Thanks to Joe Biden’s politicized Justice Department, a pro-life advocate will spend the next five years in a federal prison for protesting abortion.

If Lauren Handy was an environmental activist or a leftist supporting Hamas, her sit-in at an abortion business would have earned her a misdemeanor charge and maybe a small fine. But because she is a pro-life advocate protesting abortion, the Biden administration used the FACE Act to prosecute her for supposedly blocking access to abortion.

Even though the law, which abrogates the free speech rights of pro-life Americans, has rarely been used, the Biden administration pushed for putting several pro-life advocates in prison for over a decade for protesting abortion. Biden officials misused the law to push for the highest penalties, reserved for violent and criminal behavior, to prosecute peaceful pro-life Americans who merely exercised their free speech rights.

Today, Biden got what he wished for as Handy has been sentenced to 57 months in federal prison and three years probation under the FACE Act for peaceful civil disobedience.

Handy, a Catholic, is a well-known pro-life voice on the political left. She was the primary organizer and leader of the peaceful protest sponsored by  Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising that led to the ongoing court cases.

In a statement before the ruling, Handy shed some perspective on being jailed for her pro-life activism.

“It has been close to 9 months since I was abruptly ripped from my community. This has led me to think long and hard on what to say about my sentencing today in federal court. Some drafts were angry and righteous while most were just a tearstained longing for my loved ones back home. Yes, this time has been challenging but I refuse to be jaded. Why? Because life goes on… even in jail. So I might as well continue to love and cry and scream and dance. That is joy. The feeling of being fully alive without shame. Which is something no court can take from me. So today, I am at peace with myself and my future. I will go into court with my head held high and my heart open.”

PAAU condmned the ruling today, telling LifeNews that Handy has been wrongly sentenced to 4 years &  9 months in federal prison for an act of peaceful civil disobedience to prevent federal crimes such as partial birth abortion and infanticide.

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Caroline Smith, Executive Director of the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising said, “The abortion industry wants to scare, intimidate, fear-monger, and isolate us. But what they don’t know is we have a radical hope that goes beyond the concrete walls of both prisons and abortuaries. I believe the oppression that the DOJ is expressing right now will absolutely backfire on them in the near future. Oppression always backfires, especially when your motivation is blood money. Abortion is murder, and fetuses are people, and nothing will stop Rescue.”

PAAU Founder Terrisa Bukovinac said “Today the Biden Administration and Merrick Garland’s DOJ have reached a new level of tyranny. There is no other social justice movement in our nation who’s activists are subject to years in federal prison for nonviolent resistance. This blatant viewpoint discrimination has incalculable consequences for babies, their parents, those who defend them, and for peaceful activists across movements worldwide. I continue to stand by Lauren and the other 8 defendants who risked their freedoms to stand in defense of the least of us.”

A total of 10 pro-life advocate face the federal criminal charges after they were arrested and indicted for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) in 2020 at the Washington Surgi-Clinic in Washington, DC. That’s a late-term abortion facility suspected of breaking federal law by performing partial birth abortions and illegally allowing babies born aluive after failed abortions to die.

The defendants – often called “rescuers” by fellow members of the pro-life movement – partook in a 2020 peaceful protest against a notorious Washington, D.C. abortuary that performed late-term abortions.

Last year, all nine were found guilty of violating the controversial Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. They each face a sentence of up to 11 years in federal prison. The FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act prohibits individuals from attempting to injure, intimidate, or interfere (by use of force, threat of force, or physical obstruction) with anyone obtaining or performing an abortion.

The indictment in the case says that on Oct. 22, 2020, 10 individuals “conspired with one another and with others known and unknown to obstruct access” to the Washington Surgi-Clinic in Washington, D.C.

“It was the purpose of the conspiracy to create a blockade to stop the clinic from providing and patients from obtaining reproductive health services,” the indictment alleges. The indictment says the defendants used “deception” to gain access to the clinic, used “force” to enter, and barricaded themselves inside with “ropes and chains.”

A video of the rescue shows the pro-life advocates praying and singing inside the abortion facility and refusing to leave so abortions could end the lives of unborn children.

Stephen Crampton, senior counsel for the nonprofit legal firm Thomas More Society, says the cases are clearly political persecution.

“They waited a year and a half to file this action,” Crampton said. “If indeed this was some sort of dire offense and the defendants ought to be incarcerated, why in the world, does the government wait a year and a half to file the charges?”

“The climate activists were out there [in D.C.] gluing their hands to the streets, shutting down traffic and everything, you think there’s any chance the feds are going to prosecute those people or try to put them in prison for 11 years?” he asked.

He also told Fox News that finding a fair jury was practically impossible considering that D.C. is the “most pro-abortion city in America.”

The pro-lifers on trial conducted a rescue at the Washington Surgi-Clinic operated by the notorious late-term abortionist Cesare Santangelo who was busted by a LiveAction undercover investigator for admitting that he would not help a child with life-saving efforts if he or she survived a late-term abortion. He emphatically stated that a nearby hospital’s efforts to save the life of a child he was trying to abort was “the stupidest thing they could have done.”

Lauren Handy and Herb Geraghty cited those videos as the reason for the rescue and protest at the abortion business because of the concern babies might be left to die. They chained themselves to the entrace of the abortion center in an attempt to stop abortions.

A pro-life advocate says the charges are wrong because the protests were non-violent.

Caroline Taylor Smith, executive director of PAAU told LifeNews, “This overreaching of power and authority by Biden’s DOJ is egregious and must be stopped. Nonviolent prolife actions should not be a federal crime, and peaceful people with a desire to save lives should not be jailed for over a decade. Some of these Rescuers could be facing death by incarceration. We must repeal the FACE Act now!”

Jonathan Darnel, one of the four pro-life Americans Biden is targeting in this second trial, plead not guilty to the charges.

“I am definitely not guilty of the charges leveled against me, which is rather ironic that I should find myself in this position,” Darnel told Fox News Digital in an interview. “Nevertheless, if a jury finds me guilty of FACE even erroneously, it would be an honor because the kids are worthy of protection.”

Senior Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotely a Clinton nominee, is presiding over the hearings, which are slated to take place at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia just a few blocks from the U.S. Supreme Court. John Hinshaw and Will Goodman also face sentencing today. The sentencings will continue on Wednesday, May 15, with Herb (born Rosemary) Geraghty at 9:00 a.m., Jonathan Darnel at 11:00 a.m., Jean Marshall at 1:30 p.m., and Joan Andrews Bell at 3:00 p.m. On Friday, May 17, the judge is scheduled to sentence Heather Idoni at 9:30 a.m.

Kollar-Kotely was also originally going to sentence the final defendant, Paulette Harlow, on Friday. However, Harlow’s sentencing was postponed until two weeks later on Friday, May 31, at 1:30 p.m.

Last year, former President Donald Trump promised to support “political prisoners” if he’s elected president. During the Family Research Council’s “Pray, Vote, Stand Summit” in Washington, D.C., Trump vowed to get innocent Americans out of jail for standing up for their beliefs while criminals run rampant. 

“I am announcing that the moment I win the election, I will appoint a special task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who has been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration,” Trump said. 

Trump referenced the convictions of pro-life advocates who now face as many as 11 years in prison for rescuing babies from abortions at a late-term abortion business in Washington D.C.

“If we stand together in this fight, we’re going to defeat Crooked Joe Biden; if he runs — will he make it to the starting gate?” Trump said.

The post Biden Gets Pro-Life Advocate Lauren Handy Thrown in Prison for 57 Months for Protesting Abortion appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Tuberous sclerosis complex. Most people have never heard of this rare medical condition.

Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), also known as tuberous sclerosis, is a rare genetic disease that causes non-cancerous (benign) tumors to grow in the brain and several areas of the body, including the spinal cord, nerves, eyes, lung, heart, kidneys, and skin.

The excess cells form noncancerous tumors, which can form anywhere in your body. The severity of this condition often depends on tumor locations. Mild or moderate cases are often manageable with medication or other treatments.

After Elizabeth Brown’s son, Beckett, was diagnosed with the condition, and knowing the medical challenges he faces, when Elizabth and her husband found out they were having another baby, their doctor did what so many doctors have when a baby has a potential disability or medical condition: suggested abortion. Surely they didn’t want another baby with the same medical diagnosis, so killing the baby must be the right answer?

Wrong.

As LiveAction reports:

“The geneticist sat me down; my stepmother-in-law was with me. The geneticist said, ‘So I just wanted to know what options you were thinking if this baby has TSC. A lot of the other couples, when they find out their child may have a genetic condition like Down syndrome or TSC or some other condition they can’t medically help, sometimes they consider terminating the pregnancy.’ I said, ‘Absolutely not. I have a baby with TSC at home and he’s absolutely perfect. I can’t believe you would ask me that,’” said Elizabeth.

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The geneticist said it was an internal policy to ask, meaning the medical establishment or hospital system requires that doctors talk to parents about aborting their baby after they receive a diagnosis or even if there is the possibility of a diagnosis.

Elizabeth told the doctor never to ask that question again. When she returned to the MFM for an ultrasound at 20 weeks, the doctor asked if she had received her blood test results yet, and when Elizabeth said that she hadn’t, the doctor began to talk about how “complex” TSC is and asked if she had “thought about any options.”

“I said, ‘Are you talking about me killing my baby?’ And he said, ‘Yes, terminating the pregnancy.’ I said, ‘You mean killing my baby. My husband and my son are perfect and have TSC.’ I was so shocked and saddened.”

This story is another reminder that we have to train doctors and medical professionals to value life.

LifeNews Note: Photo couresty of Elizabeth Brown via LiveAction.

The post Couple Refuses Doctor’s Suggestion to Have Abortion Just Because Their Son Had a Rare Diagnosis appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Abortion supporters nationwide make contradictory statements daily. Usually, it sounds something like this:

Life is valuable – except in the womb.

It’s ok to kill a preborn child up until nine months, but when it’s born, then it can’t be killed.

It’s a baby when they want it to be – otherwise, it’s a “fetus.”

It’s more startling and concerning when trained medical professionals not only accept contradictory statements such as these but go directly against the oaths they vowed to take. The heart of the Hippocratic Oath is to “abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm.”

Or, a similar phrase stated by Thomas Inman, says more descriptively, “Practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient.”

Some medical personnel threw away their morals, along with dignity for all patients – born and preborn. Illinois’ biggest pro-abortion lobbying group, “Personal PAC,” held a fundraiser in downtown Chicago in Dearborn for “Doctors for Choice.” Students for Life of America (SFLA) mobilized alongside the Pro-Life Action League of Illinois to protest the event and showcase to the community the horror of abortion.

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With Illinois being one of the most pro-abortion states in the nation, this pro-abortion PAC needs public disapproval, not more funding. They have already wreaked havoc on life, having funded the Reproductive Health Act, which made abortion legal through nine months, and helped repeal the Parental Notification Act, which allows abortionists to perform abortions on minors without parental consent or notice. Not to mention, women from neighboring states travel through Illinois borders to obtain an abortion. With more funding, this PAC could do even more damage in Illinois.

“Chicagoans deserve to know what is happening in their city and how lives are legally being ended through abortion in their city and state,” stated Shawna Weber, SFLA’s upper Midwest regional coordinator. “Continued funding for abortions in this state is devastating news for everyone. When the abortionists get more money, they use it to end more lives and wreak more havoc on the pro-life movement in the state.”

“As a young pro-life activist, it is essential that we disrupt the corrupt abortion industry that does not care about women but wants to kill children,” says Sarah Carter, a recent graduate and an SFLA alumni at Wheaton College. “Healthcare is supposed to heal, not kill.”

We exposed Chicagoans to the messaging about what was happening inside Dearborn – death and destruction from doctors who are supposed to protect. While we received both positive and negative feedback, overall, we were able to mobilize with other pro-lifers on such a crucial issue for the state.

“Doctors for Choice” is an oxymoron. Women in Chicago, neighboring states, and nationwide deserve doctors who inform and take their oath to protect life seriously.

LifeNews Note: Jordan Estabrook graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and serves the Pro-Life Generation as a press specialist and online editor. She writes for the Students for Life blog.

The post Pro-Life Advocates Protest Event for Pro-Abortion “Doctors” appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Franciscan University of Steubenville on Saturday celebrated its 76th commencement exercises, sending out nearly 900 students who heard Catholic U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito urge them to “go out boldly,” but also warn that the freedoms of speech and religion are seriously endangered in our current culture.

In his commencement address, Alito told the graduating class – which broke a record for the largest in the school’s history for a fourth consecutive year – to leave Franciscan ready to “engage the world,” while still acknowledging that it’s “rough out there,” and “probably rougher … now that it has been for quite some time.”

Franciscan University President Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR ’89, introduced Alito, who received an honorary doctorate in Christian ethics “for his decades of exemplary public service and tireless efforts to protect and uphold justice and the rule of law.”

Pivonka first cited the associate justice’s majority opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), which upheld religious freedom. A lengthy standing ovation for Alito erupted next when Pivonka cited his majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), which held the United States Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.

During his address, the Supreme Court justice focused primarily on the Constitution, referring to it as “the source that has formed the backbone of my work as a judge for the past 30 years.”

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“I believe that our Constitution could not have endured, and could not have provided the framework for our country’s growth, if it did not rest on a deep understanding of human nature and human behavior,” he said.

He highlighted some of the lessons “the Constitution teaches us” – lessons that apply to everyday life. The first of these, he noted, is “the need to be rigorous and disciplined in identifying the things that are most fundamental.”

“A striking feature of our Constitution is its brevity … our Constitution is brief because it focuses on the things that are essential,” the associate justice observed:

It sets out the structure of the government, it protects basic rights and then it leaves just about everything else to be decided by the American people acting through their elected representatives …The framers’ strategy, a disciplined identification of what is fundamental has served our country well. And this same strategy is a good one to implement in our personal lives … we can make the effort to keep in mind what is fundamental and permanent in our lives. And that is absolutely critical. Because the things that call out most loudly for our attention on a daily basis are not necessarily the things that matter most in the end.

Another lesson taught by the Constitution, Alito said, “is that it guards against improvident change.”

“The constitution is exceedingly hard to change,” he explained:

An amendment must be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and it must be ratified by three-quarters of the states. And because the amendment process is so difficult, our Constitution has been amended only 27 times this date, despite the fact that more than 10,000 proposed amendments have been considered in Congress.

Alito elaborated that the framers “deliberately” made the process of amending the Constitution strenuous because of their “understanding of the nature of the fundamental rights that are protected by the Constitution.”

He continued:

I’m sure we all remember the famous words of the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal,” and “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” That short and famous statement speaks volumes and one of the most important things it says is that there are certain moral principles that are true and immutable. These principles of right and wrong are not relative or circumstantial. They are not of our making, and it is not within our power to change them.

Alito added that the Constitution’s framers anticipated there would be times “when rulers and people would become restive” and when “the principles of constitutional liberty would be imperiled unless established by irreparable law.”

“[U]nder all circumstances, this same fundamental idea that there are certain principles that we cannot compromise without paying a fearsome price applies to our personal lives,” he said. During such times, “if we have fixed and clear principles, principles that are written in bold letters on our hearts, we may be able to find our way through. If we don’t, we can easily go astray.”

Alito observed that “troubled waters” are currently “slamming against some of our most fundamental principles.” But he pointed out another lesson to be drawn from the Constitution: a “respect for reason and civil discourse.”

He spoke to the graduates about the challenges that lie ahead as they leave school:

Support for freedom of speech is declining, dangerously, especially where it should find broadest and widest acceptance. In a book called “The Idea of a University,” St. John Henry Newman saw the university as a place for reasoned debate. Today, very few colleges live up to that ideal. This place is one of the few that does, and you are very fortunate to have had that experience. Religious liberty is also threatened. When you venture out into the world, you may find yourself in a job or community or social setting where you will be pressured to endorse ideas you don’t believe or to abandon core beliefs. It will be up to you to stand firm.

“In the same way, your challenge during troubled times will be to distinguish between dedication to principles that never change, and mere nostalgia for the past,” he told the graduates. “In order to engage our society and try to make it a better place – that is essential. And that requires judgment and prudence.”

“That isn’t easy,” Alito concluded. “But what you have learned, and the habits of mind that your education has inculcated, should help you to meet that challenge. Our society needs you to do just that.”

LifeNews Note: Susan Berry writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.

The post Catholic College Honors Justice Samuel Alito With Award for Upholding Justice appeared first on LifeNews.com.

From its founding in 1949 until the start of NATO’s proxy war against Russia in 2022, the principal troublesome issue for the Alliance was Washington’s repeated calls for greater burden-sharing on the part of its allies. Discontent on Washington’s part emerged early and often. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, warned NATO’s European members that unless they did more to enhance collective defense the United States might be compelled to reassess the extent of its commitment to Europe’s security. That warning led to repeated promises of greater defense efforts on the part of the allies. Those promises were rarely followed by meaningful actions, however.

Such continued manifestations of free-riding generated periodic US calls to reduce Washington’s overall military commitment to Europe. That sentiment reached a crescendo in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The most serious substantive effort took the form of the Mansfield, Amendment, which proposed to reduce the US troop presence in Europe by approximately one- third. The principal sponsor was Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT). Both Lyndon Johnson’s and Richard Nixon’s administrations waged a vigorous fight against the proposed legislation. Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s national security advisor, eventually led a successful fight against the proposal. Nevertheless, calls for similar action continued during subsequent administrations. Donald Trump was especially vocal in his demands for the Europeans to engage in more substantial burden-sharing.

NATO burden-sharing, however, remained much more prominent in the realm of rhetoric than substance. In 2006 and again in 2014, Alliance members promised to devote a minimum of 2 percent of their annual gross domestic product to defense. At the time that military tensions between Russia and Ukraine exploded into full-scale warfare in February 2022, those promises had remained largely unfulfilled.  Despite NATO members embracing a highly confrontational policy toward Moscow, only 11 of the 31 NATO members were fulfilling their pledge of 2 percent GDP for defense.  Russia’s invasion, however, led to a more serious commitment to burden-sharing. The nature of that concept also changed in two ways. Two prominent neutral powers now abandoned neutrality and applied to join the alliance. Both Sweden and Finland were prepared to join the Western bloc directed against Russia. This was a crucial development, especially for Sweden, which had been strictly neutral in international conflicts for nearly two centuries. Stockholm had even managed to avoid entanglement in the two world wars. Helsinki’s neutrality was far less voluntary. It occurred during the Cold War only because of the Soviet Union’s intense pressure. In any case, the addition of two significant military players to NATO has increased a dangerous rivalry between two competing blocs.

The other significant change in the burden-sharing concept was that previously, the NATO allies seemed to regard Washington’s desire for greater burden-sharing largely in financial terms. In other words, to both the Europeans and the United States, burden-sharing was seen primarily in terms of the European members paying a little more for policies that remained under Washington’s firm control. Now, however, burden-sharing seems to mean more involvement on the part of Europe’s NATO members with respect to weapons and strategic initiatives. Not only have those countries become more responsive to Washington’s calls for military assistance to Ukraine, several of them, including Poland, Romania, and the Baltic republics, have been taking the lead and pushing the United States to take more action against Russia.

Washington seems content with this arrangement, which amounts to a US proxy war strategy, with Ukraine handling the actual fighting against Russia and with Kiev receiving ample weaponry from NATO members. That military hardware has been coming as much from certain European alliance members as from the United States. Moreover, there has been a steady escalation in NATO’s willingness to supply ever more lethal armaments to Ukraine. For example, early in the fighting, NATO countries were primarily providing weapons with limited reach and lethality. Both aspects have gradually changed. One early escalation was to provide Ukraine with sophisticated anti-tank weapons. Now, weapons shipments even include longer range missiles capable of striking targets inside of Russia. Several allies have successfully pressured Washington into providing more destructive weapons that Biden administration leaders initially refused to authorize. Patriot air-defense missiles and M-17 Abrams tanks are two examples of such escalation.

There are growing rumors of another round of escalation that could be even more dangerous. Some alliance leaders, especially in NATO’s Eastern members, are no longer ruling out providing “volunteers” to help Ukraine in direct combat roles. Such a move would be extraordinarily dangerous and greatly increase the risk of armed clashes between Russia and NATO forces that could lead to World War III. There are media reports that as many as three thousand armed volunteers from foreign countries are already in Ukraine assisting the Ukrainian regime.

It is hard to accept the frightening possibility that Western policy has made Europe’s strategic situation even more dangerous than it was at the height of the Cold War. However, that appears to be the possible consequences of NATO’s evolving policy.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.

Putin Needs to Shake-Up Himself

Paul Craig Roberts

Putin is conducting a large shake-up in the Russian government. He needs to give himself a good shaking as well.

Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Russia’s Chechen providence said on Russia’s Rossiya TV channel:

“I believe that we need to attack more actively, we need to hit hard while there is time. This month we need to take the nearest territory, we definitely need to take Odessa and Kharkiv. Then sit this Zelensky down and force him to sign all the papers that Russia needs for the security of our state, citizens and the Russian-speakers who live on the territory of Ukraine.”

This is the second Russian war leader after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, to express dissatisfaction with the glacially slow pace at which Putin is conducting the conflict. One wonders if Kadyrov will have a similar fate to Prigozhin.

I am not an expert on the Russian military. My impression is that the Wagner and Chechen soldiers are Russia’s best combat troops. It is a pity to waste such troops in a war conducted at a snail’s pace.

The slow pace at which Putin has conducted the war has resulted in the war being greatly widened and thus made much more dangerous and difficult to resolve. Indeed, Putin is now in danger of NATO occupying Odessa before Russian troops can get there. If the West can keep Odessa and Kharkiv out of Russian hands, the war will be a defeat for Putin. It is inexplicable that Putin takes this risk. Putin’s dilemma is that a man who sees himself as an instrument of peace is a poor war leader.

Curiously, Foreign Minister Lavrov says that the West has decided to prolong the war. No. The prolonged war was Putin’s decision. A war that should have been over in three weeks has lasted 27 months.

Putin’s neglect of the war’s requirements is the reason that Russians in the Russian city and region of Belgorod are slaughtered by drones and missiles on their way to work and why “Russian apartment buildings in Russian cities struck by high intensity weapons supplied to Ukraine by the West collapse on the inhabitants. The snail-paced conflict was supposed to save lives. Instead, casualties have multiplied many fold and spread to Russian civilians distant from the battlefield.

Now there is a shakeup at the top of the Russian military with a civilian without military experience taking over as defense minister. I think Putin would be taken more seriously if he had appointed Ramzan Kadyrov as defense minister. Instead, Putin has stuck in an economist who, like Putin’s central bank director, is more concerned with the expense of the conflict–now one-third of the Russian budget–than they are about winning the war before it spins out of control. The neo-liberal Putin supports as Russia’s central bank manager is a failure on all fronts. She left Russian assets in the West to be seized by Washington’s sanctions. She was unable to understand that Russia did not need loans from the West to develop economically. And now she imposes 16% interest rates on the Russian economy. Stalin would have long ago shot her. I have often wondered if Russia can survive Putin’s central bank director.

Putin has done a good job of Russifying a population that was infatuated with the West. The population again thinks of itself as a distinct and proud national entity, not as a wannabe cog in globalist machinery run by Washington. Putin gets kudos for this, but his conduct of the war maximizes the likelihood of the conflict spinning out of control. Prigozhin understood this, and so does Kadyrov. Will Putin understand before his limited military operation spins into World War 3?

Scott Ritter Says Ukraine is Militarily Exhausted and the Conflict Has 3 months to go.

The question is whether Washington accepts the defeat or whether more troops will follow the French Foreign Legion into the conflict.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240511/scott-ritter-predicts-how-ukraine-will-end-1118382169.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240514/scott-ritter-the-russians-advance-and-ukrainians-cant-stop-them-1118418504.html

The corrupt DOJ prosecutors trying to frame President Trump admit to tampering with evidence, a felony. Will the prosecutors be indicted and put on trial?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/trump-investigators-acknowledge-evidence-statement-was-untrue-disqualification-on-table-5648678?utm_source=Enews&src_src=Enews&utm_campaign=etv1-2024-05-13&src_cmp=etv1-2024-05-13&utm_medium=email&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAceE5JjMFys3H%2BbdAvWpUcQzPZ0WlGLZbDFlFfmdQNQ%3D%3D

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/jack-smith-admits-to-misleading-judge-case-forced-to-go-on-indefinite-hiatus-facts-matter-5647920?utm_source=Enews&src_src=Enews&utm_campaign=etv1-2024-05-13&src_cmp=etv1-2024-05-13&utm_medium=email&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAceE5JjMFys3H%2BbdAvWpUcQzPZ0WlGLZbDFlFfmdQNQ%3D%3D

One of America’s Best Men was destroyed by the CIA and the Washington Post

Watergate was a CIA plot to remove Nixon from office before he normalized relations with Russia and China, thus removing the necessary enemies needed by the military/security complex for its power and profit and unaccountability.

Americans fell for the plot against their president. The liberal-left hated Nixon and were delighted with the CIA’s operation against him.

https://twitter.com/GraduatedBen/status/1789765438257193001

While there is much debate over whether another bear market is imminent, weekly moving average crossovers suggest a different outcome for now. There are many current concerns, from geopolitical risk to still inverted yield curves, slowing economic growth, high interest rates, and inflation. Yet, despite those concerns, markets are flirting with all-time highs.

While 5% money market yields are certainly enticing, investors often need to step back from the “doomsday” dripping headlines. Given that one of our behavioral investing traits is “loss avoidance,” it is easy to talk ourselves into an overly cautionary position. The mistake is that while alleviating our short-term emotional concerns, it can lead to a significant wealth impairment in the long term.

Therefore, it is often worth digging ourselves out of the media headlines and focusing on what the market tells us. After all, the stock market has a long track record of leading the economy by 6-9 months. To explain this, start with the chart of the S&P 500 index below and notice those interesting blue dots.

What Did The Market Know?

Yes, those market dots represent stock market peaks. However, why did the stock market top at those particular points?

Let’s take a look at the data below of real (inflation-adjusted) economic growth rates:

Each of the dates above shows the economy’s growth rate immediately before the onset of a recession. The table above notes that in 7 of the last 10 recessions, real GDP growth was 2% or above. In other words, according to the media, there was NO indication of a recession.

But the next month, one began.

With that understanding,let’ss return to those”“interesting blue dot”” in the S&P 500 chart above. Each dot represents the market peak before the onset of a recession. The S&P 500 peaked and turned lower in nine of ten instances before a recession was recognized, anywhere from 6 to 16 months later.

The crucial point is that the stock market was signaling a coming recession in the months ahead, but the economic data didn’t reflect it. (The only exception was 1980 when they coincided in the same month.) The table below shows the date of the market peak and real GDP versus the start of the recession and GDP growth at that time.

The problem for investors is waiting for the data to catch up.

Moving Average Signals

Understanding that the market tends to lead the economy by six months or more, we can use longer-term market signals to help us navigate the risk of a recessionary downturn.

We have produced a weekly”“risk range repor”” in the Bull Bear Report for several years. That report contains several measures of analysis, as shown below.

• The table compares the relative performance of each sector and market to the S&P 500 index.
• “MA XVE”” (Moving Average Crossover) is determined by the short-term weekly moving average crossing positively or negatively with the long-term weekly moving average.
• The risk range is a function of the month-end closing price and the”“bet”” of the sector or market. (Ranges reset on the 1st of each month)
• The table shows the price deviation above and below the weekly moving averages.

For this analysis, we will focus on the far right column. Every major market and sector (except for the U.S. dollar) is currently on a bullish moving average crossover. Given this is weekly data, it is slower to move, which tends to provide better signals for both increasing and reducing portfolio risk.

A Simple Chart

However, are these signals useful in safeguarding against the onset of a recession or just a more protracted market downturn like the one we saw in 2022? The chart below uses a simple weekly moving average crossover analysis to determine where investors should consider increasing or reducing risk to equity exposure.

In 2000 and 2008, the moving average crossover signal warned investors that a recessionary onset was coming 9 and 12 months ahead of actual recognition. The weekly moving average signals also triggered a sell signal in early 2022 ahead of the ~20 decline, although the NBER has not recognized a recession yet.

Notably, these signals are not always perfect. The drawdown was so swift in 2020 during the pandemic shutdown that the signals to reduce and increase exposure coincided with the market. However, paying attention to these moving average signals over the longer term can provide investors with a valuable roadmap to follow.

Bullish Buy Signals Tend To Be Correct

Returning to the”“risk range repor”” above, a review of late 2021 warned our readers that market deterioration was increasing. The report below is from the October 6th, 2022, Bull Bear Report:

“The selling pressure continued this week, taking almost every sector and market into double-digit deviations below long-term weekly moving averages. Such extremes are not sustainable, and when all markets and sectors are this oversold, a reflexive rally becomes highly probable.”

The table below shows that almost every sector and market had bearish moving average sell signals triggered. At the time, however, media headlines were filled with “death of the dollar,” recession warnings, and bear market alerts. However, such negative extremes are often coincident with market bottoms.

Furthermore, investor sentiment and allocations were likewise extremely negative.

Of course, as we now know in hindsight, October 2022 marked the bottom of the market, and the recession predictions have faded into the midst.

The market has recovered since then, and those bearish moving average sell signals have reversed to bullish buy signals. As discussed in this past weekend’s Bull Bear Report, while the market is overbought, and consolidation or correction is likely, with every major equity and bond market on bullish buy signals, the market is not predicting the onset of a recession.

Furthermore, investor sentiment and allocations are also bullish, which supports higher prices.

Corrections Tend To Opportunities

Does this mean that markets will be devoid of any short-term corrections? Of course not. We just experienced a 5.5% correction in April. Furthermore, corrections during market advances happen every year and tend to be opportunities to increase equity exposure as needed.

While some unexpected, exogenous events could send markets reeling, the market has a long history of anticipating recessionary onsets well before economists and the mainstream media recognize them.

With the plethora of “armchair commentators” pointing at every piece of data as an indicator of economic doom to get more clicks and views, we suggest sitting back and paying attention to the markets. Given that the market represents a vast group of individuals analyzing every possible data point, the signals the market provides tend to be a more reliable signal to follow.

When those bullish weekly moving average buy signals begin to reverse, with one following another, we will know it’s time to become increasingly more conscious of risk.

As of now, the market suggests that sitting in cash may be a mistake when it comes to reaching retirement goals.

The post Moving Average Crossovers Suggest The Bull Is Back appeared first on RIA.

Didn’t I say we’d be better off with honest quotas? From City Journal:

In January, the New York Times interviewed several high school seniors, asking them about the college-application process since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action last June. All but one of the students told the Times that under the advice of their high school counselors, they had, following the ruling, rewritten their college application essays to highlight their race or ethnicity.

The Times described one Hispanic student who said that she had originally written her essay about a death in her family, but “reshaped it around a Spanish book she read as a way to connect to her Dominican heritage” after the ruling. Another student had “wanted to leave his Indigenous background out of his essay,” but later “reworked it to focus on an heirloom necklace that reminded him of his home on the Navajo Reservation.” The most dramatic change came courtesy of an interviewee who identified as both black and Asian: “The first draft of Jyel Hollingsworth’s essay explored her love for chess. The final focused on the prejudice between her Korean and black American families and the financial hardships she overcame.”

Not only do we discriminate against whites; we discriminate against non-whites who are insufficiently anti-white, as indicated by these students who know they’d be crippling their applications relative to the competition if they had failed to play the grievance game.

Unlike the July 17-21 National Eucharistic Congress that will take place in Indianapolis, the Pilgrimage has never been undertaken before. The Pilgrimage will follow 4 routes over 60 days, and pilgrims will march across the Golden Gate and Brooklyn bridges and ferry across the Ohio and Sacramento rivers. They’ll gather for Mass in historic cathedrals in many of America’s greatest cities, as well as in humble parishes and farms and fields in America’s heartland. This is our “Emmaus moment.’
 

The post The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage: a call to action appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain,
Beyond all date, even to eternity:
Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
Were to import forgetfulness in me.

The post Sonnet 122 appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

“Did you get caught in the student riot?” asked a friend.  “What riot?” “The Pro-Palestinian demonstration at the University of Texas.” I am at UT on a sabbatical. “We don’t have student riots in Texas,” I informed him; “we have temporary misunderstandings between students and state troopers about who controls public spaces. The students learn.”  The authorities in Texas are not as feckless as those running the East Coast Ivies.

As Wilfred McClay points out in a recent article in The New Criterion, demonstrations aren’t “speech.”  They may be “expressions” – of anger, frustration, sometimes boredom. But they’re not “speech” in the classic sense of logos, “reasoned discourse.”

In speech, you express an idea; you make an argument; and you invite others to respond.  The demonstrations on college campuses are not invitations to dialogue; they are the opposite.  They demand that dialogue stop and obedience begin.  In this, they are similar to groups shouting down speakers with whom they disagree.  It should be no surprise, then, that both have become standard practice together.

It’s not as though the demonstrators are inviting reasoned responses to their position.  They’re not willing to hear contrary opinions.  They have “demands” and those demands must be met.  They are a mob, and mobs are something, along with tyranny, that the Founders of the country feared most.

When demonstrators are pretending to be engaging in free speech when what they are really doing is showing the power of a mob to get others to conform to their will, they shouldn’t be surprised if authorities respond to their demonstration of power with a demonstration of power of their own.  Those Texas state troopers weren’t on campus to argue.  But neither were the demonstrators.

Perhaps the most ridiculous feature of these recent protests is the shock the students evince when, having violated repeated orders to disperse, they are finally arrested.  That many must be hauled away because they’ve “gone limp” belies their wide-eyed innocence, since it shows they’ve received training in “what to do for the cameras when the police haul you away.”  Perhaps we can all agree that it’s no way to run a republic.

Some years ago, a bright student of mine had a complaint about something on campus.  “Okay,” I said, “so what are you going to do?”  After a moment’s thought, she said: “Gather people together to demonstrate?”  “How about getting elected to student government, writing an op-ed in the paper, seeking to convince others of your position?” I replied.  Those options either hadn’t occurred to her, or she had no faith in them.

Democracy is a messy business; it requires patience and skills of its own.  It’s not like driving a car that moves in the direction I steer, accelerates to the speed I want, and stops when and where I determine.  It means dealing with other people.  And other people have ideas and concerns of their own.

Show no interest in the ideas and concerns of others, and they are likely to return the favor.  Like you, they want to drive the car in the direction they want.  And as everyone who spends time on America’s highways knows, this highly individualistic lack of concern for others is bad for everyone.

As we need “rules of the road” to provide the order that ensures everyone can get to their destinations “freely” and in relative safety, so too if speech is to be “free,” if it is to be a “common good” and not merely the privilege of one powerful group, speakers must observe a set of procedural norms meant to preserve this freedom for everyone.

At the University of Texas, the Provost sent out a note outlining the rights and duties of the members of the community.  Among the rights were the right to “assemble peacefully to protest,” to “hand out flyers and brochures,” and to “invite guest speakers to present in common outdoor areas.”  But with this freedom comes responsibility.  Thus individuals, said the Provost, may not “disrupt the operations of the university, including but not limited to:

Making loud sounds that interfere with learning; teaching, or other official actions; blocking entrances, exits, and walkways; calls for immediate lawless behavior, and vandalism.

Camping or attempting to camp on university property (including bringing tents on campus and sleeping on university property, with or without a tent, later than 10:00 p.m.).

Refusing to identify themselves to university officials or law enforcement.

Refusing to comply with directions given by university officials or law enforcement.

Using amplified sound without prior approval.

Wearing masks or disguises.

Coercing attention by following students walking away from the protest.

Campuses around the country would be better off if they posted those rules and enforced them.  Students would be better off if they abided by them respectfully and stopped screaming like little children for the cameras when they get hauled away by the authorities for violating reasonable rules.  Such demonstrations of political theater are attempts at emotional blackmail.  They don’t help the Palestinian people, but they make the American public more cynical about real acts of government suppression and police brutality.

Government can be overly coercive in suppressing speech it doesn’t like, and we’ve had too many examples of that recently.  But mobs are not “democratic governance in action.”  They are simply another form of tyranny.  Which is why they are often found in the same places among the same people.

We will either teach our young people the skills and self-discipline required for republican self-government and fill them with the faith in it and love for it they need to preserve it, or we will lose the privilege – a gift bequeathed to us at great cost.  Catholics should lead the way in educating their students for this level of civil engagement and discourse. This would show that what St. Augustine argued in The City of God is true: Catholics aren’t dangerous aliens. Quite the contrary, their Christian faith makes them better citizens.

The post Student Demonstrations: Power, Not Freedom of Speech appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

From Richard Nixon to the Israel lobby, the late Republican Congressman Paul Norton “Pete” McCloskey Jr. challenged the most powerful elements of the ruling class on the American people’s behalf. On September 29, 1927, McCloskey was born in San Bernardino, California. He was raised in South Pasadena. After graduating high school in 1945, McCloskey joined … Continue reading "Goodbye to Pete McCloskey, an Antiwar Hero"

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