Joe Biden to Surrender Protections for US Steel and Aluminum
Trump implemented steel and aluminum tariffs in 2018.
Democrats decried the tariffs and said they were destroying the country.
A study by a left-leaning institute says the tariffs were successful.
Biden may now end the measures.
(NewsReady.com) – In 2018, then-President Donald Trump implemented tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The president placed 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminum. He did it in order to protect American businesses and create jobs. In a statement at the time, he said other countries had been taking advantage of the US for too long and “those days are over.”
For years after the tariffs went into effect, the Democratic Party accused Trump of ruining the economy, causing massive job losses and passing off the tariffs on to consumers. In 2021, a study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that was not true and recommended the tariffs stay in place. It seems President Joe Biden may have missed that report and could get rid of the measures soon.
According to a report by OAN, steelworkers are asking the president to keep the tariffs in place. They say the measures have created thousands of jobs. And, a March 2021 study from the Economic Policy Institute seems to support that.
The EPI report found that 3,200 new steel-making jobs were born from the tariffs. That’s because they caused a roughly 27% decrease in steel imports, which meant that more businesses had to buy products from American companies. The study also pointed out that the increase in production of steel products from other countries has led to national security concerns in the US.
If Biden lifts the tariffs, he could kill the good-paying jobs Trump’s policies created and also put the national security of the country at risk. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a terrible idea for the president to do anything that would impact jobs. Hopefully, he recognizes that before he takes any drastic steps.
Early Prolife Movement Suffers from Unknown Obstacles
There are two important historical footnotes to be added to this aforementioned tragic scenario before zeroing in on the role played by Bishop McHugh in the undermining of the early Prolife Movement.
First, the Catholic reader needs to understand that the decision of the American hierarchy to abandon its long-held policy in opposition to state and federal “birth control” promotion and services, and instead switch to the fallback position of surgical abortion, had already been made before that fateful day of November 14, 1966, when the NCCB/USCC publicly waved the white flag of surrender before the Anti-Life Establishment.
Archbishop Cody’s Secret Deal With Joe Beasley
This story begins in the fall of 1965 with a charismatic birth control crusader named Dr. Joseph D. Beasley of Tulane University, who dreamed of leading a national battle against the proliferation of people. He wanted to begin with a modest population control program for black welfare recipients in the northern counties of Louisiana. He was stymied, however, by state laws prohibiting the distribution of contraceptive information. More importantly, he had to contend with the powerful Catholic Church in Louisiana and the explosive charge of “black genocide” before he could get any population control project off the ground.
Within a matter of weeks, the ever-charming and resourceful Beasley had engineered a satisfactory agreement with the New Orleans Family Life officials, following the consultation of the New Orleans Archdiocese with Archbishop John Cody of Chicago.
In his fascinating book, The Politics of Population Control, writer Thomas Littlewood describes one of Beasley’s incredible sessions with a Church representative handpicked by Cardinal Cody:
The place is the Petroleum Club in Shreveport, Louisiana. Over a sumptuous dinner of the finest chateaubriand, Joseph Diehl Beasley … is engaged comfortably in conversation with Msgr. Marvin Bordelon[1] representing the bishops of the Catholic dioceses of Louisiana. (They) are discussing the new Politics of Population. To be more precise, they are negotiating the conditions under which the Church would permit Beasley to begin providing tax-financed birth control services to low-income residents of the state.[2]
The “Bordelon Accord” bore a striking resemblance to the birth control concordat signed by the Puerto Rican bishops three years earlier.[3] It is important to realize that Joe Beasley was not after the monsignor’s or the Catholic Church’s blessings, just a promise of “non-interference.”[4]
In order to attract black support for his program and to stave off charges of “genocide,” Joe Beasley used a set of different tactics against community and state black leaders, namely, patronage and payola! He also siphoned off large sums of federal family planning funds to out-of-state militant civil rights groups.[5]
After Archbishop Cody personally assured an incredulous Governor John McKeithen (not a Catholic) that Beasley had his (Cody’s) permission to begin his birth control program, state regulations were “reinterpreted” to permit Beasley to begin his welfare reduction program for poor black families, a program which was almost entirely dependent on abortifacients including IUDs and “The Pill.”[6]
In less than ten years, Beasley had pyramided his Family Health Foundation (FHF) into a $62 million empire with over one hundred federally funded birth control clinics statewide.[7] Beasley’s FHF received accolades from every imaginable quarter as “the No.1 success story” of the birth control movement, including that of the NCCB/USCC Family Life Director, Fr. James McHugh!
“I have read of Dr. Beasley’s work and I am very impressed by it,” Father McHugh said, “(but) there are other people with ideals that fall far short of those of Dr. Beasley’s project.” This statement in support of Beasley’s birth control program, which, as I have already indicated, was primarily based on abortifacient devices and pills, was made by McHugh at the 1970 Congressional hearing on the now infamous Family Planning Services and Population Research Act.[8]
By 1973, however, it was clear that, once again, McHugh had placed his bet on yet another “dark horse,” morally speaking. That year, a General Accounting Office audit, and a lengthy federal government investigation of the FHF confirmed Beasley’s alarming record of political corruption. Soon after, in the spring of 1974, “federal marshals surrounded the FHF headquarters in New Orleans and the foundation was placed in federal receivership.”[9]
The Federal Government’s charges against Beasley, the FHF’s founder, included multiple counts of conspiracy to commit fraud, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and mail fraud, together with misappropriation of many thousands of dollars of federal “family planning” funds for illegal payments for liquor bills, private plane junkets, and political campaign contributions. Eugene Wallace, an FHF official who turned state’s evidence, testified during one court hearing that Beasley had threatened to kill him with a shotgun if he (Wallace) took the stand against him![10] Interestingly, while the Anti-Life Establishment deserted Beasley like rats fleeing a sinking ship, volunteer lawyers from “Catholic” Loyola’s New Orleans University Law School handled his appeal!!![11]
As for the rest of the American bishops, all of whom had now been dragged into the Beasley quagmire by Archbishop Cody and the Louisiana hierarchy, they were in for a double whammy when Beasley joined J. D. Rockefeller III (Chairman of the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future) at a press conference in 1972 calling for universal, tax-subsidized abortion. Beasley later acknowledged that his deal with Church officials was part of his threefold strategy of getting family planning in first, and then following up with sterilization and abortion![12]
Such an admission, one would suppose, should have given the American bishops cause for grave concern since they had permitted the federal government’s multi-billion dollar five year Family Planning Services and Population Research Act to be signed into law two years earlier without any real opposition on their part.
It should also have led them to question the judgment of Family Life Director, Father James McHugh, but it did not. That omission concerning McHugh, one of many made during the early years of the Prolife Movement, would continue to spell out disaster for the movement over the next three decades.
Obstruction by NCCB/USCC Clerical Homosexuals
Which brings us to the second major unknown obstacle facing the emerging Prolife Movement in the early 1970s – the growing numbers of homosexual clergy and hierarchy at the NCCB/USCC and the role they played in opposing or nullifying prolife federal legislation. Volumes III and IV of The Rite of Sodomy, provides the names of prominent homosexual clerics who dominated AmChurch’s bureaucracy during this critical period for the Prolife Movement with a chapter devoted to the then USCC General Secretary Joseph Bernardin, but for the purposes of this article, we’ll be looking at just one – homosexual Bishop James T. McHugh – the major architect of the Church’s policies and programs on prolife issues which continue to haunt and cripple the Prolife Movement to this very day.
When the great epic history of the pro-life movement is finally written, the name of Bishop James T. McHugh will undoubtedly appear over and over again at the most important decision points in our movement’s struggle to restore legal protection to the unborn child. His vast knowledge of public policy issues and solid understanding of the political process provided pro-life leaders with invaluable guidance in forming strategies and building organizations capable of confronting the challenge of those who were promoting a culture of death.[14]
Memorial by Ernest L. Ohlhoff, National Committee for a Human Life Amendment
Father James T. McHugh was ordained as a careerist priest for the Modernist Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey on May 25, 1957, at the age of twenty-five. A creature of the Second Vatican Council and a devotee of Americanist John Courtney Murray, S.J.,[15] and priest-dissenter , Father Charles Curran of Catholic University, McHugh joined the staff of the Family Life Bureau (FLB) of NCWC in 1965, and in 1967 became homosexual Bishop Bernardin’s choice for Director of the new NCCB/USCC’s Family Life Bureau (Office).
Among the earliest projects set in motion at McHugh’s Family Life Office at the NCCB/USCC office in Washington, D.C. was the introduction of “sexual catechetics”[17] (which replaced sound doctrinal catechetics) into parochial elementary and secondary schools and Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes for public school children across the United States.[18]
The American bishops’ 1950 statement opposing classroom sex initiation programs – which was in line with Pope Pius XI’s encyclical on Christian Education of Youth[19], and the Holy Office’s subsequent affirmation of the papal ban of so-called “sex initiation” programs – was ignored. On November 15, 1968, all opposition from Catholic parents was swept aside, as the American bishops issued their Pastoral Letter Human Life in Our Day, which made “systematic” classroom sex instruction “a gave obligation.”[20]
This was the first prolife battle that was lost to the post-Conciliar and pro-homosexual forces that dominated the bishops’ episcopal conference.
It would not be the last.
Prolifers Lose the Human Embryo Battle
An obvious case of the USCC tail wagging the NCCB dog occurred on July 10, 1969, when McHugh defended certain experimental human reproductive procedures including in vitro fertilization that are prohibited by the Catholic Church in his nationally syndicated diocesan column, The Ties That Bind.
In a brilliant piece of “newspeak,” McHugh comments favorably on a June 13,1969, Life magazine article, “Challenge to the Miracle of Life,” by Life science editor Albert Rosenfeld:
According to the Life article, scientists are now seriously experimenting with new ways to initiate the reproductive process that would not require the act of conjugal love between husband and wife. There is the possibility of implanting the male sperm within the woman medically, and there is the possibility of removing an already fertilized ovum[21] from one woman and implanting it in another, a process that has so far only been tested in animals (bold added). … Many scientists are convinced that we will also discover how to join sperm and ovum outside the woman’s body, thereby initiating the life process in a test tube. Then there is the possibility wherein the female egg, without fertilization by the male sperm, doubles its supply of chromosomes, thereby fertilizing itself. Since this is not uncommon in lower forms of life, scientists conjecture that we will discover the key to initiating the chromosome duplication, perhaps by use of electric shock, some special X-ray process, or the laser beam.[22]
It’s still a matter of guesswork as to how successful scientists will be, but if only a few of their theories work out, we will have more control of the life process than we are presently prepared to accept.[23]
The important point to grasp at the onset is that such speculations are not an insult to God nor a denial of His creative plan. There is no reason why God’s power to summon man into existence must be limited to the reproductive process as we know it now. Indeed, there is no reason to presume that the Divine plan does not go far beyond our present scientific speculation and encompass evolutionary breakthroughs that are even beyond our imagination.[24]
Needless to say, the Prolife Movement did not win the battle against in vitro fertilization. Nor did it win the accompanying battle against human embryo experimentation. “Qui tacet consentit” – “Silencegivesconsent.” And the American bishops remained silent, and let McHugh do the talking for them.
McHugh – The Trojan Horse in the Prolife Camp
By the time McHugh and his boss, the young Joe Bernardin, took office, the” Abortion Reform Movement” was already well underway. This Anti-life Establishment was part and parcel of the broader “Sexual Reform Movement”[25] of the 1920s and 30s, that promoted masturbation, fornication, adultery, divorce, birth prevention, abortion, sterilization, homosexuality, “sex education,” artificial insemination, pornography, eugenics and euthanasia.
The nationwide efforts to legalize the murder of unborn children was backed by the powerful Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, which in turn, financed numerous abortion lobbies and organizations including Planned Parenthood-World Population.
Abortion was deemed as a necessary adjunct to failed or omitted contraception as PP-WP spokesman Dr. George Langmyhr admitted in 1971:
It goes without saying that Planned Parenthood Affiliates have long been involved in programs of abortion information, counseling, and referral. Before the recent changes in abortion laws, these activities were, necessarily unpublicized… Abortion must be “an integral part of any complete or total family planning program,” because “the dilemma of a woman who has a legitimate method failure, or any type of unwanted pregnancy, cannot be avoided by Planned Parenthood clinic personnel.”[26]
Too bad the American bishops weren’t listening to Langmyhr when they decided to acquiesce on federal “family planning” programs, while moving the prolife defense line backwards to surgical abortion.
McHugh Establishes National Right to Life Office
The American bishops responded to the Anti-Life Establishment by creating an anti-abortion organization within the existing FLB. The new NCCB/USCC was known as the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), with McHugh serving as Executive Director. He was assisted by two young paid personnel, attorney Martin McKernan and Michael Taylor. In 1979, McKernan became an attorney for the Diocese of Camden. Michael Taylor went on to a paid position on the USCCB’s National Committee for a Human Life Amendment. We’ll meet up with McKernan and Taylor later on in this series.
Known to be silent on contraception and early abortifacients, and wildly in favor of classroom sex programs, McHugh’s NRLC proved to be a liability to the exploding no-compromise grassroots Prolife Movement and its early legislative and political initiatives at the state and federal levels.
A case in point was the efforts in the fall of 1970 of the Society for the Christian Commonwealth (SCC), a magisterial-minded, no-compromise Catholic lay group, to organize a national meeting of prolife leaders and organizations in Washington, D.C. to forge a united effort against abortion. All the members of the SCC Steering Committee were distinguished national prolife figures. They included Law Professor Charles Rice, Family Life advocate, Dr. Herbert Ratner, and Yale Professor James Chu, a vocal critic of classroom sex programs.
The “National Right to Life Congress,” (with the same acronym, NRLC, of McHugh’s prolife office) was scheduled to convene on April 6-8, 1971 in Washington D.C. at the Sheraton Park Hotel.
But the Congress never happened.
This critical effort, which could have and would have set up the Prolife Movement to act decisively and effectively on multiple political and legislative fronts in the face of any proabortion action by the Supreme Court, was systematically sabotaged and eventually killed by McHugh with the able and willing connivance of Joe Bernardin at the USCC.[27]
McHugh managed to convince the American bishops that the Church could “not get into politics.” Nor could it oppose abortion “from the pulpit” or by passing the collection plate.[28] This argument was asinine as the USCC had been established as a civic corporate arm of the NCCB for the express purpose of influencing national legislation and federal public policies.
McHugh Advises Against S.C. Challenge
McHugh’s undermining of grassroots prolife efforts continued even after January 22, 1973 when the Supreme Court issued Roe v Wade (and its twin decision, Roe v. Bolton).
On January 27, 1973, just five days the Court decision, McHugh convened a closed door meeting of leading prolife lawyers including Charlie Rice of Notre Dame and a national Advisor to the USCL. AT THIS CRITICAL JUNCTURE, MCHUGH ADVISED THE LAWYERS AGAINST CHALLENGING THE SUPREME COURT’S RULINGS.[29] Yes, you read that right.
McHugh, who was representing the USCC Family Life Office and the NCCB Diocesan anti-abortion agencies across the nation, told the prolife lawyers that a “States Rights” approach was the most promising avenue to “restrict” the (unrestictable) Court’s decision which legalized the killing of unborn children up to the time of birth in every State.
McHugh’s position came as no surprise. In 1972, McHugh’s NRLC sent letters to all State Right to Life groups urging them NOT TO SUPPORT H.J.R.1186, sponsored by Congressman John Schmitz of California, which called for a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to life of the unborn child.
McHugh’s States’ rights proposal was rejected by the lawyers’ group who noted that the January 22nd ruling DID NOT LEAVE A SHRED OF ENFORCEABLE LAW ON WHICH TO ERECT NEW STATE LEGISLATION TO PROTECT EVEN A HANDFUL OF UNBORN CHILDREN.
Instead, the prolife lawyers put together a committee to draft a Constitutional Amendment that would establish the personhood of the unborn child.
But the damage was done – the Prolife Movement was fatally divided with grassroots Catholics favoring a Constitutional Human Life Amendment that acknowledged the personhood of the unborn child at every stage of human development, and the NCCB/USCC favoring a States Rights approach to “regulate” and/or “restrict” the killing of the unborn.
McHugh Advances Up the Clerical Ladder.
When the bishops reorganized and expanded their prolife offices at the NCCB/USCC in the late fall of 1972, McHugh became the Secretary and Executive of the Ad Hoc Committee for Pro-Life Affairs, that later became a formal Standing Committee of the NCCB called the Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities. While the new Pro-Life Secretariat was theoretically under the control of a chair and seven other bishops, in practice, the routine work and development of new prolife programs and strategies were handled almost exclusively by McHugh. His power and influence as the bishops’ point man for prolife affairs continued to increase.
In addition, in 1974, the bishops created and financed a new anti-abortion lobbying arm of the called the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment (NCHLA) under the direction of a McHugh clone named Ernie Ohlhoff.
Unfortunately, McHugh’s vision of what constituted a pro-life agenda and plan of action was radically different from that of grassroots prolifers as well as some members of the Catholic Hierarchy.
Cardinals Oppose States’ Rights Amendment
The nature of this ongoing conflict became abundantly clear at the historic first Congressional hearing for a Constitutional Human Life held in March 1974 before the Constitutional Amendments Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, chaired by Senator Birch Bayh.
One of four cardinals giving testimony in favor of a Constitutional Human Life Amendment to protect all unborn children, was Cardinal Humberto, Cardinal Medeiros of Boston, who forthrightly replied to the question of “exceptions,” that the Catholic Conference was opposed in principle to any and all “exceptions,” as “the prohibition against the direct and intentional taking of innocent human life should be universal and without exception.”[30]
Cardinal Medeiros also rejected the principle of a States’ Rights amendment, explaining:
A ‘States’ Rights’ amendment which would simply return jurisdiction over the abortion law to the States, does not seem to be a satisfactory solution to the existing situation. Protection of human life should not depend upon geographical boundaries.[31]
However, one year late, on July 8, 1975, at the last session of the Bayh Human Life Amendment hearings, Medeiros’s opposition to “exceptions,” and a “States’ Rights strategy was undermined by testimony given by Professor David W. Louisell, a law professor at the University of California, who introduced the Noonan States’ Rights Amendment. Louisell’s appearance had been arranged by the NCHLA, in cooperation with McHugh and his Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Affairs.
The NCHLA then approached Senator Quentin N. Burdick of North Dakota, known to be in favor of numerous “exceptions,” and persuaded him to introduce the Noonan Amendment at the upcoming closed session of Bayh’s Subcommittee meeting on September 17, 1975. A vote on each of the pending amendments including the Hogan-Helms Human Life Amendment supported by prolife grassroots activists, was expected at that time. A letter endorsing the Noonan Amendment was released by the Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Affairs and the NCHLA, claiming the States’ Rights amendment was a “carefully drawn compromise proposal.”
In reality, the Noonan Amendment was not a Human Life Amendment at all. It merely gave a State the right, not the obligation, to protect “life” (and not specifically human life). Further, it failed to:
o Declare the unborn child a person under the Constitution with specific reference to the 5th and 14th Amendments.
o It failed to state at what point in time the “right to protect life” would be affected.
o And it failed to empower Congress to pass legislation to cut off pro-abortion domestic or foreign funding since the term “federal jurisdictions” used in this amendment applied to geographical locations such as the District of Columbia or U.S. military bases only.[32]
On the final balloting, all the Constitutional Amendments failed to be voted out of Bayh’s subcommittee. Even the “compromise” Noonan Amendment was defeated by a 4-4 tie vote. For the record, McHugh’s “man of the hour,” Senator Burdick, did not cast a vote for any Human Life Amendment!
The real kicker, however, was that no dyed-in-the-wool Catholic grassroots prolife group would support such a deadly “compromise,” but diocesan-funded anti-abortion leaders acting under orders from McHugh, would probably acquiesce – thus fracturing the Prolife Movement even more.
And the bloody war against baby killing dragged on into the 21st century.
[In Part 3, Randy Engel will explain how, and why, time lost in the battle to protect innocent human lives from the scourge of abortion can never be regained]
Rene the Lionhearted is the New St. Athanasius in the Greatest Church and Pro-Life Crisis in History
– Unsurprisingly, Bishop Gracida has taken a strong stance against Biden’s abortion agenda.Gracida has said, “it has become crystal clear that the politician who actively engages his political skills to maintain abortion-on-demand and who protects the ongoing genocideby voting for legislation in favor of abortion formally cooperates in the evil of abortion itself.” – Jim Graham, President of Texas Right to Life
– During the Pro-life Rescue Movement, people put their bodies between abortionists and babies. St. Thomas Aquinas and every other moral theologian teaches that one of the ways to become an accomplice to a crime is to remove an obstacle one knows is preventing the crime. Police were ordered to remove the people who had made themselves obstacles to abortions. With only a handful of exceptions, police obeyed the order to become an accomplice to abortion.
Bishop René Gracida was the ONLY ordinary in the U.S. who taught the police that making themselves accomplices to abortion was a mortal sin, and a crime, and was absolutely forbidden by the moral law. EVERY other ordinary in the country was silent, or, like John May of St. Louis, instructed the police that they “have to obey the law, no matter what it is.” (Auxiliary Bishop Austin Vaughan of New York was arrested in rescues–but his ordinary, John O’Connor, did not give the police any moral instruction.)
Gracida provided the police in his diocese with letters they could present to their superiors, clearly stating the moral law in this matter. – Catholic Monitor commenter Fr. VF
This week, the President of Texas Right to Life, Jim Graham, proclaimed “Bishop Rene Henry Gracida is one of the most courageous defenders of Life in the world”:Today, Bishop Gracida turns 98! Even now, Gracida remains an active advocate for the lives of the innocent and vulnerable. Bishop Gracida rose to the national stage in the eighties and nineties, when, as bishop of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, he took public action to confront the murderous exploits of Planned Parenthood and pro-abortion politicians.
Bishop Gracida stood firm in his decision despite widespread backlash from secular and religious authorities.
“The most important issue facing the world today is the assault on the sanctity of human life,” Bishop Gracida has written. Gracida is one bishop who does not mince his words. He was raised in the Great Depression and served as a U.S. airman in World War II, flying 32 missions over Nazi-occupied Europe. (On one mission, a shard of German shrapnel ripped through his plane, missing his head by inches. “If it had hit me, it would have taken my head off,” says Gracida. Incredibly he has held onto that piece of shrapnel and keeps the artifact as a memento to this day.)Bishop Gracida is not afraid to fight for the truth and the defense of the weak…… Bishop Gracida has dedicated his life to the defense of vulnerable patients and preborn children. He has been criticized and attacked from all sides for his Pro-Life efforts![https://abyssum.org/2021/06/10/48261/]Moreover, beside the Joe Biden American prro-life crisis, we are in the greatest crisis in the history of the Church because Francis and his bishops network are creating gay and heretical cardinals in an attempt to make a permanent heretical church as the world bishops are complicit in keeping Francis in power.
As a priest said even if we can get the Church or state to remove all the bad men, Francis is only going to replace them with worse men.
Of course, we must continue to work for the removal of Francis’s immoral pro-gay bishops network, but the only way we are going to begin a real restoration of the Church is to remove Francis as well as all his controllers and collaborators.
There is only one bishop in the Church actively working toward the removal of Francis.
He is Bishop Rene the Lionhearted Gracida.
Whether he acknowledges it or not, Bishop Gracida is our St. Athanasius.
Athanasius virtually alone, except for the faithful laity, lead the resistance against the Arian heresy in the fourth century even when the Pope excommunicated him.
They said it was Athanasius against the world. Now, it is Gracida against the world.
The Bishop became like Athanasius when he explicitly said Amoris Laetitia is in error and to resist sacrilege Communions.
On December 2, 2017, Bishop Gracida became the only bishop to resist the Amoris Letitia sacrilege on his official website declaring Francis is teaching heresy:
“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”
We have a humble yet heroic man to lead us in the resistance against heterodoxy and those who have created the greatest crisis in the history of the Church.
We have leading us in Gracida a real life hero who makes every other living bishop in the whole world look like a midget by comparison.
We have a 98 year old retired bishop with the heart of a lion leading us: Rene the Lionhearted.
I’ll say it again:
They said it was Athanasius against the world. Now, it is Rene the Lionhearted against the world.
I know he will not be happy that I said this. He told me by email that it would be prideful to think of himself as a Athanasius.
But for better or worst that appears to be the role God has given him in this crisis.
Since most of the clergy apparently have abandoned us, what can we the faithful laity do to assist Bishop Gracida against the world?
First pray for him.
Then please read, pray and share the following open letter with cardinals, bishops, clergy, canon lawyers and the laity so clarity and the action that is within God’s will can result from the letter.
The laity need to force people like Cardinal Raymond Burke and others to answer the theologically sound, clear and precise arguments put forward and either clearly and precisely counter them or put into action the needed canonical procedures to remove Francis if he was “never validly elected” the pope or else remove him from the Petrine office for heterodoxy.
If Burke and others do not act they are putting their immortal souls in danger because they are denying the Petrine office of Pope John Paul II who made binding law for the 2013 conclave in Universi Dominici Gregis.
AN OPEN LETTERTO THE CARDINALS OF THE HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCHAND OTHER CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN FAITHFULIN COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEERecently many educated Catholic observers, including bishops and priests, have decried the confusion in doctrinal statements about faith or morals made from the Apostolic See at Rome and by the putative Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis. Some devout, faithful and thoughtful Catholics have even suggested that he be set aside as a heretic, a dangerous purveyor of error, as recently mentioned in a number of reports. Claiming heresy on the part of a man who is a supposed Pope, charging material error in statements about faith or morals by a putative Roman Pontiff, suggests and presents an intervening prior question about his authenticity in that August office of Successor of Peter as Chief of The Apostles, i.e., was this man the subject of a valid election by an authentic Conclave of The Holy Roman Church? This is so because each Successor of Saint Peter enjoys the Gift of Infallibility. So, before one even begins to talk about excommunicating such a prelate, one must logically examine whether this person exhibits the uniformly good and safe fruit of Infallibility. If he seems repeatedly to engage in material error, that first raises the question of the validity of his election because one expects an authentically-elected Roman Pontiff miraculously and uniformly to be entirely incapable of stating error in matters of faith or morals. So to what do we look to discern the invalidity of such an election? His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, within His massive legacy to the Church and to the World, left us with the answer to this question. The Catholic faithful must look back for an answer to a point from where we have come—to what occurred in and around the Sistine Chapel in March 2013 and how the fruits of those events have generated such widespread concern among those people of magisterial orthodoxy about confusing and, or, erroneous doctrinal statements which emanate from The Holy See. His Apostolic Constitution (Universi Dominici Gregis) which governed the supposed Conclave in March 2013 contains quite clear and specific language about the invalidating effect of departures from its norms. For example, Paragraph 76 states: “Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.” From this, many believe that there is probable cause to believe that Monsignor Jorge Mario Bergoglio was never validly elected as the Bishop of Rome and Successor of Saint Peter—he never rightly took over the office of Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and therefore he does not enjoy the charism of Infallibility. If this is true, then the situation is dire because supposed papal acts may not be valid or such acts are clearly invalid, including supposed appointments to the college of electors itself. Only valid cardinals can rectify our critical situation through privately (secretly) recognizing the reality of an ongoing interregnum and preparing for an opportunity to put the process aright by obedience to the legislation of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, in that Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis. While thousands of the Catholic faithful do understand that only the cardinals who participated in the events of March 2013 within the Sistine Chapel have all the information necessary to evaluate the issue of election validity, there was public evidence sufficient for astute lay faithful to surmise with moral certainty that the March 2013 action by the College was an invalid conclave, an utter nullity. What makes this understanding of Universi Dominici Gregis particularly cogent and plausible is the clear Promulgation Clause at the end of this Apostolic Constitution and its usage of the word “scienter” (“knowingly”). The Papal Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis thus concludes definitively with these words: “. . . knowingly or unknowingly, in any way contrary to this Constitution.” (“. . . scienter vel inscienter contra hanc Constitutionem fuerint excogitata.”) [Note that His Holiness, Pope Paul VI, had a somewhat similar promulgation clause at the end of his corresponding, now abrogated, Apostolic Constitution, Romano Pontifici Eligendo, but his does not use “scienter”, but rather uses “sciens” instead. This similar term of sciens in the earlier abrogated Constitution has an entirely different legal significance than scienter.] This word, “scienter”, is a legal term of art in Roman law, and in canon law, and in Anglo-American common law, and in each system, scienter has substantially the same significance, i.e., “guilty knowledge” or willfully knowing, criminal intent. Thus, it clearly appears that Pope John Paul II anticipated the possibility of criminal activity in the nature of a sacrilege against a process which He intended to be purely pious, private, sacramental, secret and deeply spiritual, if not miraculous, in its nature. This contextual reality reinforced in the Promulgation Clause, combined with: (1) the tenor of the whole document; (2) some other provisions of the document, e.g., Paragraph 76; (3) general provisions of canon law relating to interpretation, e.g., Canons 10 & 17; and, (4) the obvious manifest intention of the Legislator, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, tends to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the legal conclusion that Monsignor Bergoglio was never validly elected Roman Pontiff. This is so because: 1. Communication of any kind with the outside world, e.g., communication did occur between the inside of the Sistine Chapel and anyone outside, including a television audience, before, during or even immediately after the Conclave; 2. Any political commitment to “a candidate” and any “course of action” planned for The Church or a future pontificate, such as the extensive decade-long “pastoral” plans conceived by the Sankt Gallen hierarchs; and, 3. Any departure from the required procedures of the conclave voting process as prescribed and known by a cardinal to have occurred:each was made an invalidating act, and if scienter (guilty knowledge) was present, also even a crime on the part of any cardinal or other actor, but, whether criminal or not, any such act or conduct violating the norms operated absolutely, definitively and entirely against the validity of all of the supposed Conclave proceedings. Quite apart from the apparent notorious violations of the prohibition on a cardinal promising his vote, e.g., commitments given and obtained by cardinals associated with the so-called “Sankt Gallen Mafia,” other acts destructive of conclave validity occurred. Keeping in mind that Pope John Paul II specifically focused Universi Dominici Gregis on “the seclusion and resulting concentration which an act so vital to the whole Church requires of the electors” such that “the electors can more easily dispose themselves to accept the interior movements of the Holy Spirit,” even certain openly public media broadcasting breached this seclusion by electronic broadcasts outlawed by Universi Dominici Gregis. These prohibitions include direct declarative statements outlawing any use of television before, during or after a conclave in any area associated with the proceedings, e.g.: “I further confirm, by my apostolic authority, the duty of maintaining the strictest secrecy with regard to everything that directly or indirectly concerns the election process itself.” Viewed in light of this introductory preambulary language of Universi Dominici Gregis and in light of the legislative text itself, even the EWTN camera situated far inside the Sistine Chapel was an immediately obvious non-compliant act which became an open and notorious invalidating violation by the time when this audio-visual equipment was used to broadcast to the world the preaching after the “Extra Omnes”. While these blatant public violations of Chapter IV of Universi Dominici Gregis actuate the invalidity and nullity of the proceedings themselves, nonetheless in His great wisdom, the Legislator did not disqualify automatically those cardinals who failed to recognize these particular offenses against sacred secrecy, or even those who, with scienter, having recognized the offenses and having had some power or voice in these matters, failed or refused to act or to object against them: “Should any infraction whatsoever of this norm occur and be discovered, those responsible should know that they will be subject to grave penalties according to the judgment of the future Pope.” [Universi Dominici Gregis, ¶55] No Pope apparently having been produced in March 2013, those otherwise valid cardinals who failed with scienter to act on violations of Chapter IV, on that account alone would nonetheless remain voting members of the College unless and until a new real Pope is elected and adjudges them. Thus, those otherwise valid cardinals who may have been compromised by violations of secrecy can still participate validly in the “clean-up of the mess” while addressing any such secrecy violations with an eventual new Pontiff. In contrast, the automatic excommunication of those who politicized the sacred conclave process, by obtaining illegally, commitments from cardinals to vote for a particular man, or to follow a certain course of action (even long before the vacancy of the Chair of Peter as Vicar of Christ), is established not only by the word, “scienter,” in the final enacting clause, but by a specific exception, in this case, to the general statement of invalidity which therefore reinforces the clarity of intention by Legislator that those who apply the law must interpret the general rule as truly binding. Derived directly from Roman law, canonical jurisprudence provides this principle for construing or interpreting legislation such as this Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis. Expressed in Latin, this canon of interpretation is: “Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis.” (The exception proves the rule in cases not excepted.) In this case, an exception from invalidity for acts of simony reinforces the binding force of the general principle of nullity in cases of other violations. Therefore, by exclusion from nullity and invalidity legislated in the case of simony: “If — God forbid — in the election of the Roman Pontiff the crime of simony were to be perpetrated, I decree and declare that all those guilty thereof shall incur excommunication latae sententiae. At the same time I remove the nullity or invalidity of the same simoniacal provision, in order that — as was already established by my Predecessors — the validity of the election of the Roman Pontiff may not for this reason be challenged.” His Holiness made an exception for simony. Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis. The clear exception from nullity and invalidity for simony proves the general rule that other violations of the sacred process certainly do and did result in the nullity and invalidity of the entire conclave. While it is not necessary to look outside Universi Dominici Gregis in order to construe or to interpret its plain meaning, the first source to which one would look is the immediately prior constitution which Universi Dominici Gregis abrogated or replaced. Pope John Paul II replaced entirely what Pope Paul VI had legislated in the immediately previous Constitution on conclaves, Romano Pontfici Eligendo, but in so doing, Pope John Paul II used Romano Pontfici Eligendo as the format or pattern for His new constitution on conclaves. Making obvious changes, nonetheless, Pope John Paul II utilized the content and structure of his predecessor’s constitution to organize and outline Universi Dominici Gregis. Therefore, while it is not legally necessary to look outside Universi Dominici Gregis, the primary reference to an extraneous source of construction would entail an examination of Romano Pontfici Eligendo, and that exercise (bolsterd by the use of the key word “scienter” in the Promulgation Clause) would reinforce the broad principle of invalidity.
Comparing what Pope John Paul II wrote in His Constitution on conclaves with the Constitution which His replaced, you can see that, with the exception of simony, invalidity became universal. In the corresponding paragraph of what Pope Paul VI wrote, he specifically confined the provision declaring conclave invalidity to three (3) circumstances described in previous paragraphs within His constitution, Romano Pontfici Eligendo. No such limitation exists in Universi Dominici Gregis. See the comparison both in English and Latin below: Romano Pontfici Eligendo, 77. Should the election be conducted in a manner different from the three procedures described above (cf. no. 63 ff.) or without the conditions laid down for each of the same, it is for this very reason null and void (cf. no. 62), without the need for any declaration, and gives no right to him who has been thus elected. [Romano Pontfici Eligendo, 77: “Quodsi electio aliter celebrata fuerit, quam uno e tribus modis, qui supra sunt dicti (cfr. nn. 63 sqq.), aut non servatis condicionibus pro unoquoque illorum praescriptis, electio eo ipso est nulla et invalida (cfr. n. 62) absque ulla declaratione, et ita electo nullum ius tribuit .”] as compared with:Universi Dominici Gregis, 76: “Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.” [Universi Dominici Gregis, 76: “Quodsi electio aliter celebrata fuerit, quam haec Constitutio statuit, aut non servatis condicionibus pariter hic praescriptis, electio eo ipso est nulla et invalida absque ulla declaratione, ideoque electo nullum ius tribuit.”] Of course, this is not the only feature of the Constitution or aspect of the matter which tends to establish the breadth of invalidity. Faithful must hope and pray that only those cardinals whose status as a valid member of the College remains intact will ascertain the identity of each other and move with the utmost charity and discretion in order to effectuate The Divine Will in these matters. The valid cardinals, then, must act according to that clear, manifest, obvious and unambiguous mind and intention of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, so evident in Universi Dominici Gregis, a law which finally established binding and self-actuating conditions of validity on the College for any papal conclave, a reality now made so apparent by the bad fruit of doctrinal confusion and plain error.
It would seem then that praying and working in a discreet and prudent manner to encourage only those true cardinals inclined to accept a reality of conclave invalidity, would be a most charitable and logical course of action in the light of Universi Dominici Gregis, and out of our high personal regard for the clear and obvious intention of its Legislator, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II. Even a relatively small number of valid cardinals could act decisively and work to restore a functioning Apostolic See through the declaration of an interregnum government. The need is clear for the College to convene a General Congregation in order to declare, to administer, and soon to end the Interregnum which has persisted since March 2013. Finally, it is important to understand that the sheer number of putative counterfeit cardinals will eventually, sooner or later, result in a situation in which The Church will have no normal means validly ever again to elect a Vicar of Christ. After that time, it will become even more difficult, if not humanly impossible, for the College of Cardinals to rectify the current disastrous situation and conduct a proper and valid Conclave such that The Church may once again both have the benefit of a real Supreme Pontiff, and enjoy the great gift of a truly infallible Vicar of Christ. It seems that some good cardinals know that the conclave was invalid, but really cannot envision what to do about it; we must pray, if it is the Will of God, that they see declaring the invalidity and administering an Interregnum through a new valid conclave is what they must do. Without such action or without a great miracle, The Church is in a perilous situation. Once the last validly appointed cardinal reaches age 80, or before that age, dies, the process for electing a real Pope ends with no apparent legal means to replace it. Absent a miracle then, The Church would no longer have an infallible Successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ. Roman Catholics would be no different than Orthodox Christians. In this regard, all of the true cardinals may wish to consider what Holy Mother Church teaches in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ¶675, ¶676 and ¶677 about “The Church’s Ultimate Trial”. But, the fact that “The Church . . . will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection” does not justify inaction by the good cardinals, even if there are only a minimal number sufficient to carry out Chapter II of Universi Dominici Gregis and operate the Interregnum.This Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis, which was clearly applicable to the acts and conduct of the College of Cardinals in March 2013, is manifestly and obviously among those “invalidating” laws “which expressly establish that an act is null or that a person is effected” as stated in Canon 10 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law. And, there is nothing remotely “doubtful or obscure” (Canon 17) about this Apostolic Constitution as clearly promulgated by Pope John Paul II. The tenor of the whole document expressly establishes that the issue of invalidity was always at stake. This Apostolic Constitution conclusively establishes, through its Promulgation Clause [which makes “anything done (i.e., any act or conduct) by any person . . . in any way contrary to this Constitution,”] the invalidity of the entire supposed Conclave, rendering it “completely null and void”.So, what happens if a group of Cardinals who undoubtedly did not knowingly and wilfully initiate or intentionally participate in any acts of disobedience against Universi Dominici Gregis were to meet, confer and declare that, pursuant to Universi Dominici Gregis, Monsignor Bergoglio is most certainly not a valid Roman Pontiff. Like any action on this matter, including the initial finding of invalidity, that would be left to the valid members of the college of cardinals. They could declare the Chair of Peter vacant and proceed to a new and proper conclave. They could meet with His Holiness, Benedict XVI, and discern whether His resignation and retirement was made under duress, or based on some mistake or fraud, or otherwise not done in a legally effective manner, which could invalidate that resignation. Given the demeanor of His Holiness, Benedict XVI, and the tenor of His few public statements since his departure from the Chair of Peter, this recognition of validity in Benedict XVI seems unlikely. In fact, even before a righteous group of good and authentic cardinals might decide on the validity of the March 2013 supposed conclave, they must face what may be an even more complicated discernment and decide which men are most likely not valid cardinals. If a man was made a cardinal by the supposed Pope who is, in fact, not a Pope (but merely Monsignor Bergoglio), no such man is in reality a true member of the College of Cardinals. In addition, those men appointed by Pope John Paul II or by Pope Benedict XVI as cardinals, but who openly violated Universi Dominici Gregis by illegal acts or conduct causing the invalidation of the last attempted conclave, would no longer have voting rights in the College of Cardinals either. (Thus, the actual valid members in the College of Cardinals may be quite smaller in number than those on the current official Vatican list of supposed cardinals.) In any event, the entire problem is above the level of anyone else in Holy Mother Church who is below the rank of Cardinal. So, we must pray that The Divine Will of The Most Holy Trinity, through the intercession of Our Lady as Mediatrix of All Graces and Saint Michael, Prince of Mercy, very soon rectifies the confusion in Holy Mother Church through action by those valid Cardinals who still comprise an authentic College of Electors. Only certainly valid Cardinals can address the open and notorious evidence which points to the probable invalidity of the last supposed conclave and only those cardinals can definitively answer the questions posed here. May only the good Cardinals unite and if they recognize an ongoing Interregnum, albeit dormant, may they end this Interregnum by activating perfectly a functioning Interregnum government of The Holy See and a renewed process for a true Conclave, one which is purely pious, private, sacramental, secret and deeply spiritual. If we do not have a real Pontiff, then may the good Cardinals, doing their appointed work “in view of the sacredness of the act of election” “accept the interior movements of the Holy Spirit” and provide Holy Mother Church with a real Vicar of Christ as the Successor of Saint Peter. May these thoughts comport with the synderetic considerations of those who read them and may their presentation here please both Our Immaculate Virgin Mother, Mary, Queen of the Apostles, and The Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.N. de PlumeUn ami des PapesStop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He want 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)
– 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.
Australian Sky News pundits laugh at how the U.S. corporate media hype the JoeBama administration while the world laughs at the G7 pantomime on display.
Once you see the strings on the marionettes you can never watch the pantomime an not see them; regardless of how hard the media attempts to proclaim the contrary…
Maybe now that Dr. Tony Fauci has begun to spill the beans on his doings in service to the Wuhan virology lab, the phrase “conspiracy theory,” flogged by the media as jauntily and incessantly as by the soviet kommissars of yore, will have worn out its welcome. In a sane polity, Dr. Fauci would be cooked. He looks circumstantially like an epic villain of history, who promoted and funded dangerous research activities knowingly, which led to an international disaster that killed millions of people and destroyed countless livelihoods and households, perhaps even the whole global economy, when all is said and done — and he appears to have lied at every step along the way. As a practical matter, what is the Joe Biden admin going to do about him? Throw him under the bus? I don’t think they can at this point. Dr. Fauci has come to represent not just the falsehoods employed around the Covid-19 fiasco but more generally the long campaign against truth itself by a grossly illiberal Jacobin Democratic Party seemingly out to punish and destroy Western Civilization. Whether the Covid-19 pandemic was an overt tactic in that campaign or just the result of Dr. Fauci’s catastrophic bad judgment, remains to be revealed. But at least half the country will conclude that there’s some connection between the terrible losses suffered in the pandemic year and the political bullshit they were force-fed in the four-year effort to defenestrate Donald Trump. All Joe Biden’s handlers can do now is fade Dr. Fauci out, keep him off the cable channels, and hope the public can be distracted with some new nonsense. You also have good reason to doubt that Merrick Garland will do anything but look the other way and whistle. The downfall of Dr. Fauci is a watershed moment. There were so many more authorities caught lying over the past five years, but who got off scot-free — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, James Comey (actually, the whole FBI and DOJ E-suites), John Brennan, James Clapper, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, Adam Schiff, and the editors and producers of the news media, plus the execs of social media — who not only disabled the truth at every opportunity but just about destroyed the public’s grip on reality. The result has been an utter collapse of authority in this land so that now nobody who runs anything is credible, from the current pitiful president of the USA, to most elected and appointed officials, judges, corporate CEOs, college deans, and presidents, and “The Science” itself. Just remember: there is still a sizable faction in America of people who are deeply interested in ascertaining the truth about a lot of things. They are aiming to get at it, too, for example, the truth about the 2020 election. Maybe now you can begin to see why this is important. Yet the cable news channels were really at it last Thursday night with Erin Burnett and Anderson Cooper of CNN, and the slippery crew at MSNBC, strenuously assailing the Arizona election audit with their usual battery of opprobrious slogans: it’s a “conspiracy theory,” “baseless,” a “Big Lie.” Is it perhaps more likely now that their Big Lie is the Big Lie? It looks like we are going to find out. And perhaps not just in Arizona, because other states are warming to the audit idea. Joe Biden’s DOJ may yet try to quash the AZ audit. But one subsidiary truth to be gleaned in all this is that the audit is solely a state prerogative as a constitutional matter and if the DOJ tries to lay some horseshit ruse about “civil rights” on the operation, they’ll end up with their pants on fire, maybe even an official nullification of federal action. Sound like a little civil war? So, we can see that the disclosures over Dr. Fauci’s role in the origins of Covid-19 and the potential discovery of 2020 election fraud are converging toward a deep constitutional crisis this summer. If a growing number of Americans come to believe that the pandemic was a number run on them by the authorities, they may be more disposed to going forward with election audits in several states. And what happens if solid evidence is discovered and fraud is proven? Whu-oh…! Does the country perhaps have to call a re-do of the election, this time without mail-in ballots and with a more serious effort to substantiate the votes? That’s a tall order. Or does Joe Biden just keep ridin’ out for ice cream cones? Geopolitics may determine that. Can the nation afford to keep such a weak and illegitimate regime in power? I’ll tell you something that could happen: Joe Biden (his handlers and their factotums, anyway) may try something else, another ruse to distract the public’s attention from a constitutional crisis: how about crashing the financial markets? That would do the trick, I’m sure. In fact, it looks like the Federal Reserve is already tuning that frequency in by announcing it’s “tapering” its bond-buying activities, starting with corporate “junk” bonds. Do you know what will happen if they ramp up tapering of more bond purchases (currently around $120-billion-a-month)? Interest rates will rise — because who else will buy that paper at near-zero interest rates? (And, by the way, Russia just announced it’s about to sell off all its sovereign holdings in US dollars.) And when interest rates rise quickly, Wall Street’s current business model goes south. Wait for that! Or, they could fake an invasion by extraterrestrials. Maybe that’s what this sudden “flap” about UFOs is all about. Do note that everything we’re hearing about those is coming from the U.S. military/war machine, and, no, there’s no new, real evidence there that we didn’t have before. I’m waiting for the feds to say, “Please send us more tax dollars and give us more power, and we’ll keep you safe from space aliens.” Any day now! “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” George Orwell, 1984 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age … “ Eph. 6:12 (NKJV) James Howard Kunstler is an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger. He is best known for his books The Geography of Nowhere, a history of American suburbia and urban development,
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AnticomBy: Judd GarrettObjectivity is the ObjectiveJune 6, 2021I watched the documentary, The Accountant of Auschwitz, on Netflix the other night, and was struck by the disingenuous references to Nazis as right-wingers. This is a dangerous lie that is continually pushed on the public. The left likes to present Nazis and Fascists as if they are simply more extreme versions of present-day conservatives, like conservatives are Nazi-lite. Conservatives and Nazis/Fascists are polar opposites. True conservatives believe in small government, private property, lowering taxes, reducing regulations, the primacy of the individual, and the supremacy of our Constitution and the bill of rights; everything that fascists and totalitarians reject. The extremes of conservatism logically leads to libertarianism, not to totalitarianism, and therein lies the stark difference. Donald Trump was often accused of being a totalitarian. How can a President who gave us the largest tax cut in history, cut the most regulations than any president before him, and appointed originalist justices to the Supreme Court characterized as a totalitarian? So, which politicians in our country today behave most like fascists? ●. Those who are in bed with the Big Tech monopolies to shut down free speech and monitor every aspect of the people’s lives; ●. those who reject school choice vouchers, and want to indoctrinate our children to their ideologies through a forced public education; ●. those who locked down our schools, our businesses, our places of worship, and forced us to wear a mask 24/7; ●. those who want to punish and segregate people who do not take the state-provided experimental vaccines; ●. those who want to dramatically raise taxes, and expand government; ●. those who want the state to control the energy industry thus controlling the means of production; ●. those who unconstitutionally changed the elections laws to benefit their re-election; ●. those who believe the meaning of the Constitution can be reinterpreted so they are no longer constrained by the original intent of the words are all behaving like fascists. We look at politics the wrong way. There is not the left and the right, where the extreme left is communism, and the extreme right is fascism, rather the political spectrum runs from statism on one side to individualism on the other. ●. Those who believe in expanding the role and power of government into people’s lives are trending toward fascism and totalitarianism, and ●. those who believe reducing the size and scope of governmental power are moving toward constitutionalism and libertarianism. But somehow along the way, the true totalitarian nature of socialism and communism is overlooked, and the history of the atrocities committed in the name of those ideologies are glossed over. For over 70 years after the holocaust, there were Nazi hunters scouring the planet to find, convict and punish any person who had anything to do with the Nazis. Rightfully so. Those evil people needed to be brought to justice. And, thankfully, thousands were. But has there been the same type of reaction to the people who perpetrated the 100 million murders of innocent citizens at the hands of communists in the 20th century? When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, where were the zealous righteous people searching out Stalin’s loyalists who helped to murder 20 million peasants in Russia? Or hunting down the people who ran the gulags torturing and killing millions of dissidents? Were those murderers brought justice? Did anyone even try? Where is the outcry against the concentration camps in China torturing and murdering the Uighurs? It appears that if your totalitarianism is shrouded under the flowery language of Marx and communism, you get a free pass for the atrocities you commit. You can torture and murder all you want. Politicians and corporations praise and finance Black Lives Matter which was founded by two devout communists, as their organization burned and looted cities for 4 months in 2020. Any organization that had even the thinnest connection to the Nazis would be shut down and cancelled immediately, rightfully so. Yet we allow an equally evil ideology like communism into the public discourse unscathed. Does United States Senator Bernie Sanders who is a professed communist get cancelled? Are his accounts on Facebook and Twitter suspended like President Trump’s? Of course not. When I hear someone espouse the ideology of communism, it is the same to me as if they were reciting from the Mein Kampf. Both ideologies are equally evil because they both necessitate a totalitarian control of the country, suspension of the basic civil rights, elimination private property, government control of banks and industry, indoctrination through the public school system, incarceration and even killing political dissidents. This is where our country is headed. The documentary raised the question, ‘how could so many of the German citizens have supported the Nazis?’ We are witnessing the answer in real time, as the socialist/communist takeover of our country and turn it into a totalitarian state, and about half of our citizens are not only on board, but ecstatic. Like many of the German citizens, Americans who support this totalitarian transformation of the United States do not fully understand exactly what is going on. Politicians lie. Politicians lied in the 1930s Germany, and they’re lying in 2021 America. The media is easily corrupted. It was corrupted by the Nazis, and it is corrupted by the people who wield power in the United States today. Many Germans were completely misinformed or uninformed about the true nature of the Nazism because the German media was simply a propagandist arm of the Nazis. The people did not have the benefit of the knowledge that we have of Nazism today. They were only exposed to the propaganda of the Nazis. And that is similar to what we are facing today in America. We have, essentially, a state-run media because the media is in bed with a Democratic party and doing their bidding for them. They are the Democrat attack dogs, and also their most strident propagandists. Joe Biden, our President, has not been asked one challenging question on any subject; the border, inflation, the economy, gas prices, Russian hacking, China’s military build-up, since he took office? President Trump was attacked incessantly for four straight years by the press, and our media asks Joe Biden what his favorite ice cream flavor is, as our country is falling apart. Joe Biden used the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa massacre to claim that, “the biggest threat to our country is from white supremacy.” Not ISIS, not Al Qaeda, not Iran, not Russia, not China, not the Mexican drug cartels, not opioids, not unbridled inflation. No. White supremacy. And there was no push back. He must continually flog our country for a race crime committed 100 years ago, but never speaks out against the genocide being committed by the Chinese Communist Party today. And when Joe Biden says white supremacy, he means white conservatives. Hitler convinced Germany that the Jews were the biggest threat to their country, and he repeated that lie again and again and again, until it became the truth in the minds of the people, just as Joe Biden, and his cohorts keep repeating this lie about white supremacy again and again and again, until his vilification over 70 million citizens becomes the truth in their minds. So, this is how people end up supporting evil ideologies, when the people who were charged to expose the evil, the media, climb in bed with the evil; they then wrongly paint the innocent as evil, while promoting their own evil and presenting it as good.
There were a few more lies we lived with in our Kingdom of Untruth. The Satanic Andrew Cuomo DeificationOver last summer and early fall 2020, Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo reached mythic media proportions. His ingratitude was enshrined as New York, “get-used-to-it, buddy” chutzpah. Yes, he momentarily feigned gratitude that Trump had listened to his hysterical daily rantings about the streets littered with corpses unless, right now, immediately, Trump sent a hospital ship, a tent-city hospital, thousands of ventilators, and protective equipment. And Cuomo got them all. Yet mysteriously he did not seem to use them much. As the 2020-election campaign geared up and his name was dropped as a key cabinet secretary or even VP, Cuomo dropped his daily attacks on the hapless Mayor De Blasio and turned on his former benefactor Trump. Or as NPR put it, “The regular briefings helped buoy his approval ratings in New York and make him perhaps the country’s most recognizable Democratic leader in the struggle against COVID-19.” Cuomo seemed to ride a perfect summer of better luck. No one yet really knew about his Dr. Death rerouting of infectious Covid-19 patients into the Petri-dish confines of long-term health care facilities, where thousands of weak and elderly were simply wiped out by his executive order. And the first coronavirus spike was seemingly over. Summer was passing with fewer cases, and Cuomo was yakking it up with his professional journalist brother Chris on CNN as they misled the country about their respective lack of ethics. Hollywood was enthralled with the Dr. Robert DeNiro-like tough-guy “acerbic” governor who did not suffer fools gladly. So they crowned him with an Emmy for his “masterful” press, ego-driven, narcissistic briefings and news conferences. Or in the words of the Emmy Awards CEO: “People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back.” The canonized multitalented Cuomo was not only a politician who out-Trumped Trump, spat out De Blasio, and mesmerized Hollywood with live-play performances. He was also an author, a memoirist, a diarist, an analyst of leadership no less. So in the midst of the death and destruction of lives, Cuomo landed a $5-million book contract for an adding-insult-to-injury memoir American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic—a book lacking the advice, “Don’t send the infected into the uninfected rooms of elderly rest home patients,” or “How to coax an aide into playing strip poker with you.” So how does a governor find time to rewrite a memoir in the middle of a plague? (Reader, you interject here to warn me: “Come on man, Cuomo writing a memoir on the job means less people died had he had more time to exercise leadership.”) The better quandary is how does a mediocre governor find time to continue years of media-exempt sexual harassments, as a dozen women all seem to appear out of nowhere with “he touched me,” “he propositioned me,” “he embarrassed me” like revelations. At the time of his summer strutting, the media bragged on Cuomo’s appeal to women, boasting that there were now online hashtags, like #cuomosexual and #cuomocrush. For the deplorables, Cuomo was a callous blowhard, without talent other than mimicking a tough-guy New York patois, delivered to Pajama Boy and Life of Julia know-nothing journalists. The Great Dr. Fauci Icon HoaxDo we now even recall that octogenarian Anthony Fauci early on in the pandemic swore to us, from his long-held perch at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that the Wuhan virus posed no real threat. Only the naïve would wear masks that, in truth, were mostly worthless. The World Health Organization was to be listened to, as it assured us that humans were unlikely to pass the virus on from its “bat” origins. Likewise, Fauci himself insisted that the Chinese were doing their very best at being transparent, while rallying global efforts to squelch the wet-market, break-out virus? A Wuhan level-4 virology origin? Nuts, Fauci all but said. Masks? Ugh, why not wear two, given their sudden life-saving efficacy? Herd immunity? Noble lies of 60, 70—or was it 90?—percent herd immunity was needed to stop the virus? The previously infected with COVID-19? There was no evidence of sustained immunity: so line up you previously sick, and get vaxxed asap, even though existing antibodies seemed to react badly with vaccinations. Racism? Yep, Fauci attested that racial bias explained the nation’s uneven and poor reaction to the virus (as White House advisor, did he oversee, then, such racism, did he correct it?). Operation warp speed? Don’t believe Trump: we won’t likely see a vaccination until mid-2021. Cheap, make-shift protocols that have efficacy in early stages of the virus—whether hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin? All Trump hogwash. Trust instead the pharmaceutical companies to deliver soon a multi-thousand-dollar brand antiviral injection. How about those rumors of gain-of-function research ties to Fauci’s approval of an EcoHealth Alliance grant to pay Chinese scientists to do what is banned in the US? Lies, lies, and more damnable lies. Dr. Scott Atlas? Just a public health expert, but not a beltway immunologist. So how could Atlas be right that focusing on the aged and vulnerable, wearing masks mostly only in crowded indoors as the schools and the economy opened, would in the long run save us from terrible economic damage, thousands of lives lost from delayed procedures, screenings and surgeries, spousal and familial abuse, substance abuse, and the general mayhem and insanity from a year of quarantine, recession, and panic that we now witness? How could Atlas be right that a Texas or Florida would eventually have no more deaths per million than a New York or California or New Jersey, but a far more vibrant economic recovery and kids in schools far less damaged? Fauci-mania was a 14-month, media- and leftwing-generated fantasyland, predicated on his yarn as the scientific truth-teller to the faith-healer Trump. The final irony? On most of the key issues of the pandemic, Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip, gut instinct was right and Fauci linguistic gymnastics were wrong: the virus likely did come from a leaked gain-of-function experiment in the Wuhan lab. Vaccinations would appear in 2020. There is probably some value in early use of inexpensive and mostly safe hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. Incentivizing three or four different private companies would be a superior vaccination route than relying on a state-sponsored EU, Chinese, or Russian And following an Atlas on graduated openings proved smarter than the Fauci endless quarantining and mask-wearing. A modest predication. When this entire tragedy is fully researched, documented, and published, we are going to learn astounding, radically jarring and depressing things. And, neither will Dr. Fauci be again Dr. Fauci, the wizard of the White House, nor will the Chinese be our “partners” in sleuthing out the COVID-19 origins.
In the 1880s when the eastern San Joaquin Valley began to be populated with vineyardists and orchard men, there was a shortage of construction-grade wood. Farmers needed lumber that would not rot as fence posts, vineyard stakes, and barn trusses. The Sierra redwood (the majestic Sequoiadendron giganteum), thank God, earlier on was found to split apart and thus never harvested. So the next best answer was apparently to import the Australian “blue gum” (eucalyptus globulus) that rose to 250 feet, required little water, and whose oils prevented rot. Naïve farmers planted 2- to 5-acre plots everywhere. (In regard to the wisdom of importing foreign species, I remember that the 19th-century importation of Johnson Grass (Sorghum halepens) was a similar foreign discovery gone bad, as my shredded hands as a kid attested when we had to dig out the stola, sack them, and then burn them at the end of the row. Johnson Grass choked out vines. Because it was toxic to grazing cattle [they either bloated up or died from its natural cyanide], it soon became an air-borne “weed”and so spread from its original pastures all through cultivated fields.). But after California mills began using northern coast redwoods, suddenly the blue-gum groves were obsolete. And while the gum wood was iron-like, and more impenetrable to rot and termites than even modern treated wood, Eucalyptus still tended to split. It proved difficult to mill into straight lumber and poles. So what then became of the failed dream of the blue gum-groves other than as sources for firewood? Wild animals naturally took them over—mini-forests in the middle of vineyards and orchards, refuges for every loser animal whose habitat has been zeroed out by farmers. The eucalyptus leaves are natural herbicides that made it near impossible to clear the groves and plant trees or vines in their place. (Our friend, neighbor and occasional hired worker, a Navajo-American Joe Carey used to carry the leaves in his pocket, crush them and smell the eucalyptus to clear his sinuses as we worked in the dusty rows.) After ten or so years of a grove, the accumulated oil from the falling leaves and branches, soaks in and sterilizes the soil, making it worthless for cultivation, even if one took the effort to remove the massive roots of the majestic trees. (For 20 years or more in the raisin business, I used to pull off from the raisin shaker any eucalyptus leaf that blew over into the vineyard and had entered a bin, given the crushed oil was strong enough to pollute 2,000 pounds of raisins (sort of like having Vic’s Vapor Rub in your food). By the 1960s these groves had gone wild—and one was right on the border of our farm. We were told “never go in there.” So, of course, we once or twice did. It was a sort of Boo Radley place, of agglomerated existential terrors and childhood fantasies. Once around 1961, I got up early, and at eight with my Daisy lever-action BB gun snuck away and entered the grove. It was pitch black. Within minutes, I saw a pair of now almost extinct California Kit foxes, a golden eagle, three raccoons, hordes of coyotes. Far up in the trees were hawks of every species. Every escaped domestic parrot or parakeet seemed to be hanging out up there, all in bright oranges and yellows. I almost stepped on a garter snake and 4-5 of her worm-like brood. (I even wondered whether she was a rattler who lost her rattles.) Then suddenly a terrible collective yell arose, like a Swiss yodel, from the center of the grove. I turned around, scampered out, and ran the entire three-quarter-mile way home. I screamed to my parents “There’s monsters in the middle of those blue gums!” After pro forma lectures about not going in there, my dad laughed, and said that crazy neighbor had a turkey-pen hidden in the middle, apparently to avoid the ag inspectors. “That was Turkey gobbling you heard”.I can remember, telling Mom, “But, it was still scary”. “And very much so, Victor”—and then smiled as she always did.
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There were a few more lies we lived with in our Kingdom of Untruth. The Satanic Andrew Cuomo DeificationOver last summer and early fall 2020, Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo reached mythic media proportions. His ingratitude was enshrined as New York, “get-used-to-it, buddy” chutzpah. Yes, he momentarily feigned gratitude that Trump had listened to his hysterical daily rantings about the streets littered with corpses unless, right now, immediately, Trump sent a hospital ship, a tent-city hospital, thousands of ventilators, and protective equipment. And Cuomo got them all. Yet mysteriously he did not seem to use them much. As the 2020-election campaign geared up and his name was dropped as a key cabinet secretary or even VP, Cuomo dropped his daily attacks on the hapless Mayor De Blasio and turned on his former benefactor Trump. Or as NPR put it, “The regular briefings helped buoy his approval ratings in New York and make him perhaps the country’s most recognizable Democratic leader in the struggle against COVID-19.” Cuomo seemed to ride a perfect summer of better luck. No one yet really knew about his Dr. Death rerouting of infectious Covid-19 patients into the Petri-dish confines of long-term health care facilities, where thousands of weak and elderly were simply wiped out by his executive order. And the first coronavirus spike was seemingly over. Summer was passing with fewer cases, and Cuomo was yakking it up with his professional journalist brother Chris on CNN as they misled the country about their respective lack of ethics. Hollywood was enthralled with the Dr. Robert DeNiro-like tough-guy “acerbic” governor who did not suffer fools gladly. So they crowned him with an Emmy for his “masterful” press, ego-driven, narcissistic briefings and news conferences. Or in the words of the Emmy Awards CEO: “People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back.” The canonized multitalented Cuomo was not only a politician who out-Trumped Trump, spat out De Blasio, and mesmerized Hollywood with live-play performances. He was also an author, a memoirist, a diarist, an analyst of leadership no less. So in the midst of the death and destruction of lives, Cuomo landed a $5-million book contract for an adding-insult-to-injury memoir American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic—a book lacking the advice, “Don’t send the infected into the uninfected rooms of elderly rest home patients,” or “How to coax an aide into playing strip poker with you.” So how does a governor find time to rewrite a memoir in the middle of a plague? (Reader, you interject here to warn me: “Come on man, Cuomo writing a memoir on the job means less people died had he had more time to exercise leadership.”) The better quandary is how does a mediocre governor find time to continue years of media-exempt sexual harassments, as a dozen women all seem to appear out of nowhere with “he touched me,” “he propositioned me,” “he embarrassed me” like revelations. At the time of his summer strutting, the media bragged on Cuomo’s appeal to women, boasting that there were now online hashtags, like #cuomosexual and #cuomocrush. For the deplorables, Cuomo was a callous blowhard, without talent other than mimicking a tough-guy New York patois, delivered to Pajama Boy and Life of Julia know-nothing journalists. The Great Dr. Fauci Icon HoaxDo we now even recall that octogenarian Anthony Fauci early on in the pandemic swore to us, from his long-held perch at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that the Wuhan virus posed no real threat. Only the naïve would wear masks that, in truth, were mostly worthless. The World Health Organization was to be listened to, as it assured us that humans were unlikely to pass the virus on from its “bat” origins. Likewise, Fauci himself insisted that the Chinese were doing their very best at being transparent, while rallying global efforts to squelch the wet-market, break-out virus? A Wuhan level-4 virology origin? Nuts, Fauci all but said. Masks? Ugh, why not wear two, given their sudden life-saving efficacy? Herd immunity? Noble lies of 60, 70—or was it 90?—percent herd immunity was needed to stop the virus? The previously infected with COVID-19? There was no evidence of sustained immunity: so line up you previously sick, and get vaxxed asap, even though existing antibodies seemed to react badly with vaccinations. Racism? Yep, Fauci attested that racial bias explained the nation’s uneven and poor reaction to the virus (as White House advisor, did he oversee, then, such racism, did he correct it?). Operation warp speed? Don’t believe Trump: we won’t likely see a vaccination until mid-2021. Cheap, make-shift protocols that have efficacy in early stages of the virus—whether hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin? All Trump hogwash. Trust instead the pharmaceutical companies to deliver soon a multi-thousand-dollar brand antiviral injection. How about those rumors of gain-of-function research ties to Fauci’s approval of an EcoHealth Alliance grant to pay Chinese scientists to do what is banned in the US? Lies, lies, and more damnable lies. Dr. Scott Atlas? Just a public health expert, but not a beltway immunologist. So how could Atlas be right that focusing on the aged and vulnerable, wearing masks mostly only in crowded indoors as the schools and the economy opened, would in the long run save us from terrible economic damage, thousands of lives lost from delayed procedures, screenings and surgeries, spousal and familial abuse, substance abuse, and the general mayhem and insanity from a year of quarantine, recession, and panic that we now witness? How could Atlas be right that a Texas or Florida would eventually have no more deaths per million than a New York or California or New Jersey, but a far more vibrant economic recovery and kids in schools far less damaged? Fauci-mania was a 14-month, media- and leftwing-generated fantasyland, predicated on his yarn as the scientific truth-teller to the faith-healer Trump. The final irony? On most of the key issues of the pandemic, Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip, gut instinct was right and Fauci linguistic gymnastics were wrong: the virus likely did come from a leaked gain-of-function experiment in the Wuhan lab. Vaccinations would appear in 2020. There is probably some value in early use of inexpensive and mostly safe hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. Incentivizing three or four different private companies would be a superior vaccination route than relying on a state-sponsored EU, Chinese, or Russian And following an Atlas on graduated openings proved smarter than the Fauci endless quarantining and mask-wearing. A modest predication. When this entire tragedy is fully researched, documented, and published, we are going to learn astounding, radically jarring and depressing things. And, neither will Dr. Fauci be again Dr. Fauci, the wizard of the White House, nor will the Chinese be our “partners” in sleuthing out the COVID-19 origins.
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ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
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