LIBERAL ATTORNEY SAYS BRAGG’S CASE IN NEW YORK AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP IS A FLAWED CASE

• March 19, 2023
• Steven Ahle

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, has reacted to the news that President Donald Trump would be persecuted prosecuted by the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. Turley says that the case against Trump is shoddy and could be dismissed on the grounds that it is beyond the statute of limitations. There are several other flaws in the case. One major hurdle id that it is a federal crime and the feds who were desperate to pin anything on Trump decided that there was no case.

Besides, Bragg cannot prosecute on federal charges, so he would have to use state law, which would prove very difficult. The Democrats have been trying for years to pin something on Trump. There was the Mueller investigation. Two impeachment attempts. For many years the NY AG Letitia James has worked feverishly trying to find anything and still, she has failed. There was the release of Trump’s tax returns that turned out to be a nothing burger. Thousands of man hours and at least $50 million dollars spent and they have nothing.

The New York Times even admits this case is a loser:

In New York, falsifying business records can amount to a crime, albeit a misdemeanor. To elevate the crime to a felony charge, Bragg’s prosecutors must show that Trump’s “intent to defraud” included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.

In this case, that second crime could be a violation of New York state election law. While hush money is not inherently illegal, the prosecutors could argue that the $130,000 payout effectively became an improper donation to Trump’s campaign, under the theory that it benefited his candidacy because it silenced Daniels.

Turley says the case is flawed:

The case against Donald Trump over hush payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels in the build up to the 2016 presidential election is ‘flawed’, a legal scholar has said.

Jonathan Turley, a criminal defense attorney and Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, said the case by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is unlikely to succeed.

Turley was responding to Trump’s claim on Saturday that he’ll be arrested on Tuesday next week following a long-running probe by Bragg’s office into the $130,000 paid to Daniels.

But Turley also said Trump must ‘tap down any inflammatory rhetoric’ after the former president issued a call for protests amid the imminent charges. Trump had announced he’d be arrested within days and added ‘PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!’

Trump could be charged with falsifying business records in relation to payments to his former attorney, Michael Cohen, who served jail time after pleading guilty to using campaign finances in relation to Daniels. The former president could also faces charges linked to violations of election law.

Turley said: ‘This is a flawed case if it is based on a state charge effectively prosecuting the federal election violation. That federal case was rejected by the Justice Department. There are also statute of limitation questions that could come into play.

‘Bragg may be able to expect highly motivated judges and jurors in New York. However, the novelty and questions, in this case, would present difficult appellate issues for the prosecution.’

Turley added to DailyMail.com: ‘I am not confident that Bragg can bring this case under the statute of limitations.

‘However, if he can shoehorn the federal charge into a state case, he still faces considerable challenges for a conviction. This is a notoriously difficult theory to prosecute, though this is the best jury pool that a prosecutor could hope for.’

If you try to kill a king, you had better be successful. The king will live.

Author

• Steven Ahle View all posts 

 The Art of the Big Lie(s).

By: Victor Davis Hanson

Part One – March 14, 2023

The Left has canonized a number of outright untruths. There are three characteristics of their mendacity.

One, the lies are either issued by leftwing government officials or adopted from lying universities, social media, or the corporate world.

Two, the lies involve the most vital aspects of American society—its foreign policy and national security, its social harmony, and its history and traditions, and are designed to undermine them.

Three, the prevaricators never apologize for their lies, but instead either project the lie back onto their victims or quickly move on to an even greater untruth. Even when refuted or exposed, the lies are seen as having served a useful higher political purpose or, as the late rogue Sen. Harry Reid put it of his lies about Mitt Romney’s taxes, “Well, they can call it whatever they want. Romney didn’t win, did he?”

Here are the five most infamous lies and the damage they did.

Big Lie 1. Russian “Collusion”

There was no evidence that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 election.

Robert Mueller’s team, stocked with “all-star” leftwing partisans, went through 22 months and $40 million and found nothing.

The FBI offered the lying Christopher Steele (a paid FBI informant/contractor) $1 million to prove any one item in his concoctions; he could not. Not one.

No matter. The FBI knowingly used the fraudulent document to deceive a FISA court judge. And even that ruse was not enough, as FBI lawyer and now convicted felon Kevin Clinesmith doctored evidence to ensure a warrant.

In the end, “collusion” was simple projection. Hillary Clinton used three paywalls, the DNC/Perkins-Coie/Fusion GPS nexus, to spread dirt on her presidential opponent—by using Clinton operatives to compile Russian disinformation.

Most ironically, the Clinton paywalls employed collectors of Russian collusionary fables—Charles Dolan’s Russian disinformation conduit in Moscow and Igor Danchenko, the Russian gossip collector at the Brookings Institution. Adam Schiff, the Democratic Congress, and the DNC knew all this and yet continued to peddle the collusion lie since it wounded the Trump administration and was useful again in 2020. Three former FBI directors—Mueller, Comey, and McCabe—either lied under oath about the dossier or feigned amnesia or ignorance about its very untruths they had once embraced.

The FBI has ruined its reputation, by hiring Steele, knowingly using his lie to obtain federal warrants, and conceding nothing in the dossier was provable. And Christopher Wray’s recent pathetic performance in an interview with Bret Baier only made things worse. He claimed there were no asymmetries in the way the FBI treated various suspects, whether the 2020 rioters versus January 6th-ers, or pro-abortion versus pro-life protestors, or the Trump documents versus Biden documents, or former Trump officials versus current Biden officials.

Big Lie 2. The “Disinformation” Laptop

The FBI knew the laptop that it sat on for months and kept from the public was authentic. Hunter Biden never denied that it was his. Tony Bobulinksi swore the emails from and to him on the computer were authentic—even as Joe Biden repeatedly lied on a live debate stage that it was “Russian disinformation.”

James Clapper and John Brennan assembled 50 former intelligence operatives and “experts” on the eve of the 2020 election to swear it was “likely” Russian disinformation and should be not just ignored but considered part of the Russian “collusion” efforts. None have apologized for their own disinformation.

The FBI never explained why they sat on the laptop, much less why they hired Twitter and muscled Facebook to suppress pre-election news stories and posts about the authenticity of the most embarrassing laptop.

To this day, no federal agency is seriously investigating the contents, despite its haphazard publication pointing to a number of potential Biden family felonies and tax exposures. The material on the laptop if clearly examined and exposed and investigated by authorities might well lead to indictments of the Biden family syndicate.

Part Two –  March 15, 2023

Big Lie 3. The Pangolin/Bat Myth

Almost immediately after the arrival of the coronavirus, the public, some brave scientists, and intelligence officers were convinced that the engineered virus escaped the Wuhan lab because:

1) The Chinese suppressed most information about the lab’s work on the virus.

2) There were virulent attacks on those who doubted a natural origin by both Beijing and the U.S. government and corporate world that all lodged the false charge of “racism.”

3) The close proximity between the first cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan and the Wuhan virology lab.

4) The absence of a single natural case of COVID-19 in any animal species prior to the pandemic.

5) The known gain-of-function virology research ongoing in the lab.

6) The singularly unusual and exceptional genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

7) The paranoia of CDC and NIAID officials (who had funded grants to the Wuhan lab via EcoHealth) about charges that gain-of-function research, with U.S. help, at Wuhan may have birthed the viral epidemic.

8) The control over the lab by People’s Liberation Army.

None of the Left in congress, the Biden administration, or the media have apologized. Most have doubled down to insist that the lab connection remains a “conspiracy theory” and“racist.”

China has concluded that the U.S. is afraid to pursue the truth and therefore Beijing will either accelerate its gain of function research on the theory that Americans will never complain even after suffering well over one million dead or draw larger conclusions that the U.S. has lost all deterrence vis-à-vis Taiwan, an island now ripe for absorption.

Big Lie 4. The Basket of Vaccination-Related Lies

Almost everything we were told by the government and Big Pharma about the coronavirus and the mRNA vaccinations was untrue. The real facts were the following—and suppressed by the media and administrative state:

1) Natural immunity was always as effective or more effective than the protection offered by any of the vaccinations.

2) The vaccinations never ensured one would not permanently be infected or would not be infectious.

3) The mass quarantines and shutdowns did not stop the epidemic, but probably killed more Americans through missed medical procedures, suicides, economic ruination, and spousal, child, and substance abuse than COVID-19 itself.

4) The serious dangers that the mRNA vaxes posed to young men were greater than the dangers of COVID-19 infections.

5) There was never any medical proof that continued mask wearing would repress the spread of the virus.

6) Shutting down the schools did far more damage to the nation’s K-12 youth than did the virus.

7) No one fully disclosed how little testing there was of the long-term safety of the vaccinations or the serial booster program.

The ripple effect of death and destruction throughout the U.S., whether defined as lost school years, the rioting of summer 2020, the post-George Floyd toxic wokism, or the usurpation of our freedoms, is likely irreversible. We will suffer from these pathologies for years to come.

Part Three – March 17, 2023

Big Lie 5. The Ukrainian Impeachment call.

Donald Trump did not stop approved shipments of offensive weapons to Ukraine in exchange for investigating the Bidens.

He simply delayed arms shipments that the Obama-Biden administration had strictly prohibited. Indeed, he ultimately sent them.

Trump had good reason to be suspicious of the Ukrainian government given the press reports that the Biden family was engaged in dishonest and lucrative leveraging of Ukrainian oligarchs and government officials through chronic influence peddling.

Joe Biden himself had boasted publicly of his past threats as Vice President to cut off U.S. aid to Kyiv unless it fired a prosecutor believed to be investigating Ukrainians involved with Hunter Biden’s Burisma shake-downs—again a classic case of leftwing projection of blaming Trump for considering to do what Biden actually did. Note that currently there is no free media in Ukraine, and officials cannot talk to the press without the permission of Zelenskyy.

Had Trump not sent offensive weapons to Ukraine, it would be currently in a much graver situation. The “whistleblower” never himself heard the Trump phone call. Lt. Col. Vindman who did hear the call was not fully forthcoming about his relationship or contact with the whistleblower and his own relating of the call’s contents to him.

Adam Schiff lied repeatedly about his knowledge of the whistleblower and prior conversations with him, as well as reading misleading and false narratives into the intelligence committee records.

There was no special counsel’s impeachment report, no lengthy impeachment hearings, and cross-examinations. Some Senators who tried the impeached Donald Trump such as Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren had a conflict of interest since they were all shortly to declare their candidacies against him in 2020.

Instead, the Democrats established a new precedent that anytime a president loses his House majority in his first term, he may well be impeached. No one since the first impeachment has argued: 

ü that the Bidens did not engage in influence peddling with Burisma and members of the Ukrainian government, 

ü that Donald Trump stopped offensive arms shipments to Ukraine, or 

ü that there was no evidence of serious corruption inside the Ukrainian government.

What was the result of those lies? The Trump administration was crippled in its first year by false charges of collusion and the special counsel’s injurious leaks that were not reflective of its final conclusions.

The FBI destroyed its reputation: 

ü by its directors’ false or misleading testimonies, 

ü by its legal counsel committing a felony, 

ü by losing subpoenaed phone data, 

ü by the machinations of counsel Lisa Page and agent Peter Strzok, 

ü by the unethical maneuvering of counsel James Baker both at the FBI and later as chief counsel at Twitter. 

The agency’s efforts to suppress the truth of the laptop warped a U.S. election and destroyed the bureau’s credibility or, rather, what was left of it.

By falsely accusing Russia and obsessing over these lies, we insidiously drove Moscow and Beijing together as we see now in full fruition in Ukraine.

The lies about COVID-19 vaccination, its origins, and government reaction to it nearly destroyed the U.S. economy from March 2020 to January 2021. Millions died worldwide who could have been saved had the U.S. pressured China to explain the origins of the virus rather than demonizing those who were demanding such accountability.

The quarantines and shutdowns permanently damaged an entire generation of school-aged children. The effort to slur those who questioned the safety of the vaccination destroyed lives and increased deaths and injuries for those who felt forced to take them.

Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, and Francis Collins sabotaged the reputation of our top health agencies, such as the CDC, NIAID, and NIH that have now lost the public’s trust.

In short, just these five canonized lies: 

Ø sandbagged an American presidency, 

Ø warped a U.S. 2020 election, 

Ø crippled the U.S. economy, 

Ø harmed an entire generation of youth, and 

Ø ruined the reputation of the CIA, FBI, DOJ, and DNI.

And many of them continue to be promulgated.

ADD YOUR SUPPORT FOR THIS PENDING LEGISLATION

abyssumMar 20Tune in live at senate.texas.gov! We are enormously grateful for the support of our clergy; especially three pastors: Father Brian Eilers in Bryan/College Station, Father Greg Labus in Edinburg, and Father Chris Downey in Austin. Over the last six months, each of them organized events for Catholic parents to get involved in this effort. All three of their parishes are named for St. Joseph, and the feast of St. Joseph is today! So, we are dedicating our parental choice efforts to the foster father of Jesus and spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and we ask that you pray for his intercession in passing this legislation. On Thursday, we testified in support of Toni Rose’s HB 12 which extends coverage for postpartum women receiving Medicaid to 12 months. Last December the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee reported 118 women died from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth in 2019, and that 90% of those deaths were preventable. This data is alarming and tragic and demonstrates how vulnerable pregnant women are, especially those who lack comprehensive healthcare. The bishops support HB 12 because it will save lives and help create healthy families. After this week’s hearing on HB 2127, we are pleased to report promising conversations with the author and other legislators. We believe improvements are being made to the bill. When a bill is formally changed such that our position changes, we announce it in an action alert and on our social media channels after we verify the new bill text in a committee sub or accepted amendment.

Tune in live at senate.texas.gov! 

We are enormously grateful for the support of our clergy; especially three pastors: Father Brian Eilers in Bryan/College Station, Father Greg Labus in Edinburg, and Father Chris Downey in Austin. Over the last six months, each of them organized events for Catholic parents to get involved in this effort. All three of their parishes are named for St. Joseph, and the feast of St. Joseph is today! So, we are dedicating our parental choice efforts to the foster father of Jesus and spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and we ask that you pray for his intercession in passing this legislation. 

On Thursday, we testified in support of Toni Rose’s HB 12 which extends coverage for postpartum women receiving Medicaid to 12 months. Last December the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee reported 118 women died from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth in 2019, and that 90% of those deaths were preventable. This data is alarming and tragic and demonstrates how vulnerable pregnant women are, especially those who lack comprehensive healthcare. The bishops support HB 12 because it will save lives and help create healthy families. 

After this week’s hearing on HB 2127, we are pleased to report promising conversations with the author and other legislators. We believe improvements are being made to the bill. When a bill is formally changed such that our position changes, we announce it in an action alert and on our social media channels after we verify the new bill text in a committee sub or accepted amendment. 

March 19, 2023

“Miss not the pouring out of My cup upon the world in the days that come,

As darkness rolls forth upon the world,

And men stumble and find no solid ground.

Oh, miss not the pouring out of My cup upon the world,

For when the night is so long,

And hope seems but a trickle,

And men cry out for want of a piece of bread.

Oh, miss not the pouring out of My cup upon the world,

For when you stand with bowed head,

As all that is being destroyed rains down around you,

And you feel you have nothing to give

To console the hearts of those whose cries ring out through the darkness,

Then miss not the pouring out of My cup upon the world.

For it will be turned up and poured out,

And rivers of mercy and grace will flow forth.

Oh, miss not the pouring out of My cup upon the world,

For in the darkness and the despair,

Amidst the cries of My people,

And in the midst of the hopelessness and dismay,

Then shall My cup be emptied,

And rivers will flow forth upon the desolate land.

Oh, miss not the pouring out of My cup upon the world,

For I am the author of mercy,

And I will cease not to write words of redemption in the last hours.

So, turn not aside when the darkness rolls over the world,

And men cry out for want of a piece of bread.

Open your hands and turn your face towards Me.

For I will indeed turn My cup upside down,

And pour it out upon the world,

And rivers of mercy and grace will rain down.

But oh, allow it not to run off in streams into the gutters.

For everywhere men will cry for a drop of water

And a crust of bread.

Oh, miss not the pouring out of My cup upon the world,

For you shall be a reservoir into which My cup will flow,

And, thus, will men come forth to drink.

Oh, miss not the pouring out of My cup upon the world.“

-S

Cardinals Müller, Burke rebuke German bishops over SYNOD same-sex union blessings

German Cardinal Gerhard Müller (left) and American Cardinal Raymond Burke. | Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

By Tyler Arnold

Washington D.C., Mar 17, 2023 / 13:09 pm

A synod of German bishops overwhelmingly approved Church blessings of same-sex unions and unions between divorced and remarried Catholics, but the move has faced harsh criticism from some members of the Catholic hierarchy who have accused the German bishops of abandoning the faith. 

German Cardinal Gerhard Müller and American Cardinal Raymond Burke rebuked the German bishops and called on them to be sanctioned in an interview on EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo,” which aired on Thursday night, March 16. 

“There must be a trial and they must be sentenced and they must be removed from their office if they are not converting themselves and they are not accepting the Catholic doctrine,” Müller said during the interview.

“That is very sad that a majority of bishops voted explicitly against the revealed doctrine, and the revealed faith of the Catholic Church and of all our Christian thinking, against the Bible, the word of God in the Holy Scripture and in the apostolic tradition and in the defined doctrine of the Catholic Church,” the cardinal added. 

Müller said the laypeople and the bishops who supported these resolutions at the German Synodal Way are “influenced by this LGBT and woke ideology, which is materialistic and nihilistic.”

“It is absolutely blasphemic to make a blessing about those forms of life which is, according to the biblical and the ecclesial doctrine a sin because all forms of sexuality outside of a valid matrimony is sin and cannot be blessed,” he said. 

“If you look in the Bible, it’s absolutely only the matrimony between man and woman who are united in love in the body and in the soul,” the cardinal said, “and to have the possibility [to] become fathers and mothers and to found a family.”

Burke urged the Vatican to sanction the bishops who voted in favor of blessing homosexual unions.

“Whether it’s a departure, heretical teaching and denial of one of the doctrines of the faith, or apostasy in the sense of simply walking away from Christ and from his teaching in the Church to embrace some other form of religion, these are crimes,” Burke said. “I mean, these are sins against Christ himself and, obviously then, of the most serious nature. And the Code of Canon Law provides the appropriate sanctions.”

The cardinal warned that the Church is being “used” to push an ideological agenda. 

“These are human inventions, human ideologies that are being pushed and the Church is being used,” Burke added. “And what it does is it renders the Church then into some kind of a human agency, almost like a government agency that’s being manipulated to foster certain programs and certain agenda. And so we need to wake up to what is happening.”

“You will notice that in a lot of this talk, you never hear the name of Our Lord,” Burke said. “You never hear talk about what Our Lord Jesus Christ is teaching us, what he’s asking of us. So this is a very serious situation.”

The cardinal also responded to Arroyo’s suggestion that “opponents of these reforms are often derided as going against the pope.”  

“We are the ones who love the pope and are trying to help him to carry out his mission, whereas these people who simply ignore what Rome is saying to them, what the See of Peter is saying to them, show that they have no respect for him, whatever they are indeed the enemies of the pope. I think it’s clear any reasonable person can see that,” he said.

Burke said that Pope Francis “sometimes says things that are very clear and in accord with the Church’s teaching with regard to these matters.”

“What the agents of the revolution do is simply ignore these statements and take other statements in which he seems to be favorable,” he said.

• Tags:
• Catholic News, 
• Cardinal Gerhard Muller, 
• Same-sex unions, 
• German Synodal Way, 
• Cardinal Raymond Burke

Dem Rep In Hot Water After What Happened With SCOTUS Justice

Georgia State Sen. Emanuel Jones (D) recently made a controversial statement on the Senatefloor while discussing a proposal to place a statue of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas onthe grounds of the state Capitol.

Jones compared Thomas to a slave who “sold his soul” to his white master and labeled him an “Uncle Tom” – a derogatory term used to refer to a black person who is viewed as overly subservient to white people. 

This inflammatory language has outraged many in the Republican Party, who believe that Jones’ statement was completely inappropriate and offensive. Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan (R) took to Twitter to express his displeasure, stating that Jones’ language was “disrespectful and wrong” and that the Senate should “stand together in condemning this kind of rhetoric.” It is not the first time that Jones has made such highly charged statements.

In the past, he has also accused Thomas of being a “sellout” and a “puppet” of the Republican Party. This type of language is not only inappropriate but also dangerous. It sets a dangerous precedent, suggesting that it is acceptable to use extreme language to attack those with whom you disagree politically. 

The Republican Party believes that it is important to foster an environment of respect and civility, even when discussing issues of difference. This is especially true when discussing issues concerning race, as racial tensions are already high in our country. Jones’ statement does not serve to further the discussion in any meaningful way and only serves to further divide us. 

The Republican Party calls on the Georgia State Senate to take a stand against this type of inflammatory language and to instead focus on having a respectful and productive dialogue on the issues. The Republican party strives to create an atmosphere of civil discourse to move our state and our country forward.

Watch:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1625612094367211525&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fredrightdaily.com%2Fjones-justice-thomas-comments%2F&sessionId=9c5ca97fb4161c4f62f4956966b73d3d988440e0&theme=light&widgetsVersion=aaf4084522e3a%3A1674595607486&width=550px

The Left is so outraged by a proposal to build a statue of Clarence Thomas at the Georgia Capitol, that one unhinged lawmaker compared him to an “Uncle Tom” who “sold his soul to the slave masters.”

Watch for yourself: the hatred and radicalism of the far-Left on full display. pic.twitter.com/dt1F7bYzoJ

— Kelly Loeffler (@KLoeffler) February 14, 2023

Open in app or online

Howard Ahmanson Responds To Vanity Fair

Philanthropist denies magazine report about his support for my TAC work

ROD DREHERMAR 17

SAVE▷  LISTEN

I hate to send to you paid subscribers a second email on the same day, but this is important. Last week, Vanity Fair wrote a scurrilous article about my departure from The American Conservative. The magazine relied on anonymous sources, who told the reporter that the philanthropist Howard Ahmanson, who has generously funded my position at TAC these past twelve years — not totally, but in large part —, withdrew his funding because he objected to certain things I had been writing, that he allegedly found “weird”. 

I did not response to the reporter when he sought comment, nor did TAC’s editor, because Howard had never objected to either of us about anything I had written. If Howard secretly held these opinions, they were news to us. I wrote to Howard repeatedly asking him if he felt that way, and if so, why didn’t he come to me with his concerns. He responded that the article was untrue. I asked Howard to please set the record straight publicly, to try to rescue some of my reputation.

Rod Dreher’s Diary is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Upgrade to paid

He has provided the statement below for publication in TAC, though I don’t know if TAC will publish it, though I wish it would. Howard gives me permission to share it here:

To The American Conservative’s readers:

On Friday, March 10, Vanity Fair published an article entitled “How Rod Dreher’s Blog Got a Little “Too Weird” for The American Conservative,” which alleged that I said a number things that I never said. I want to correct the record.

In the first place, I have not been for many years “the sole benefactor” of Rod’s salary at TAC. My granting entity Fieldstead & Company has indeed reduced its current grant to The American Ideas Institute (TAII), the 501c3 organization that publishes TAC, but that is primarily because my wife’s and my move to Texas, along with our businesses and family office, has proved to be very expensive. Fieldstead’s grant to TAII had to be reduced for that reason, along with a reduction in the amount of current donations to a number of other traditional grant recipients. When I advised TAC that Fieldstead’s grant would be reduced, I made it clear that TAC was free to use any portion of the reduced Fieldstead grant to support Rod’s work. It is my understanding that the executive staff of TAC concluded that Rod’s blog should be discontinued due to TAC’s own reduced funding.

Regarding some of the specific statements made in the Vanity Fair article, I have thought that some of Rod’s recent work (over and over again about Tarkovsky and St. Galgano) was getting a little too far out there, but I remember nothing about his post on “Gary Shteyngart’s Gentile Region,” whatever that was, or ever saw him obsessed with things anal. I am not familiar with the terms of TAC’s out-of-court settlement in Kentucky, nor am I aware of any major disturbances arising from Rod’s praise of Orbàn. Personally, I don’t know what to think of Orbàn. Overall, I have been pleased that Fieldstead has been able to support Rod’s work for a number of years.

I do not know who the Vanity Fair reporter’s two sources were, but I am certain they were not among my staff or my circle of friends and close acquaintances. Whoever they were, they have done a disservice to Rod, as well as to me.

Sincerely,

Howard F. Ahmanson

14 March 2023

I appreciate this statement so much. I know for a fact that at least one of the opinions attributed to Howard — that the recent controversy over my reporting of PM Viktor Orban’s words were a factor in Fieldstead withdrawing the grant — was not true, and could not have been true. The Orban controversy happened a few weeks ago; Howard withdrew the grant in December of last year. Whoever Vanity Fair’s sources are, they got some things right, but mostly didn’t know what they were talking about. 

I should say, for the record, that Howard’s objection to my mentioning Andrei Tarkovsky and St. Galgano “over and over” was not something to do with my TAC blog, but rather with this Substack newsletter, to which Howard subscribes. I absolutely wrote a great deal in the past two years about Tarkovsky and St. Galgano, but almost everything I wrote about them was in this space, not the space Fieldstead helped subsidize at TAC.

In any case, I remain deeply grateful to Howard and Roberta Ahmanson for their steadfast support for my work at TAC over the years. So very much of what I have been able to accomplish is because of their faith in and financial support for me. 

I hope that the people running TAC now will do what they can to find out who within TAC world went to Vanity Fair bearing malicious half-truths designed to hurt me, to hurt Howard, and to diminish the magazine. The mystery might never be solved, and anyway, I’m no longer part of TAC, so it’s not my business anymore. That said, to have within the magazine’s orbit the kind of people who would pull something like this has to be unnerving to the others who work there, who now have to watch their backs. It was a damn shame to have left a dozen years of working at TAC on that sour note, but hey, that’s life. 

Rod Dreher’s Diary is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Upgrade to paid

Maike Hickson	Fri, Mar 17, 9:50 PM (17 hours ago)
to Maike, bcc: me

Your Eminences, Your Graces, Your Excellencies, Dear Reverend Fathers, Dear Colleagues, Dear Friends,

Laudetur Jesus Christus!

Please see here an in-depth report that tries to string together the different statements by key Mexican bishops involved in the new rite of Mass that is to be Mayan and indigenous. The elements of this new rite, as it is already being practiced in Chiapas, Mexico, clearly have idolatrous, pagan elements that include the worship of Mother God, and a second altar is being set up inside Catholic churches.

One could say: the pope is suppressing the traditional Mass that has brought forth hundreds of saints over centuries and that is putting God Almighty at its center, while he is actively encouraging a form of worship that includes false gods, that is, demons.

With warm greetings in Christ,

Maike Hickson

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/the-new-mayan-rite-of-mass-encouraged-by-pope-francis-is-replete-with-pagan-idolatry-and-symbolism/

re We the Byzantines?

The Byzantines never awakened

in time to understand what

they had become. Will Americans?

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

March 15, 2023

When Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the Byzantine Empire and its capital had survived for 1,000 years beyond the fall of the Western Empire at Rome.

Always outnumbered in a sea of enemies, the Byzantines’ survival had depended on its realist diplomacy of dividing its enemies, avoiding military quagmires, and ensuring constant deterrence.

Generations of self-sacrifice ensured ample investment in infrastructure. Each generation inherited and improved on singular aqueducts and cisterns, sewer systems, and the most complex and formidable city fortifications in the world.

Brilliant scientific advancement and engineering gave the empire advantages like swift galleys and flame throwers—an ancient precursor to napalm.

The law reigned supreme for nearly a millennium after the emperor Justinian codified a prior thousand years of Roman jurisprudence.

Yet this millennium-old crown jewel of the ancient world that once was home to 800,000 citizens had only 50,000 inhabitants left when it fell. 

There were only 7,000 defenders on the walls to hold back a huge Turkish army of over 150,000 attackers.

The Islamic winners took over the once magical city of Constantine and renamed it Istanbul. It had been the home of the renowned Santa Sophia, the largest Christian church in the world for over 900 years. Almost immediately, this “Church of the Holy Wisdom” was converted into the then-largest mosque in the Islamic world, with minarets to follow.

So what happened to the once indomitable city fortress and its empire?

Christendom had cannibalized itself. Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy fought endlessly. Westerners often hated each other more than they did their common enemy.

In the final days of Constantinople, almost no help was sent from Western Europe to the besieged city.

250 years earlier, the Western Franks of the Fourth Crusade had detoured from the Holy Land to storm the supposedly allied Christian City of Constantinople. 

Then they ransacked the city and hijacked the Byzantine Empire for a half-century. Constantinople never quite recovered.

The 14th-century Black Plague killed tens of thousands of Byzantines and scared thousands more into moving out of the cramped city. 

But the aging and dying empire battled more than the challenges of internal divisions, or an unforeseen but deadly pandemic and the empire’s disastrous responses to it.

The last generations of Byzantines had inherited a global reputation and standard of living that they no longer earned.

They neglected their former civic values and fought endless battles over obscure religious texts, doctrines, and vocabulary.

They did not expand their anemic army and navy. They did not reunite their scattered Greek-speaking empire. They did not properly maintain their once life-giving walls.

Instead of earning money through their accustomed nonstop trade, they inflated their currency and were forced to melt down the city’s inherited gold and silver fixtures.

The once canny and shrewd Byzantines grew smug and naïve. Childlessness became common. Most now preferred to live outside of what had become a half-empty, often dirty, and poorly maintained city.

Meanwhile, they underestimated the growing power of the Ottomans who systematically pruned away their empire. By the mid-15th century, Islamic armies were ready to exploit fatal Byzantine weaknesses.

Sultan Mehmed II grandly announced the Ottomans were now the real, the only world power. Ascendant Ottoman armies would eventually move on to the very gates of Vienna in an effort to rule all the lands of the ancient Roman empire. 

We should take heed from the last generations of the Byzantines.

Nowhere is it foreordained that America has a birthright to remain the world’s preeminent civilization.

An ascendant China seems eerily similar to the Ottomans. Beijing believes that the United States is decadent, undeserving of its affluence, living beyond its means on the fumes of the past—and very soon vulnerable enough to challenge openly.

Left and Right seem to hate each other more than they do their common enemies.

Like the Byzantines, Americans gave up defending their own borders, and simply shrugged as millions overran them as they pleased.

Our once iconic downtowns, like end-stage Constantinople before the fall, are now dirty, half-deserted, dangerous, and dysfunctional.

America prints rather than makes money, as its banks totter near bankruptcy.

Americans similarly believe they are invincible without ensuring in reality that they are. Our military is more worried about being woke than deadly.

Like Byzantines, Americans have become snarky iconoclasts, more eager to tear down art and sculpture that they no longer have the talent to create. 

Current woke dogma, obscure word fights, and sanctimonious cancel culture are as antithetical to the past generations of World War II as the last generation of Constantinople was to the former great eras of the emperors Constantine, Justinian, Heraclius, and Leo.

The Byzantines never woke up in time to understand what they had become.

So far neither have Americans.