear.

Owners claim their own papers are too biased. Changes are promised. But why now? Why did CNN lose its defamation suit? Why is CBS thinking of settling with Trump after editing an interview with Kamala Harris to help her chances in the waning days of the 2024 campaign?

Silicon Valley? What happened there?

Instead of Mark Zuckerberg’s $419 million invested in ensuring the Trump campaign did not win (as in 2020), why are he and the wealthiest tech lords in the world traipsing to Mar-a-Lago? Why did Mark blame his former CEO Sheryl Sandberg for Facebook’s DEI mindless McCarthyism?

There is to be no more Trump-Hitler?

Even Joe and Mika took their hajj to Palm Beach?

Snoop Dog is no longer cutting videos about shooting Trump, but praising his near hero?

Bezos’s rockets and Elon’s are now to be frenemies?

Why did MSNBC suddenly fire(?)—or see leave—its CEO Rashida Jones? Was it just ratings, or public disgust as well with the likes of Rachel Maddow (who why now took a pay cut?) and the protected racist rantings of Joy Reid?

Why now, all of a sudden, do the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times report to us that Team Biden and the media who covered the White House all knew that he was cognitively challenged from the start of his tenure as they both conspired to smear and slander all who spoke the truth?

Why is everyone shocked that Joe Biden just declared that a mythical 28th Amendment is “the law of the land”?

Again, why now these about-faces? Why not last July; why not, say, February or September 2022 or perhaps 2023? Why do we hear only now that Joe Biden signed an executive order banning LNG exports to Europe—and claimed he did not know what he signed?

Also, suddenly, there really was a Wuhan Lab origin to the birth of Covid, after all. And mirabile dictu Peter Daszak is no hero and not deserving of a single dime of more federal money? Will there be no more bobblehead Dr. Faucis to buy? Why is there no longer a market for them and other Fauci paraphernalia?

Why is Liz Cheney no longer a folk hero? Was she not praised for coaching a witness and shutting out other Republicans from serving on the January 6 House committee?

Christopher Wray sent in his resignation and now suddenly warns us of cabals of Chinese espionage operatives in the U.S.? Again, did they just now appear?

Why is everyone from CEOs to the FBI abruptly shutting down their DEI departments? Would they have done so if Harris had won?

And did we not hear that the caravans heading northward to our border have been turning around? Why is Mexico so complimentary of the once diablo Trump?

Why is Trudeau gone?

For that matter, why did the Assad regime abruptly fall after the election, and why does Hamas wish to negotiate, and why does the current Iranian president suddenly swear Iran wants no bomb, no desire to assassinate Trump, no wish for a wider war with Israel?

As for the trivial, why did the Danish government just put Greenland imagery on its royal coat of arms? And why did it send $1 billion to Greenland, and why not 1, 5, 9 years ago?

So why is the world turned upside down, as the British played after their shocking defeat at Yorktown (e.g., “Yet let’s be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn’d upside down.”)?

Part Two – January 22, 2025
The obvious answer to all these disconnects, shockers, and paradoxes is not quite the whole answer: that Trump won in the greatest political comeback in U.S. history, that he might well be a Reaganesque president to Biden’s Carter, that his success will be his revenge and reveal to the country just how badly our John Gill Biden ruled in comparison.

Or even perhaps the answer is that the Left here and our enemies abroad know what they have done to Trump and, during the Biden dereliction, to the U.S. itself during the last four years. And thus, they know what these scoundrels would do if they were now in the place of an ascending Trump and a re-awakening U.S. if they had experienced from themselves what they did to Trump and us.

Another explanation is that we are waking up from a bad four-year dream, or recovering from a bad hangover, or have arisen from a coma, and for the first time have rediscovered confidence within ourselves.

What caused our slumber, or rather what were the goads that drove the U.S. absolutely insane from the summer of 2020 to January 20, 2025?

Was it the fatal combination of the insane Covid lockdown, and the hysterical, Stalinist reprisals to any dissent? Did that social isolation and economic ruin offer tinder for the George Floyd riots?

How otherwise would entire cities go up in smoke of 35 dead and $2 billion in arson and looting damage over the unfortunate death of a violent career felon? No one wished to remember that the deified Floyd once broke into a home and put a gun to a woman’s pregnant stomach, and at the time of his arrest was in self-imposed ill health, high on fentanyl, suffering heart disease, recovering from Covid, arrested for passing counterfeit currency, resisting arrest, and perished while a cop sneered as he kept him down on the pavement gasping for breath? To lament Floyd’s death but to disagree he should appear in murals with a halo and feathered wings, remember, was heresy, blasphemy, and grounds for firing.

Did all that warrant the deaths and destruction that followed, and would it have occurred had not the locked-up and quarantined population been first driven crazy by the pandemic and the reaction to it? Was all that the fuel that reawakened the woke/DEI virus and nearly fatally infected the country?

So, the four-year hiatus is over. And there is a sense of joy, or rather relief that abroad America will once again protect its friends and worry its enemies. We will try to forget the years of craziness of printing trillions of dollars, of retribalizing and fixating on our superficial appearances, of demanding from others the confession that there are three equal sexes, and the windmills and solar panels will keep us warm in winter and cool in summer, day and night, and China is merely a friendly rival, and that thieves steal from stores only because rich people made laws that it is bad to take things people need but they do not.

So, the pseudo-realities constructed during the years of madness have evaporated and left behind a foul-smelling vapor. Are we supposed to laugh even now about the eerie machinations of our “51 experts” who claimed the damming Hunter laptop was “Russian disinformation,” or that Joe Biden, our savior on January 6 and the defender of our Constitution can leave office declaring in his dementia that he alone has just ratified and put into law the 28th Amendment as he says, “the law of the land.”

So, what will follow now that we Americans have arisen from our four-year stupor and once again are masters of our own destiny?

How long will it take for the Left, now in their caves licking their wounds, to reemerge as they did during the Senate confirmation questioning? Then the hysterics, ignorance, and obnoxiousness of Senators Hirono, Kane, Schumer, Warren, or Whitehouse likely guaranteed the unanimous or near-unanimous votes to confirm all the nominees who endured their adolescent performance art rants.

Who knows such answers? But for now, perhaps there is a month, maybe three, to fuel a renaissance, a counter-revolution that will first return us to normality, as the last shall be first, the first last.

The final corruption of Joe Biden
With only 15 minutes to go as president,
Joe Biden snatched infamy from the jaws of obscurity.

By: Jonathan Turley
January 20, 2025
(Emphasis added)

With record-low polling and widely viewed as a “failed” president, Biden completed his one-man race to the bottom of ethics by issuing preemptive pardons to members of his own family. The pardons were timed to guarantee that the media would not focus on yet another unethical act by this president. He need not have worried. For four years, the media worked tirelessly to deny or deflect the corruption scandal surrounding the Biden family.

The pardoning of James Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John Owens, and Francis Biden brought an inescapable clarity to the corruption of what is known in Washington as Biden Inc.

I have written about the Biden family’s corruption for decades. Influence-peddling has always been the favorite form of corruption in Washington, but this city has never seen the likes of the Biden family. Millions of dollars were secured from foreign sources and distributed to various Biden family members.

Biden repeatedly lied about the influence peddling. He long denied knowing about his son’s foreign clients or business. He denied ever meeting Hunter’s clients. Later, photos and emails showed that Biden had clearly met these clients and knew about the business deals. He was fully aware that his family was cashing in on his name and various offices.

Even Biden’s claims about handling the Trump cases were recently contradicted. While long claiming that he left these cases to the Justice Department and took no position on the merits, the Washington Post recently reported that Biden was irate over the failure to prosecute Trump before the election. He also reportedly lashed out at Attorney General Merrick Garland and said he regretted his appointment in light of the failure to nail Trump.

One of the most glaring lies was that he would never pardon his son. Few people believed him. Indeed, Hunter Biden’s bizarre criminal defense made no sense unless he knew he had a pocket pardon if all else failed.

Once he was forced out of the presidential race, Biden was freed up to sign a pardon for any and all crimes committed over a ten-year period by his son. He insisted that he really hadn’t been lying. He claimed that no ordinary person would have been tried for his son’s crimes — a manifestly untrue statement. He also emphasized that he had to take this step as a father of a son who was a hopeless addict and has now been clean for years.

However, the latest family pardon shatters even that rationalization. These Bidens are not even charged with any crimes, but Biden wanted to give them cover from any possible prosecution for anything. It was the ultimate sign of contempt for the American public’s intelligence and his office’s integrity.

Biden has long exercised situational ethics, and with his powers coming to an end, the situation demanded that he cash out before his credit ended. In granting these pardons, Biden was seeking to protect not just his family but also himself. He was the object of the influence peddling and repeatedly lied to bury the scandal. This insulation of his family serves to move the threat farther from himself.

Biden, however, may have been too clever by half this time. In the final moments of his presidency, he broke into the open and exposed not just himself but his allies in the media. Reporters are now fully visible as willing dupes in one of the greatest corruption scandals in this country’s history.

In his pardon statement, Biden insisted that:
“the issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”
Of course, that is the very opposite of what most people will conclude. More importantly, the pardons will not end the threat to his family.

Figures such as James Biden have been accused of lying to Congress about the influence-peddling operation. He can still be subpoenaed, and if he lies, he can be charged with a new crime.

Indeed, after James Biden’s pardon, it will be argued that he has less basis to claim the right to remain silent about any alleged crimes committed during the period for which the pardon applies. (He could argue that there is a danger of state charges, but that is less credible due to the running of statutes of limitation and other factors.)

The pardons, if anything, make such an investigation even more compelling for those seeking answers to longstanding questions of corruption.

Biden sealed his legacy with a finality that escapes most presidents. While his diminished mental capacity will remain an issue for historians, these pardons conclusively established his longstanding lack of ethics. It was Biden’s final act of corruption.

For a president who liked to call others “lying dog-faced pony soldiers,” Biden proved that, in the world of political corruption, the ponies are entirely optional.

COMMENTS, QUESTIONS,
LESSONS AND THOUGHTS
ABOUT WHERE WE HAVE BEEN
AND WHERE WE ARE HEADED

By: E.P.Unum
January 20, 2025

When the history of the Biden Administration is written, I predict it will go down as the most inept, insensitive, unintellectual, ineffective, and corrupt four years in the entire 250-year history of the United States of America.

Consider the following as a preface to the major focus of this essay:

America is a nation unlike any other in the history of mankind. Our Republic was founded on the principle that the rights of its citizens emanate from God, not man. Among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our Constitution, created by our Founders, has endured for 250 years, and the bedrock of that Constitution is that we have a government that is accountable to We The People, not the Supreme Court, Congress, or the President…but to We The People, not the other way around! Americans believe that every life is sacred and worth defending, and millions of Americans dressed in brown, khaki, blue, and grey have traded their yesterdays for our future and paid for it with their blood and sacrifice.

Over the last four decades, there has been an intense effort by liberal Democrats, who call themselves Progressives, to alter our system of government. These individuals seek to expand the Supreme Court and pack it with liberal jurists, thus ensuring the decisions of the Court go in favor of liberal ideals. These people are hell-bent on creating a large centralized government that will control every facet of our lives because at the very core of their beliefs is the notion that individuals are incapable of making decisions about their future well-being. They seek to do this by frivolously spending taxpayer dollars without regard to the effects such spending holds for the people they are sworn to serve or the general economy, i.e., inflation. They have already bastardized Social Security by siphoning funds to launch the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, who also used funds from Social Security to help fund the Vietnam War. More recently, President Biden tapped these funds to help pay for the 15 million illegal immigrants that have invaded our nation, coming through our southern border and Canada to the north. Most Americans are not aware that funds provided by working Americans and ostensibly used to help provide funds for retirement are not for that purpose at all; instead, the Supreme Court back in 1960, in a not-so-well publicized case Fleming vs Nestor, ruled that funds collected by the Social Security Administration are merely a tax providing funds for the general treasury to be spent as Congress or the President sees fit. Stated simply, Nestor vs Fleming created a giant piggy bank for liberal pet projects. Far too few people in America realize this, but it is a fact.

Today, we find ourselves in the midst of a major war in Ukraine, which we have funded to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars; the Middle East in turmoil with Israel defending itself against proxies of Iran like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi Rebels in Yemen who are also firing on cargo ships carrying goods for nations around the world. None of this is a surprise given our feckless leadership and the ill-advised retreat from Afghanistan, where we left $85 billion in state-of-the-art weapons, tanks, APCs, aircraft, ammunition, night vision equipment, RPGs, machine guns, rifles, and pistols to the enemy. All of this was on the orders given by President Joe Biden, who is, in my opinion, singularly the most corrupt, incompetent leader our country has ever had and who, in my opinion, should have been tried for treason along with General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Our country finds itself in this situation as the sun sets on the Biden Presidency. Thank God, on November 5, 2024, we elected Donald J. Trump as our 47th President, who takes office today, January 20, 2025.

President Trump is by no means perfect, but at least he loves our country, and that alone is a marked departure from the past four years.

Now for some lessons, questions, comments and observations:
· Democrats are likely to continue to be obstructionists to anything and everything President Trump tries to do. A leopard does not change its spots, and Democrats refuse to heed the message from We The People. These uber-liberal obstructionists have clearly been following the gameplan cited by Saul Alinsky, a professor at the University of Chicago, in his book Rules For Radicals. His book offered ways to cripple our government and change society and garnered the support of many politicians, including Barack Husein Obama, Hillary Clinton, and many social activists.

Rules For Radicals provides eight steps to effect significant government and
societal change as summarized below:
1) Healthcare — Control healthcare, and you control the people
2) Poverty—Increase the Poverty level as much as possible. Poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you provide everything for them to live.
3) Debt — Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way, you can increase taxes, which will increase poverty.
4) Gun Control — Remove the ability of the people to defend themselves from the Government. That way, it will be easier to create a police state.
5) Welfare — Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income). Transfer money from the wealthy to the poor in whatever way possible.
6) Education — Take control of what people read and listen to and what children learn in school.
7) Religion — Remove the belief in God from the Government and schools.
8) Class Warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent, and it will be easier to take from (Tax) the rich with the support of the poor.
· In reviewing these Rules for Radicals, does any of this seem familiar to you? Do you think this resembles a Republican Platform or a Democrat Platform? It is a Democrat Blueprint for disaster.

· Don’t you find it just a wee bit curious as to why President Joe Biden, on his last day in office, felt the need to pardon General Mark Milley, Liz Cheyney, a number of family members, including his brother Jim, and Dr. Anthony Fauci when no charges were ever levied against any of them? Maybe I am wrong, but I have never heard of pre-emptive pardons (until it was tried with Hunter Biden last summer and slapped down by a judge). It begs the question…what did these people do?

· I am so happy that Joe Biden’s granddaughter gave birth in Los Angeles last week, making him a great-grandfather. But announcing it while in Los Angeles with wildfires raging seems a tad bit insensitive and an inappropriate time to do so.

· Thanks to Israel, Iran is reeling. Its most potent proxy, Hezbollah, has been rendered impotent, and the Syrian Regime under Bashar Asad has collapsed and its military capabilities decimated by air strikes by Israel. Due to a powerful Israeli airstrike in late October that took out Iran’s most advanced air defense systems, leaving it naked to future raids, especially on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel achieved all of this despite the lack of support from the Biden Administration.

· It gives me no pleasure to say this. Still, we must face reality: people in the Biden Administration and the so-called journalists in mainstream media and talking heads on TV shows were all complicit in hiding that our President was struggling and in no condition to lead our nation. Why they failed to take action by invoking the 25th Amendment is a sign of incredible weakness and a total lack of integrity and character. Their failure to call this out and take action borders on treason.

· How do you run out of water in fire hydrants in a city like Los Angeles? Surely, there must be some explanation for this. Maybe Governor Gavin Newscom can address this. I haven’t heard from him about this recently.

· I do hope that President Trump issues pardons to many of the people in jail for their involvement (or lack of involvement) in the January 6, 2021, protest, many of whom were denied their due process rights guaranteed under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. I did take note that the ladies on the View declared that the January 6, 2021, protest was “the equivalent to World War II and the Holocaust.” Those two global events left 100 million people dead, so their declaration was a bit out of touch. Wonder what they were smoking or where they learned their history!

· I can’t wait to read James Comer’s book All the President’s Money. An analysis of the Biden banking records, along with testimonies from Hunter Biden business associates before Comer’s committee, showed millions of dollars coming in from Chinese, Ukrainian, Romanian, and Kazhkhistan sources ($30 + million) all through a host of offshore companies controlled by Hunter Biden. Jason Galantis, a former Hunter Biden business associate now serving 16 years in prison for fraud, testified that “Hunter Biden’s primary goal was to make $billions for the family, not just millions.”

· I watched intently as President Biden boarded Marine One with his wife, Jill, and departed Washington, D.C. He leaves a mess and a cadre of people more interested in creating chaos and subverting the rule of law. But President Trump will get it fixed. I wish Biden well, but several health issues beset him, and the many lies and falsehoods he has promulgated over the years have taken their toll on him. His legacy, like his political career, is rooted in lies and deceit.

Our focus today needs to be on the future. And President Trump will do just that.

Full List of Donald Trump’s Executive Orders
Signed in the First Week

By: Andrew Stanton
January 21, 2025

President Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders and other presidential actions on Monday, fulfilling a campaign promise to enact a sweeping conservative agenda upon his return to the White House.

Among other things, the president:
· withdrew from the landmark Paris Agreement,
· rescinded 78 Biden-era executive actions and
· implemented a federal hiring freeze.

He also signed several immigration-related executive orders and issued orders:
· curbing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts,
· announced upcoming tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and
· issued pardons to more than 1,500 people convicted of crimes related to the deadly January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

Trump signed his first few executive orders before the inaugural luncheon Monday afternoon. The orders appointed dozens of Cabinet-level officials and acting officials across the government, pending Senate confirmation of Trump’s Cabinet nominees. Officials who were appointed in acting capacities via executive orders include:
· James McHenry as acting attorney general.
· Robert Salesses as acting Secretary of Defense.
· Dorothy Fink as acting Secretary of Health and Human Services.
· Benjamine Huffman as acting Secretary of Homeland Security.
· Mark Averill as acting Secretary of the Army.
· Tom Sylvester as acting CIA director.
· Mark Uyeda as acting chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
· Andrew Ferguson as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.

Trump officials also immediately shut down a Biden-era Customs and Border Protection app that allowed migrants to apply to legally enter the U.S. by seeking asylum.

Trump signed a number of other executive actions at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., where he addressed supporters in the late afternoon. The actions he signed included:
· The rescission of 78 Biden-era executive orders, actions, and memoranda.
· A regulatory freeze prevents bureaucrats from issuing more regulations until “we have full control” of the government.
· A freeze on all federal hiring except in the military and a number of other excluded categories.
· A requirement that federal workers return to full-time, in-person work.
· Directing agencies to address Americans’ cost-of-living “crisis.”
· Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and informing the United Nations of the U.S.’s withdrawal from the landmark climate treaty.
· A directive to the federal government “ordering the restoration of freedom of speech and preventing government censorship of free speech going forward.”
· A directive to the federal government “ending the weaponization of government against the political adversaries of the previous administration, as we’ve seen.”

Trump then headed to the White House, where one of the first things he did was pardon more than 1,500 people convicted in connection to the deadly January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Many of Trump’s campaign promises may be able to be implemented by executive order, but others will require support from Congress.

Republicans have a majority in the House and Senate. Still, their slim House majority and the existence of the Senate filibuster mean Trump will need cooperation from at least some Democratic lawmakers to pass parts of his agenda.

Many of these orders are likely to face legal challenges over the coming months, as liberal groups and watchdog organizations have pledged to sue the Trump administration over some of the president’s campaign pledges.

Immigration
Trump signed an executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. The order will almost certainly face legal challenges since birthright citizenship is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

He also signed an order designating Mexican drug cartels and some other organizations to be foreign terrorist organizations.

He also declared a national emergency at the southern border, allowing him to use federal funding to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border without congressional approval.

“That’s a big one,” Trump said while signing the order. “People have wanted to do this for years.”

He also reinstated the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their cases went through U.S. courts. He suspended the Refugee Admission Program “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”

Immigration, Trump’s signature issue, will be a focal point of several executive orders, especially during his first few weeks in office. He promised mass deportations starting the first day of his administration, though these efforts are also likely to be challenged in court.

Climate and Drilling
The president signed a number of executive orders withdrawing the United States from key agreements and agencies.

“I’m immediately withdrawing from the one-sided Paris Climate Accord ripoff,” Trump said Monday at the Capital One Arena. “The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity.”

He also withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization, which will deprive the organization of millions of dollars in funding.

Trump issued another order declaring a “national energy emergency,” which could allow him to unilaterally bypass certain environmental regulations.

Tariffs and Taxes
Trump fulfilled his campaign promise to impose steep tariffs on countries like Canada and Mexico, saying that as of February 1, there will be a 25 percent tariff on imports from both countries.

He also signed an executive order saying that a global minimum corporate tax deal supported by the Biden administration and negotiated with over 100 countries has “no force or effect” in the U.S. without an act of Congress.

Trump signed a pair of executive orders to boost oil and gas drilling. One order seeks to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and National Petroleum Reserve.

The second orders a review of policies that “burden the development of domestic energy resources” and eliminates the Biden-era “electric vehicle (EV) mandate.”

TikTok
On the social media front, the president signed an executive order extending the deadline for TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the app, just one day after a law requiring its ban took effect. The app went offline for a few hours in the U.S. on Sunday but became available again after the company announced that it believed Trump would block the ban from taking effect. Trump’s executive order gave ByteDance an additional 90 days to divest from TikTok to avoid a ban on the app.

Transgender Rights and DEI Efforts
The president also signed an executive order that could significantly curtail transgender rights, which Trump and Republicans made a focal point of their campaigns.

In one executive order, Trump said his administration will use “clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” the executive order said. “These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

The president also signed an executive order gutting federal programs to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workforce, describing them as “wasteful,” “illegal and immoral.”

Trump directed the White House budget office and the Justice Department to “coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.”

The executive order marks a massive victory for conservative and right-wing activists, who have argued that DEI programs unfairly discriminate against those who are deserving of certain jobs and school placements. Advocates of DEI policies, meanwhile, argue that having a diverse and inclusive environment helps attract more talent, fosters creativity, and enhances overall performance.

Renaming Gulf of Mexico and Other ‘America First’ Priorities
The 47th president signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

He also reverted the name of Mount Denali, the highest mountain in North America, to Mount McKinley. The peak was called Mount McKinley until then-President Barack Obama changed it in 2015 to Denali, the traditional Athabascan name, in all federal documents.

Trump made these changes to “honor American greatness,” the executive order said.

The president also signed an order directing the secretary of state to “champion core American interests and always put America and American citizens first.”

Fixing the Biden Border

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

December 23, 2024

Joe Biden, to the degree he was cognizant, has always reflected the Obama-era utopia dream of a borderless world, and thus millions of poor have illegally entered the United States. On numerous occasions, he offered clear warnings of what he would do if he ever had power over immigration policy.

Do we remember this 2020 Biden boast to let in millions and offer blanket amnesties?

“But I will send to the desk immediately a bill that requires the access to citizenship for 11 million undocumented folks, number one. Number two, in the first 100 days of my administration, no one, no one will be deported at all. From that point on, the only deportations that will take place are commissions of felonies in the United States of America.”

 In Biden’s world, if no illegal alien is ever to be deported unless a criminal, then there is, at last, no border.

Earlier, Biden had also bragged:

 “We could afford to take in a heartbeat another two million. The idea that a country of 330 million people cannot absorb people who are in desperate need and who are justifiably fleeing oppression is absolutely bizarre.”

After 2020, we found out what Biden really meant was that a few thousand privileged and rich people in Martha’s Vineyard, Malibu, and Rehoboth, Delaware, certainly could not absorb even a few hundred in “desperate need”—but the millions of poor in inner-city Chicago, in the Rio Grande Valley, and the Central Valley of California most certainly could absorb “another two million” illegal aliens.

Most infamously, in 2019, Biden gave explicit outlines of the very open border that he has now institutionalized:

 “I would, in fact, make sure that there is, that we immediately surge the border all those people are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard. That’s who we are. We’re a nation that says if you want to flee, and you’re fleeing oppression, you should come.”

Again, Biden assumed that “you should come” applied to downtown New York, South Central LA, or El Paso, but under no circumstances to Kalorama, Kailua, or the empty summer dorm rooms of Stanford or Harvard.

Unfortunately, all this braggadocio was more than the usual empty Biden blather. As president, one of the first things he did was to “surge the border” by overturning some 90 Trump executive orders through fiat. Despite countless lawsuits, left-wing congressional stonewalling, and internal agency obstruction, these earlier directives had effectively stopped illegal immigration by the fall of 2020.

Upon taking office, Biden, perhaps for the first and only time, made good on his word as he ranted, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration.”

Biden not only did his best to ensure an unfenced border, but after the election, he sold off piles of idle wall materials for pennies on the dollar. Thereby, in childish fashion, he reminded the American people (who will needlessly pay additional millions for a new wall, given Biden’s auction and his hyperinflation since 2020) that he hated Donald Trump more than he liked the American people.

Why did Biden destroy the border, allowing in 500,000 violent felons and gang members, over 1 million already served with deportation orders, ten million more unvetted—initially at a time of a government COVID quarantine? Why did he appoint the now-impeached prevaricator Alejandro Mayorkas, who repeatedly and disingenuously claimed that “the border is secure,” even as Americans watched thousands of illegal aliens, drug smugglers, and cartel coyotes crossing the border with impunity?

Was Biden pledged to bend to La Raza pressures?

Did he owe allegiance to a Hispanic activist elite that demanded that millions of new constituents ignore the border, oblivious to the concern of Hispanic border communities? The latter, unlike their elite DEI megaphones, had to deal firsthand with the resulting massive border crossings that overwhelmed social services, drove down wages, bankrupted their schools, and spiked crime in their communities.

Or was Biden simply a nihilist who enjoyed the chaos and the furor it evoked among his supposed “semi-fascist” and “ultra-MAGA” foes?

Was he a hard-left waxen effigy who had no idea that his policies empowered the cartels and their fentanyl pipeline that killed up to 100,000 Americans a year, more than the dead of the Vietnam, Korean, Afghan, and Iraq wars combined?

Certainly, President Obrador of Mexico loved Biden for greenlighting more than $120 billion in remittances that poured into Mexico and Central America, the vast majority of the money subsidized by the American taxpayers whose generous subsidies to illegal aliens freed up their cash to be sent home.

Was the culprit Biden’s legendary innate incompetence fueled by his growing senility? In that regard, it might be best to remember what Obama himself in 2020 said about his former Vice President Biden’s un-Midas touch:

“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up,” and his admonition about the non-compos-Biden’s desire to run in 2020, “You don’t have to do this, Joe, you really don’t.”

Whatever his reasons, how does the Trump administration now correct the Biden legacy of an erased border, a new cohort of 12 million illegal aliens atop an existing body of 20 million, half a million dangerous illegal alien felons, 600 neo-Confederate sanctuary city jurisdictions, and the destroyed corpus of federal immigration law?

One, the administration must change the entire current illegal alien dialectic.

Massive illegal immigration is not a humanitarian project. It is a deeply immoral one. It undermines the rule of law. It insults legal immigration applicants by punishing their lawfulness and making them follow hundreds of protocols while exempting and thus rewarding the lawbreaking.

It is a cynical ploy by the governments of Mexico and Central America to provide a Turnerian “safety valve” for their dispossessed to head north rather than to protest at home for reform.

It is a money-making scheme that costs the U.S. $120 billion in remittances alone. The arrival of millions of impoverished migrants to the United States involves virtual indentured servants who are sent northward by their home countries in the expectation that they will send hundreds of dollars a month back southward to help their families, who in turn are long neglected by supposedly caring Latin American governments.

It is a war on the American poor, whose wages are eroded by millions of the undocumented and whose social services, from health to housing to education, are swamped by non-citizens in dire need of government support.

It is a long-term effort to import and nurture a new constituency of those in need of more entitlements and bigger government. The aim is to flip more red states to blue, as if Georgia, Arizona, and Texas will follow the demographic metamorphoses of California, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico.

Two, Trump can finish the wall within a year. A permanent steel/concrete fence of some 2,000 miles will help staunch the influx. An immediate executive order ending catch-and-release and requiring refugee status applications before entering the U.S. legally will also help.

Three, Trump can stop the flow of $120 billion in subsidized U.S.-based remittances to Mexico and Latin America. He can threaten all such cynical recipient nations with tariffs. He can further levy a blanket 20-30 percent tax on all remittances sent to Mexico and Latin America from the United States, regardless of the sender’s legal status. Combined with a wall and new border enforcement, such tariffs and taxes would stop the influx quickly.

Four, either passage of new legislation to overturn or winning court reinterpretation of the supposed “anchor baby” clause of the 14th Amendment could end the imbroglio of women and couples entering the US solely to obtain infant citizen status (as well as free health care), anchoring legality for an entire family.

Trump can merely say:

 “We need to follow the humane policies of the sophisticated postmodern European nations, none of whom allow unrestricted and automatic anchor-baby provisions.”

Five, to encourage self-deportation, Trump can seek legislation that would forbid for 20 years any foreign national from receiving a legal visa or green card to enter the United States if, at any time in the past, he had been detained entering the United States illegally.

Six, Trump can begin carefully calibrating deportation iterations, starting first with those whose deportations win widespread public support.

The first to go home should be the half million suspected felons and criminals, both those who were arrested here and those who came with criminal records.

They would be followed by 1.5 million aliens already facing deportation orders but who failed to show up for hearings or ignored their prior deportation orders.

The third cohort would include all those without a work record who are able-bodied and who are currently on local, state, or federal assistance of any nature.

Trump then could issue immediate deportation orders for additional aliens arriving from countries that support terror or are deemed hostile to the United States. That would entail those with known ties to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, or arriving from Iran, Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, North Korea, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, and a host of others,

To separate the Biden influx from earlier illegal entrants, Trump could offer not an amnesty or citizenship but a green card to those who have: 

1) resided in the US for five years, 

2) have not committed a crime, 

3) are not on public assistance, and

4) would pay a fine for their prior illegal entry.

After those rounds of deportations, the administration might have sent home 10-12 million with full public support. Only then would the public back the one-time issuances of green cards to some of the remaining 20 million pre-Biden illegal aliens, who are working, crime-free, not on public assistance, and have resided over five years in the United States.

These measures might halve the number of illegal aliens and stop all future illegal immigration. They would allow Americanized prior illegal aliens to formalize their status with a green card that would not entail amnesty but simply allow those now here legally to work and, in some cases, if they wish, to begin the lengthy legal process of obtaining citizenship.

The time to act is now.

In an odd way, Biden’s influx has finally resulted in the American Hispanic community’s abandonment of their former support for open borders. Why?

The sheer size of the current immigrant wave posed unprecedented costs, social and demographic disruptions, and dangers to the viability of existing social services for citizens.

Worse in some ways are the asymmetrical burdens that elite open-borders activists have placed on the Hispanic middle and poorer classes, whose communities bear the brunt of massive illegal immigration.

But most cynically and importantly, half the new arrivals are not from the Latin American world and thus have smaller, if any, expatriate apologists or activists in the United States. It seems to be one thing for the open borders advocate to demand illegal entry for an uncle in Mexico and quite another to extend that same exemption and costly support to someone from Russia, Syria, or mainland China.

A final note: those who destroyed the border and immigration law with it will be the first to decry the cost and trouble of undoing their damage—on their theory that because it costs much to arrest, detain, and try a criminal suspect, it is, therefore, cheaper and wiser simply to let him continue to commit crimes with impunity.

And Will Not Do

What the Trump Nominees Have Not Done

And Will Not Do

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

December 5, 2024

Deflated by the resounding November defeat, the left now believes it can magically rebound by destroying Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees.

Many of Trump’s picks are well outside the usual Washington, DC, and New York political, media, and corporate nexus.

But that is precisely the point—to insert reformers into a bloated, incompetent, and weaponized government who are not part of it.

Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, is already drawing severe criticism.

His furious enemies cannot go after his resume, since he has spent a lifetime in private, congressional, and executive billets, both in investigations and intelligence.

Instead, they claim he is too vindictive and does not reflect the ethos of the FBI.

But what will Patel not do as the new director?

He will not serially lie under oath to federal investigators as did interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a current Patel critic.

He will not forge an FBI court affidavit, as did convicted felon and agency lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.

He will not claim amnesia 245 times under congressional oath to evade embarrassing admissions as former Director James Comey did.

He will not partner with a foreign national to collect dirt and subvert a presidential campaign as the FBI did with Christopher Steele in 2016.

He will not use the FBI to draft social media to suppress news unfavorable to a presidential candidate on the eve of an election.

He would not have suppressed FBI knowledge that Hunter Biden’s laptop was genuine—to allow the lie to spread that it was “Russian disinformation” on the eve of the 2020 election.

He will not raid the home of an ex-president with SWAT teams, surveil Catholics, monitor parents at school board meetings, or go after pro-life peaceful protestors.

Decorated combat veteran Pete Hegseth is another controversial nominee for secretary of defense.

What will Hegseth likely not do?

He will not go AWOL without notifying the president of a serious medical procedure, as did current Secretary Lloyd Austin.

He will not install race and gender criteria for promotion and will mandate diversity, equity, and inclusion training.

He will not insinuate falsely that cabals of white supremacists had infiltrated the military—only to alienate that entire demographic and thus ensure the Pentagon came up 40,000 recruits short.

He will not oversee the scramble from Kabul that saw $50 billion in U.S. military equipment abandoned to Taliban terrorists.

He will not watch passively as a Chinese spy balloon traversed the continental United States for a week.

He will not allow the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to promise his Chinese communist counterpart that the People’s Liberation Army would first be informed if the President of the United States was felt to issue a dangerous order.

He will not rotate from a defense contractor boardship into the Pentagon and then leave office to rotate back there to leverage procurement decisions.

He will not oversee the Pentagon’s serial flunking of fiscal audits.

Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is certainly a maverick. He may earn the most Democratic hits, given his former liberal credentials.

But what will RFK also not do as HHS secretary?

He will not oversee his agencies circumventing U.S. law by transferring money to communist China to help it produce lethal gain-of-function viruses of the COVID-19 sort—in the manner of Dr. Fauci.

He will not organize scientists to go after critics of mandatory masking and defame them.

He will not give pharmaceutical companies near-lifetime exemptions from legal jeopardy for rushing into production mRNA vaccines that have not traditionally been vetted and tested.

He will not leave office to monetize his HHS expertise and thus make millions from the pharmaceutical companies.

Trump’s Director of National Intelligence nominee, former congressional representative and military veteran Tulsi Gabbard, will soon be defamed in congressional hearings.

But what has Gabbard not done?

She did not join “51 former intelligence authorities” to lie on the eve of the 2020 election that the Hunter Biden laptop “had all the hallmarks” of a “Russian information/disinformation operation”—in an effort to swing the election to incumbent Joe Biden.

She did not lie under congressional oath like former DNI James Clapper, who claimed he only gave the “least untruthful answer” in congressional testimony.

She did not encourage the FBI to monitor a presidential campaign in an effort to discredit it—in the manner of former CIA Director John Brennan, who lied not once but twice under oath.

She did not fail to foresee the American meltdown in Kabul, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, or the Houthis takeover of the Red Sea.

We are going to hear some outrageous things in the upcoming congressional confirmation hearings.

However, we will not hear about the crimes, deceptions, and utter incompetence of prior and current government grandees.

The current crew, not their proposed Trump replacements, prompted the sick and tired American people to demand different people.

Voters want novel approaches to reforming a government that they no longer trust and now deeply fear.