ALAS, POOR CALIFORNIA, I KNEW IT WELL, HORATIO !!!

Breaking

California Law Makes Abortions Free Statewide

BySavannah Hulsey Pointer

16 hours ago

Gov. Newsom signed a bill into law that prohibits a co-pay from being collected by insurance companies covering abortions.

QUICK FACTS:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=AmericanFaithM1&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NrZWxldG9uX2xvYWRpbmdfMTMzOTgiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiY3RhIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd19zcGFjZV9jYXJkIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6Im9mZiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1506711972963831820&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Famericanfaith.com%2Fcalifornia-law-makes-abortions-free-statewide%2F&sessionId=4e1f027a90d231713cb8b45ca7e7eb8f6eeb1b9f&siteScreenName=AmericanFaithM1&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2582c61%3A1645036219416&width=550px

MORE ON THE DANGER TO UNBORN CHILDREN IN CALIFORNIA:
  • “With this legislation, we’ll help ensure equitable, affordable access to abortion services so that out-of-pocket costs don’t stand in the way of receiving care,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement. 
  • The San Francisco Chronicle reported that co-pays for abortions can be as much as $1,000, getting more expensive as the baby develops. 
  • “Eliminating out-of-pocket costs for abortion for people with private insurance is a major step in California’s commitment to being a Reproductive Freedom state — making abortion services more accessible and affordable for all people in California,” Jodi Hicks, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. 
BACKGROUND:
  • Currently, the state of California abortion is available until “fetus viability,” according to Breitbart.
  • In addition to the new law, which has not yet taken effect, California lawmaker, Sen. Nancy Skinner (D), proposed a bill that would assist women with transportation cost to travel to California to end their unborn children’s lives.

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_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     


The Descent of Man
By: ChevalCheval12@protonmail.comMarch 24, 2022 It is often said to understand where you were going, you must first understand where you have been. Therefore, it is useful to look back over the past year or so to assess what we have or should have learned. Starting with the “pandemic,” we can safely conclude that it was a fabricated event through the use of statistics, faulty testing, media fear-mongering, nursing home stuffing, emphasis on cases vs. recoveries, coercion of the medical community to conform to a one-way protocol. It was perpetrated by an unhealthy alliance between Big Pharma and government agencies that are supposed to be protecting us, making the situation appear far worse than it was, reinforcing fear to incessantly drive up vaccination numbers. First responders, police, fireman, doctors, nurses, paramedics were heroes one moment and fired the next for refusing the jab. Sadly, we must conclude that many Americans are no different from those who fell victim to Nazi propaganda and narratives as we witnessed our fellow citizens groping around in fear of a pandemic, lining up for inoculations, following orders, wearing masks, social distancing, complying with vaccine mandates, avoiding one another as if radioactive, ostracizing the unvaccinated, willing to turn on their neighbor. Stockholm syndrome, cognitive dissonance, and mass formation psychosis are real and have infected roughly half of the American populace.Discernment has fallen by the wayside of convenience and willful ignorance. Nobody can say that they were untouched or unaffected in some way by the COVID-19. However, too many Americans naively believe that once we emerge from years of shutdowns, mandates, shaming, distancing, masks, that life will somehow return to normal. It will not. It should be clear by now that COVID was wrought by collusion of powers to gain more control over national societies, especially Western democracies, to push totalitarian political and social agendas across the globe, and shepherd in the Great Reset envisioned by the World Economic Forum and its adherents. However, what we experienced was merely the opening salvo of globalist plans. They regard any means at their disposal as justified to achieve their ends. And as history has proven, the Left will transition to the next phase to push toward their ultimate objectives. We can also safely say that there is no grand plan to take down the current administration, overturn the 2020 election, or have Trump reinstated. There is, however, a systematic effort by state legislators, digital warriors, Durham’s probe, and determined patriotic Americans to use our institutions to achieve justice, slowly pecking away at criminality to weed out the ne’er-do- wells amongst us. The corruption in the deep state runs deeper than any of us had originally imagined. Last year’s conspiracies are this year’s truths. To avoid detection, Democrats consistently project their wrongdoing on innocents, which is a sure-fire way to gauge what the Democrats themselves are up to. We can no longer trust our government. Biden and his administration are dishonest and unintelligible, corrupted to the core. Nearly every promise made has been overturned with a stroke of a pen or garbled in transmission. The American people are no longer represented by their elected leaders. The very people that have been elected to represent us have been attempting to destroy the very things that provided us with our prosperity and affluence, our economic, political, and military might, and our beloved freedoms. We live under an illusion of a two-party system. Our sometimes dubiously elected representatives have failed to advocate for our best interests. Unprecedented policies and actions by unelected representatives in government institutions, like the CDC, FDA, & NIH, have run roughshod over this country. You can no longer make grievances and expect fair redress from our government. Our new reality is that the freest nation on earth and leading democracy can and has been corrupted from within. Further, we have witnessed an unholy marriage between government institutions and Big Pharma, Big Tech, and academia to conduct the bidding of the Leftist regime. The extent has been unprecedented. Throw in the support from the entertainment, sports, and large corporations, the ability to influence public opinion, coerce submission and compliance, neutralize dissent, keep citizens in the dark about whatever the government decides, has never been greater. We have observed a new form of corporate fascism where the government does not directly carry out oppressive action against the people, but relies on third-party actors, insulating the power brokers to such an extent that is nearly impossible to untangle the web of relationships, corruption, contracts, payoffs, money laundering, and criminal or treasonous activity going on behind the scenes. We have learned that you do not need a majority to control a nation’s political and social agendas. By infiltrating and gaining key decision-making positions in Federal and state governments, courts, corporations, education, and unions, unpopular policies can be pushed, justice left unserved, untruths perpetuated, and dissenting views swept aside. Democracy works well when it supports Leftist agendas, but is cast aside when it stands in their way. Think electoral college, filibuster, SCOTUS packing, and fraudulent elections. They can turn a blind eye to riots, routine urban killings, rampant crime, and misdeeds of any nature unless committed by the opposing side. Speaking of elections, the scale of evidence proving election fraud in 2020 has been massive, not just in the swing states, but also in traditional blue and red states where there was little reason to believe fraud had been committed at all. Overwhelming evidence of ballot harvesting, ballot box stuffing, real-time foreign and domestic tampering of voting machines, deleted voter files, state voter registration rolls off by hundreds of thousands of voters, and a plethora of middle-of-the-night shenanigans generated mathematically impossible results. As state legislatures continue to peel back associated criminality, nobody knows what may happen, but we know with certainty that our election systems are corrupted and broken. Progressives cast aside and abandon individuals and narratives as soon as they no longer serve the Far-Left’s purposes. Their cronies are mere fronts to push narratives and enrich those leading the charge. If the Left’s policies, cancellation attempts, or fabricated crises fail, they simply move on to the next. Failures in Afghanistan, adverse events from vaccines, out-of-control inflation, and energy dependence come to mind. The Left thrives on a cycle of non-ending chaos. It’s what you do when your objective is power and control. The Left truly has no interest in uniting the nation. There is no mandate from the people to support just about every progressive policy, except for support from a minority of coasties, recent college graduates, and self-acclaimed elitists who cannot shake their brain-washing and non-reality-based perspectives. Thanks to our higher education gauntlet and Left-backed influence shapers. Instead of seeking unification, the Left strives to divide us to keep our right hand from seeing what their left hand is doing. Remember the law of thermodynamics: when the heat is on someone else, it is not on you — a standard tactic out of the Left’s playbook. Setting aside unification, the Left has been attempting to build its majority, since it is something they know they will never achieve because there simply is not enough support for their radical policies and ideas. The problem is that, by opening our southern border to allow more (mostly) Hispanics into the country, the Left failed to understand that hard-working Hispanics tend toward conservative principles, and the Left’s strategy is backfiring as increasing numbers lean to the Right. Energy independence works. Energy dependence fails. The ripple effect of rising fuel and natural gas prices has touched not just every American, but nearly every segment of manufacturing, transportation, supply chains, services, name it. We now understand that Biden’s intention was either to appease his Far-Left constituency, follow globalist orders, intentionally cause inflation and economic collapse, or all four. In any case, what has become crystal clear is that this administration does not exist to look after the best interests of the US citizenry. We have finally awakened to the fact that the media, including some of our beloved regular sources, can no longer be trusted. Ratings are plummeting for a few, but not fast enough. The major media players, even some traditional conservative outlets, refuse to acknowledge any election fraud or vaccine adverse events — tell you all you need to know. Instead, by now we should have glommed onto upstart independent news platforms as better sources of unadulterated news and analysis. Geopolitically, Americans have finally started to learn that China has replaced Russia as our greatest competitor and adversary. When CCP doctrine states its goal to replace the US as the leading superpower economically and militarily by 2030, we should take China seriously. While we allow ourselves to be distracted by lesser events, China plows ahead with its ambitions. Instead of getting wrapped up in a Russia-Ukraine conflict that has limited geopolitical value to the US, we need to keep our eyes on China’s continuing economic exploitation and military expansion across the globe and resist aiding the Chinese market and the temptation to enhance our bottom lines by transferring our national wealth and prestige to the country that seeks to displace us. Despite the media’s demonization of Putin and his expansionist actions in Ukraine, what is not being revealed to the American public are that Putin’s motives may not be as nefarious as we are made to believe, and some of the broadcasted atrocities have already been proven to have been fabricated. The truth will out in time. However, what has emerged are admissions and recognition of more US-funded bio-labs in Ukraine. Worse yet, those familiar with the New World Order’s 16-year plan recognize calls to start a third world war that America is supposed to lose, thus toppling the remaining capstone, enabling the final fall of Western democracies. The last lesson we should have recognized is that our founders knew what the hell they were doing. The checks and balances of our constitutional government, unique amongst the world’s nations, has so far prevented America from suffering the fate of other western nations, where citizens are losing their freedoms and are helpless to stop the Left’s advance except via massive protests and non-compliance. No matter where you stand on the issue, the Second Amendment right to bear arms has been arguably the single most important reason to keep our Federal government fearful, think Capitol fencing, and prevent the use of force on the American people. As we have now seen in other nations, where the people relinquished their arms as do-gooders, they have since been subjected to government tyranny that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable in their own countries. Of all the things we have learned, what is the common denominator? In all cases, those who are responsible for recent events and dragging the world’s societies over the coals have succumbed to the worst of human nature: their self-interest, greed, a quest for power and control, and desire for earthly rewards. They devalue humanity, placing their ambitions, dictates, and vision above all others. They are paving the way for the descent of man. In short, they have relegated spirituality and God-consciousness because they know that if any peoples have belief in a higher authority and Creator, they are less willing to bend and comply with a controlling and oppressive government. Science and pragmatism have replaced God and a faith-based existence. They have substituted the morality of a higher authority to man’s secular and situational morality. They invent morality and subvert religion to advance their wants. Unchecked, men who lack a spiritual compass and understanding, lean toward the fallen angels of their nature. And what are the implications of all this? We are not going to turn the situation around simply by running certain politicians out of town in 2022 and 2024. We are not going to be able to hold our breath and hope that this situation will change. We cannot expect Trump or anyone else to swoop in and save the day. Instead, to reverse the course that we have been on, we must deliberately infuse the morality that helped catapult our nation to the unique position of greatness it once had. We, as an American society, must stop obliging claims that ideologies and cultural perversions must somehow be accepted and inculcated within our culture, rather than simply tolerated. Political correctness, identity politics, radical feminism, moral relativism, postmodernism, social justice, and constructivism are tearing up and leading to the downfall of our wonderful nation and making us the laughing stocks on the world stage. To be blunt, these things need to go and be permanently eradicated. Of all the lessons we have learned, perhaps the most important is this: we are suffering from a self-inflicted wound. We have allowed our society’s moral principles to drift away. We are letting all of this happen, by accepting moral decline, through fear of sacrifice and loss of comfort, we are continually complicit with progressives’ aims. We already acknowledge that principles and values held up by the progressives are flawed, but acknowledgment not followed by action is useless. It is essential for people to stand up and say enough is enough. We must admonish bad behavior and have the courage to call out immorality, nonsensical ideas, and politically correct language wherever progressive thought lurks. Start with protecting our children and their minds. Draw in individuals one by one to fix our nation’s moral compass. It is incumbent upon all of us to reveal corrupt practices and do whatever is necessary to rid education, local, state, and federal governments, churches, corporations, and all arenas of polluted progressive ideals, with no apology. Western values and Christian-Judeo principles require protection at every turn. They are the cornerstone of all things responsible for the uniqueness of our nation. The descent of man can be reversed. Ours is a hill worth dying on. There are no others. ___________________________________________________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     
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These days, very few political arguments pass basic logic. This tactic of trying to discredit people the Democrats disagree with by tying them to Vladimir Putin and Russia started during the 2016 Presidential campaign. Many Democrats and the mainstream media have tried to lead us to believe that Donald Trump was a “pawn of Putin”, a “Russian stooge”, or an agent of Russia, by pushing their false narrative that Trump colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 election. 

Pawns of Putin

By: Judd Garrett

Objectivity is the Objective

March 13, 2022

According to the Democrats and the media, anyone who does not support the United States of America engaging in a war with Russia in Ukraine is a “pawn of Putin” or a “Russian stooge”. So, if we do not want our sons and daughters maimed or killed defending Ukraine’s border while our border is being invaded by millions of foreign nationals from 84 different countries, then we must support Putin’s evil invasion of Ukraine. By that logic, everyone who does not want to invade China to liberate their Uyghur concentration camps must support China’s slavery and genocide. These days, very few political arguments pass basic logic. This tactic of trying to discredit people the Democrats disagree with by tying them to Vladimir Putin and Russia started during the 2016 Presidential campaign. Many Democrats and the mainstream media have tried to lead us to believe that Donald Trump was a “pawn of Putin”, a “Russian stooge”, or an agent of Russia, by pushing their false narrative that Trump colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 election. 

This conspiracy theory never made sense because how could Vladimir Putin change the outcome of a United States Presidential election? Does Putin have that much control over our election system? Is our election system that unsecure? Did Putin have operatives break into our voting machines and change votes? Did Russian agents turn in fraudulent ballots? Are we Nicaragua, and is our CIA working for Putin? We were told after the 2020 election, that our elections are the most secure in the world, so now we are to believe that our election system went from one of the least secure in the world in 2016 to the most secure 4 years later simply by repealing the laws designed to ensure voter integrity? It is much more reasonable to believe that the Democrats exploited the pandemic to repeal the voter integrity laws in our country to commit voter fraud to steal the 2020 election, than it is to believe that a Presidential candidate colluded with a foreign enemy, Russia, to change the outcome of an election. 

The Russian collusion conspiracy theory reminds me of the 9/11 truthers who believed that George W. Bush colluded with Osama Bin Laden to commit the worst terrorist act on American soil, killing over 3,000 U.S. citizens, so he would have an excuse to avenge his father’s victory against Iraq 10 years earlier, but then chose to use that terrorist attack as grounds to invade Afghanistan instead. The Democrats always choose the most sinister conspiracy theory rather than the most logical or believable one. But either way, multiple investigations, most notably the one conducted by Robert Mueller, have proven there is zero evidence to support the accusation Donald Trump or anyone in his campaign colluded with Russia. On the contrary, multiple investigations have shown it was Hilary Clinton who was colluding with the Russians when she paid for the fabrication of a false “Russian dossier” against Trump to try to sway the 2016 election in her favor.

But none of these facts have stopped the Democrats from pushing lies tying Republicans to Russia because that accusation has been used effectively to discredit any charge of wrongdoing against them. Every piece of evidence that comes out which exposes the Democrats’ corruption, i.e., the Hunter Biden laptop, Hilary Clinton spying on the Trump campaign, the Democrats dismiss as “Russian disinformation” knowing full well when their followers hear those two words together, they will nod along, and dismiss the accusation against them.

It is important to be clear on which side of the aisle the Russian apologists and enablers sit. Throughout the 1980s, while Ronald Reagan was fighting the cold war and bringing the Soviet Union to its knees, the Democrats opposed him every step of the way. They fought Reagan’s arms race with the Soviets and mocked his Strategic Defense Initiative. Ted Kennedy dismissed the program as “Star Wars”, and John Kerry called it “a dream based on illusion”. The Democrats supported a nuclear freeze as opposed to Reagan’s nuclear build-up which eventually caused the Soviet Union to collapse. After Reagan called on President Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright claimed that Reagan had “spoiled the chance for a dramatic breakthrough in relations between our two countries.” And after Reagan labeled the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire”, Ted Kennedy criticized him for using “misleading Red-scare tactics.”

But what the Democrats have done more recently has enabled and empowered Russia to do what it is doing now in Ukraine. On March 6, 2009, in Geneva, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton under Barack Obama, met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and presented him with a big red button with the word “reset” on it. It was a photo-op symbolizing a promise by the Obama administration to “push the reset button” on the relationship between the United States and Moscow creating a new beginning, a non-adversarial relationship. The Democrats led by Barack Obama wanted to recast Russia from the “evil Empire” that Reagan had dubbed them, into a co-equal partner. This approach of making nice with brutal dictators is similar to what Obama did with Castro and Cuba in 2015. He tried to change our adversarial relationship with Cuba and its evil dictator, and restore “fully normal relations between the United States and Cuba” which is also what his goal was with Russia.

On March 26, 2012, during a bilateral meeting at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, Barack Obama was caught on an open microphone telling outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to give a message to the incoming President, Vladimir Putin. He said, “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him [Putin] to give me space… This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” Medvedev responded, “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”

During Obama’s first year in office, he canceled the missile-defense system which Poland and Czechoslovakia had previously agreed to host which were intended to deter Russian threats, and now, he was telling the Russian President that he would have even more “flexibility” on the remaining missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, all of which helped to open the door to Russian aggression in that region. That is a glimpse of how Obama operated – telling the American people that he wanted to keep the remaining missile defense system in Europe to contain Russian aggression, but when he thought no one was listening, he told the Russians, he would have more flexibility to draw down that missile defense system after his “last election”.

This is the type of behavior that makes most people cynical about our government. If Obama wanted to draw down our missile defense system in Europe, he should have told the American people on the campaign trail, so the voters would know what they are getting. Too many politicians tell the voters they will do one thing but are planning all along to do the exact opposite once they win the election. After his re-election, Obama removed the missile systems in East Europe, thus removing a major deterrence designed to prevent Russia from taking aggressive action against its neighbors.

A few months later, during one Presidential Debate, when Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, stated that our number one geopolitical foe in the world was Russia, the people on the left mocked him mercifully, and Barack Obama replied, “the 1980s are now calling for their foreign policy back. The cold war has been over for 20 years”. Almost predictably, in 2014, during Obama’s second term, Russia invaded Ukraine twice – annexing Crimea, and then invading the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the eastern part of Ukraine – and Obama did absolutely nothing about it. 

In 2014, while Joe Biden was Vice President, it was his son, Hunter, who received $3.5 million from a Russian Oligarch, Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia and the widow of Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, as part of a “financial relationship”. The precise details of their “relationship” have never been exposed or explained, nor has what the younger Biden did to warrant receiving that much money, and how Joe Biden was connected to that relationship. And as the media has been continually trying to tie Donald Trump, and every Republican to Russia, they remain conspicuously non-curious about the son of the current President’s multi-million-dollar relationship with a known Russian oligarch.

The first year of the Biden administration was almost like living in a dream for Vladimir Putin. It appeared that Biden was purposely emboldening Putin to do what has always hoped to do, take aggressive action in Eastern Europe, and rebuild the old Soviet Empire, the same Empire that Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Jim Wright wanted to normalize relations with because they did not see it as an “evil”. On Biden’s first days in office, he sanctioned America’s oil industry by closing pipelines and canceling drilling permits on federal land, and then a few months later, Biden removed the sanctions from Russia’s Nord Stream Pipeline which allowed Putin to transport his oil to the rest of Europe which has enriched, empowered, and enabled him to execute his invasion of Ukraine. 

Every step along the way, it was the Democrats who sympathized with the Russians, offered them olive branches, and tried to normalize relations with them. The Democrats want to memory-hole all of their cozy relationships with Russia, while they continually push the false narrative that Republicans are Putin puppets. But the only friendly connections that Republicans have with Russia are the specious ones that the Democrats try to create in the media by claiming that any Republican accusation of wrongdoing against the Democrats them pushing “Russian disinformation”. But it has always been the Democrats who were soft on Russia because inherently their political worldview aligns with the Marxist ideology which has infected that country since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and is what Putin is trying to restore in Russia by rebuilding the Soviet Empire as we witness him invade Ukraine in 2022.

___________________________________________________

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on These days, very few political arguments pass basic logic. This tactic of trying to discredit people the Democrats disagree with by tying them to Vladimir Putin and Russia started during the 2016 Presidential campaign. Many Democrats and the mainstream media have tried to lead us to believe that Donald Trump was a “pawn of Putin”, a “Russian stooge”, or an agent of Russia, by pushing their false narrative that Trump colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 election. 

The prophets of the new world order sowed the wind and they will soon reap the whirlwind of an angry public worn out by elite incompetence, arrogance, and ignorance.

___________________________________________________

The Real ‘Reset’ Is Coming

By: Victor Davis Hanson

The Patriot Post

March 24, 2022

(Emphasis added)

President Joe Biden believes the Ukraine war will mark the start of a “new world order.” In the middle of the COVID global pandemic, Klaus Schwab and global elites likewise announced a “great reset.”

Accordingly, the nations of the world would have to surrender their sovereignty to an international body of experts. They would enlighten us on taxes, diversity, and green policies.

When former President Donald Trump got elected in 2016, marquee journalists announced partisan reporting would have to displace the old, supposedly disinterested approach to the news.

There is a common theme here.

In normal times, progressives worry that they do not have public support for their policies. Only in crises, do they feel that the political Left and media can merge to use apocalyptic times to ram through usually unpopular approaches to foreign and domestic problems.

We saw that last year: 

ü fleeing from Afghanistan, 

ü the embrace of critical race theory, 

ü trying to end the filibuster, 

ü pack the court, 

ü junk the Electoral College, and 

ü nationalize voting laws.

These “new orders” and “resets” always entail far bigger government and more unelected, powerful bureaucracies. Elites assume that their radical changes in energy use, media reporting, voting, sovereignty, and racial and ethnic quotas will never quite apply to themselves, the architects of such top-down changes.

So we common folk must quit fossil fuels, but not those who need to use corporate jets. Walls will not mar our borders but will protect the homes of Nancy Pelosi, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates.

Hunter Biden’s lost laptop will be declared, by fiat, not news. In contrast, the fake Alfa Bank “collusion” narrative will be national headline news for weeks.

Middle-class lifestyles will be curbed as we are instructed to strive for sustainability and transition to apartment living and mass transit. But the Obamas will still keep their three mansions, and Silicon Valley futurists will insist on exemptions for their yachts.

In truth, we are about to see a radical reset – of the current reset. It will be a different sort of transformation than the elites are expecting and one that they should greatly fear.

The world and the United States are furious over hyperinflation that may soon exceed 10% per year. We will be lucky if it ends only in recession or stagflation, rather than a global depression.

The mess was created by the same apparat who bought into “modern monetary theory.” That silly university idea claimed prosperity would follow vastly expanding the money supply, keeping interest rates at de facto zero levels, running huge annual deficits, piling up unsustainable national debt, and subsidizing workers to stay home.

Natural gas and oil costs are now soaring to unsustainable levels – and to the point where the middle class simply will not be able to travel, keep warm in winter, or cool in summer.

Both in Europe and the United States left-wing governments deliberately curbed drilling and non-Russian pipelines. They shut down nuclear power plants and subsidized costly, inefficient solar and wind projects. They ended up not with utopia, but with fuel shortages, high prices, and energy dependency on the world’s most repressive regimes.

The woke revolution in the West was supposed to teach us that the “white male”-dominated Western world is toxic. Its origins, ascendence, and current leisure and affluence were supposedly due only to systemic exploitation, racism, and sexism.

Elites introduced cancel culture, doxxing, deplatforming, and social ostracism to shame these supposed exploiters and to destroy their lives and careers.

Few asked how a supposedly noxious West became the number one destination of millions of global non-Western migrants and offered the greatest degree of global prosperity and freedom for its citizens.

So a reset reckoning is coming – in reaction to the “new orders” championed by Biden and the Davos set.

In the November 2022 midterms, we are likely to see a historic “No!” to the orthodox left-wing agenda that has resulted in unsustainable inflation, unaffordable energy, war, and humiliation abroad, spiraling crime, racial hostility – as well as arrogant defiance from those who deliberately enacted these disastrous policies.

What will replace it is a return to what until recently had worked.

Closed and secure borders with only legal and measured immigration will return. Americans will demand tough police enforcement and deterrent sentencing, and a return to integration and the primacy of individual character rather than separatist fixations on the “color of our skin.”

The public will continue to tune out of the partisan and mediocre “mainstream” media. We will see greater increased production of oil and natural gas to transition us slowly to a wider variety of energy, strong national defense, and deterrent foreign policies.

The prophets of the new world order sowed the wind and they will soon reap the whirlwind of an angry public worn out by elite incompetence, arrogance, and ignorance.

___________________________________________________

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A WORTHY CONSECRATION

A Worthy Consecration by charliej373By Charlie JohnstonI am in Lake Charles, Louisiana today, the day of the Consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The last time I was here was for the Revelation 12 sign in the sky. It was also here, while walking on my pilgrimage, that a disturbed young man followed me into the woods where I made camp to threaten me with a pistol. Sadly, because of serious flooding damage from hurricanes, it has been five years since I have been here, a place of great portent for me. And today’s consecration is a great day again.Consecration is always a good thing. It is especially good now for Russia and Ukraine. As you know, I believe that the current Ukrainian crisis has revealed that the globalists – and the American Deep State – do not want peace. They avoid all avenues that could lead to peace, instead instigating things that inflame the situation, while giving peace lip service. I think that both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been stunned with the dawning realization that their supposed major supporters want to push them into fuller war rather than helping them to find peace and justice. If peace will come, it must come through Putin and Zelensky. I pray on this day of consecration that these two leaders will be inspired by Our Lady to fully understand this and speak together while their “friends” seek to inflame them; that they will negotiate a just and lasting peace that will secure the historical, cultural integrity of Ukraine while addressing legitimate Russian security concerns. More than this, I pray that the two nations will become so closely allied that Russia will offer substantial financial and development aid to Ukraine, substantial enough that Ukraine can declare its independence from corrupt U.S. officials who have forced it to enable corruption in order to remain honeypot and money laundering haven for those officials’ friends and family. What a blow real peace and justice would strike to globalist dreams of a “new world order” where they would rule over all!I know there is a faction in the Church which believes this is “finally” the consecration Our Lady asked for at Fatima. This faction is already parsing for “errors” in the consecration to pre-emptively explain why everything doesn’t suddenly become sweetness and light. I am untroubled by this because I fully accept that the 1984 consecration by St. John Paul was accepted by heaven, as Sister Lucia said it was. This consecration is a glorious and noble thing in its own right.I have long told friends and Priests close to me that if we were the sort of people who would have hearkened to Fatima’s message, there would have been no need for the appearances in the first place. God knew that we would not hearken to them. The promise was that if this consecration was done along with the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays, Russia would be converted, there would be peace, and Russia would not scatter her errors throughout the world. It was not done, there was war, and Russia scattered its errors throughout the world. That horse left the barn a hundred years ago. As Our Lady said, it would be done late – and so it was. The fact is, we can never do the consecration exactly as Our Lady said because it was time sensitive – and we did not until the consequences had already spread far and wide. Yet God does not abandon those who call on Him. A good and merciful parent, having given his teenage son proper directions to get from Kansas City to New Orleans will not, finding that the rascally son had taken a side trip to San Francisco, cast that son into outer darkness. However mad and disappointed he would be, he would give his son new instructions with hope that they would now be followed. Do you think the Father of all is less merciful and just than a random good father?If the Father knew how far we had strayed from Him and knew we would not take the message of Fatima to heart, what was the purpose of it? I think it is a sort of lighthouse in the fog of confusion that has shrouded the world – a beacon to lead us back to Him. It would have spared us a lot of pain had we kept to the lighthouse in the first place – but it now calls us back to the safety of His bosom. While a secular world has missed the message entirely and studiously avoids looking in its direction, I think a lot of otherwise pious people have missed the message by obsessing over details for an opportunity that was lost a century ago.It reminds me of a time I had planted tulip bulbs in the fall. In the spring, they were within days of blooming when my young children brought me some flowers – the un-bloomed tulip heads they had entirely cut into a bouquet for me. I was livid and went into a tirade with them, for now they could never bloom. Somewhere along the line, I noticed my son had vanished. Searching for him, I found him in the flower bed with a roll of Scotch Tape, earnestly trying to tape the tulip heads back onto their stalks. Oh, how it melted my heart! My friends, the head of this tulip was removed a century ago, and all the tape in the world won’t put it back again. But I have no doubt that God’s heart is moved by the frantic, if misguided, efforts to go back and do it right. Instead of frantically trying to tape the head back to the stalk, let us resolve this Lent to abandon silly vanities, to foreswear magical thinking, and to trust in the Father’s love.Fr. Clinton Sensat, pastor at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Eunice, Louisiana in the Diocese of Lafayette, wrote a magnificent Facebook post on this, which I reprint here in its entirety:“Lent is a time to acknowledge and turn from sin. One sin I don’t think we acknowledge nearly enough is the sin of superstition.I don’t mean black cats, Friday the 13th, broken mirrors, or walking under ladders. I also don’t mean psychics, astrology, and Ouija boards, though those things are sinful and closer to my point. I mean instead a relationship with God based on magical thinking and manipulation. As St. Thomas Aquinas says, superstition is a violation of the virtue of religion.And religion is about being fair to God.I often encounter the false religion of superstition passing as Catholic faith. “Unless I do this novena at exactly 9:00 AM, it won’t work.” “If I accidentally forget to do my Lenten penance, all of Lent is ruined and God will punish me.” “If I bury this statue of St. Joseph upside down in my yard my house will sell faster.” “The Church will never prosper until the Pope names Mary co-redemptrix.” The examples multiply like flies on midden.What they all have in common is a relationship with God based on manipulation. Either God is a manipulative abuser who will not bless us unless we do every ritual step exactly right, or our prayers can be used to force God to act.On March 25th, Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I’m entirely in favor of this. I believe that Mary’s prayers for us are powerful, that the world, and especially those war-torn countries, needs prayer, and that solemn acts of placing our trust in heaven are exactly the kinds of thing a pope should do. I am NOT in favor of it because I think it will finally fulfill the exact conditions of something akin to a magic spell that will automatically bring peace on earth.And yet, if my Facebook feed is any indication, that’s all people care about. Not whether this is a sincere act of prayer. Only whether it fulfills exactly the conditions Mary asked for at Fatima over a century past.That’s not faith. It’s superstition.Let me hasten to add that if Mary asks for something we should do what she asks, in the way she asks. But the idea that she’s allowed this present war because the 1984 consecration wasn’t done exactly as she requested is something I find morally monstrous. Has she refused to pray for us because a sainted pope didn’t dance precisely the right steps? Do the wails and cries of the Ukrainian people count for nothing unless a hundred-year-old formula is followed to the letter? Is her Immaculate Heart truly so petty?And even if she were, would a just and loving God allow that to continue?Many times in recent years I’ve heard, “Relationship, not religion.” That’s always struck me as along the same line as saying, “Boundaries don’t matter when you love someone,” or, “Friends should never say no,” or “Yes, he was abusive, but he was SO devoted to her!” Love embraces justice; it doesn’t toss it in the dumpster. And religion is about being fair to God. It’s about our boundaries, our responsibilities, our duties to God. Relationship doesn’t replace religion. Religion is what makes our relationship with God healthy.Superstition is an anti-religion. It paints a malicious picture of God. It tells people God is an abusive puppeteer, yanking our strings and making us dance for his sick pleasure. It depicts a God narrow-hearted, coldly committed to arcane rules, devoid of understanding or compassion, interested only in slavish obedience. If you don’t think that’s unfair to God, then I invite you to consider whether your notion of divinity matches the revelation of Jesus Christ.Our God cares for us. Yes, there are real rules we must follow, but they are precepts of faith and virtue and health, not dictates of a tyrant. Right religion elevates; it does not shrivel. True religion expands the heart; it does not chain it with fear and punctilious performance. Revealed religion shows us a God of deep and boundless love. Superstition shows us a God small and mean, a god the exact same shape and size as our own anxieties.Dear brothers and sisters, search your heart and see whether superstition cowers in the crevices. If it does, root it out, burn it up, consign it to destruction. And then use this Lenten journey to turn from the false and cringing god of superstition to the true and living God of right religion.”Today I will drive a good chunk of the route I walked through southern Louisiana 11 years ago. It will be a mini-pilgrimage of prayer, nostalgia and joy. I will have dinner tonight in Lake Charles and then give a talk there tomorrow evening. There will be two large sets of people who will be disappointed in this consecration: those who have given themselves over to a peculiarly legalistic sort of magical thinking and those secularists who believe no graces will flow from it at all. It is a noble and worthy offering – and the graces it calls down from heaven will unfold over the coming months. I am grateful to Pope Francis for doing it.
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TOMORROW JORGE BERGOLIO WILL CONSECRATE RUSSIA TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY, I WILL DO THE SAME

Print allIn new windowTomorrow the Holy Father will Consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary!InboxChristopher Wendt info@livefatima.io via acems1.com 9:43 AM (4 hours ago)to me Dear Rene,

With the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary happening tomorrow, people have asked what Bishop Schneider thinks about the text that will be used for the Consecration tomorrow?

Here is his response from an interview with Diane Montagna:
ROME, March 23, 2022 (OnePeterFive)—With the Vatican’s publication today (in 35 languages) of the Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that Pope Francis will use on March 25, we asked Bishop Athanasius Schneider if he believes the formula satisfies the essential elements of Our Lady’s request at Fatima. Here below is his response, followed by our in depth interview on the Consecration of Russia and Ukraine.
(Bishop Athanasius Schneider): “In comparison with the wording of the two previous acts of consecration, made by Pope Pius XII (in 1952) and by Pope John Paul II (in 1984), the words and form of the consecration that will be used by Pope Francis on March 25 more clearly express the requests of Our Lady of Fatima. Pope Francis has even added the word “solemnly” to “consecrate,” an expression lacking in the formulas of 1952 and 1984:
1952: “in a very special way, we consecrate all the peoples of Russia to the same Immaculate Heart” (Apostolic Letter of Pius XII, SACRO VERGENTE ANNO, Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary)
1984: “O Mother of men and peoples … In a special way we entrust to you and consecrate to you those men and nations who are in particular need of this entrustment and consecration.” (Pope John Paul II, Consecration of Men and Nations)
2022: Mother of God and our Mother, to your Immaculate Heart we solemnly entrust and consecrate ourselves, the Church and all humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine (Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary).
His Excellency Bishop Schneider’s comments give us hope that this formula is a clearer expression of the requests of Our Lady.
We all must continue to pray on the last day of this novena for the Holy Father, and all the bishops of the world, so that this Consecration will be done according to the request of Our Lady of Fatima.
Prayer for the Holy Father to Consecrate Russia
O Immaculate Heart of Mary, you are the holy Mother of God and our tender Mother.
Look upon the distress in which the Church and the whole of humanity are living because of the spread of materialism and the persecution of the Church.
In Fatima, you warned against these errors, as you spoke about the errors of Russia.
You are the Mediatrix of all graces. Implore your Divine Son to grant this special grace for the Pope: that he might consecrate Russia to your Immaculate Heart, so that Russia will be converted, a period of peace will be granted to the world, and your Immaculate Heart will triumph, through an authentic renewal of the Church in the splendor of the purity of the Catholic Faith, of the sacredness of Divine worship and of the holiness of the Christian life.
O Queen of the Holy Rosary and our sweet Mother, turn your merciful eyes to us and graciously hear this our trusting prayer. 
Amen. 
Christopher P. WendtInternational DirectorThe Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima
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HERE IS THE LATEST CASE OF THE LEFT/LIBERAL MADNESS WHICH HAS SPREAD TO CORPORATE AMERICA

How To Sabotage Citi’s Abortion PolicyMarch 24, 2022Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Citigroup’s pro-abortion policy:Abortion is a contentious subject, one that doesn’t need to be further polarized, and certainly not by the business community. It doesn’t make any difference if a corporation wants to dive into this on the pro-life side or the pro-abortion side—it is none of their business. Yet some members of the ruling class can’t resist doing so. Not surprisingly, they are on the pro-abortion side.After some states recently passed restrictive abortion laws, most notably in Texas, Citigroup (Citi for short) decided to finance abortions for women seeking to abort their child out-of-state. It told its shareholders this month, who will meet April 26, what the new policy entails. “In response to changes in reproductive healthcare laws in certain states in the U.S., beginning in 2022 we provide travel benefits to facilitate access to adequate resources.”To be specific, Citi has agreed to pay the airfare and hotel expenses for women seeking an abortion; it can be done at any time of gestation and for any reason whatsoever. It did not say whether it would pay for their restaurant bills or their take-out orders.Citi is a multinational investment bank that has a fiduciary obligation to its shareholders. This new abortion policy obviously violates that trust: investors buy stocks so they can maximize their returns, not to subsidize the political preferences of the corporate elite.What if the woman contemplating an abortion were to change her mind at the last minute? Does she have to reimburse Citi for the expenses she incurred? Will Citi leave her stranded out-of-state if she balks?The time has come for Citi employees who oppose this policy to sabotage it. Here’s the game plan.Citi already pays the medical bills for men and women who think they can “transition” to the other sex. The time has come for one of the male employees in Texas—Citi has 8,500 employees in the Lone Star State—to claim he is pregnant and wants to abort his child out-of-state. If Citi won’t pick up the tab, he should sue for discrimination.The madness of transgenderism continues to mount. That it is being underwritten by the ruling class makes it all the more invidious.Contact Citi’s CEO: jane.fraser@citi.comPhone: 212-371-3191E-mail: pr@catholicleague.org
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IS THIS JURISPRUDENCE?

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Print allIn new windowKBJ on judges as umpires, and moreInboxEd Whelan <ewhelan@eppc.org> Unsubscribe3:57 PM (19 minutes ago)to meFrom NRO’s Bench Memos:KBJ Offers Formalist Account of Judicial RoleBy ED WHELANMarch 21, 2022 4:49 PMFrom Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s opening statement today:I decide cases from a neutral posture. I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me, without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath.If the nominee of a Republican president uttered those words, lefty law professors would be racing to condemn them as hopelessly naïve or outright deceptive. There is no such thing as a “neutral posture,” they would tell us, and the pretense of adopting such a posture disguises the policy choices that inhere in judging. The Left would heap scorn on a conservative nominee who summarized the judicial role as impartially applying the law to the facts—as being an umpire calling balls and strikes, if you will.Lest you take false hope from KBJ’s statement, have in mind that even Sonia Sotomayor adopted formalist-sounding rhetoric at her confirmation hearing. As I wrote back then:Judge Sotomayor deserves an A+ for brazen doublespeak.  She emphatically rejected the lawless “empathy” standard for judging that President Obama used to select her, but she denied the plain import of her many statements contesting the possibility and desirability of judicial impartiality.  She hid behind a ridiculously simplistic caricature of judging that embarrassed and disgusted her most vociferous backers, but she never recognized any meaningful bounds on the role of a Supreme Court justice.  She gave a series of confused statements about the use of foreign law that are inconsistent with each other and that contradict a speech that she gave just three months ago.This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—March 21By ED WHELANMarch 21, 2022 8:00 AM2011—In Amnesty International v. Clapper, a Second Circuit panel rules that attorneys, journalists, and labor, legal, media, and human rights organizations have standing to bring an action facially challenging the constitutionality of a provision of federal law that creates new procedures for authorizing foreign electronic surveillance. The plaintiffs have standing, the panel rules, because the new procedures “cause them to fear that their communications will be monitored, and thus force them to undertake costly and burdensome measures to protect the confidentiality of international communications necessary to carrying out their jobs.” As surveillance expert Orin Kerr puts it, “If this new decision is right, then challenging secret surveillance statutes would seem to be pretty easy—in stark contrast with the previous understanding that it was extremely difficult.” In September 2011, the Second Circuit will deny rehearing en banc on an evenly divided 6-6 vote. The dissenters condemn the panel’s rule as contrary to Supreme Court precedent, and Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs adds: “As best I can see, the only purpose of this litigation is for counsel and plaintiffs to act out their fantasy of persecution, to validate their pretensions to policy expertise, to make themselves consequential rather than marginal, and to raise funds for self-sustaining litigation.” Two years later, the Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 vote, will reverse the panel ruling on the ground that plaintiffs’ theory of future injury “relies on a highly attenuated chain of possibilities” and was thus too speculative to satisfy Article III’s standing requirement. 2012—By a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court rules in Lafler v. Cooper that a habeas petitioner who received a full and fair trial may nonetheless pursue a claim that his attorney’s allegedly incompetent advice regarding a plea-bargaining offer deprived him of his (supposed) Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. Never mind (among other things) that assurance of a fair trial is what the right to effective assistance of counsel had been thought to protect and that the petitioner, having received a fair trial, therefore did not suffer any constitutional injury.  The majority’s “squeamishness in fashioning a remedy, and the incoherence of what it comes up with,” argues Justice Scalia in dissent, signal “its realization, deep down, that there is no real constitutional violation here anyway.” 2014—After encouraging plaintiffs, a same-sex couple, to recast their challenge to state adoption laws as a challenge to state marriage laws, federal district judge Bernard A. Friedman rules (in DeBoer v. Snyder) that the Michigan constitutional amendment that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman is not “rationally related to any conceivable legitimate governmental interest.” Despite the fact that the Supreme Court, in the preceding month, had intervened to block a similar ruling against another state’s marriage laws from taking effect during the appellate process, Friedman refuses even to stay his own ruling pending appeal. (The Sixth Circuit, one day later, will stay Friedman’s ruling.)   This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—March 20By ED WHELANMarch 20, 2022 8:00 AM Mar. 20, 1981—By a vote of 4 to 2, the California supreme court rules (in Committee to Defend Reproductive Rights v. Myers) that the state constitution forbids California from placing restrictions on the Medicaid funding of abortions when it fully funds the childbirth expenses of indigent women.  This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—March 19By ED WHELANMarch 19, 2022 8:00 AM 1957—President Eisenhower’s nomination of William J. Brennan, Jr. to serve on the Supreme Court is confirmed by the Senate. Brennan, a former New Jersey supreme court justice, is already serving on the Court by virtue of Eisenhower’s October 1956 recess appointment of him. Eisenhower’s selection of Brennan—which Eisenhower later identifies as one of his two biggest mistakes as president (see This Day item for March 1, 1954)—is said to have resulted from a recommendation by his campaign advisers that an appointment of a Catholic Democrat from the Northeast would attract critical voters. So much for basing Supreme Court selections on short-term political calculations. In retrospect, that recommendation appears to have been as unnecessary as it was foolish: Eisenhower wins re-election over Adlai Stevenson by a huge margin, 57%-42% in the popular vote and 457 to 73 in the electoral college. 
 
In his 34 years on the Court, Brennan deploys his impressive backroom political skills in the service of liberal judicial activism. It is doubtful that anyone has done more to misshape the Supreme Court’s understanding of the Constitution.   This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—March 18By ED WHELANMarch 18, 2022 8:00 AM1963— As Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel write in Justice Brennan, this day stands out among all others as the day when Justice Brennan’s “new majority”—resulting from Arthur Goldberg’s replacement of Felix Frankfurter—“flexed its muscles”: “The liberal bloc overturned four of the Court’s long-standing precedents” on a single day.  In Fay v. Noia and Townsend v. Sain, in (as Justice Harlan puts it in his dissent in Fay) a “square rejection of long-accepted principles governing the nature and scope of the Great Writ,” the Court dramatically expands the federal habeas corpus rights of state prisoners. In Gideon v. Wainwright, the Court, overruling its 1942 decision in Betts v. Brady, holds that the Constitution requires that states provide counsel for indigent defendants in all criminal trials. And in Gray v. Sanders, the Court rushes deeper into the thicket of state redistricting, as it adopts a theory of political equality that it had previously rejected.  This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—March 17By ED WHELANMarch 17, 2022 8:00 AM1992—By order of a trial court, the sponsors of the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in Boston are required to allow the Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston to participate in their parade. In 1994, in an error of judicial passivism, the Massachusetts supreme court rules that the parade is not an exercise of First Amendment rights and that compelling the parade organizers to comply with state law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation did not raise any significant First Amendment issue. In 1995, in Hurley v. Irish-American Gay Group of Boston, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reverses: “The selection of contingents to make a parade is entitled to [First Amendment] protection.”  2009—President Obama makes his first federal appellate nomination as he selects district judge David F. Hamilton for a Seventh Circuit seat. Among the distinctions in the judicial record of the former ACLU activist are an extraordinary seven-year-long series of rulings (ultimately reversed by the Seventh Circuit) obstructing Indiana’s implementation of its law providing for informed consent on abortion; a reckless invocation of substantive due process to suppress evidence of violation of drug laws (also reversed by the Seventh Circuit); a ruling barring Indiana’s House of Representatives from permitting invocations that refer to “Christ” but permitting invocations by Muslim imams that refer to “Allah” (reversed, for lack of standing, by the Seventh Circuit); and a reputation among criminal defense lawyers as the most lenient judge in the district. All of which, of course, leads the New York Times to proclaim Hamilton a “moderate”! 2020—In a divided panel ruling (in Pakdel v. City of San Francisco), the majority opinion of Ninth Circuit judge Michelle T. Friedland holds that a takings challenge is “unripe” because plaintiffs failed to avail themselves of a previously existing opportunity to apply for an exemption. But as Judge Carlos T. Bea argues in dissent, the government’s action is final and therefore ripe for review, and the majority is instead importing into the takings context a requirement that plaintiffs exhaust state remedies—a requirement that the Supreme Court had rejected just the previous year.  Some months later, nine judges will dissent from the Ninth Circuit’s denial of en banc review.   M. Edward Whelan III
Distinguished Senior Fellow andAntonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies
Ethics and Public Policy Center
1730 M Street N.W., Suite 910
Washington, D.C. 20036
202-682-1200
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A MUST READ

    Letter #51, 2022, Thursday, March 17: Conclave    The pontificate of Pope Francis began nine years ago. He was elected on March 13 and installed on March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph, in 2013. That means that in two days he will have completed nine years as Pope. But already in Rome and elsewhere people are starting to discuss the end of his pontificate and what may come after.    In this context, the veteran Italian Vaticanist Sandro Magister has just published a document which is starting to circulate around the internet. Signed by “Demos” (a Greek word for the common people of an ancient Greek state; it is the first part of the word “democracy” which means the common people rule or hold the power in a state) we do not know who wrote the document, but Magister says that it may have been written by a high-ranking Church official, possibly even one of the Cardinals. Essentially, the document calls on the Cardinals to consider well how to preserve the faith of the Church when they choose the next pope at some point in the next few years.    Church Militant picked up the story and wrote a summary analysis of the document here. Below is the complete text. —RM    P.S. If anyone has the means and inclination, this letter would be greatly helped by your support. To send a small donation click here or on the red button below.
 
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    A Memorandum on the Next Conclave Is Circulating Among the Cardinals. Here It Is (link)    (sm) Since the beginning of Lent the cardinals who will elect the future pope have been passing this memorandum around. Its author, who goes by the name of Demos, “people” in Greek, is unknown, but shows himself a thorough master of the subject. It cannot be ruled out that he himself is a cardinal.    THE VATICAN TODAY    Commentators of every school, if for different reasons, with the possible exception of Father Spadaro, SJ, agree that this pontificate is a disaster in many or most respects; a catastrophe.    1. The Successor of St. Peter is the rock on which the Church is built, a major source and cause of worldwide unity. Historically (St. Irenaeus), the Pope and the Church of Rome have a unique role in preserving the apostolic tradition, the rule of faith, in ensuring that the Churches continue to teach what Christ and the apostles taught. Previously it was: “Roma locuta. Causa finita est.” Today it is: “Roma loquitur. Confusio augetur.”    (A)   The German synod speaks on homosexuality, women priests, communion for the divorced. The Papacy is silent.    (B)   Cardinal Hollerich rejects the Christian teaching on sexuality. The Papacy is silent. This is doubly significant because the Cardinal is explicitly heretical; he does not use code or hints. If the Cardinal were to continue without Roman correction, this would represent another deeper breakdown of discipline, with few (any?) precedents in history. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith must act and speak.    (C)   The silence is emphasised when contrasted with the active persecution of the Traditionalists and the contemplative convents.    2. The Christo-centricity of teaching is being weakened; Christ is being moved from the centre. Sometimes Rome even seems to be confused about the importance of a strict monotheism, hinting at some wider concept of divinity; not quite pantheism, but like a Hindu panentheism variant.    (A)   Pachamama is idolatrous; perhaps it was not intended as such initially.    (B)   The contemplative nuns are being persecuted and attempts are being made to change the teachings of the charismatics.    (C)   The Christo-centric legacy of St. John Paul II in faith and morals is under systematic attack. Many of the staff of the Roman Institute for the Family have been dismissed; most students have left. The Academy for Life is gravely damaged, e.g., some members recently supported assisted suicide. The Pontifical Academies have members and visiting speakers who support abortion.    3. The lack of respect for the law in the Vatican risks becoming an international scandal. These issues have been crystalized through the present Vatican trial of ten accused of financial malpractices, but the problem is older and wider.    (A)   The Pope has changed the law four times during the trial to help the prosecution.    (B)   Cardinal Becciu has not been treated justly because he was removed from his position and stripped of his cardinalatial dignities without any trial. He did not receive due process. Everyone has a right to due process.    (C)   As the Pope is head of the Vatican state and the source of all legal authority, he has used this power to intervene in legal procedures.    (D)   The Pope sometimes (often) rules by papal decrees (motu proprio) which eliminate the right to appeal of those affected.    (E)   Many staff, often priests, have been summarily dismissed from the Vatican Curia, often without good reason.    (F)   Phone tapping is regularly practised. I am not sure how often it is authorized.    (G)   In the English case against Torzi, the judge criticised the Vatican prosecutors harshly. They are either incompetent and/or were nobbled, prevented from giving the full picture.    (H)   The raid by the Vatican Gendarmeria, led by Dr. Giani in 2017 on the auditor’s (Libero Milone) office on Italian territory was probably illegal and certainly intimidating and violent. It is possible that evidence against Milone was fabricated.    4. (A) The financial situation of the Vatican is grave. For the past ten years (at least), there have nearly always been financial deficits. Before COVID, these deficits ranged around €20 million annually. For the last three years, they have been around €30-35 million annually. The problems predate both Pope Francis and Pope Benedict.    (B)   The Vatican is facing a large deficit in the Pensions Fund. Around 2014 the experts from COSEA estimated the deficit would be around € 800 million in 2030. This was before COVID.    (C)   It is estimated that the Vatican has lost € 217 million on the Sloane Avenue property in London. In the 1980’s, the Vatican was forced to pay out $ 230 million after the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. Through inefficiency and corruption during the past 25-30 years, the Vatican has lost at least another € 100 million, and it probably would be much higher (perhaps 150-200 million).    (D)   Despite the Holy Father’s recent decision, the process of investing has not been centralized (as recommended by COSEA in 2014 and attempted by the Secretariat for the Economy in 2015-16) and remains immune to expert advice. For decades, the Vatican has dealt with disreputable financiers avoided by all respectable bankers in Italy.    (E)   The return on the 5261 Vatican properties remains scandalously low. In 2019, the return (before COVID) was nearly $ 4,500 a year. In 2020, it was € 2,900 per property.    (F)   The changing role of Pope Francis in the financial reforms (incomplete but substantial progress as far as reducing crime is concerned, much less successful, except at IOR, in terms of profitability) is a mystery and an enigma.    Initially the Holy Father strongly backed the reforms. He then prevented the centralization of investments, opposed the reforms and most attempts to unveil corruption, and supported (then) Archbishop Becciu, at the centre of Vatican financial establishment. Then in 2020, the Pope turned on Becciu and eventually ten persons were placed on trial and charged. Over the years, few prosecutions were attempted from AIF reports of infringements.    The external auditors Price Waterhouse and Cooper were dismissed and the Auditor General Libero Milone was forced to resign on trumped up charges in 2017. They were coming too close to the corruption in the Secretariat of State.    5. The political influence of Pope Francis and the Vatican is negligible. Intellectually, Papal writings demonstrate a decline from the standard of St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict. Decisions and policies are often “politically correct”, but there have been grave failures to support human rights in Venezuela, Hong Kong, mainland China, and now in the Russian invasion.    There has been no public support for the loyal Catholics in China who have been intermittently persecuted for their loyally to the Papacy for more than 70 years. No public Vatican support for the Catholic community in Ukraine, especially the Greek Catholics.    These issues should be revisited by the next Pope. The Vatican’s political prestige is now at a low ebb.    6. At a different, lower level, the situation of Tridentine traditionalists (Catholic) should be regularised.    At a further and lower level, the celebration of “individual” and small group Masses in the mornings in St. Peter’s Basilica should be permitted once again. At the moment, this great basilica is like a desert in the early morning.    The COVID crisis has covered up the large decline in the number of pilgrims attending Papal audiences and Masses.    The Holy Father has little support among seminarians and young priests and wide-spread disaffection exists in the Vatican Curia.    The Next Conclave    1. The College of Cardinals has been weakened by eccentric nominations and has not been reconvened after the rejection of Cardinal Kasper’s views in the 2014 consistory. Many Cardinals are unknown to one another, adding a new dimension of unpredictability to the next conclave.    2. After Vatican II, Catholic authorities often underestimated the hostile power of secularization, the world, flesh, and the devil, especially in the Western world and overestimated the influence and strength of the Catholic Church.    We are weaker than 50 years ago and many factors are beyond our control, in the short term at least, e.g. the decline in the number of believers, the frequency of Mass attendance, the demise or extinction of many religious orders.    3. The Pope does not need to be the world’s best evangelist, nor a political force. The successor of Peter, as head of the College of Bishops, also successors of the Apostles, has a foundational role for unity and doctrine. The new pope must understand that the secret of Christian and Catholic vitality comes from fidelity to the teachings of Christ and Catholic practices. It does not come from adapting to the world or from money.    4. The first tasks of the new pope will be to restore normality, restore doctrinal clarity in faith and morals, restore a proper respect for the law and ensure that the first criterion for the nomination of bishops is acceptance of the apostolic tradition. Theological expertise and learning are an advantage, not a hinderance for all bishops and especially archbishops.    These are necessary foundations for living and preaching the Gospel.    5. If the synodal gatherings continue around the world, they will consume much time and money, probably distracting energy from evangelization and service rather than deepening these essential activities.    If the national or continental synods are given doctrinal authority, we will have a new danger to world-wide Church unity, whereby e.g., the German church holds doctrinal views not shared by other Churches and not compatible with the apostolic tradition.    If there was no Roman correction of such heresy, the Church would be reduced to a loose federation of local Churches, holding different views, probably closer to an Anglican or Protestant model, than an Orthodox model.    An early priority for the next pope must be to remove and prevent such a threatening development, by requiring unity in essentials and not permitting unacceptable doctrinal differences. The morality of homosexual activity will be one such flash point.    6.   While the younger clergy and seminarians are almost completely orthodox, sometimes quite conservative, the new Pope will need to be aware of the substantial changes effected on the Church’s leadership since 2013, perhaps especially in South and Central America. There is a new spring in the step of the Protestant liberals in the Catholic Church.    Schism is not likely to occur from the left, who often sit lightly to doctrinal issues. Schism is more likely to come from the right and is always possible when liturgical tensions are inflamed and not dampened.    Unity in the essentials. Diversity in the non-essentials. Charity on all issues.    7. Despite the dangerous decline in the West and the inherent fragility and instability in many places, serious consideration should be given to the feasibility of a visitation on the Jesuit Order. They are in a situation of catastrophic numerical decline from 36,000 members during the Council to less than 16,000 in 2017 (with probably 20-25% above 75 years of age). In some places, there is catastrophic moral decline.    The order is highly centralized, susceptible to reform or damage from the top. The Jesuit charism and contribution have been and are so important to the Church that they should not be allowed to pass away into history undisturbed or become simply an Asian-African community.    8. The disastrous decline in Catholic numbers and Protestant expansion in South America should be addressed. It was scarcely mentioned in the Amazonian Synod.    9. Obviously, a lot of work is needed on the financial reforms in the Vatican, but this should not be the most important criterion in the selection of the next Pope.    The Vatican has no substantial debts but continuing annual deficits will eventually lead to bankruptcy. Obviously, steps will be taken to remedy this, to separate the Vatican from criminal accomplices and balance revenue and expenditure. The Vatican will need to demonstrate competence and integrity to attract substantial donations to help with this problem.    Despite the improved financial procedures and greater clarity, continuing financial pressures represent a major challenge, but they are much less important than the spiritual and doctrinal threats facing the Church, especially in the First World.    Demos    Lent 2022
 The G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Cultureand Inside the Vaticanannounce an online conferenceFollow the Science with G.K. Chesterton and Father Stanley L. JakiThursday, March 31, 2022from 1:30 – 3:00 pm via Zoomthe event is free of charge – registration is requiredZoom registration link hereFor more information click here
 
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READ THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES!!!

 
    A Memorandum on the Next Conclave Is Circulating Among the Cardinals. Here It Is (link)    (sm) Since the beginning of Lent the cardinals who will elect the future pope have been passing this memorandum around. Its author, who goes by the name of Demos, “people” in Greek, is unknown, but shows himself a thorough master of the subject. It cannot be ruled out that he himself is a cardinal.    THE VATICAN TODAY    Commentators of every school, if for different reasons, with the possible exception of Father Spadaro, SJ, agree that this pontificate is a disaster in many or most respects; a catastrophe.    1. The Successor of St. Peter is the rock on which the Church is built, a major source and cause of worldwide unity. Historically (St. Irenaeus), the Pope and the Church of Rome have a unique role in preserving the apostolic tradition, the rule of faith, in ensuring that the Churches continue to teach what Christ and the apostles taught. Previously it was: “Roma locuta. Causa finita est.” Today it is: “Roma loquitur. Confusio augetur.”    (A)   The German synod speaks on homosexuality, women priests, communion for the divorced. The Papacy is silent.    (B)   Cardinal Hollerich rejects the Christian teaching on sexuality. The Papacy is silent. This is doubly significant because the Cardinal is explicitly heretical; he does not use code or hints. If the Cardinal were to continue without Roman correction, this would represent another deeper breakdown of discipline, with few (any?) precedents in history. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith must act and speak.    (C)   The silence is emphasised when contrasted with the active persecution of the Traditionalists and the contemplative convents.    2. The Christo-centricity of teaching is being weakened; Christ is being moved from the centre. Sometimes Rome even seems to be confused about the importance of a strict monotheism, hinting at some wider concept of divinity; not quite pantheism, but like a Hindu panentheism variant.    (A)   Pachamama is idolatrous; perhaps it was not intended as such initially.    (B)   The contemplative nuns are being persecuted and attempts are being made to change the teachings of the charismatics.    (C)   The Christo-centric legacy of St. John Paul II in faith and morals is under systematic attack. Many of the staff of the Roman Institute for the Family have been dismissed; most students have left. The Academy for Life is gravely damaged, e.g., some members recently supported assisted suicide. The Pontifical Academies have members and visiting speakers who support abortion.    3. The lack of respect for the law in the Vatican risks becoming an international scandal. These issues have been crystalized through the present Vatican trial of ten accused of financial malpractices, but the problem is older and wider.    (A)   The Pope has changed the law four times during the trial to help the prosecution.    (B)   Cardinal Becciu has not been treated justly because he was removed from his position and stripped of his cardinalatial dignities without any trial. He did not receive due process. Everyone has a right to due process.    (C)   As the Pope is head of the Vatican state and the source of all legal authority, he has used this power to intervene in legal procedures.    (D)   The Pope sometimes (often) rules by papal decrees (motu proprio) which eliminate the right to appeal of those affected.    (E)   Many staff, often priests, have been summarily dismissed from the Vatican Curia, often without good reason.    (F)   Phone tapping is regularly practised. I am not sure how often it is authorized.    (G)   In the English case against Torzi, the judge criticised the Vatican prosecutors harshly. They are either incompetent and/or were nobbled, prevented from giving the full picture.    (H)   The raid by the Vatican Gendarmeria, led by Dr. Giani in 2017 on the auditor’s (Libero Milone) office on Italian territory was probably illegal and certainly intimidating and violent. It is possible that evidence against Milone was fabricated.    4. (A) The financial situation of the Vatican is grave. For the past ten years (at least), there have nearly always been financial deficits. Before COVID, these deficits ranged around €20 million annually. For the last three years, they have been around €30-35 million annually. The problems predate both Pope Francis and Pope Benedict.    (B)   The Vatican is facing a large deficit in the Pensions Fund. Around 2014 the experts from COSEA estimated the deficit would be around € 800 million in 2030. This was before COVID.    (C)   It is estimated that the Vatican has lost € 217 million on the Sloane Avenue property in London. In the 1980’s, the Vatican was forced to pay out $ 230 million after the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. Through inefficiency and corruption during the past 25-30 years, the Vatican has lost at least another € 100 million, and it probably would be much higher (perhaps 150-200 million).    (D)   Despite the Holy Father’s recent decision, the process of investing has not been centralized (as recommended by COSEA in 2014 and attempted by the Secretariat for the Economy in 2015-16) and remains immune to expert advice. For decades, the Vatican has dealt with disreputable financiers avoided by all respectable bankers in Italy.    (E)   The return on the 5261 Vatican properties remains scandalously low. In 2019, the return (before COVID) was nearly $ 4,500 a year. In 2020, it was € 2,900 per property.    (F)   The changing role of Pope Francis in the financial reforms (incomplete but substantial progress as far as reducing crime is concerned, much less successful, except at IOR, in terms of profitability) is a mystery and an enigma.    Initially the Holy Father strongly backed the reforms. He then prevented the centralization of investments, opposed the reforms and most attempts to unveil corruption, and supported (then) Archbishop Becciu, at the centre of Vatican financial establishment. Then in 2020, the Pope turned on Becciu and eventually ten persons were placed on trial and charged. Over the years, few prosecutions were attempted from AIF reports of infringements.    The external auditors Price Waterhouse and Cooper were dismissed and the Auditor General Libero Milone was forced to resign on trumped up charges in 2017. They were coming too close to the corruption in the Secretariat of State.    5. The political influence of Pope Francis and the Vatican is negligible. Intellectually, Papal writings demonstrate a decline from the standard of St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict. Decisions and policies are often “politically correct”, but there have been grave failures to support human rights in Venezuela, Hong Kong, mainland China, and now in the Russian invasion.    There has been no public support for the loyal Catholics in China who have been intermittently persecuted for their loyally to the Papacy for more than 70 years. No public Vatican support for the Catholic community in Ukraine, especially the Greek Catholics.    These issues should be revisited by the next Pope. The Vatican’s political prestige is now at a low ebb.    6. At a different, lower level, the situation of Tridentine traditionalists (Catholic) should be regularised.    At a further and lower level, the celebration of “individual” and small group Masses in the mornings in St. Peter’s Basilica should be permitted once again. At the moment, this great basilica is like a desert in the early morning.    The COVID crisis has covered up the large decline in the number of pilgrims attending Papal audiences and Masses.    The Holy Father has little support among seminarians and young priests and wide-spread disaffection exists in the Vatican Curia.    The Next Conclave    1. The College of Cardinals has been weakened by eccentric nominations and has not been reconvened after the rejection of Cardinal Kasper’s views in the 2014 consistory. Many Cardinals are unknown to one another, adding a new dimension of unpredictability to the next conclave.    2. After Vatican II, Catholic authorities often underestimated the hostile power of secularization, the world, flesh, and the devil, especially in the Western world and overestimated the influence and strength of the Catholic Church.    We are weaker than 50 years ago and many factors are beyond our control, in the short term at least, e.g. the decline in the number of believers, the frequency of Mass attendance, the demise or extinction of many religious orders.    3. The Pope does not need to be the world’s best evangelist, nor a political force. The successor of Peter, as head of the College of Bishops, also successors of the Apostles, has a foundational role for unity and doctrine. The new pope must understand that the secret of Christian and Catholic vitality comes from fidelity to the teachings of Christ and Catholic practices. It does not come from adapting to the world or from money.    4. The first tasks of the new pope will be to restore normality, restore doctrinal clarity in faith and morals, restore a proper respect for the law and ensure that the first criterion for the nomination of bishops is acceptance of the apostolic tradition. Theological expertise and learning are an advantage, not a hinderance for all bishops and especially archbishops.    These are necessary foundations for living and preaching the Gospel.    5. If the synodal gatherings continue around the world, they will consume much time and money, probably distracting energy from evangelization and service rather than deepening these essential activities.    If the national or continental synods are given doctrinal authority, we will have a new danger to world-wide Church unity, whereby e.g., the German church holds doctrinal views not shared by other Churches and not compatible with the apostolic tradition.    If there was no Roman correction of such heresy, the Church would be reduced to a loose federation of local Churches, holding different views, probably closer to an Anglican or Protestant model, than an Orthodox model.    An early priority for the next pope must be to remove and prevent such a threatening development, by requiring unity in essentials and not permitting unacceptable doctrinal differences. The morality of homosexual activity will be one such flash point.    6.   While the younger clergy and seminarians are almost completely orthodox, sometimes quite conservative, the new Pope will need to be aware of the substantial changes effected on the Church’s leadership since 2013, perhaps especially in South and Central America. There is a new spring in the step of the Protestant liberals in the Catholic Church.    Schism is not likely to occur from the left, who often sit lightly to doctrinal issues. Schism is more likely to come from the right and is always possible when liturgical tensions are inflamed and not dampened.    Unity in the essentials. Diversity in the non-essentials. Charity on all issues.    7. Despite the dangerous decline in the West and the inherent fragility and instability in many places, serious consideration should be given to the feasibility of a visitation on the Jesuit Order. They are in a situation of catastrophic numerical decline from 36,000 members during the Council to less than 16,000 in 2017 (with probably 20-25% above 75 years of age). In some places, there is catastrophic moral decline.    The order is highly centralized, susceptible to reform or damage from the top. The Jesuit charism and contribution have been and are so important to the Church that they should not be allowed to pass away into history undisturbed or become simply an Asian-African community.    8. The disastrous decline in Catholic numbers and Protestant expansion in South America should be addressed. It was scarcely mentioned in the Amazonian Synod.    9. Obviously, a lot of work is needed on the financial reforms in the Vatican, but this should not be the most important criterion in the selection of the next Pope.    The Vatican has no substantial debts but continuing annual deficits will eventually lead to bankruptcy. Obviously, steps will be taken to remedy this, to separate the Vatican from criminal accomplices and balance revenue and expenditure. The Vatican will need to demonstrate competence and integrity to attract substantial donations to help with this problem.    Despite the improved financial procedures and greater clarity, continuing financial pressures represent a major challenge, but they are much less important than the spiritual and doctrinal threats facing the Church, especially in the First World.    Demos    Lent 2022
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