“What is perfection in love? Love your enemies in such a way that you would desire to make them your brothers … For so did He love, Who hanging on the Cross, said ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” (Luke 23:34)
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Site: Zero HedgeWhy The Dollar Will Lose Its Status As Global Reserve CurrencyTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 19:00
Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,
By the early 400s, the Roman Empire was coming apart at the seams and in desperate need of strong, competent leadership. In theory, Honorius should have been the right man for the job.
Born into the royal household in Constantinople, Honorius had been groomed to rule, practically since birth, by the finest experts in the realm. So even as a young man, Honorius had already accumulated decades of experience.
Yet Rome’s foreign adversaries rightfully believed Honorius to be weak, out of touch, divisive, and completely inept.
He had entered into bonehead peace treaties that strengthened Rome’s enemies. He paid vast sums of money to some of their most powerful rivals and received practically nothing in return. He made virtually no attempt to secure Roman borders, leaving the empire open to be ravaged by barbarians.
Inflation was high. Taxes were high. Economic production declined. Roman military power declined. And all of Rome’s foreign adversaries were emboldened.
To a casual observer it would have almost seemed as if Honorius went out of his way to make the Empire weaker.
One of Rome’s biggest threats came in the year 408, when the barbarian king Alaric invaded Italy; imperial defenses were so non-existent at that point that ancient historians described Alaric’s march towards Rome as unopposed and leisurely, as if they were “at some festival” rather than an invasion.
Alaric and his army arrived to the city of Rome in the autumn of 408 AD and immediately positioned their forces to cut off any supplies. No food could enter the city, and before long, its residents began to starve.
Historians have passed down horrific stories of cannibalism– including women eating their own children in order to survive.
Rather than send troops and fight, however, Honorius agreed to pay a massive ransom to Alaric, including 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, and literally tons of other real assets and commodities.
(The equivalent in today’s money, adjusted for population, would be billions of dollars… similar to what the US released to Iran in a prisoner swap last year.)
Naturally Honorius didn’t have such a vast sum in his treasury… so Romans were forced to strip down and melt their shrines and statues in order to pay Alaric’s ransom.
Ironically, one of the statues they melted was a monument to Virtus, the Roman god of bravery and strength… leading the ancient historian Zosimus to conclude that “all which remained of Roman valor and intrepidity was totally extinguished.”
Rome had spent two centuries in the early days of the empire– from the rise of Augustus in 27 BC to the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD– as the clear, unrivaled superpower. Almost no one dared mess with Rome, and few who did ever lived to tell the tale.
Modern scholars typically view the official “fall” of the Western Roman Empire in the year 476. But it’s pretty clear that the collapse of Roman power and prestige took place decades before.
When Rome was ransomed in 408 (then sacked in 410), it was obvious to everyone at the time that the Emperor no longer had a grip on power.
And before long, most of the lands in the West that Rome had once dominated– Italy, Spain, France, Britain, North Africa, etc. were under control of various Barbarian tribes and kingdoms.
The Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Burgundians, Berbers, etc. all established independent kingdoms. And for a while, there was no dominant superpower in western Europe. It was a multi-polar world. And the transition was rather abrupt.
This is what I think is happening now– we’re experiencing a similar transition, and it seems equally abrupt.
The United States has been the world’s dominant superpower for decades. But like Rome in the later stage of its empire, the US is clearly in decline. This should not be a controversial statement.
Let’s not be dramatic; it’s important to stay focused on facts and reality. The US economy is still vast and potent, and the country is blessed with an abundance of natural resources– incredibly fertile farmland, some of the world’s largest freshwater resources, and incalculable reserves of energy and other key commodities.
In fact, it’s amazing the people in charge have managed to screw it up so badly. And yet they have.
The national debt is out of control, rising by trillions of dollars each year. Debt growth, in fact, substantially outpaces US economic growth.
Social Security is insolvent, and the program’s own trustees (including the US Treasury Secretary) admit that its major trust fund will run out of money in just nine years.
The people in charge never seem to miss an opportunity to dismantle capitalism (i.e. the economic system that created so much prosperity to begin with) brick by brick.
Then there are ubiquitous social crises: public prosecutors who refuse to enforce the law; the weaponization of the justice system; the southern border fiasco; declining birth rates; extraordinary social divisions that are most recently evidenced by the anti-Israel protests.
And most of all the US constantly shows off its incredibly dysfunctional government that can’t manage to agree on anything, from the budget to the debt ceiling. The President has obvious cognitive disabilities and makes the most bizarre decisions to enrich America’s enemies.
Are these problems fixable? Yes. Will they be fixed? Maybe. But as we used to say in the military, “hope is not a course of action”.
Plotting this current trajectory to its natural conclusion leads me to believe that the world will enter a new “barbarian kingdom” paradigm in which there is no dominant superpower.
Certainly, there are a number of rising rivals today. But no one is powerful enough to assume the leading role in the world.
China has a massive population and a huge economy. But it too has way too many problems… with the obvious challenge that no one trusts the Communist Party. So, most likely China will not be the dominant superpower.
India’s economy will eventually surpass China’s, and it has an even bigger population. But India isn’t even close to the ballpark of being the world’s superpower.
Then there’s Europe. Combined, it still has a massive economic and trade union. But it has also been in major decline… with multiple social crises like low birth rates and a migrant invasion.
Then there are the energy powers like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia; they are far too small to dominate the world, but they have the power to menace and disrupt it.
The bottom line is that the US is no longer strong enough to lead the world and keep adversarial nations in check. And it’s clear that other countries are already adapting to this reality.
Earlier this month, for example, China successfully launched a rocket to the moon as part of a multi-decade mission to establish an International Lunar Research Station.
By 2045, China hopes to construct a large, city-like base along with several international partners including Russia, Pakistan, Thailand, South Africa, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Egypt. Turkey and Nicaragua are also interested in joining.
This is pretty remarkable given how many nations are participating, even if just nominally. Yet the US isn’t part of the consortium.
This would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. But today the rest of the world realizes that they no longer need American funding, leadership, or expertise.
We can see similar examples everywhere, most notably in Israel and Ukraine. And I believe one of the next shoes to drop will be the US dollar.
After all, if the rest of the world doesn’t need the US for space exploration, and they can ignore the US when it comes down to World War 3, then why should they need the US dollar anymore?
The dollar was the clear and obvious choice as the global reserve currency back when America was the undisputed superpower. But today it’s a different world.
Foreign nations continuing to rely on the dollar ultimately means governments and central banks buying US government bonds. And why should they take such a risk when the national debt is already 120% of GDP?
In addition, Congress passed a new law a few weeks ago authorizing the Treasury Department to confiscate US dollar assets of any country it deems an “aggressor state.”
While people might think this is a morally righteous idea, the reality is that it will only turn off foreign investors. Why should China, Saudi Arabia, or anyone else buy US government bonds when they can be confiscated in a heartbeat?
All of this ultimately leads to a world in which the US dollar is no longer the dominant reserve currency. We’re already starting to see signs of that shift, and it could be in full swing by the end of the decade.
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Site: Zero HedgeWhy The Dollar Will Lose Its Status As Global Reserve CurrencyTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 19:00
Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,
By the early 400s, the Roman Empire was coming apart at the seams and in desperate need of strong, competent leadership. In theory, Honorius should have been the right man for the job.
Born into the royal household in Constantinople, Honorius had been groomed to rule, practically since birth, by the finest experts in the realm. So even as a young man, Honorius had already accumulated decades of experience.
Yet Rome’s foreign adversaries rightfully believed Honorius to be weak, out of touch, divisive, and completely inept.
He had entered into bonehead peace treaties that strengthened Rome’s enemies. He paid vast sums of money to some of their most powerful rivals and received practically nothing in return. He made virtually no attempt to secure Roman borders, leaving the empire open to be ravaged by barbarians.
Inflation was high. Taxes were high. Economic production declined. Roman military power declined. And all of Rome’s foreign adversaries were emboldened.
To a casual observer it would have almost seemed as if Honorius went out of his way to make the Empire weaker.
One of Rome’s biggest threats came in the year 408, when the barbarian king Alaric invaded Italy; imperial defenses were so non-existent at that point that ancient historians described Alaric’s march towards Rome as unopposed and leisurely, as if they were “at some festival” rather than an invasion.
Alaric and his army arrived to the city of Rome in the autumn of 408 AD and immediately positioned their forces to cut off any supplies. No food could enter the city, and before long, its residents began to starve.
Historians have passed down horrific stories of cannibalism– including women eating their own children in order to survive.
Rather than send troops and fight, however, Honorius agreed to pay a massive ransom to Alaric, including 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, and literally tons of other real assets and commodities.
(The equivalent in today’s money, adjusted for population, would be billions of dollars… similar to what the US released to Iran in a prisoner swap last year.)
Naturally Honorius didn’t have such a vast sum in his treasury… so Romans were forced to strip down and melt their shrines and statues in order to pay Alaric’s ransom.
Ironically, one of the statues they melted was a monument to Virtus, the Roman god of bravery and strength… leading the ancient historian Zosimus to conclude that “all which remained of Roman valor and intrepidity was totally extinguished.”
Rome had spent two centuries in the early days of the empire– from the rise of Augustus in 27 BC to the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD– as the clear, unrivaled superpower. Almost no one dared mess with Rome, and few who did ever lived to tell the tale.
Modern scholars typically view the official “fall” of the Western Roman Empire in the year 476. But it’s pretty clear that the collapse of Roman power and prestige took place decades before.
When Rome was ransomed in 408 (then sacked in 410), it was obvious to everyone at the time that the Emperor no longer had a grip on power.
And before long, most of the lands in the West that Rome had once dominated– Italy, Spain, France, Britain, North Africa, etc. were under control of various Barbarian tribes and kingdoms.
The Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Burgundians, Berbers, etc. all established independent kingdoms. And for a while, there was no dominant superpower in western Europe. It was a multi-polar world. And the transition was rather abrupt.
This is what I think is happening now– we’re experiencing a similar transition, and it seems equally abrupt.
The United States has been the world’s dominant superpower for decades. But like Rome in the later stage of its empire, the US is clearly in decline. This should not be a controversial statement.
Let’s not be dramatic; it’s important to stay focused on facts and reality. The US economy is still vast and potent, and the country is blessed with an abundance of natural resources– incredibly fertile farmland, some of the world’s largest freshwater resources, and incalculable reserves of energy and other key commodities.
In fact, it’s amazing the people in charge have managed to screw it up so badly. And yet they have.
The national debt is out of control, rising by trillions of dollars each year. Debt growth, in fact, substantially outpaces US economic growth.
Social Security is insolvent, and the program’s own trustees (including the US Treasury Secretary) admit that its major trust fund will run out of money in just nine years.
The people in charge never seem to miss an opportunity to dismantle capitalism (i.e. the economic system that created so much prosperity to begin with) brick by brick.
Then there are ubiquitous social crises: public prosecutors who refuse to enforce the law; the weaponization of the justice system; the southern border fiasco; declining birth rates; extraordinary social divisions that are most recently evidenced by the anti-Israel protests.
And most of all the US constantly shows off its incredibly dysfunctional government that can’t manage to agree on anything, from the budget to the debt ceiling. The President has obvious cognitive disabilities and makes the most bizarre decisions to enrich America’s enemies.
Are these problems fixable? Yes. Will they be fixed? Maybe. But as we used to say in the military, “hope is not a course of action”.
Plotting this current trajectory to its natural conclusion leads me to believe that the world will enter a new “barbarian kingdom” paradigm in which there is no dominant superpower.
Certainly, there are a number of rising rivals today. But no one is powerful enough to assume the leading role in the world.
China has a massive population and a huge economy. But it too has way too many problems… with the obvious challenge that no one trusts the Communist Party. So, most likely China will not be the dominant superpower.
India’s economy will eventually surpass China’s, and it has an even bigger population. But India isn’t even close to the ballpark of being the world’s superpower.
Then there’s Europe. Combined, it still has a massive economic and trade union. But it has also been in major decline… with multiple social crises like low birth rates and a migrant invasion.
Then there are the energy powers like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia; they are far too small to dominate the world, but they have the power to menace and disrupt it.
The bottom line is that the US is no longer strong enough to lead the world and keep adversarial nations in check. And it’s clear that other countries are already adapting to this reality.
Earlier this month, for example, China successfully launched a rocket to the moon as part of a multi-decade mission to establish an International Lunar Research Station.
By 2045, China hopes to construct a large, city-like base along with several international partners including Russia, Pakistan, Thailand, South Africa, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Egypt. Turkey and Nicaragua are also interested in joining.
This is pretty remarkable given how many nations are participating, even if just nominally. Yet the US isn’t part of the consortium.
This would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. But today the rest of the world realizes that they no longer need American funding, leadership, or expertise.
We can see similar examples everywhere, most notably in Israel and Ukraine. And I believe one of the next shoes to drop will be the US dollar.
After all, if the rest of the world doesn’t need the US for space exploration, and they can ignore the US when it comes down to World War 3, then why should they need the US dollar anymore?
The dollar was the clear and obvious choice as the global reserve currency back when America was the undisputed superpower. But today it’s a different world.
Foreign nations continuing to rely on the dollar ultimately means governments and central banks buying US government bonds. And why should they take such a risk when the national debt is already 120% of GDP?
In addition, Congress passed a new law a few weeks ago authorizing the Treasury Department to confiscate US dollar assets of any country it deems an “aggressor state.”
While people might think this is a morally righteous idea, the reality is that it will only turn off foreign investors. Why should China, Saudi Arabia, or anyone else buy US government bonds when they can be confiscated in a heartbeat?
All of this ultimately leads to a world in which the US dollar is no longer the dominant reserve currency. We’re already starting to see signs of that shift, and it could be in full swing by the end of the decade.
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Site: Zero HedgeAmerica's Dairy Cow Replacement Inventory Collapses To Two-Decade LowTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 18:40
The nation's food supply chain remains under stress. We've been sounding the alarm on America's beef cattle supply dwindling to the lowest levels in over half a century.
Now, Bloomberg reports that dairy farms are pivoting breeding programs toward beef-on-dairy hybrids, capitalizing on the low beef herds amid last year's crushing milk glut. However, this comes with mounting risks as the nation's dairy herd begins to crack.
Hybrid calves are produced by artificially inseminating a dairy cow with semen from a beef bull. This has created a massive upside for struggling dairy farmers battered by volatile milk prices and an unforgiving glut in recent years. Midwest farmers last year were forced to dump tens of thousands of gallons of milk down the drain.
"Milk prices are up and down and so farmers are always looking for a way to offset costs to be as efficient as possible," said Amy Penterman, the owner of Dutch Dairy, which breeds approximately 70% of its 900-cow milking herd for beef.
Penterman explained the new revenue stream is "rewarding because the beef supply has diminished over the last few years. We're able to add that extra supply into the market to keep the cost down for our consumers."
The latest USDA data shows the nation's beef cattle herd plunged to its lowest level since 1951, primarily due to persistent droughts across the Midwest, surging diesel and feed costs, and high interest rates. Higher costs have forced ranchers to cull an increasing number of beef cows.
On Wednesday, Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King told the audience at the BMO Global Farm to Market Conference in Toronto that he's still uncertain when US ranchers will rebuild beef herds meaningfully.
One major problem with dairy farms pivoting towards beef-on-dairy hybrids to capitalize on soaring beef prices is the collapse of the replacement dairy cow inventory.
Data from the USDA already shows that the number of available replacement cows for dairy herds in January 2024 plunged to lows not seen since 2004.
Source: Bloomberg
Rabobank's Lucas Fuess warned that if milk prices were to jump, low inventories and higher prices for replacement cows could cause farmers to experience severe margin compression.
Nate Donnay, the director of dairy market insight at StoneX Financial, said the number of replacement dairy cows is already "down to the minimum level" needed to maintain the dairy herd.
"Ten years from now, the beef herd's probably going to get too big again and prices will be terrible and maybe they don't want these dairy animals anymore," Donnay said, adding, "But for the next couple of years, that demand for dairy animals into the beef herd is probably going to stay strong."
Yet another rolling disaster for the nation's food supply chain.
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Site: LifeNews
A federal Justice Department attorney expressed concerns to a Michigan judge about conservative media coverage suggesting that President Joe Biden’s administration is persecuting Christians and pro-lifers for their beliefs.
The discussion took place during a March pre-trial conference in USA v. Zastrow, in which the federal government brought Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act charges against eight pro-life individuals who tried to stop abortions of unborn babies from taking place at Michigan abortion clinics.
Those pro-life activists are Calvin Zastrow, Eva Zastrow, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Caroline Davis, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, and Eva Edl (a communist death camp survivor who recently spoke with The Daily Signal).
The FACE Act is a 1994 law that prohibits individuals from obstructing the entrances of both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, although it has been heavily enforced by Biden’s DOJ against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
During the pre-trial motion hearing, according to a transcript obtained by The Daily Signal, DOJ attorney Laura-Kate Bernstein raised concerns that “there’s a great deal of press about this case and the case in Nashville recently.” Bernstein was referring to a case in Tennessee where six pro-lifers were praying outside of an abortion clinic in 2021 and were charged with FACE Act violations.
Bernstein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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“Where?” questioned Judge Matthew Leitman. “I haven’t seen any.”
Bernstein explained that she was referring to online media “like Mike Huckabee’s show or Laura Ingraham’s show, and those sorts of sources, and some written sources, too, in which at least one of the defense attorneys is making very acerbic statements about the government’s case and the legitimacy of the laws at stake, and that the Biden regime is persecuting Christians.”
WATCH:
“My concern is one of the jury pool,” she continued. “My concern is that as these national media reach more and more people, including people in the district, that they may be tainted with a preconceived notion of the Biden regime’s persecution of Christians and be unable to try the case as neutral jurors.”
The DOJ attorney said that she was not asking the court to do “something in particular,” but then told the judge that it is the court’s “affirmative, constitutional duty to minimize the effects of prejudicial pretrial publicity.”
Leitman, after asking for clarification on her question, noted that he could ask the jurors whether they had read anything about the case. But he said that Bernstein’s question seemed to be rooted in “important political speech.”
“It seems to me that your first statement, the Biden administration is persecuting Christians … that’s pretty core, important political speech, whether you agree with it or not,” the judge said. “I mean, I’d be hard pressed to tell somebody not to say that.”
The DOJ attorney then pushed back, saying she was referring to interviews in which the pro-lifer’s attorney said that “this case is a war on pro-lifers, that the Department of Justices is using the FACE Act as a weapon against pro-lifers,” or that “the clients are victims of political persecution.”
She also pushed back against the idea that “there’s a two-tier justice system, one for friends of the administration who go free and one for people who are on the wrong spiritual side of the administration.”
“There’s also extremely inflammatory language undermining the legitimacy of the laws to be implied in this case, that you’ve already ruled on—the constitutionality of it—whether reproductive health care includes abortion, as the statue defines it,” she continued. “And because the court has this affirmative, constitutional duty, we wanted to bring it to your attention.”
Bernstein then asked the judge to admonish Thomas More Society attorney Steve Crampton “about speaking about this case in inflammatory and acerbic ways that might taint the jury pool.”
“This isn’t about trying to, you know, interfere with any of his First Amendment rights,” she followed up, noting that Crampton is “of course” free to speak about his clients. “It’s about trying to protect the due process rights in this trial and the government’s right and the public’s right to a fair trial.”
Crampton clarified to the court that Bernstein was referring to Tennessee pro-life activist Paul Vaughn’s interview on the “Mike Huckabee Show,” in which Vaughn made such comments “only after the jury verdict” was entered in his case.
In January, a federal jury convicted Vaughn and five other defendants of a felony conspiracy against rights and a FACE Act offense for trying to stop abortions from taking place at a Mount Juliet, Tennessee, abortion clinic in March 2021.
LifeNews Note: Mary Margaret Olohan writes for Daily Signal, where this article originally appeared.
The post Biden Lawyer Tried to Get Judge to Silence Attorney Defending Persecuted Pro-Life Americans appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeFull Fifth Circuit Hears Arguments Over the Fate Of Texas' Floating Border WallTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 18:20
Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times,
The legal saga over the fate of a 1,000-foot floating barrier on the Rio Grande has entered a new phase.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last summer ordered the deployment of the string of giant orange buoys in the river near Eagle Pass. As a part of Operation Lone Star, the Republican governor’s signature initiative aimed to curb illegal border crossings from Mexico into his state, the buoys are anchored to the bottom and themselves rotate so that people can’t climb over or swim under them.
Following the installation of the barrier, the Biden administration sued Texas, demanding that it be taken down. Attorneys for Texas invoked the Constitutional right for each state to defend itself against “invasion”—in Texas’ case, by those illegally crossing the river, but that self-defense argument was rejected by the lower court, as did by a split three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Arguing on Wednesday before a full, 17-member Fifth Circuit, attorneys for both Texas and the U.S. Department of Justice largely focused on the question of whether Mr. Abbott’s floating wall violates a Reconstruction-era law regulating the use of waterways.
The law, dubbed the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899, prohibits the “creation of obstruction ... to the navigable capacity of the waters” unless approved by Congress and permitted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—the entity responsible for the maintenance of the country’s waterway system to ensure safe passage of vessels.
The Rio Grande is not subject to the 125-year-old law, Texas told the court, arguing that the stretch of river is too rocky and shallow to be reasonably called a “navigable waterway.”
“For most of its length and much of its storied history, the Rio Grande has been little more than a creek with an excellent publicist,” said Lanora Pettit, the principal deputy solicitor general of Texas.
“If the U.S. is right, then any body of water would be deemed navigable and thereby subject to federal jurisdiction.”
Ms. Pettit further argued that, for more than a century, the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act had been interpreted as applying only to waterways that, “in their ordinary or natural condition, serves [as] the artery of interstate commerce across which trade or travel can be or is conducted.”
That interpretation apparently does not fit the Rio Grande, which “has too many rocks and not enough water,” she argued. “The only reason we have water in that stretch [where the buoys were installed] is because of the irrigation, and irrigation infrastructure only puts it about 18 inches deep.”
Arguing for the Justice Department, attorney Michael Gray urged circuit judges to uphold the district judge’s ruling that the Rio Grande was historically navigable. He pointed to past ferry traffic in the area, as well as the use of patrol boats by border enforcers.
“The most prominent [evidence] being ferry traffic, which is expressly foreign commerce conducted on the river by floating structures, boats,” Mr. Gray told the court. “That foreign commerce is sufficient to bring the area within Congress’s power ... to regulate that commerce.”
Mr. Gray also claimed that the floating wall, which was expected to deter illegal immigration, interfered with the U.S. Border Patrol officers performing their duties.
“The Border Patrol is on the river basically every day,” he said, emphasizing that the Border Patrol had conducted 249 rescues on the Rio Grande between 2018 and 2023. “There was evidence here that any obstruction to the river, including this obstruction could impair response times of the Border Patrol as the Border Patrol does rescues on the river.”
The attorneys also briefly made their case on whether the floating barrier counts as a constitutional means of defending Texas against an invasion.
“Assuming that the question of invasion is not justiciable, then under what circumstances can the United States thwart that attempt at self defense?” Chief Judge Edith Jones, a Ronald Reagan appointee, asked Mr. Gray.
“You need some organized hostile force,” the DOJ lawyer replied, arguing that the influx of illegal immigrants is not the same kind of “invasion” the Constitution’s framers had in their minds.
“[Texas government’s] argument is, once they say invasion, ‘We can do anything we want for as long as we want,’” he said. “We don’t think that’s right.”
The Fifth Circuit did not indicate when they would rule.
The Fifth Circuit, headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, is also handling another dispute between Texas and the U.S. government. This separate case centers around Shelby Park, a 47-acre public park in Eagle Pass that the federal government had been using as a staging area to process illegal immigrants.
In January, Texas National Guard soldiers deployed by Mr. Abbott took control of Shelby Park, and have since used roadblocks and concertina wires to prevent Border Patrol officers from processing migrants in the area.
“The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States,” Mr. Abbott said after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security demanded that he grant Border Patrol agents access to the park. “Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border.”
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Site: LifeNews
On Tuesday, Louisiana Right to Life was informed by YouTube that our channel, established approximately in 2013, had been deactivated without warning. They claimed they found “severe or repeated violations of [their] harmful and dangerous policy” on our page after we uploaded a video exposing the online abortion-pill crisis.
Louisiana Right to Life immediately appealed their decision. Then, on Thursday, YouTube responded saying, “We reviewed your channel carefully, and have confirmed that it violates our harmful and dangerous policy.”
However, rather than asking Louisiana Right to Life to remove a specific video, removing it directly, or warning us of any specific violation of their policy within a video or videos, they instead deactivated our entire channel.
Unsurprisingly, there are many videos on YouTube that show how to illegally access and purchase abortion pills.
Please follow LifeNews on Rumble for the latest pro-life videos.
Sarah Zagorski, the Communications Director for Louisiana Right to Life, said, “It is outrageous that YouTube is censoring our pro-life voice. The hypocrisy of YouTube is staggering. While censoring our efforts to expose the illegal sale of abortion pills, they allow pro-abortion videos that do violate their policies by promoting the availability of abortion pills in states where the law makes it illegal.
Our videos benefit public health, protect women and girls, and expose the distributors to law enforcement so they can pursue legal action in the future. We know this is blatant pro-life censorship because of the plethora of unlawful abortion propaganda on YouTube’s platform.”
Louisiana Right to Life has published a public complaint letter to YouTube, which is available here. View our investigative report released yesterday: The Rampant Abuse of Abortion Pills.
Louisiana Right to Life (LARTL), established in 1970, works through education, legislation, inspiration and service to restore the right to life in Louisiana by opposing abortion, euthanasia, and other life destroying actions.
The post YouTube Deletes Pro-Life Group’s Channel Over Abortion Video, Denies Appeal appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeJeff Currie, The Copper Bull: "Most Compelling Trade I've Seen In My 30-Year Trading Career"Tyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 18:00
Jeff Currie, who led commodities research at Goldman Sachs for nearly three decades and now serves as the chief strategy officer of the energy pathways team at Carlyle Group, appeared on Bloomberg's Odd Lots to discuss why copper is the best trade he has seen in his entire career.
The drive towards electrification, whether that's electric vehicles and data centers powering artificial intelligence, as well as reshoring manufacturing trends, the need to expand the nation's power grid to handle surging load demand is in full swing but comes as new copper mining capacity has dwindled, and a squeeze on the Comex exchange has sent prices to record highs.
Odd Lots' Joe Weisenthal began by introducing Currie and referencing his past comments from as early as 2021 about the beginning of a commodity supercycle:
We're going to talk to Jeff Currie. So we've had him on the podcast at least a couple of times before, back in 2021. We talked to him and he talked about this idea of like a new commodity supercycle, and of course oil was surging and all these commodities were surging as the global economy was reopening.
Then we talked to him again in 2022 and he said that copper specifically may end up being one of the, the tightest commodity markets he's ever seen. So real issues with supply and again, looking pretty good these days.
So we are back with Jeff Currie, who is now in a new role. So when we talked to him before, he was the head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, but today he's the chief strategy officer of Energy Pathways at the Carlyle Group. So Jeff, thank you so much for coming back on Odd Lots.
A little more than 11 minutes into the conversation, Odd Lots' Tracy Alloway asked Currie:
Alright, I have a very important question for Jeff, which is, are you wearing a copper bracelet right now?
The commodities veteran responded:
You know, it is the most compelling trade I have ever seen in my 30 plus years of doing this. You look at the demand story, it's got green CapEx, it's got AI, remember AI can't happen without the energy demand and the constraint on the electricity grid is going to be copper.
And then you have the military demand. So unprecedented demand growth against unprecedented weakness in supply growth because we have not been investing, it's teed you up for what I would argue is the most bullish commodity that I actually, I just quote many of our clients and other market participants say, you know, it's the highest conviction trade they've ever seen.
Currie's comments come as a historic Comex copper short squeeze is underway this week.
It all started one month ago, when we reported "US, UK Banned Deliveries Of Russian Copper, Nickel And Aluminum To Western Metals Exchanges." This sparked a massive dislocation for copper prices traded in New York and other commodity exchanges has rocked the global market for the base metal and prompted a frantic dash for supplies to ship to the US.
We have discussed the fundamental case for copper:
And most notably in the "the Next AI Trade"...
Back to Currie's Odd Lots interview. He pointed the acronym "RED" summarizes the three major structural tailwinds driving copper demand forward (summarized by Bloomberg);
The 'R' stands for redistribution policies: As he argues, lower-income groups have been consuming "a greater share of commodities than the higher-income groups. That's very much alive and kicking. You look at the low unemployment rate, who's the biggest benefactor of that? It is the lower-income groups, and policies still very much in play all over the world right now reinforcing these lower-income groups in the consumption of commodities."
The 'E' stands for environment policy, which Currie describes as having been "turbocharged" in recent years.
"You have the IRA, the REPowerEU, China," he says. "Now, part of the reason why copper's rallied recently [is that] China's growth was over 100% in green CapEx last year, 30% this year. So everywhere you look in the world, we see environmental policy through green CapEx stimulating demand for commodities."
And finally, the 'D' stands for deglobilization, though it could also stand for defense.
"Look at the potential military spend in the US — $95 billion on munitions," he says. "We look at what's going on in places like Germany, $100 billion dollars of military spend. So you've got all three going much stronger than what we would've thought two-to-three years ago."
As for the beginning of the upswing in the commodity supercycle, well, the Bloomberg Commodity Spot Index this week reached its highest point in a year.
And this is not great news for Fed Chair Powell's inflation fight. However, for the time being, the OER component of the CPI basket will continue to pressure inflation.
What's ominous is the surge in spot commodity prices.
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Site: Zero HedgeJeff Currie, The Copper Bull: "Most Compelling Trade I've Seen In My 30-Year Trading Career"Tyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 18:00
Jeff Currie, who led commodities research at Goldman Sachs for nearly three decades and now serves as the chief strategy officer of the energy pathways team at Carlyle Group, appeared on Bloomberg's Odd Lots to discuss why copper is the best trade he has seen in his entire career.
The drive towards electrification, whether that's electric vehicles and data centers powering artificial intelligence, as well as reshoring manufacturing trends, the need to expand the nation's power grid to handle surging load demand is in full swing but comes as new copper mining capacity has dwindled, and a squeeze on the Comex exchange has sent prices to record highs.
Odd Lots' Joe Weisenthal began by introducing Currie and referencing his past comments from as early as 2021 about the beginning of a commodity supercycle:
We're going to talk to Jeff Currie. So we've had him on the podcast at least a couple of times before, back in 2021. We talked to him and he talked about this idea of like a new commodity supercycle, and of course oil was surging and all these commodities were surging as the global economy was reopening.
Then we talked to him again in 2022 and he said that copper specifically may end up being one of the, the tightest commodity markets he's ever seen. So real issues with supply and again, looking pretty good these days.
So we are back with Jeff Currie, who is now in a new role. So when we talked to him before, he was the head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, but today he's the chief strategy officer of Energy Pathways at the Carlyle Group. So Jeff, thank you so much for coming back on Odd Lots.
A little more than 11 minutes into the conversation, Odd Lots' Tracy Alloway asked Currie:
Alright, I have a very important question for Jeff, which is, are you wearing a copper bracelet right now?
The commodities veteran responded:
You know, it is the most compelling trade I have ever seen in my 30 plus years of doing this. You look at the demand story, it's got green CapEx, it's got AI, remember AI can't happen without the energy demand and the constraint on the electricity grid is going to be copper.
And then you have the military demand. So unprecedented demand growth against unprecedented weakness in supply growth because we have not been investing, it's teed you up for what I would argue is the most bullish commodity that I actually, I just quote many of our clients and other market participants say, you know, it's the highest conviction trade they've ever seen.
Currie's comments come as a historic Comex copper short squeeze is underway this week.
It all started one month ago, when we reported "US, UK Banned Deliveries Of Russian Copper, Nickel And Aluminum To Western Metals Exchanges." This sparked a massive dislocation for copper prices traded in New York and other commodity exchanges has rocked the global market for the base metal and prompted a frantic dash for supplies to ship to the US.
We have discussed the fundamental case for copper:
And most notably in the "the Next AI Trade"...
Back to Currie's Odd Lots interview. He pointed the acronym "RED" summarizes the three major structural tailwinds driving copper demand forward (summarized by Bloomberg);
The 'R' stands for redistribution policies: As he argues, lower-income groups have been consuming "a greater share of commodities than the higher-income groups. That's very much alive and kicking. You look at the low unemployment rate, who's the biggest benefactor of that? It is the lower-income groups, and policies still very much in play all over the world right now reinforcing these lower-income groups in the consumption of commodities."
The 'E' stands for environment policy, which Currie describes as having been "turbocharged" in recent years.
"You have the IRA, the REPowerEU, China," he says. "Now, part of the reason why copper's rallied recently [is that] China's growth was over 100% in green CapEx last year, 30% this year. So everywhere you look in the world, we see environmental policy through green CapEx stimulating demand for commodities."
And finally, the 'D' stands for deglobilization, though it could also stand for defense.
"Look at the potential military spend in the US — $95 billion on munitions," he says. "We look at what's going on in places like Germany, $100 billion dollars of military spend. So you've got all three going much stronger than what we would've thought two-to-three years ago."
As for the beginning of the upswing in the commodity supercycle, well, the Bloomberg Commodity Spot Index this week reached its highest point in a year.
And this is not great news for Fed Chair Powell's inflation fight. However, for the time being, the OER component of the CPI basket will continue to pressure inflation.
What's ominous is the surge in spot commodity prices.
-
Site: Zero HedgeNBC Animal Documentary Claims "This Is A Queer Planet"Tyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 17:40
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,
A documentary set to be broadcast by NBC asserts that we live on a “queer planet,” in which homosexuality is widespread in the animal kingdom and there are more than two genders.
Yes, really.
The documentary, set to be aired on June 6, features one “expert” stating, “Everything you were taught as a kid is wrong.”
“Gay penguins, bisexual lions, sex changing clown fish,” the narration, voiced by gay actor Andrew Rannells, claims are all evidence that “this is a queer planet.”
"Queer Planet" will be released in June.
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 16, 2024
The documentary by NBC is focused on "LGBTQI+ tolerance" among the animal kingdom…
No, this is not satire. pic.twitter.com/sf9ES6bXuGThe trailer then shows two women, one with blue hair, asserting that “Queerness has always existed” and that “It’s only in humans that we have such a stigma about it.”
Apparently, this “stigma” revolves around having it shoved in your face 24/7 on television, TV commercials, within the education system, and publicly shaming or even arresting and prosecuting anyone who doesn’t embrace it.
“The idea of just having two fixed sexes is clearly out of style,” the narration continues, with another short haired woman with tattoos claiming, “Mother nature is pretty open minded.”
Nature is apparently “full of queer surprises,” according to the documentary.
I’m not sure that aspiring to behave like animals is quite the win that LGBT activists think it is.
Animals practice all kinds of behaviors which if they were mimicked by humans would lead to the collapse of civilization.
Lions practice infanticide and many other species eat their own offspring, should we start normalizing that too?
Dolphins torture and murder porpoises for fun, should we do the same?
Sea otters rape and murder baby seals, should we follow suit?
Explorer George Murray Levick documented how Adelie penguins gang-rape females and have sex with the ground, other males, and dead females lying frozen. Should we normalize necrophilia?
Tiger sharks kill their own siblings in the womb, while hyena cubs start fighting and killing each other as soon as they are born, is that to be celebrated?
Cats and other animals engage in wilfully sadistic behavior for fun, should humans emulate that too?
The narrative used to be that while homosexuality does occur within the animal kingdom, it is more about base sexual gratification and has little to do with advancing a species.
In order to abolish the “stigma” surrounding homosexuality in humans (which doesn’t exist since it’s promoted everywhere), that narrative is now apparently changing.
* * *
Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.
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Site: Zero HedgeNBC Animal Documentary Claims "This Is A Queer Planet"Tyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 17:40
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,
A documentary set to be broadcast by NBC asserts that we live on a “queer planet,” in which homosexuality is widespread in the animal kingdom and there are more than two genders.
Yes, really.
The documentary, set to be aired on June 6, features one “expert” stating, “Everything you were taught as a kid is wrong.”
“Gay penguins, bisexual lions, sex changing clown fish,” the narration, voiced by gay actor Andrew Rannells, claims are all evidence that “this is a queer planet.”
"Queer Planet" will be released in June.
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 16, 2024
The documentary by NBC is focused on "LGBTQI+ tolerance" among the animal kingdom…
No, this is not satire. pic.twitter.com/sf9ES6bXuGThe trailer then shows two women, one with blue hair, asserting that “Queerness has always existed” and that “It’s only in humans that we have such a stigma about it.”
Apparently, this “stigma” revolves around having it shoved in your face 24/7 on television, TV commercials, within the education system, and publicly shaming or even arresting and prosecuting anyone who doesn’t embrace it.
“The idea of just having two fixed sexes is clearly out of style,” the narration continues, with another short haired woman with tattoos claiming, “Mother nature is pretty open minded.”
Nature is apparently “full of queer surprises,” according to the documentary.
I’m not sure that aspiring to behave like animals is quite the win that LGBT activists think it is.
Animals practice all kinds of behaviors which if they were mimicked by humans would lead to the collapse of civilization.
Lions practice infanticide and many other species eat their own offspring, should we start normalizing that too?
Dolphins torture and murder porpoises for fun, should we do the same?
Sea otters rape and murder baby seals, should we follow suit?
Explorer George Murray Levick documented how Adelie penguins gang-rape females and have sex with the ground, other males, and dead females lying frozen. Should we normalize necrophilia?
Tiger sharks kill their own siblings in the womb, while hyena cubs start fighting and killing each other as soon as they are born, is that to be celebrated?
Cats and other animals engage in wilfully sadistic behavior for fun, should humans emulate that too?
The narrative used to be that while homosexuality does occur within the animal kingdom, it is more about base sexual gratification and has little to do with advancing a species.
In order to abolish the “stigma” surrounding homosexuality in humans (which doesn’t exist since it’s promoted everywhere), that narrative is now apparently changing.
* * *
Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.
-
Site: Home LivingHello Dearest Friends.Today I walked in Paris with Lucy. You can do this in your home, and you do not have to do eachexercise the same way. For example, when she does something too strenuous for you, just do it a different way or sitting down. You can actually adapt any of these exercises to chair exercises or to your own strength level. What could be better than walking around Paris Lydiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15530969871397361970noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Zero HedgePaul Pelosi Hammer Attacker Gets 30 Years In PrisonTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 17:20
The man who snuck into the house of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in October of 2022 and attacked her husband Paul with a hammer at 2 a.m. has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
David DePape, 42, was convicted of assault and attempted kidnapping of a federal official last November following a week-long trial in San Francisco. The attack left Pelosi, now 84, in the hospital for six days with a fractured skull and other injuries.
While Nancy Pelosi was out of town at the time of the attack, Paul Pelosi was able to call 911. When the arrived after DePape had been inside the house for roughly 30 minutes, Pelosi was holding some type of beverage when he answered the door - at which point DePape attacked him.
UPDATE: Fox News obtained the surveillance video from the Pelosi house showing David Depape busting a window with his hammer before entering the home. pic.twitter.com/K8ZfuzVq67
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 27, 2023And here is Paul Pelosi’s 911 call. pic.twitter.com/IyHHfvPQcg
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 27, 2023In November, NBC News correspondent Miguel Almaguer reported that "After a ‘knock and announce,’ the front door was opened by Mr. Pelosi. The 82-year-old did not immediately declare an emergency or try to leave his home," but instead "began walking several feet back into the foyer toward the assailant and away from police."
NBC Report Contradicts Federal Charging Statement in Paul Pelosi Attack – And Paul Pelosi’s Actions
— Vlemx4u (@vlemx4u) November 4, 2022
NBC reporter Miguel Almaguer reported on the Today Show that accused attacker David DePape and Paul Pelosi were alone in the Pelosi home for thirty minutes, #PaulPelosi pic.twitter.com/X6RURvSMYJA neighbor living across from the Pelosis who was awake when the assault took place didn't hear an alarm or anything unusual.
"No, not a thing, and you know we were awake at that hour in the morning; my husband was awake. We didn’t even hear sirens," neighbor Sally McNulty told The Epoch Times.
McNulty, who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years, said everything was quiet around the time of the 2 a.m. attack on Oct. 28.
“This is one of the quietest streets in the city,” she said. “You can hear a pin drop at night.”
McNulty said she doesn’t recall ever hearing the Pelosis’ alarm go off in the past, though she has occasionally heard others in the neighborhood.
She said that Paul Pelosi had no enemies she knew of and was well-liked.
Other neighbors declined to comment.
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Site: Zero HedgePaul Pelosi Hammer Attacker Gets 30 Years In PrisonTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 17:20
The man who snuck into the house of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in October of 2022 and attacked her husband Paul with a hammer at 2 a.m. has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
David DePape, 42, was convicted of assault and attempted kidnapping of a federal official last November following a week-long trial in San Francisco. The attack left Pelosi, now 84, in the hospital for six days with a fractured skull and other injuries.
While Nancy Pelosi was out of town at the time of the attack, Paul Pelosi was able to call 911. When the arrived after DePape had been inside the house for roughly 30 minutes, Pelosi was holding some type of beverage when he answered the door - at which point DePape attacked him.
UPDATE: Fox News obtained the surveillance video from the Pelosi house showing David Depape busting a window with his hammer before entering the home. pic.twitter.com/K8ZfuzVq67
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 27, 2023And here is Paul Pelosi’s 911 call. pic.twitter.com/IyHHfvPQcg
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 27, 2023In November, NBC News correspondent Miguel Almaguer reported that "After a ‘knock and announce,’ the front door was opened by Mr. Pelosi. The 82-year-old did not immediately declare an emergency or try to leave his home," but instead "began walking several feet back into the foyer toward the assailant and away from police."
NBC Report Contradicts Federal Charging Statement in Paul Pelosi Attack – And Paul Pelosi’s Actions
— Vlemx4u (@vlemx4u) November 4, 2022
NBC reporter Miguel Almaguer reported on the Today Show that accused attacker David DePape and Paul Pelosi were alone in the Pelosi home for thirty minutes, #PaulPelosi pic.twitter.com/X6RURvSMYJA neighbor living across from the Pelosis who was awake when the assault took place didn't hear an alarm or anything unusual.
"No, not a thing, and you know we were awake at that hour in the morning; my husband was awake. We didn’t even hear sirens," neighbor Sally McNulty told The Epoch Times.
McNulty, who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years, said everything was quiet around the time of the 2 a.m. attack on Oct. 28.
“This is one of the quietest streets in the city,” she said. “You can hear a pin drop at night.”
McNulty said she doesn’t recall ever hearing the Pelosis’ alarm go off in the past, though she has occasionally heard others in the neighborhood.
She said that Paul Pelosi had no enemies she knew of and was well-liked.
Other neighbors declined to comment.
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Site: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention CoalitionAn 82-year-old mother in the UK is warning people about assisted suicide after her 47-year-old son died at a Swiss assisted suicide clinic.
Judith Hamilton
Paul Brand reported for ITV.com on May 16, 2024 that the Pegasos assisted suicide clinic which assists the suicides of hundreds of people every year, assisted the suicide of Alastair Hamilton, who had an undiagnosed condition.Following an ITV News investigation, Pegasos said it would change its procedures to ensure that relatives were always informed in future. Brand reported:
The chemistry teacher had dramatically lost weight and complained of stomach problems in the months leading up to his death, but did not have a diagnosed illness.
His family had been supporting him in seeking medical help and had no idea he was really travelling to Switzerland to end his life.
When he failed to return to the UK and stopped answering his phone, his mother reported him missing.
Bank records eventually revealed that he had paid £11,000 to Pegasos to access what's known as a 'voluntary assisted death' in Switzerland.
ITV News travelled with his family to trace his final journey and confront the clinic which accepted his online application form, which has been seen by ITV News.Pegasos approved Alastairs death even though they knew that he had an undiagnosed condition. Brand reported:
Limited to 300 word answers, Alastair told them that his undiagnosed condition was causing him "pain, fatigue and discomfort" which had "devastated my life".
However, he admitted that "there is no current, definitive medical explanation" for his illness and that his family did not know he had decided to take his own life.
Despite that, Pegasos accepted his application and within several days of arriving in Switzerland he was helped to die.At first Pegasos did not respond to the Hamilton family but after ITV got involved they agreed to meet with the family. Brand stated:
Eventually, with the involvement of police and the British embassy, the clinic responded, confirming Alastair's death and returning his ashes to his family in the post.
We persuaded a representative from Pegasos to meet with Judith and Bradley in Switzerland to answer their questions.
At an anonymous office in central Basel, we were greeted by Sean Davison, who had spoken repeatedly to Alastair before he died.
Sean Davidson
Sean Davidson is a past President of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies and a former leader of Dignity South Africa who completed three years (house arrest) in South Africa for his conviction in the deaths of Anrich Burger (in 2013), Justin Varian (in 2015), and Richard Holland (in 2015). Sean Davidson was also convicted in the death of his mother in 2010 and he lost his medical license in New Zealand in 2020.Brand ended the article by stating:
"In 2022, the Swiss Medical Association revised its guidelines regarding assisted dying. It is important to understand that these guidelines are not legally binding for the associations but are policies for the medical professionals. Several organisations for assisted dying, including Exit, Dignitas and Pegasos, publicly spoke out against the revised guidelines, because they are putting at risk the self-determination of people planning a voluntary assisted death and the freedom of choice in Switzerland."Previous articles about Switzerland's assisted suicide law:
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Site: LifeNews
The University of California at San Diego and Planned Parenthood operated an “exchange” partnership involving aborted fetal body parts and scientific research, according to newly released documents obtained by a pro-life watchdog organization.
The Center for Medical Progress believes the evidence uncovered through its open records requests may be “incriminating.” Founder David Daleiden told The College Fix his organization is calling for a federal investigation.
Documents obtained by CMP show the abortion vendor gave tissue from aborted babies to UC San Diego researchers “in exchange for ownership of the university’s ‘patents’ and intellectual property’” from their research, a news release states.
The partnership appears to violate federal law, which prohibits the transfer of aborted human fetal tissue for “valuable consideration,” according to CMP.
Daleiden told The Fix in a recent email his findings are the result of “extensive public records requests” to the university since 2019.
One document is a “Biological Materials Transfer Agreement” contract between Planned Parenthood of San Diego and UC San Diego, signed in 2009 and updated in 2014.
The contract, made for “valuable consideration,” gives the university “access” to “fetal and placental tissue, which are proprietary materials of PPSD,” the news release states.
Please follow LifeNews on Rumble for the latest pro-life videos.
In exchange, the contract states Planned Parenthood “shall retain all right, title, and interest in and to the Material, including but not limited to all right, title, and interest in patents and patent applications and other intellectual property rights relating to the Material.”
Daleiden’s organization also uncovered emails between the two parties, including a 2011 exchange about a quarterly “Planned Parenthood/UCSD Research Collaboration Meeting” to discuss “payment” to the abortion provider’s residency program with the university.
The Fix contacted Planned Parenthood and the UC San Diego media relations twice by email over the past month, asking about the Center for Medical Progress’s findings and allegations, but neither responded.
Daleiden told The Fix he believes Planned Parenthood has made millions of dollars from the partnership with UC San Diego, but his organization is still investigating.
“The abortion training programs at the university provide more abortion doctors, higher abortion volumes, and more abortion revenue for Planned Parenthood,” Daleiden said.
“In the years since the ‘proprietary fetuses’ contract was signed, one major UCSD donor extended $10 million in grant support to Planned Parenthood,” he told The Fix.
According to another public records document obtained by CMP, UC San Diego donated $10,000 to a Planned Parenthood fundraising event in 2021.
Additionally, another document shows a Planned Parenthood Federation of America Research Department registration form for fetal body parts harvesting at UC San Diego.
Daleiden said the document indicates the abortion provider’s “national headquarters knew about and approved these sales of aborted babies for valuable consideration as part of government-funded research grants.”
He told The Fix CMP’s latest investigation found a similar situation to what they uncovered previously with the University of Pittsburgh researchers and Planned Parenthood.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General is investigating the Pennsylvania university’s fetal tissue research projects, according to other documents obtained by CMP, published in December.
“The Planned Parenthood abortion providers supplying aborted babies in both cases were subject to PPFA’s requirements for registration and approval of these activities, and the NIH funded the universities’ transfer of fetuses from Planned Parenthood in both cases,” Daleiden said.
“We are now calling for the HHS OIG investigation of the Planned Parenthood-supplied fetal tissue bank at Pitt to be expanded to include Planned Parenthood’s activities in San Diego and for increased Congressional oversight,” Daleiden told The Fix.
LifeNews Note: College Fix contributor Katelyn Meeks is a student at Ashland University majoring in digital media journalism and public relations. She is the managing editor of the student-run newspaper, The Collegian, vice president of College Republicans, president of PRSSA, and an Ashbrook Scholar. This column originally appeared at The College Fix.
The post Planned Parenthood Traded Aborted Baby Parts to University in Exchange for Intellectual Property appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: RT - News
The riots in New Caledonia have reportedly stopped after the arrival of heavily armed troops
Additional security forces sent from France have stopped the week-long unrest in New Caledonia, the South Pacific territory’s governor said on Friday.
The archipelago with 270,000 residents is located between Australia and Fiji, 17,000km from Paris. Indigenous Kanak people, who make up about 40% of the population, rose up earlier this week against a proposed law that would allow new settlers to vote.
High Commissioner Louis Le Franc told reporters on Friday that the deployment of an additional 1,000 security personnel imposed “a calmer and more peaceful situation” in the capital city of Noumea for the first time since Monday, although there were “fires at a school and two companies.”
AFP reporters spotted French troops in red berets carrying gas masks, riot shields and rifles around the city. A shopping center was still on fire and dozens of burned-out cars lined the roads.
Hundreds of people lined up outside the remaining shops looking for food and other supplies. The local chamber of commerce said that up to 90% of the grocery distribution network in Noumea had been “wiped out” in the riots, estimating the damage at around $217 million.
Read more
France blames ex-Soviet republic for unrest in South Pacific
Five people were killed in the unrest. One gendarme was shot in the head, while another was killed by friendly fire, according to French officials. Three Kanaks – ages 17, 20 and 36 – were killed as well. Two suspects in the killings have been identified and taken into custody.
Announcing the deployment of reinforcements on Wednesday, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said the authorities would seek “the harshest penalties for rioters and looters.”
Police have detained around 200 suspected rioters and placed ten Kanak independence activists accused of organizing the turmoil under house arrest. The authorities also banned the social media application TikTok for allegedly being used to organize the riots.
TikTok called the decision “regrettable” and said that “no request or question, no demand to withdraw content, had been made by local authorities or the French government.”
Meanwhile, there has been a 150% increase in New Caledonians signing up to use virtual private networks (VPN) that mask their location, according to one provider.
New Caledonia was colonized by France in the 19th century, but the indigenous Kanaks have repeatedly rebelled against the conquerors. The most recent insurrection ended in 1988, when Paris agreed to grant the archipelago increased autonomy.
This week’s riots erupted after President Emmanuel Macron’s government proposed granting residency – and voting rights – to people who have moved to the islands since and lived there for at least a decade. The Kanak independence activists objected, arguing that this would “dilute” their vote.
New Caledonia is the world’s third largest producer of nickel, which is used extensively in the chemical, construction, and communications industries.
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Site: Zero HedgeThe Decay Of Everyday LifeTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 17:00
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
So where does this leave us? We're on our own.
This month I've described what can be summarized as The Decay of Everyday Life: the erosion of the fundamental elements of everyday life: work, opportunity, social mobility, security and well-being, which includes civility, conviviality and a functional, competent social-political order.
In other words, Everyday Life includes far more than the financial statistics of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the stock market, wealth and income. Everyday Life is fundamentally about relationships, agency (i.e. control of one's life and ownership of one's work), the fulfillment of life's purposes (livelihood, family, friends, community and self-growth), leisure time and the experiences of everyday living, both the stressors and the joys.
As I've explored in recent posts, the experiential elements of Everyday Life have decayed over the past 40 years: life is more difficult and less secure in ways that are not offset by technological advances. Indeed, the most highly touted technological advances (Internet and mobile phones) have increased the burdens of shadow work and introduced new pathways of addiction and stress that have reduced well-being. Rather than being free, they include structures of control that we have yet to grasp, much less limit.
Here are my recent posts:
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Squeezed for Decades, America's Working Class Is Finally Up Against the Wall
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Hikikomori and Lying Flat: When "Making It" Becomes Hopeless
The Decay of Everyday Life echoes the title of one of the more important books I've long recommended, The Structures of Everyday Life Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century Volume 1 by Fernand Braudel. The book outlines how changes in the economic structure led to changes in everyday life.
The structures I outline in the five posts describe the economic structures that shape our daily lives and the political and social structures we inhabit. While I focus attention on the way globalization and financialization have hollowed out our economy and increased the precarity of labor, in the larger context we can identify these structural drivers of decay:
1. The balance between labor and capital has been skewed to capital for 50 years. Labor's political power and share of the economy has declined while capital's political and economic power has become dominant. This has driven income-wealth inequality to extremes that are destabilizing the economy and the political-social orders.
Increasing the sums labor can borrow to keep afloat only works until debt service consumes all disposable income, crushing consumption. The end result is mass default of debt and the erasure of debt-based "assets" held by the financial elites (top 10%).
Labor will have to restore the balance with capital or the system will collapse in disorder. History is rather definitive about this causal chain.
2. Process and narrative control have replaced outcomes as the operative mechanisms and goals of the status quo. The illusions of limitless "progress" and "prosperity" have generated a mindset in which outcomes no longer matter, as "progress" and "prosperity" are forces of Nature that can't be stopped, so we can luxuriate in Process--completing forms and compliance documents, submitting reports to other offices, holding endless meetings to discuss our glacial "progress", mandating more Process, elevating managers who excel at Process--with the net result that building permits that were once issued in a few days now take months, bridges take decades to build, and incompetence reigns supreme.
To obscure the dismal outcomes--failure, delays, poor quality, errors--narrative control is deployed, expanded and rewarded. The managerial class has been rewarded and advanced not for generating timely, on-budget, high-quality outcomes, but for managing Process and Narrative Control: everything's going great, and if it isn't, the fault lies elsewhere.
The net result of this structure is that the competent either quit in disgust or or assigned to Siberia, while the incompetent are elevated to the highest levels of corporate and public-sector management.
3. The dominance of monopolies and cartels has fatally distorted markets and politics, undermining the foundations of everyday life. By eliminating competition and buying political-regulatory complicity, monopolies and cartels lock in ample, stable profits, profits that are increased by squeezing labor and reducing the quality and quantity of goods and services, to the point that quality services and goods are either luxuries available only to the elite or simply unavailable at any price, as the knowledge, systems and values required to produce high-quality goods and services have been irrevocably lost.
4. The dominance of digital communications in everyday life has increased the unpaid shadow work we're forced to do and injected new forms of narrative control, digital hypnosis, addiction and derangement into daily life that cannot be reversed in any meaningful way other than drastically limiting our exposure to the toxic flood tide.
So where does this leave us? We're on our own. The status quo is incapable of unwinding the fatal distortions generated by the dominant economic structures, and so it is also incapable of "saving" us from being seated at the banquet of consequences. This is why the only rational response is to focus on increasing our Self-Reliance.
Rather than becoming enraptured by the apologists and cheerleaders proclaiming everything's great, launching a lifeboat and setting a course for land is a strategy with much higher odds of success.
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Site: Zero HedgeThe Decay Of Everyday LifeTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 17:00
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
So where does this leave us? We're on our own.
This month I've described what can be summarized as The Decay of Everyday Life: the erosion of the fundamental elements of everyday life: work, opportunity, social mobility, security and well-being, which includes civility, conviviality and a functional, competent social-political order.
In other words, Everyday Life includes far more than the financial statistics of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the stock market, wealth and income. Everyday Life is fundamentally about relationships, agency (i.e. control of one's life and ownership of one's work), the fulfillment of life's purposes (livelihood, family, friends, community and self-growth), leisure time and the experiences of everyday living, both the stressors and the joys.
As I've explored in recent posts, the experiential elements of Everyday Life have decayed over the past 40 years: life is more difficult and less secure in ways that are not offset by technological advances. Indeed, the most highly touted technological advances (Internet and mobile phones) have increased the burdens of shadow work and introduced new pathways of addiction and stress that have reduced well-being. Rather than being free, they include structures of control that we have yet to grasp, much less limit.
Here are my recent posts:
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Squeezed for Decades, America's Working Class Is Finally Up Against the Wall
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Hikikomori and Lying Flat: When "Making It" Becomes Hopeless
The Decay of Everyday Life echoes the title of one of the more important books I've long recommended, The Structures of Everyday Life Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century Volume 1 by Fernand Braudel. The book outlines how changes in the economic structure led to changes in everyday life.
The structures I outline in the five posts describe the economic structures that shape our daily lives and the political and social structures we inhabit. While I focus attention on the way globalization and financialization have hollowed out our economy and increased the precarity of labor, in the larger context we can identify these structural drivers of decay:
1. The balance between labor and capital has been skewed to capital for 50 years. Labor's political power and share of the economy has declined while capital's political and economic power has become dominant. This has driven income-wealth inequality to extremes that are destabilizing the economy and the political-social orders.
Increasing the sums labor can borrow to keep afloat only works until debt service consumes all disposable income, crushing consumption. The end result is mass default of debt and the erasure of debt-based "assets" held by the financial elites (top 10%).
Labor will have to restore the balance with capital or the system will collapse in disorder. History is rather definitive about this causal chain.
2. Process and narrative control have replaced outcomes as the operative mechanisms and goals of the status quo. The illusions of limitless "progress" and "prosperity" have generated a mindset in which outcomes no longer matter, as "progress" and "prosperity" are forces of Nature that can't be stopped, so we can luxuriate in Process--completing forms and compliance documents, submitting reports to other offices, holding endless meetings to discuss our glacial "progress", mandating more Process, elevating managers who excel at Process--with the net result that building permits that were once issued in a few days now take months, bridges take decades to build, and incompetence reigns supreme.
To obscure the dismal outcomes--failure, delays, poor quality, errors--narrative control is deployed, expanded and rewarded. The managerial class has been rewarded and advanced not for generating timely, on-budget, high-quality outcomes, but for managing Process and Narrative Control: everything's going great, and if it isn't, the fault lies elsewhere.
The net result of this structure is that the competent either quit in disgust or or assigned to Siberia, while the incompetent are elevated to the highest levels of corporate and public-sector management.
3. The dominance of monopolies and cartels has fatally distorted markets and politics, undermining the foundations of everyday life. By eliminating competition and buying political-regulatory complicity, monopolies and cartels lock in ample, stable profits, profits that are increased by squeezing labor and reducing the quality and quantity of goods and services, to the point that quality services and goods are either luxuries available only to the elite or simply unavailable at any price, as the knowledge, systems and values required to produce high-quality goods and services have been irrevocably lost.
4. The dominance of digital communications in everyday life has increased the unpaid shadow work we're forced to do and injected new forms of narrative control, digital hypnosis, addiction and derangement into daily life that cannot be reversed in any meaningful way other than drastically limiting our exposure to the toxic flood tide.
So where does this leave us? We're on our own. The status quo is incapable of unwinding the fatal distortions generated by the dominant economic structures, and so it is also incapable of "saving" us from being seated at the banquet of consequences. This is why the only rational response is to focus on increasing our Self-Reliance.
Rather than becoming enraptured by the apologists and cheerleaders proclaiming everything's great, launching a lifeboat and setting a course for land is a strategy with much higher odds of success.
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Site: Novus Ordo Watch
Approved by ‘Pope’ Francis…
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith
Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment
of Alleged Supernatural PhenomenaMay 17, 2024
The Vatican’s text factory has just released another official document: Jorge Bergoglio (a.k.a. ‘Pope Francis’) has approved the publication of an instruction issued by the so-called Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) establishing ‘Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena’. The document does not appear to have an official title besides this descriptive one. The new guidelines are replacing those issued in 1978 under ‘Pope’ Paul VI.
So far, the Vatican has made the text of the Norms available in the following languages:
- Full Text in English
- Full Text in Spanish
- Full Text in French
- Full Text in Italian
- Full Text in German
- Full Text in Polish
- Full Text in Portuguese
The key changes made by the new Norms appear to be that the local bishop no longer has authority to declare an alleged apparition to be of supernatural origin, and the Vatican will ordinarily not rule regarding its supernatural authenticity either.… READ MORE
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Site: Novus Ordo Wire – Novus Ordo Watch
Approved by ‘Pope’ Francis…
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith
Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment
of Alleged Supernatural PhenomenaMay 17, 2024
The Vatican’s text factory has just released another official document: Jorge Bergoglio (a.k.a. ‘Pope Francis’) has approved the publication of an instruction issued by the so-called Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) establishing ‘Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena’. The document does not appear to have an official title besides this descriptive one. The new guidelines are replacing those issued in 1978 under ‘Pope’ Paul VI.
So far, the Vatican has made the text of the Norms available in the following languages:
- Full Text in English
- Full Text in Spanish
- Full Text in French
- Full Text in Italian
- Full Text in German
- Full Text in Polish
- Full Text in Portuguese
The key changes made by the new Norms appear to be that the local bishop no longer has authority to declare an alleged apparition to be of supernatural origin, and the Vatican will ordinarily not rule regarding its supernatural authenticity either.… READ MORE
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Site: Zero HedgeUS Banks Suffer $80BN Deposit Decline, Money Market Fund AUM Rise As Stocks SoarTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 16:40
For the fourth straight week, money market funds saw inflows (+$16.4BN), pushing back towards record highs above the $6 trillion level - the highest level in a month - after the seasonal tax-related dip...
Source: Bloomberg
Retail investors have piled into money funds since the Fed began one of the most-aggressive tightening cycles in decades in 2022. On the institutional side, about $2 billion of cash left prime money-market funds, an indication investors are starting to shift their allocations ahead of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s latest set of regulations, which are slated to take effect later this year.
Source: Bloomberg
In a breakdown for the week to May 15, government funds - which invest primarily in securities such as Treasury bills, repurchase agreements and agency debt - saw assets rise to $4.89 trillion, a $17.2 billion increase.
Prime funds, which tend to invest in higher-risk assets such as commercial paper, saw assets rise to $1.03 trillion, a $1.89 billion increase.
The Fed's balance sheet continues to contract (by a sizable $49BN last week), now at its smallest since Jan 2021. This weekly drop was the largest in three months...
Source: Bloomberg
On a side note, foreign central bank usage of the Fed’s reverse repurchase agreement facility facility rose to the highest level in a year, an indication policymakers around the world added to cash positions.
Source: Bloomberg
As Bloomberg explains, the foreign reverse repo pool, like the domestic RRP, is a place where counterparties can park cash overnight with the Fed. Monetary authorities such as the Bank of Japan can keep a big chunk of funds there earning interest instead of in Treasury bills and other securities. And when they need to do something with those dollars, they can just withdraw it from the facility without ruffling markets.
Additionally, usage of The Fed's Bank Term Funding Program fell $3.1BN in the week through May 15, leaving a still-huge $109.6BN outstanding filling holes on bank balance sheets. Notice that this week's decline basically erases all of the arb-driven flows - leaving the bigger more problematic 'real' borrowing to come...
Source: Bloomberg
After a huge flip-flop in deposits over the last few weeks, seasonally-adjusted total deposits fell $17BN last week...
Source: Bloomberg
But on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, total deposits tumbled $70BN last week...
Source: Bloomberg
Excluding foreign deposits, domestic bank deposits fell $80.6BN (NSA) with Large banks -$83.8BN and Small banks +$3.2BN. On an SA basis, domestic deposits fell $16.8BN (large banks -$28BN, small banks +$11.2BN)...
Source: Bloomberg
On the other side of the ledger, loan volumes shrank last week, dominated by large banks (-$6.2BN) while small bank loan volumes rose $1.9BN...
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, US equity market capitalization surged to a new record high this week, dramatically decoupled from bank reserves at The Fed..
Source: Bloomberg
How will this end?
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Site: Zero HedgeUS Banks Suffer $80BN Deposit Decline, Money Market Fund AUM Rise As Stocks SoarTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 16:40
For the fourth straight week, money market funds saw inflows (+$16.4BN), pushing back towards record highs above the $6 trillion level - the highest level in a month - after the seasonal tax-related dip...
Source: Bloomberg
Retail investors have piled into money funds since the Fed began one of the most-aggressive tightening cycles in decades in 2022. On the institutional side, about $2 billion of cash left prime money-market funds, an indication investors are starting to shift their allocations ahead of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s latest set of regulations, which are slated to take effect later this year.
Source: Bloomberg
In a breakdown for the week to May 15, government funds - which invest primarily in securities such as Treasury bills, repurchase agreements and agency debt - saw assets rise to $4.89 trillion, a $17.2 billion increase.
Prime funds, which tend to invest in higher-risk assets such as commercial paper, saw assets rise to $1.03 trillion, a $1.89 billion increase.
The Fed's balance sheet continues to contract (by a sizable $49BN last week), now at its smallest since Jan 2021. This weekly drop was the largest in three months...
Source: Bloomberg
On a side note, foreign central bank usage of the Fed’s reverse repurchase agreement facility facility rose to the highest level in a year, an indication policymakers around the world added to cash positions.
Source: Bloomberg
As Bloomberg explains, the foreign reverse repo pool, like the domestic RRP, is a place where counterparties can park cash overnight with the Fed. Monetary authorities such as the Bank of Japan can keep a big chunk of funds there earning interest instead of in Treasury bills and other securities. And when they need to do something with those dollars, they can just withdraw it from the facility without ruffling markets.
Additionally, usage of The Fed's Bank Term Funding Program fell $3.1BN in the week through May 15, leaving a still-huge $109.6BN outstanding filling holes on bank balance sheets. Notice that this week's decline basically erases all of the arb-driven flows - leaving the bigger more problematic 'real' borrowing to come...
Source: Bloomberg
After a huge flip-flop in deposits over the last few weeks, seasonally-adjusted total deposits fell $17BN last week...
Source: Bloomberg
But on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, total deposits tumbled $70BN last week...
Source: Bloomberg
Excluding foreign deposits, domestic bank deposits fell $80.6BN (NSA) with Large banks -$83.8BN and Small banks +$3.2BN. On an SA basis, domestic deposits fell $16.8BN (large banks -$28BN, small banks +$11.2BN)...
Source: Bloomberg
On the other side of the ledger, loan volumes shrank last week, dominated by large banks (-$6.2BN) while small bank loan volumes rose $1.9BN...
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, US equity market capitalization surged to a new record high this week, dramatically decoupled from bank reserves at The Fed..
Source: Bloomberg
How will this end?
-
Site: LifeNews
House Republicans have warned the World Health Organization (WHO) that the U.S. may “withhold all funding to the organization” if it goes forward with plans to grant special partnership status to a global abortion lobbying group.
WHO proposed furnishing enhanced “official relations” on the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) — a well-funded, U.S.-based non-governmental organization that attempts to override pro-life laws at the state, national, and international level — last December. WHO’s executive board will decide whether to confer the special relationship at its 155th session on June 3-4. If approved, WHO will draw up “a plan for collaboration” with CRR on “agreed objectives and outlines activities for the coming three-year period.”
“The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) is a radical organization that manipulates international mechanisms to impose abortion on countries,” says a letter from 26 members of Congress to members of the WHO executive board on Thursday. The letter points out that “there is no internationally recognized human rights obligation with regard to abortion either by treaty or customary international law.” As The Washington Stand has noted, “two international conferences on the issue — in Cairo (1994) and Beijing (1995) — ended by affirming, ‘In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning.’” Yet, the congressmen note, “CRR claims that such an obligation exists.”
“This is part of CRR’s well-documented scheme to impose abortion on all countries, undermining sovereignty and bypassing all democratic processes,” write the 26 House Republicans — which include Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Chip Roy (R-Texas), Bob Good (R-Va.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Mary Miller (R-Ill.), and Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.).
LifeNews is on TruthSocial. Please follow us here.
Domestically, the CRR has funded efforts to defeat state pro-life ballot initiatives and has convinced judicial activists to read nonexistent abortion rights into state constitutions after the Dobbs decision. CRR has also sued to overturn bona fide constitutional rights, filing suit to overturn conscience protections for Christian doctors and medical staff who refuse to take part in abortion or transgender procedures/surgeries on religious grounds. When Walgreens and CVS announced they would carry the abortion pill mifepristone, CRR celebrated the fact that Americans could soon pick up an abortion pill “through their neighborhood pharmacy.” A report shows 100% of CRR’s 2024 campaign donations have gone to Democrats, including President Joe Biden, as well as New Age presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson, along with Senators Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Raphael Warnock (Ga.), and Arizona Senate candidate Ruben Gallego.
Internationally, CRR seeks to influence global governance bodies, including the United Nations and WHO, to expand abortion around the globe. Abortion activists at “the Center for Reproductive Rights issue their own reports to these treaty bodies as civil society stakeholders, denouncing what they call human rights abuses in the U.S., and sometimes the treaty bodies take up issues from these stakeholder reports,” Rebecca Oas, the associate director of research for the U.N. watchdog organization Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), told TWS.
For example, in a 2017 comment to the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), CRR asserted, “International law affirms the importance of providing adolescents access to sexual and reproductive health services,” including “contraceptive information and services [and] safe abortion services.” CRR bemoaned the fact that “some [nations] have laws that require parental notification or authorization” for contraception or abortion, complaining that Argentina required parental consent for minors under the age of 14 to receive contraceptives.
CRR recently signaled its intention to weaponize the U.S. State Department’s annual reports on human rights abuses on a nation-by-nation level to promote abortion-on-demand and transgender injections and surgeries. Last month Nancy Northrup, CEO of CRR, called these human rights reports “an invaluable instrument” to pressure nations allegedly “infringing upon the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQI+ individuals by impeding their access to fundamental healthcare services” — which the CRR specifies means “abortion and gender-affirming care in the United States.”
CRR’s tactics sometimes skirt the facts and bleed into medical disinformation, critics say. In January, 33 U.S. pro-life organizations including Family Research Council and The Heritage Foundation, documented how the CRR has “repeatedly compromised scientific evidence in its advocacy materials in favor of its preferred policy outcomes.”
Yet the organization’s methods have prevailed in several nations which had demurred from the Western pro-abortion consensus. CRR’s court-focused abortion-expansion strategy has assured that, as its website boasts, “2.3 billion people across 17 countries are living under stronger protections for reproductive rights.” It does not specify how many people are not living due to its litigation.
The WHO grants “official relations” status to NGOs which “have a sustained and systematic engagement in the interest of” the WHO. “The Center for Reproductive Rights, Inc. has been advancing WHO’s work on reproductive health and rights by advocating for legal progress at national and international levels … in alignment with WHO’s recommendations,” the application states — adding that CRR has already “provided technical input for WHO’s consideration on different subjects.”
The congressmen note that the U.S. is the WHO’s largest national governmental donor and provide WHO with $700 million a year before concluding, “we will look upon a decision to give special status to the Center for Reproductive Rights as evidence that the WHO is unreformable and as a further argument to withhold all funding to the organization.”
Their letter comes as officials have missed their deadline to draw up a finalized text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement before delegates meet on May 27. Conservatives warn the proposed accord would threaten national sovereignty, transform WHO from an advisory body to a world government, further drain U.S. resources, and globalize medical practices and recommendations that manifestly failed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I don’t think there was a single thing that they did that was helpful, but that’s to be expected from an organization that believes that there should be a one-world order,” said Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisc.) on Wednesday’s “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.”
“I’m very concerned that this could be a precursor to one-world governance, because there is power with this, given to the WHO,” replied FRC President Tony Perkins.
The proposed text requires the American government to transfer 20% of all U.S. vaccines, treatments, and personal protective equipment to the WHO for redistribution to “developing countries,” which include China. It establishes a global super-parliament of unelected bureaucrats called the “Conference of the Parties,” which could amend the rules at any time. And it does not allow a nation to stop obeying any agreement it made as a member even after withdrawing from the agreement.
The Biden administration has also engendered controversy with its plan to evade its constitutional duty to receive the Senate’s advice and consent before signing onto the document. Earlier this month, 21 state attorneys general sent a letter to President Biden highlighting “significant legal flaws” with his plan to adopt the accord — which WHO explicitly called a “treaty” until suddenly changing its title to an “agreement” — without Senate ratification. The legal experts added the WHO agreement is a “terrible policy position [and is a] slouch towards a one world government.”
Tiffany introduced the House version of the No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act (H.R. 1425) — a bill introduced in the Senate by his colleague, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) — to force Biden to seek Senate ratification. Tiffany urged “Washington Watch” listeners to lobby their congressmen to support H.R. 1425.
“Tell them to get on that bill so that we are not subject to the whims of international accords that are driven by countries like Communist China,” he told Perkins.
FRC has set up a streamlined website empowering readers to contact their members of Congress about sponsoring the No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act.
LifeNews Note: Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
The post Republicans May Defund WHO if It Partners With Radical Abortion Group appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeWHO's Fascist F**kery: "Homicidal Racketeering Scheme Masquerading As Disease Prevention"Tyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 16:20
Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
“If the government can suspend your rights anytime it deems something is a crisis, you don’t have rights. You have permissions.”
- “Pismo” on “X”
While our country sleepwalks through the deadly aftermath of the evil Covid-19 operation, the World Health Organization (WHO) puts the final touches on a nice bit of fuckery called its Pandemic Treaty on International Health Regulations (IHR) or “One Health” initiative, a Globalist power grab disguised in the saintly white robes of public health medicine. The agreement, to be finalized at the end of this month, will cede what’s left of your liberty to this unelected bureaucracy for the sake of global “equity and inclusivity,” meaning more lockdowns, constant surveillance, forced “vaccinations,” restrictions on medications, and censorship of anyone who voices a contrary opinion of these actions.
Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s Covid-19 all over again, a second crack at controlling everything you do and every choice you might make by a cabal of governments and corporations, in other words, an international gang of fascists. The WHO is an agency of the United Nations, run out of Switzerland. You might recall this is the same place where the World Economic Forum (the WEF, a.k.a. “Davos”) has its headquarters. For years, the WEF has been issuing blueprints for a techno-fascist global regime under which, they state baldly, “you will own nothing and be happy.” (And eat bugs.)
These birds are not kidding around, though anyone can see the megalomania on display, the grandiose will-to-power that seeks to subjugate the plebes of the world — and radically decrease our numbers — so that a remaining tiny elite can enter into a post-modern, techno-transhuman utopia uncluttered with us “useless eaters.” The corporate money and organizational mojo out of Davos is behind what amounts to a homicidal racketeering scheme masquerading as disease prevention.
Of course, the pharmaceutical companies are front-and-center in the mix. They stand to make hundreds of billions of dollars distributing their mandated “vaccines” — which, you know by now, will not be properly tested, and, as currently being demonstrated by the Covid shots, are covertly designed to kill as many people as possible over a long period of time by switching off the natural defenses of your immune system, guaranteeing bewilderment and compliance by the hoodwinked masses. This might sound like a paranoid sci-fi movie, but, alas, the first phase has already happened starting in 2020. And since the pharma companies provide most of the advertising revenue for cable news media, you have been successfully mind-fucked into not seeing what is going on all around you: a whole lot of sickness and death.
Fortunately, it is the nature of megalomania that it always thinks too highly of its power and reaches too far. For one thing, this WHO “treaty” has to be signed by its member nations. Not all of them are eager to do that. One was Slovakia, whose prime minister, Robert Fico, was gunned down a few days after he announced his country would opt out. The coterie of the USA behind the senile and incompetent “Joe Biden,” is avid to sign us onto the treaty, largely because much of global Big Pharma operates out of our country, and rents so many members of Congress, especially most of the Democratic Party.
Under the US Constitution, the president can’t follow through on an international treaty without the Senate’s approval by two-thirds of its members. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) has been the most active figure in that body investigating the crimes of the Covid-19 op and organizing votes against the treaty, which he declares to be all 49 Republican senators. Thus, there can be no two-thirds majority ratification of the WHO treaty.
But note that the shadow government running “Joe Biden” has been doing all kinds of things in overt defiance of the Constitution and the rulings of the US Supreme Court on what is permissible under the Constitution, for instance, cancelling colossal sums of college loan debt. The “Joe Biden” regime is lawless. Anyone following the malicious prosecutions of candidate Donald Trump and the mass round-up of J-6 protestors can see how that works. So, you are advised to call and write your elected representatives in Congress to make sure that the executive branch (the White House and its agencies) gets the message: no deal on the WHO treaty.
There are other trends underway at this time that may assist us in escaping what amounts to a globalist coup d’état. One is that the economic and political crack-up of Western Civ is tending in the opposite direction of the extreme centralization of power that the WHO represents. Things are breaking down, especially things organized at the gigantic scale. Just look at the chaos overtaking corporatized doctor practices and conglomeratized hospitals in America. The corruption and degeneracy of national governments, with their colossal bureaucracies, has reached the stage that few among the people subject to them can fail to notice. That has sapped their legitimacy and prompted citizens to non-compliance with their increasingly insane diktats.
Under the Constitution, the duties not spelled out under federal authority are left to the states. Public health is one of these. Accordingly, the attorney-generals of twenty-two US states have declared their objection to the WHO treaty in a letter to “Joe Biden” and their intent to ignore its commands. What remains to be seen is whether the Globalists can use a new engineered pathogen out of their many bioweapons labs to stir up another pandemic scare to terrorize the world population into being pushed around. Don’t doubt that they will try it, especially in a year when many nations will be holding elections. And don’t get fooled again when they do.
* * *
Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack
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Site: Zero HedgeWHO's Fascist F**kery: "Homicidal Racketeering Scheme Masquerading As Disease Prevention"Tyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 16:20
Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
“If the government can suspend your rights anytime it deems something is a crisis, you don’t have rights. You have permissions.”
- “Pismo” on “X”
While our country sleepwalks through the deadly aftermath of the evil Covid-19 operation, the World Health Organization (WHO) puts the final touches on a nice bit of fuckery called its Pandemic Treaty on International Health Regulations (IHR) or “One Health” initiative, a Globalist power grab disguised in the saintly white robes of public health medicine. The agreement, to be finalized at the end of this month, will cede what’s left of your liberty to this unelected bureaucracy for the sake of global “equity and inclusivity,” meaning more lockdowns, constant surveillance, forced “vaccinations,” restrictions on medications, and censorship of anyone who voices a contrary opinion of these actions.
Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s Covid-19 all over again, a second crack at controlling everything you do and every choice you might make by a cabal of governments and corporations, in other words, an international gang of fascists. The WHO is an agency of the United Nations, run out of Switzerland. You might recall this is the same place where the World Economic Forum (the WEF, a.k.a. “Davos”) has its headquarters. For years, the WEF has been issuing blueprints for a techno-fascist global regime under which, they state baldly, “you will own nothing and be happy.” (And eat bugs.)
These birds are not kidding around, though anyone can see the megalomania on display, the grandiose will-to-power that seeks to subjugate the plebes of the world — and radically decrease our numbers — so that a remaining tiny elite can enter into a post-modern, techno-transhuman utopia uncluttered with us “useless eaters.” The corporate money and organizational mojo out of Davos is behind what amounts to a homicidal racketeering scheme masquerading as disease prevention.
Of course, the pharmaceutical companies are front-and-center in the mix. They stand to make hundreds of billions of dollars distributing their mandated “vaccines” — which, you know by now, will not be properly tested, and, as currently being demonstrated by the Covid shots, are covertly designed to kill as many people as possible over a long period of time by switching off the natural defenses of your immune system, guaranteeing bewilderment and compliance by the hoodwinked masses. This might sound like a paranoid sci-fi movie, but, alas, the first phase has already happened starting in 2020. And since the pharma companies provide most of the advertising revenue for cable news media, you have been successfully mind-fucked into not seeing what is going on all around you: a whole lot of sickness and death.
Fortunately, it is the nature of megalomania that it always thinks too highly of its power and reaches too far. For one thing, this WHO “treaty” has to be signed by its member nations. Not all of them are eager to do that. One was Slovakia, whose prime minister, Robert Fico, was gunned down a few days after he announced his country would opt out. The coterie of the USA behind the senile and incompetent “Joe Biden,” is avid to sign us onto the treaty, largely because much of global Big Pharma operates out of our country, and rents so many members of Congress, especially most of the Democratic Party.
Under the US Constitution, the president can’t follow through on an international treaty without the Senate’s approval by two-thirds of its members. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) has been the most active figure in that body investigating the crimes of the Covid-19 op and organizing votes against the treaty, which he declares to be all 49 Republican senators. Thus, there can be no two-thirds majority ratification of the WHO treaty.
But note that the shadow government running “Joe Biden” has been doing all kinds of things in overt defiance of the Constitution and the rulings of the US Supreme Court on what is permissible under the Constitution, for instance, cancelling colossal sums of college loan debt. The “Joe Biden” regime is lawless. Anyone following the malicious prosecutions of candidate Donald Trump and the mass round-up of J-6 protestors can see how that works. So, you are advised to call and write your elected representatives in Congress to make sure that the executive branch (the White House and its agencies) gets the message: no deal on the WHO treaty.
There are other trends underway at this time that may assist us in escaping what amounts to a globalist coup d’état. One is that the economic and political crack-up of Western Civ is tending in the opposite direction of the extreme centralization of power that the WHO represents. Things are breaking down, especially things organized at the gigantic scale. Just look at the chaos overtaking corporatized doctor practices and conglomeratized hospitals in America. The corruption and degeneracy of national governments, with their colossal bureaucracies, has reached the stage that few among the people subject to them can fail to notice. That has sapped their legitimacy and prompted citizens to non-compliance with their increasingly insane diktats.
Under the Constitution, the duties not spelled out under federal authority are left to the states. Public health is one of these. Accordingly, the attorney-generals of twenty-two US states have declared their objection to the WHO treaty in a letter to “Joe Biden” and their intent to ignore its commands. What remains to be seen is whether the Globalists can use a new engineered pathogen out of their many bioweapons labs to stir up another pandemic scare to terrorize the world population into being pushed around. Don’t doubt that they will try it, especially in a year when many nations will be holding elections. And don’t get fooled again when they do.
* * *
Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack
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Site: PeakProsperityThe NIH has admitted to funding gain of function research in Wuhan. The evil cabal of virologists is in full-blown damage control mode. It's go time people.
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Site: PeakProsperityWe're awfully close to the 'cornered wild animal' stage. They committed mass crimes, and they absolutely refuse to be held even slightly accountable. So, what's next do you suppose?
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Site: LifeNews
Lawmakers, legal experts, and analysts are decrying the nearly five-year prison sentence levied on a pro-life activist as an example of the weaponization of the federal government against citizens with disfavored political views.
On Tuesday, pro-life activist Lauren Handy was sentenced to 57 months in prison for leading a group of other activists in blockading the entrance to a Washington, D.C. abortion facility in October 2020. Handy was prosecuted by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division along with nine other co-defendants and became the first person ever to be sentenced for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The FACE Act was originally designed to protect both pregnancy resource centers and abortion facilities, but the Biden administration has notably used the law to justify the prosecution of pro-life activists on numerous occasions ever since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
“Today’s outrageous 57-month sentence for a progressive pro-life activist is a stark reminder: Biden’s DOJ is fully weaponized against pro-life American citizens, and they are using the FACE Act to do it,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) in a statement following Handy’s sentence. “House Republicans should defund the DOJ weaponization, repeal the FACE Act, and stand up for the freedoms that we campaign on.”
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On Wednesday, Peter Breen, who represents Handy in the case and serves as executive vice president and head of litigation at Thomas More Society, pointed out on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” that in addition to the FACE Act charge, the DOJ unearthed an obscure “conspiracy against rights” law to prosecute Handy.
“They’re using a 10-year felony statute conspiracy against rights that was invented to go after the KKK over 100 years ago and [are] now using it against these peaceful pro-life protesters,” he explained. “You juxtapose them against the over 100 pro-life churches and pregnancy centers that have been firebombed and vandalized, with almost nothing done by the Department of Justice.”
Breen went on contend that that Handy and her co-defendants were specifically targeted by the Biden administration at a time when much more violent crimes have gone unpunished.
“[T]he traditional way you deal with folks doing civil disobedience is they get a trespass charge — you get a slap on the wrist and they move on,” he noted. “I mean, [look at what] we’ve been through in the last five years or so. [O]ur cities have been burned and people weren’t even charged. And now we’re looking at people that peaceably came into a late-term abortion facility where we think we’ve got evidence of illegal abortions [as well as] actual homicides of little children that were born. And our folks are getting five years in a federal penitentiary for that. That makes no sense.”
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins further juxtaposed the prosecution of the pro-lifers with the anti-Israel protestors occupying college campuses across the country.
“You just need to go back a couple of days to look [at] what was happening on some of these college campuses, Columbia University, where they’re breaking into buildings, occupying buildings, destroying property, and at most get a slap on the wrist or maybe expelled from school, not looking at five years in prison for peacefully protesting and advocating for the protection of the unborn,” he observed. “[I]f this does not show how the Biden administration has weaponized the law and the federal enforcement through the Department of Justice, I don’t know what does.”
Breen concurred, remarking that the optics of the sentence duration is getting America’s attention.
“[T]he American people are seeing what’s going on,” he insisted. “I’ve never seen so much sensitivity both [from] political leadership and in the American people. They’re seeing this, and I think it’s getting through. There is a silver lining to this — the people of America are waking up and seeing this sort of thing, and it is driving them to understand the Biden administration is misusing the government.”
As Breen went on to detail, the Biden administration currently has a host of other FACE Act and “conspiracy against rights” prosecutions it is attempting to convict other pro-lifers of.
“[W]e’ve got a similar situation in Tennessee,” he related. “There’s another one in Michigan as well. And our client in Tennessee is Paul Vaughn, who [is] a dad of 11 kids. He’s just a regular guy who was there. In fact, he didn’t even block the door, he was just there for moral support. They swept him in as part of a ‘conspiracy’ to support a First Amendment protected activity. … [But the] Supreme Court was even looking at this recently. Folks have been keyed into it. So we’re very hopeful that we may be able to get at least the felony part, this ‘conspiracy against rights,’ overturned. I mean, look, Dobbs reversed Roe. There is no right to abortion in America. So why are we now dealing with this conspiracy against rights charge? It makes no sense at all.”
Mary Szoch, who serves as director of the Center for Human Dignity at FRC, expressed further alarm at the severity of Handy’s sentence.
“In Matthew 25, Jesus talks about the separation of the sheep from the goats,” she told The Washington Stand. “He says that the King will say to those on His right, ‘For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’ In today’s age, it’s easy to imagine the King also saying, ‘I was being killed in an abortion clinic…’. To Lauren Handy, one can imagine the King adding, ‘and you surrendered yourself to try and rescue me.’”
Szoch continued, “The sentencing of Lauren Handy to almost five years in prison is unjust, politically motivated, and un-American. Lauren and the others — several of whom were grandparents — who peacefully protested the brutal killing of unborn children should be seen as heroes — not violent criminals who deserve jail time. In the District, 67% of crimes go unprosecuted. All one has to do is look at the filming of the rescue to see this was a completely peaceful, non-violent protest. Yet, it was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. What a disgrace. What a tragedy. Lauren and those sentenced along with her should be in all of our prayers. Their witnesses should motivate each of us to do all we can in our state of life to defend the unborn.”
Attorneys with the Thomas More Society representing Handy announced Tuesday that they will file an appeal to overturn her conviction as well as contest the constitutionality of the FACE Act.
LifeNews Note: Dan Hart writes for the Family Research Council. He is the senior editor of The Washington Stand.
The post Biden Used 100 Year-Old Law Targeting KKK to Put Pro-Life Americans in Prison appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeDismal Data Sparks Dollar Dump - Everything Else Rips On Record WeekTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 16:00
US Macro Surprise data declined for the sixth straight week... to its weakest since January 2023...
Source: Bloomberg
But that 'bad news' prompted a run to record highs for risky stocks...
Source: Bloomberg
As the market seems to be completely discounting the collapse in soft survey data...
Source: Bloomberg
The bad news prompted rate-cut expectations to rise on the week (more for 2025 than 2024). Three full cuts priced in for 2025 and two cuts priced in for 2024...
Source: Bloomberg
All of which sent stocks higher on the week led by Nasdaq. Friday saw the majors mixed to flat after a tumultuous week..
In the last few seconds, the algos took The Dow back above 40,000 for its first close above that historic level...
Industrials were the only sector to end the week red while Tech and Financials outperformed...
Source: Bloomberg
The short squeeze at the start of the week faded fast as the week progressed...
Source: Bloomberg
VIX was clubbed like a baby seal back to an 11 handle on the week - decoupling from stocks today...
Source: Bloomberg
Treasury yields ended the week lower, despite the last two days seeing rates rise. The short-end modestly underperformed...
Source: Bloomberg
The dollar tumbled this week, erasing the gains since April's CPI print surge...
Source: Bloomberg
A big week for bitcoin with the largest cryptocurrency back above $67,000 to its highest in six weeks...
Source: Bloomberg
Bitcoin ETFs saw a solid week of inflows (for a change)...
Source: Bloomberg
Oil prices bounced on the week with WTI back above $80 to two week highs...
Source: Bloomberg
Gold surged to a new record closing high this week, its first close above $2400...
Source: Bloomberg
... but most notably, silver dramatically outperformed gold (topping $30) - its best relative weekly performance since August 2020...
Source: Bloomberg
While The Dow topped 40,000 for the first time, it remains a laggard compared to gold for the last few years...
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, how much longer can the market (and The Fed) ignore the surge in inflation surprise data and just watch the de-growth with blinkers on...
Source: Bloomberg
...hoping that the 'bad news' is all that matters to lift rate-cut hopes.
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Site: LifeNews
Some sports stars make headlines for drug abuse or acts of violence, but one football player is taking heat for publicly promoting Christian values. On Saturday, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker delivered the commencement at the Catholic Benedictine College, encouraging young graduates to stand firm in their faith and live out authentic Christian virtues.
Now, the National Football League (NFL) is playing defense and condemning Butker’s speech as offensive. The NFL’s senior vice president and top diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officer Jonathan Beane told media, “Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity. His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.” Others on the Left have been quick to blast Butker, especially for referring to homosexual acts and gender ideology as “deadly sins” and for encouraging women to be mothers and men to be fathers.
A devout Catholic and father of two, Butker acknowledged in his commencement speech that much of what he would say may be unpopular. “These are the sorts of things we are told in polite society to not bring up. You know, the difficult and unpleasant things,” the Chiefs kicker said. “But if we are going to be men and women for this time in history we need to stop pretending that the ‘Church of nice’ is a winning proposition. We must always speak and act in charity but never mistake charity for cowardice.” He explained that he “never envisioned” having the degree of public attention that he does, but added that “God has given it to me so I have no other choice but to embrace it and preach more hard truths…”
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Butker called on Benedictine College’s Catholic graduates to live out their “counter-cultural” Christian faith. He stated, “The world around us says that we should keep our beliefs to ourselves whenever they go against the tyranny of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We fear speaking truth because now unfortunately truth is in the minority.” He derided “abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values and media,” which he said “all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder.” Referring to President Joe Biden, a self-declared Catholic, Butker continued:
“Our own nation is led by a man who publicly and proudly proclaims his Catholic faith but at the same time is delusional enough to make the sign of the cross during a pro-abortion rally. He has been so vocal in his support for the murder of innocent babies that I’m sure to many people it appears that you can be both Catholic and pro-choice. He is not alone. From the man behind the COVID lockdowns to the people pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America, they all have a glaring thing in common: They are Catholic. This is an important reminder that being Catholic alone doesn’t cut it.”
The Chiefs kicker also noted the devastation wreaked by the response to COVID-19, blasting religious leaders for caving to excessive lockdown mandates, and declared that LGBT Pride Month is a celebration of “deadly sin.”
“But make no mistake, before we even attempt to fix any of the issues plaguing society we must first get our own house in order,” he continued, calling on Christian leaders — especially Catholic priests and bishops — to boldly uphold biblical doctrines. Butker told the Benedictine College graduating class, “We must be intentional with our focus on our state in life and our own vocation, and for most of us, that’s as married men and women.”
“Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2024, you are sitting at the edge of the rest of your lives,” Butker proclaimed. “Each of you has the potential to leave a legacy that transcends yourselves and this era of human existence. In the small ways by living out your vocation, you will ensure that God’s Church continues and the world is enlightened by your example.” He encouraged women to embrace their roles as mothers and men to embrace their roles as fathers.
Addressing female graduates, Butker said, “I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you, how many of you are sitting here now about to cross the stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you’re going to get in your career.” He continued, “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world. But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
“To the gentleman here today, part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or in our communities,” Butker stated. “As men, we set the tone of the culture. And when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction, and chaos set in. This absence of men in the home is what plays a large role in the violence we see all around the nation.” He encouraged male graduates, “Be unapologetic in your masculinity. Fight against the cultural emasculation of men. Do hard things. Never settle for what is easy.”
“I believe that this audience and this venue is the best place to speak openly and honestly, about who we are and where we all want to go, which is Heaven,” Butker concluded. “Make no mistake, you’re entering into mission territory in a post-God world. But you were made for this and with God by your side and a constant striving for virtue within your vocation, you too can be a saint. Christ is King to the heights.”
Commenting on the backlash against Butker’s speech, author and publisher at The American Spectator Melissa Mackenzie told The Washington Stand, “Butker kicked a hornet’s nest by denouncing the crass emptiness of a world where people are motivated by selfish desire instead of sacrificial love. So many people lead empty, self-seeking lives, whether it’s trading values for power or trading values for transient sexual pleasure.” She added, “Butker calls these sinners to account and asks them, instead, to return to the truth where peace, fulfillment and salvation lie.”
Mackenzie also stated, “That Butker sees these timeless truths at such a young age and is willing to use his celebrity to express his views is both courageous and necessary. Most people recognize the veracity of his point of view which is why they react so violently to it. Me thinks they doth protest too much.”
Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon told TWS she was glad she was asked to comment on the speech, “because it forced me to read it in full.” What she discovered was a “wonderful” and courageous address.
“As a parent of college age students, I would have been delighted to hear such a speech,” she insisted. “As a student many years ago, I hope I would have been grateful to hear it, and I think I would have. The critical commentary about his remarks is simply ridiculous. He is a devout Catholic speaking to Catholic college graduates by invitation. That he is criticized for speaking strongly about his faith — and calling others to practice the faith whether they are clergy, public figures, or lay faithful — is a sign of our godless times.”
Like it or not, she continued, “In America, we are still free to practice our faiths and speak our minds, if some find that objectionable it proves the necessity of First Amendment protections and basic decency and civility. … His critics will not mention that in his address and by his example, he called on men to be good, strong, loving, and holy men who sacrifice themselves for their wives, families, faith, and country. His advice that the young graduates consider their future decisions about where to live based on whether or not they will be well fed spiritually in their new parish homes was both practical and really important. Having already chosen a college like Benedictine, I suspect it’s advice they will follow.”
The post Here’s Harrison Butker’s Full Speech Celebrating Pro-Life Christian Values appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeDTCC, Chainlink Complete Fund Tokenization Pilot With JPMorgan, Templeton And Other Financial Giants ParticipatingTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 15:40
By Tom Mitchelhill of CoinTelegraph
The world’s largest settlement system, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), and blockchain oracle Chainlink have wrapped up a pilot program with several major banking firms in the United States to increase traditional finance fund tokenization.
The Smart NAV Pilot program was conducted to standardize a method of providing net asset value (NAV) data of funds across blockchains using Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), according to a May 16 DTCC report.
“The pilot found that by delivering structured data on-chain and creating standard roles and processes, foundational data could be embedded into a multitude of on-chain use cases, such as tokenized funds and ‘bulk consumer’ smart contracts, which are contracts that hold data for multiple funds,” it wrote.
These capabilities could support future industry exploration, as well as powering “numerous downstream use cases” like brokerage applications, more automated data dissemination and easier access to historical data for funds, it said.
The pilot helped establish better-automated data management, limited impact on existing market practices for traditional financial institutions, enabled clients to retrieve historical data without manual record keeping and provided broader application programming interface (API) solutions for price data, the DTCC’s report noted.
The United States banking firms that participated in the pilot include American Century Investments, BNY Mellon, Edward Jones, Franklin Templeton, Invesco, JPMorgan, MFS Investment Management, Mid Atlantic Trust, State Street and U.S. Bank.
LINK has gained over 130% in the last 12 months amid a broader uptick in the crypto market.
The DTCC report comes amid wider enthusiasm for real-world asset tokenization from major traditional financial institutions.
On March 19, BlackRock launched a tokenized money market fund dubbed BUIDL on the Ethereum network, offering native U.S. dollar yields.
The fund allows investors to purchase tokens representing shares in the fund, which invests in assets like U.S. Treasury bills. The fund is referred to as the “digital liquidity fund” because it is digitized on the Ethereum blockchain and operates as an ERC-20 token called BUIDL.
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Site: Zero HedgeDTCC, Chainlink Complete Fund Tokenization Pilot With JPMorgan, Templeton And Other Financial Giants ParticipatingTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 15:40
By Tom Mitchelhill of CoinTelegraph
The world’s largest settlement system, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), and blockchain oracle Chainlink have wrapped up a pilot program with several major banking firms in the United States to increase traditional finance fund tokenization.
The Smart NAV Pilot program was conducted to standardize a method of providing net asset value (NAV) data of funds across blockchains using Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), according to a May 16 DTCC report.
“The pilot found that by delivering structured data on-chain and creating standard roles and processes, foundational data could be embedded into a multitude of on-chain use cases, such as tokenized funds and ‘bulk consumer’ smart contracts, which are contracts that hold data for multiple funds,” it wrote.
These capabilities could support future industry exploration, as well as powering “numerous downstream use cases” like brokerage applications, more automated data dissemination and easier access to historical data for funds, it said.
The pilot helped establish better-automated data management, limited impact on existing market practices for traditional financial institutions, enabled clients to retrieve historical data without manual record keeping and provided broader application programming interface (API) solutions for price data, the DTCC’s report noted.
The United States banking firms that participated in the pilot include American Century Investments, BNY Mellon, Edward Jones, Franklin Templeton, Invesco, JPMorgan, MFS Investment Management, Mid Atlantic Trust, State Street and U.S. Bank.
LINK has gained over 130% in the last 12 months amid a broader uptick in the crypto market.
The DTCC report comes amid wider enthusiasm for real-world asset tokenization from major traditional financial institutions.
On March 19, BlackRock launched a tokenized money market fund dubbed BUIDL on the Ethereum network, offering native U.S. dollar yields.
The fund allows investors to purchase tokens representing shares in the fund, which invests in assets like U.S. Treasury bills. The fund is referred to as the “digital liquidity fund” because it is digitized on the Ethereum blockchain and operates as an ERC-20 token called BUIDL.
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Site: Zero HedgeIDF Recovers Three Deceased Hostages, Including 22-year Old Shani LoukTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 15:20
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) made a major, and tragic, announcement on Friday. IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the military has recovered the bodies of three hostages from the Gaza Strip.
The deceased include the body of Shani Louk, the 22-year old girl filmed on Oct.7 lying half-naked, mangled and unconscious in the bed of a pick-up truck while being taken into the Gaza Strip. The military also identified Itzhak Gelerenter and Amit Buskila.
L-R: Shani Louk, Itzhak Gelerenter and Amit Buskila
"Hagari says the bodies were recovered in an overnight operation carried out by the military and Shin Bet," the statement said.
All three had been kidnapped from the Supernova music festival near Re’im on the morning of the heinous terror assault of Oct. 7. They are believed to have died during the events of Oct. 7, murdered by Hamas.
Shocking images and video of Louk's body being paraded around by Hamas had immediately gone viral as news of the terror attack unfolded on the weekend of Oct.7. For weeks there had been speculation over whether she survived the ordeal, or if the video actually showed her deceased, as men sat on top of her.
The family says it is a relief to finally get her remains to Israel:
Shani Louk’s father Nissim tells Channel 12 while today’s announcement that the IDF has recovered her body was difficult to receive, it was also news that he had been waiting for. The family was long ago notified that she had been killed on October 7.
Nissim says military representatives showed him a picture of Shani’s body when they provided the news this morning.
Other than saying it was an "overnight operation" - few other details were given by the military as to exactly where the bodies were recovered or the specific mission details involved.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that he is "heartbroken" by the news their deaths have been confirmed. "My wife Sara and I grieve with the families," he said before vowing "We will return all of our hostages — living and deceased alike."
The body of Shani Louk has finally been rescued from the hands of her abusers and killers.
— Sabrina Miller (@SabriSun_Miller) May 17, 2024
A horrible picture of Shani - stripped topless and lying lifeless on the back of a truck - shocked the world and became a symbol of the brutality of Oct 7. May her memory be a blessing. pic.twitter.com/JBw7u0vmvW"I congratulate our brave forces who, with determined action, returned our sons and daughters home," Netanyahu continued. His words suggest that the recovery came during a high-risk raid as the IDF continues pressing deeper into southern Gaza, and elsewhere fighting in areas where Hamas has returned, such as in the north.
Netanyahu has long been under immense domestic pressure amid large protests led by hostage victims' families who have complained that he has 'forgotten' the hostages while prioritizing the military aim of eradicating Hamas. The protesters want his government to strike a deal for the return of the rest of the captives.
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Site: LifeNews
They keep saying Joe Biden doesn’t support abortions up to birth. Then he promotes it.
Recently, Biden issued a proclamation declaring this week, May 13-May 18, National Women’s Health Week. In the proclamation, Biden pushed for making unlimited abortion available throughout the United States.
In the proclamation, Biden celebrated abortion, falsely claimed abortion is health care, and pledged to restore Roe – which allows abortions up to birth unless states pass laws to prohibit late-term abortions.
Even as we have made progress in expanding access to care and lowering health care costs, the threat to women’s reproductive health is greater today than at any time in generations. In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, millions of women live in States with dangerous abortion bans that put women’s health and lives at risk, force them to travel out of State for care, and threaten doctors with jail time. We are seeing threats to a broad range of reproductive health care, from contraception to fertility services, undermining women’s ability to make decisions about their own futures and families. These are the most personal and private health care decisions that a person can make and should be left to a woman and her doctor, not to politicians. I have signed three Executive Orders to protect access to reproductive health care and will continue to take action to defend reproductive freedom. I will continue to call on the Congress to send me a bill supporting the right to choose. I will sign it and restore Roe v. Wade as the Federal law of the land.
National Right to Life called out Biden’s abortion extremism.
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“The Biden-Harris Administration has prioritized a radical abortion agenda,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “Instead of working to provide real solutions for women and their preborn children, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have engaged in fearmongering and propaganda.”
The Biden-Harris Administration has employed a whole-of-government approach to promoting abortion, using every lever of power at its disposal to make abortions more available and more common, with no care or concern for the innocent unborn children who will die or the mothers who could be harmed.
Tobias continued, “As Joe Biden and pro-abortion Democrats bow to the demands of a multi-million-dollar-a-year abortion industry, they fail women and their unborn children.”
The post Joe Biden Issues Proclamation Celebrating Abortion, Promoting Abortions Up to Birth appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeVitalik Buterin Says OpenAI's GPT-4 Has Passed The 'Turing Test'Tyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 15:00
Authored by Tristan Greene via CoinTelegraph.com,
OpenAI’s GPT-4, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model, has passed the Turing test, according to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
The Turing test is a nebulous benchmark for AI systems purported to determine how human-like a conversational model is. The term was coined on account of famed mathematician Alan Turing who proposed the test in 1950.
According to Turing, at the time, an AI system capable of generating text that fools humans into thinking they’re having a conversation with another human would demonstrate the capacity for “thought.”
Nearly 75 years later, the person largely credited with conceiving the world’s second most popular cryptocurrency has interpreted recent preprint research out of the University of California San Diego as indicating that a production model has finally passed the Turing test.
Source: Vitalik Buterin
Researchers at the University of California San Diego recently published a preprint paper titled “People cannot distinguish GPT-4 from a human in a Turing test.” In it, they had approximately 500 human test subjects interact with humans and AI models in a blind test to determine whether they could figure out which was which.
According to the research, humans mistakenly determined that GPT-4 was a “human” 56% of the time. This means that a machine fooled humans into thinking it was one of them more often than not.
Vitalik Buterin’s take
According to Buterin, an AI system capable of fooling more than half of the humans it interacts with qualifies as passing the Turing test.
Buterin added:
“It means people’s ability to tell if it’s a human or a bot is basically a coin flip!”Buterin qualified his statement by saying, “Ok not quite, because humans get guessed as humans 66% of the time vs 54% for bots, but a 12% difference is tiny; in any real-world setting that basically counts as passing.”
He also later added, in response to commentary on his original cast, that the Turing test is “by far the single most famous socially accepted milestone for ‘AI is serious shit now’. So it’s good to remind ourselves that the milestone has now been crossed.”
The Turing test
Artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the Turing test are not necessarily related, despite the two terminologies often being conflated. Turing formulated his test based on his mathematical acumen and predicted a scenario where AI could fool humans into thinking it was one of them through conversation.
It bears mention that the Turing test is an ephemeral construct with no true benchmark or technical basis. There is no scientific consensus as to whether machines are capable of “thought” as living organisms are or as to how such a feat would be measured. Simply put, AGI or an AI’s ability to “think” isn’t currently measurable or defined by the scientific or engineering communities.
Turing made his conceptual predictions long before the advent of token-based artificial intelligence systems and the onset of generative adversarial networks, the precursor to today’s generative AI systems.
Artificial general intelligence
Complicating matters further is the idea of AGI, which is often associated with the Turing test. In scientific parlance, a “general intelligence” is one that should be capable of any intelligence-based feat. This precludes humans, as no person has shown “general” capabilities across the spectrum of human intellectual endeavor. Thus, it follows that an “artificial general intelligence” would feature thought capabilities far beyond that of any known human.
That being said, it’s clear that GPT-4 doesn’t fit the bill of true “general intelligence” in the strictly scientific sense. However, that hasn’t stopped denizens of the AI community from using the term “AGI” to indicate any AI system capable of fooling a significant number of humans.
In the current culture, it’s typical to see terms and phrases such as “AGI,” “humanlike,” and “passes the Turing test” to refer to any AI system that outputs content comparable to the content produced by humans.
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Site: Zero HedgeVitalik Buterin Says OpenAI's GPT-4 Has Passed The 'Turing Test'Tyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 15:00
Authored by Tristan Greene via CoinTelegraph.com,
OpenAI’s GPT-4, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model, has passed the Turing test, according to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
The Turing test is a nebulous benchmark for AI systems purported to determine how human-like a conversational model is. The term was coined on account of famed mathematician Alan Turing who proposed the test in 1950.
According to Turing, at the time, an AI system capable of generating text that fools humans into thinking they’re having a conversation with another human would demonstrate the capacity for “thought.”
Nearly 75 years later, the person largely credited with conceiving the world’s second most popular cryptocurrency has interpreted recent preprint research out of the University of California San Diego as indicating that a production model has finally passed the Turing test.
Source: Vitalik Buterin
Researchers at the University of California San Diego recently published a preprint paper titled “People cannot distinguish GPT-4 from a human in a Turing test.” In it, they had approximately 500 human test subjects interact with humans and AI models in a blind test to determine whether they could figure out which was which.
According to the research, humans mistakenly determined that GPT-4 was a “human” 56% of the time. This means that a machine fooled humans into thinking it was one of them more often than not.
Vitalik Buterin’s take
According to Buterin, an AI system capable of fooling more than half of the humans it interacts with qualifies as passing the Turing test.
Buterin added:
“It means people’s ability to tell if it’s a human or a bot is basically a coin flip!”Buterin qualified his statement by saying, “Ok not quite, because humans get guessed as humans 66% of the time vs 54% for bots, but a 12% difference is tiny; in any real-world setting that basically counts as passing.”
He also later added, in response to commentary on his original cast, that the Turing test is “by far the single most famous socially accepted milestone for ‘AI is serious shit now’. So it’s good to remind ourselves that the milestone has now been crossed.”
The Turing test
Artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the Turing test are not necessarily related, despite the two terminologies often being conflated. Turing formulated his test based on his mathematical acumen and predicted a scenario where AI could fool humans into thinking it was one of them through conversation.
It bears mention that the Turing test is an ephemeral construct with no true benchmark or technical basis. There is no scientific consensus as to whether machines are capable of “thought” as living organisms are or as to how such a feat would be measured. Simply put, AGI or an AI’s ability to “think” isn’t currently measurable or defined by the scientific or engineering communities.
Turing made his conceptual predictions long before the advent of token-based artificial intelligence systems and the onset of generative adversarial networks, the precursor to today’s generative AI systems.
Artificial general intelligence
Complicating matters further is the idea of AGI, which is often associated with the Turing test. In scientific parlance, a “general intelligence” is one that should be capable of any intelligence-based feat. This precludes humans, as no person has shown “general” capabilities across the spectrum of human intellectual endeavor. Thus, it follows that an “artificial general intelligence” would feature thought capabilities far beyond that of any known human.
That being said, it’s clear that GPT-4 doesn’t fit the bill of true “general intelligence” in the strictly scientific sense. However, that hasn’t stopped denizens of the AI community from using the term “AGI” to indicate any AI system capable of fooling a significant number of humans.
In the current culture, it’s typical to see terms and phrases such as “AGI,” “humanlike,” and “passes the Turing test” to refer to any AI system that outputs content comparable to the content produced by humans.
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Site: Henrymakow.com
(left, Satanyahu's Master Plan for post-war Gaza. Million-dollar condos behind the kosher hot dog stands and peep shows.)Netanyahu Could Fire Defense Chief As Public Spat Erupts Over Gaza 'Day After'Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is at odds with his own defense minister Yoav Gallant after Gallant said in a Wednesday televised address that the Israeli leader must take "tough decisions" on Gaza's 'day after' the war ends. Gallant came out very strongly against any scenario that leaves Israel in charge of overseeing the Gaza Strip. He called for advancing non-Hamas Palestinian governance, which would of course mean the Palestinian Authority (PA, which is made up primarily of Fatah), along with international backing.Times of Israel highlighted that "The public comments, seen as the most direct political challenge to Netanyahu from within his government since the start of the war, sparked an angry backlash among members of the coalition, who urged Netanyahu to fire the defense minister."What made matters worse is that just a few hours prior to Gallant issuing his direct challenge, Netanyahu asserted publicly that any discussions of the "day after" Hamas in Gaza are meaningless until the terror group is defeated.--
In an explosive speech on Wednesday, Gallant stated that he will not consent to Israeli civil or military governance of Gaza, and that governance by non-Hamas Palestinian entities, accompanied by international actors, is in Israel's interest. The newspaper report claims that Gallant's plan, backed by the defense establishment, is to provide such groups with guns, which will be electronically monitored by Israel to prevent them being used by Hamas, and will be part of an overall international effort to help govern the Strip led by Arab nations and backed by the US.--The Pentagon announced Thursday that its floating pier built for Gaza aid has finally been completed and installed. Badly needed humanitarian aid, especially food, will begin being delivered by ships imminently.The completion comes more than two months after President Biden first unveiled the plan, and has been fraught with challenges including inclement weather as well as threats on Hamas against any potential foreign troop presence.The absurdity of US providing food to Gaza and bombs to Israel-
King Charles' Hellish New Portrait Sets the Internet on FirePeople have compared King Charles' new portrait in red to him being covered in blood or burning in Hell. There are demonic images when the picture is mirrored. The painting is an unusual choice because the British Monarchy is in trouble and struggling to survive.According to Princess Diana's friend, Christine Fitzgerald, Diana's nickname for the Windsors was "the reptiles" and used to say that "they are not human."A monarch butterfly sits on Charles' shoulder and some critics suggest that it is a reference to Project Monarch, which is said to be an offshoot of MK Ultra mind control program.-Peter Oborne is a columnist for Middle East Eye.Jewish settlers are waging a war of terror on residents of West Bank. Hamas is not a factor on the West Bank. This is a war designed to eradicate Palestinians.--Max Igan on the Gaza genocide as he gives updated inside info on the ongoing horrors. Here's his latest.The issue facing decent human beings on this matter of genocide supported by their extorted & controlled governments is a complex one. Just contacting one's Reps on the Hill does nothing, although that must be done too. People have a chance to go further to make their views emphatically known.---
Biden raised Tarrifs. China is retaliating by selling treasuries.The US needs to sell 11 trillion worth of its debt every year! Who will buy it?--Iran puts UK, US & France on Notice for Defending Israhell"France, Germany, and the UK should not think that they deployed the planes that night and that the issue was over. Yes, that night was over, but they will be held accountable in due course," he added.-Granny plays a mean guitar!-This is Why I work 55 hours a week-PJW - Israel is robbing the US blindPlus the US is willing to take in the Palestinians!!--Irish are angry their government panders to migrants--Man claims there are vast Direct Energy and other facilities in Antartica---
Reader- "If you want to learn the horrific truth about how hospitals were turned into industrial genocide prisons during the fake pandemic, then read "The Protocol That Kills" by Sheila Skiba. In that book Ms. Skiba describes how the doctors and nurses that tortured her husband (Rick Skiba) to death over 40 days.-The Financial Incentive to Murder and Poison American ChildrenIn an April 16th interview with Polly Tommey, Dr. Paul Thomas, explained how the American medical establishment incentivizes pediatricians to fully vaccinate their young patients, and fines them if they don't. Vaccinations that have been proven to cause more death and harm than the diseases they are said to be preventing.-Some illegal border crossers receive $224 in food and accommodation per day while awaiting processing--Dr. Larry Palevsky: The Vaccine War Has Been a Multi-Decade Attempt To Poison, Kill And Disable The Human Race"...This is not about an attempt to protect you against an organism. This is an attempt to poison you." -
Site: Zero HedgeFormer Facebook And Nike DEI Manager Gets 5 Years For Embezzling $5 Million To Fund Luxury LifestyleFormer Facebook And Nike DEI Manager Gets 5 Years For Embezzling $5 Million To Fund Luxury LifestyleTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 14:40
A former diversity program manager at Facebook and Nike has been sentenced to five years in prison for stealing more than $5 million from Facebook and Nike while working as a DEI executive.
Barbara Furlow-Smiles has been accused of " an elaborate scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fictitious paperwork, and cash kickbacks", a press release from the Department of Justice said this week.
U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan commented: “Furlow-Smiles shamelessly violated her position of trust as a DEI executive at Facebook to steal millions from the company utilizing a scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fake invoices, and cash kickbacks.”
“After being terminated from Facebook, she brazenly continued the fraud as a DEI leader at Nike, where she stole another six-figure sum from their diversity program. Her prison sentence reflects the consequences of her decision to orchestrate an intricate scheme to defraud two of her employers for personal profit,” he added.
Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta added: “As Lead Strategist at Facebook, Furlow-Smiles’ employer put an extreme amount of trust in her, only to have that trust completely violated.”
Farley continued: “After she was fired, she carelessly continued her fraudulent schemes at Nike, thinking she was untouchable. As a result, she not only threw away a lucrative career, but will serve time behind bars for her excessive greed.”
The DOJ commented in their release that Furlow-Smiles served as Lead Strategist and Global Head of Employee Resource Groups and Diversity Engagement at Facebook (now Meta) from January 2017 to September 2021. According to U.S. Attorney Buchanan, Furlow-Smiles misused her position to defraud Facebook by making payments for services never rendered and directing recipients to kick back the money to her.
She linked PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts to her Facebook credit cards to pay associates for nonexistent services, then submitted false expense reports to hide the fraud. The kickbacks were often returned to her in cash or through account transfers, with some payments concealed in packages sent by mail.
Additionally, Furlow-Smiles onboarded vendors owned by friends and associates, approved fraudulent invoices, and received kickbacks from these payments. She recruited numerous individuals, including friends, relatives, and former interns, to participate in the scheme.
After leaving Facebook, Furlow-Smiles worked at Nike as Senior Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion from November 2021 to February 2023, where she was responsible for DEI initiatives and events, including a Juneteenth event in New York.
"In total, Furlow-Smiles stole more than $4.9 million from Facebook and over $120,000 from Nike based on fictitious charges and fraudulent invoices," the DOJ wrote. "She used the money to fund a luxury lifestyle in California, Georgia, and Oregon."
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Site: Zero HedgeFormer Facebook And Nike DEI Manager Gets 5 Years For Embezzling $5 Million To Fund Luxury LifestyleFormer Facebook And Nike DEI Manager Gets 5 Years For Embezzling $5 Million To Fund Luxury LifestyleTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 14:40
A former diversity program manager at Facebook and Nike has been sentenced to five years in prison for stealing more than $5 million from Facebook and Nike while working as a DEI executive.
Barbara Furlow-Smiles has been accused of " an elaborate scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fictitious paperwork, and cash kickbacks", a press release from the Department of Justice said this week.
U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan commented: “Furlow-Smiles shamelessly violated her position of trust as a DEI executive at Facebook to steal millions from the company utilizing a scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fake invoices, and cash kickbacks.”
“After being terminated from Facebook, she brazenly continued the fraud as a DEI leader at Nike, where she stole another six-figure sum from their diversity program. Her prison sentence reflects the consequences of her decision to orchestrate an intricate scheme to defraud two of her employers for personal profit,” he added.
Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta added: “As Lead Strategist at Facebook, Furlow-Smiles’ employer put an extreme amount of trust in her, only to have that trust completely violated.”
Farley continued: “After she was fired, she carelessly continued her fraudulent schemes at Nike, thinking she was untouchable. As a result, she not only threw away a lucrative career, but will serve time behind bars for her excessive greed.”
The DOJ commented in their release that Furlow-Smiles served as Lead Strategist and Global Head of Employee Resource Groups and Diversity Engagement at Facebook (now Meta) from January 2017 to September 2021. According to U.S. Attorney Buchanan, Furlow-Smiles misused her position to defraud Facebook by making payments for services never rendered and directing recipients to kick back the money to her.
She linked PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts to her Facebook credit cards to pay associates for nonexistent services, then submitted false expense reports to hide the fraud. The kickbacks were often returned to her in cash or through account transfers, with some payments concealed in packages sent by mail.
Additionally, Furlow-Smiles onboarded vendors owned by friends and associates, approved fraudulent invoices, and received kickbacks from these payments. She recruited numerous individuals, including friends, relatives, and former interns, to participate in the scheme.
After leaving Facebook, Furlow-Smiles worked at Nike as Senior Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion from November 2021 to February 2023, where she was responsible for DEI initiatives and events, including a Juneteenth event in New York.
"In total, Furlow-Smiles stole more than $4.9 million from Facebook and over $120,000 from Nike based on fictitious charges and fraudulent invoices," the DOJ wrote. "She used the money to fund a luxury lifestyle in California, Georgia, and Oregon."
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Site: Zero HedgeVivek: Democrats Are Giving Biden One Last Chance With DebateTyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 14:20
Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,
Vivek Ramaswamy believes that the Democrats are allowing Joe Biden one last “Hail Mary” by allowing him to participate in a debate against Donald Trump, but that if he fails, as he inevitably will, they will swap him out for a new candidate.
During a Fox News interview, Vivek, who has access within the Trump camp, says he believes the sudden decision to have Biden debate is a “setup.”
“On one hand CNN is hosting it, they’re going to prop up Biden, try to make him look as good as possible. But also note this is the earliest Presidential debate in recorded American history, in June. Why is that?” Vivek stated.
“This is a Hail Mary attempt for Biden as his numbers are tanking,” Ramaswamy further urged, adding “this is their last chance to give him a desperate attempt to succeed, and if he doesn’t, as I expect will be the case, that gives them time to swap out somebody else for the nomination.”
“It’s part of a of a broader plot for a replacement plan they’ve been having in the works,” Vivek concluded.
Watch:
Here’s why the Democrats suddenly let Biden debate Trump: it’s a set-up. It’s their final Hail Mary for Biden. If that fails, they still have enough time to swap Biden out for a new nominee. That’s why it’s in June, the *earliest-ever* presidential TV debate in history. It’s… pic.twitter.com/zCsyXkags9
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) May 17, 2024As we highlighted yesterday, the Biden campaign issued a list of conditions for the debate, and then accused Trump of “playing games” by asking for more debates.
One of the Biden conditions is that RFK Jr is not allowed to take part.
Trump, however, says he is happy for Kennedy to be involved, so long as he meets the support criteria to take part.
Trump told Scripps News on Thursday “I would have no problem if he got whatever the threshold is,” adding “But he’s very low and seems to be heading in the other direction, in the wrong direction.”
Trump followed up with a post stating that he believes Biden doesn’t want RFK in the debate because he is “sharper and far more intelligent than Joe.”
Crooked Joe Biden does not want RFK Jr. in the debates because Junior’ is far left him and they would be debating over the same territory, like ridiculous Open Borders and the Green New Scam, both of which are killing our Country. He’s also sharper and far more intelligent than… pic.twitter.com/siZWcu08VD
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) May 16, 2024Kennedy himself said he will “meet the criteria,” and looks forward to taking part.
I’m happy to report that I will meet the criteria to participate in the @CNN debate before the June 20 deadline. I look forward to holding Presidents Biden and Trump accountable for their records in Atlanta on June 27 to give Americans the debate they deserve. #KennedyShanahan24
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 15, 2024CNN has stated that in order to take part in the debate, candidates must receive at least 15% support in four polls and appear on enough state ballots to reach 270 Electoral College votes.
Kennedy’s campaign claims to be officially on the ballot in six states and expects to qualify for eight more.
RFK also accused Trump and Biden of “trying to exclude me,” which he says “undermines democracy.”
Presidents Trump and Biden are colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70% say they do not want.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 15, 2024
They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win. Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy.…Whatever happens, it’s going to be hilarious to watch:
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Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.
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Site: Novus Motus LiturgicusFollowing up on yesterday’s post, here are some pictures of a few other churches in Prague taken by Fr Lawrence Lew, Dominican friar and photographer extraordinaire. We start with the Carmelite church, where the famous statue known as the Infant of Prague is kept. There will be a few more posts of this sort over the next couple of weeks; once again, we thank Fr Lew for sharing his beautiful work Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: LifeNews
Doctors in the Netherlands will euthanize a Dutch woman just because she has autism and deals with mental health issues as a result.
Zoraya ter Beek, a 28-year-old woman dealing with depressing, ahs been granted the right to be killed in an assisted suicide. She is scheduled to be euthanized before the end of the month.
Ter Beek, who lives in a little Dutch town near the German border, once had ambitions to become a psychiatrist, but she was never able t complete her education because of her mental health condition. She said she was hobbled by her depression and autism and borderline personality disorder. Now she was tired of living—despite, she said, being in love with her boyfriend, a 40-year-old IT programmer, and living in a nice house with their two cats.
The woman says her psychologist told her they had tried everything to treat her depression, saying that “there’s nothing more we can do for you. It’s never gonna get any better.”
At that point, she said, she decided to die. “I was always very clear that if it doesn’t get better, I can’t do this anymore.”
Unfortunately, ter Beek has not connected with a Christian faith before making the decision — a faith that could give her the hope she needs.
“I’m a little afraid of dying, because it’s the ultimate unknown,” she said. “We don’t really know what’s next—or is there nothing? That’s the scary part.”
Her case is sadly not unique. The 2023 Netherlands euthanasia report was recently released indicating a 20% increase in euthanasia deaths for mental illness.
A leading irish psychologist has spoken out against euthanizing people like ter Beek.
Maria Maynes was published by RIPT on April 9, 2024 concerning the debate to legalize euthanasia in Ireland. Maynes interviewed Consultant psychiatrist, Professor Patricia Casey, a specialist in Adult Psychiatry. Maynes reportes:
recent cases unfolding worldwide involving physically healthy young people should provide evidence to Irish lawmakers that “the slippery slope exists,” as she expressed particular concern about those with autism choosing assisted suicide or euthanasia.
Last month, this publication also reported on the Canadian case of an unnamed 27-year-old woman, who was also autistic, and had chosen to die by physician assisted suicide. While the father of the unnamed woman tried to intervene through court action, arguing that she did not have the ability to consent to the death under Canada’s MAiD programme, his intervention was unsuccessful.
There have also been cases in Belgium, where Asperger’s (now subsumed under the autistic spectrum) is among the most common conditions for which Belgians seek euthanasia on mental health grounds, alongside personality disorders and depression.
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Maynes quoted Casey as stating:
“There is a danger that when young, autistic people see a problem that they will look for what they see is a simple solution, or a trendy solution,” she said.
Casey also stated:
“I was struck by the photograph of 28-year-old Zoraya ter Beek in the Netherlands, who was pictured surreally embraced in the arms of her boyfriend while announcing that she was due to die on May 28th. This photograph conceals the turmoil and nihilism behind her decision and may well be used in the future to promote assisted dying as a calming answer to one’s problems.”
Professor Casey compares the issue to the romanticizing of suicide that was successfully countered by national campaigns. Professor Casey fears that the same type of romanticizing of death by euthanasia will also occur.
The post Doctors Will Euthanize Healthy 28-Year-Old Woman Just Because She’s Autistic appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: RT - News
Any possibility of a military escalation over the self-governing island should be excluded, the bloc’s foreign policy chief has said
The EU should be firm about ensuring that a military conflict doesn’t break out over Taiwan, which it considers part of a “one single China,” the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said.
Tensions around the self-governing island, which Beijing considers to be an inalienable part of China, have been rising as the US maintains unofficial ties with the Taiwanese government and supplies it with defensive weapons.
Speaking to Foreign Policy magazine during a trip to California this week to meet tech leaders and state officials, Borrell touched on a number of issues, including tech regulation, EU-US relations, China, and geopolitical conflicts, as well as the EU’s position on Taiwan and a potential military conflict.
“We keep saying the same thing: We believe that we have to decrease tensions, we have to respect the statute of war, and we have to exclude any possibility of a military solution to the problem,” Borrell told the outlet.
“Our fixed position is we don’t recognize the statehood of Taiwan and we will not do it. It’s one single China. It means that we are not going to recognize the statehood of Taiwan; we will have economic and cultural relations with this territory without recognition of statehood,” he said.
He added that the EU calls on all nations “to understand that there is not a military solution to this problem.”
Borrell has repeatedly stated that Taiwan is “absolutely crucial” for the EU economically, particularly due to its strategic role in the production of the most advanced semiconductors.
In April 2023, he suggested that European navies should patrol the disputed Taiwan Strait “to show Europe’s commitment to freedom of navigation.” Those comments followed Chinese military exercises around Taiwan, during which Beijing simulated targeted strikes and a blockade of the island following a meeting between the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and the US House speaker at the time, Kevin McCarthy.
Read more
US ‘shooting itself in the foot’ by arming Taiwan – Beijing
Taiwan was the last refuge of nationalist forces during the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, and has since remained de facto independent from Beijing and allied with Washington.
Under the ‘One China’ policy, which forms the core of the Chinese government’s relationship with Taiwan, Beijing seeks the peaceful reintegration of the island and the prevention of any attempt to declare it a sovereign nation, threatening to use military force if necessary.
Beijing has insisted that Taiwan’s status is a domestic issue and has urged foreign governments not to interfere. Chinese officials have criticized Washington for repeatedly expressing support for the Taiwanese government and concluding defense contracts with the island’s military.
Last month, the US approved a multibillion-dollar foreign aid package of which over $8 billion was designated for Taiwan to “counter communist China and ensure a strong deterrence in the region.”
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Site: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention CoalitionNew Hampshire's 2024 assisted suicide bill is dead (Link)
The New Hampshire Senate killed Assisted Suicide Bill HB 1283 by a vote of 17 to 7 by referring it to an interim study on the bill.
Sruthi Gopalakrishnan reported on May 16, 2024 for the Concord Monitor that:
New Hampshire’s bill also did not have a residency restriction, which was a point of worry for senators who voted against the bill during the Senate session.
“We’ve discussed in this chamber passing legislation to prevent us from becoming magnets for crime, drugs, human trafficking and more,” said Sen. Regina Birdsell, asking the Senate to refer it to an interim study. “This bill because it has no residency requirements would make our state a magnet for a much more tragic purpose.”
The question of whether this law is assisted suicide or a humane way to die has dominated the debate in New Hampshire for the past few months and this was evident in Thursday’s senate session.Gopalakrishnan reported that Canada's experience affected the New Hampshire debate:
Other concerns about the bill stem from Canada’s decision to extend medical aid in dying to even individuals without a terminal illness. While New Hampshire’s legislation imposes safeguards, includes provisions for self-administration of medication to prevent potential abuse among the disabled population, critics fear future expansions. They worry that similar to developments in Canada, eligibility criteria could be broadened beyond the original scope. The assisted suicide lobby will try again next year. Gopalakrishnan reports
Although medical aid in dying won’t reach the governor’s desk this year, advocates emphasize that the push to legalize it in New Hampshire will persist, asserting that the decision to conclude one’s life with dignity should remain within the individual’s control.The President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Gordon Friesen, sent members of New Hampshire's Senate his article titled: A call to defeat New Hampshire assisted suicide House Bill 1283 (Link).
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Site: AsiaNews.itUnless there are special cases decided by the pontiff, the Church will no longer issue declarations on the supernatural nature of such phenomena, but will only issue a non-committal recognition of their pastoral value when there are no mystifications. These phenomena are associated with many shrines in Asia.
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Site: Zero HedgeDoctor Fined For Prescribing Ivermectin Against COVID-19Tyler Durden Fri, 05/17/2024 - 13:40
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
A doctor in Washington state has been fined for prescribing ivermectin against COVID-19. He must also take continuing education classes, according to newly filed documents.
Dr. Wei-Hsung Lin must pay $5,000, according to an order signed by the Washington Medical Commission on May 2.
Ivermectin is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treating several conditions, including parasitic worms. Prescribing medicine for unapproved usage is common in the United States, but administration officials have warned against prescribing and using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment. Regulators have pointed to a database of clinical trials, some of which found ivermectin did not confer a benefit against COVID-19 and some of which found ivermectin was beneficial against the illness.
Dr. Lin, who also signed the order, admitted to prescribing ivermectin to five people without detailing how the prescriptions were off-label, the risks involved, and alternative treatments.
One patient, a 71-year-old female, tested positive for COVID-19 at the emergency room on June 23, 2021. She saw Dr. Lin in a telemedicine visit the following day. He prescribed her 12 milligrams of ivermectin daily for five days after stating that a “substantial body of literature” showed ivermectin was “effective as a one-day therapy or five-day therapy.”
The woman went back to the hospital after taking ivermectin for four days but not seeing improvement. She was ultimately discharged and recovered.
In another case, Dr. Lin prescribed ivermectin to a 69-year-old male for COVID-19. Dr. Lin prescribed extra ivermectin because the man’s wife also had COVID-19. Neither the husband nor wife ended up taking the ivermectin because they went online and “observed the warnings about ivermectin for COVID-19 as well as the possible negative effects for those with heart conditions,” the order states.
Dr. Lin’s treatment was “below standard of care” in part because he did not discuss alternative treatments, according to the document. No alternatives are listed in the document. In 2021, remdesivir was the primary government-approved treatment for some COVID-19 patients.
Authorities also faulted Dr. Lin for not discussing COVID-19 vaccines with his patients.
According to the order, Dr. Lin’s actions constituted unprofessional conduct, defined in state law as “any act involving moral turpitude, dishonesty, or corruption relating to the practice of the person’s profession, whether the act constitutes a crime or not.”
The order prohibits Dr. Lin from prescribing ivermectin off-label to patients in Washington state and from prescribing any medication or providing care for patients without first establishing a doctor-patient relationship.
It also requires him to review the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UpToDate websites for current COVID-19 guidelines, take continuing medical education classes on preventing, treating, and managing COVID-19 and establishing a doctor-patient relationship, and write two papers of at least 1,000 words describing what he learned from the websites and classes.
The commission or its designee is also going to make annual compliance visits, including reviewing a random selection of records, and says Dr. Lin must appear within 12 months, and subsequently on an annual basis, at a date and location determined by the commission as part of compliance oversight.
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, said that the conditions are “extremely onerous” and require work that would “enormously increase the burden of practice and probably drive most physicians out of practice altogether.”
“Ivermectin is an extremely safe drug—much safer than most drugs physicians prescribe without all the ‘informed consent’ discussions demanded here,” Dr. Orient told The Epoch Times in an email.
“As to informing patients of alternatives, the reasons patients were calling this doctor was likely that no alternatives were available. It was ‘isolate and go to ER if you get worse.’”
She recommended doctors avoid Washington state if they’re able.
The Washington Medical Commission did not return an inquiry.
Dr. Lin is employed by the Kadlec Regional Medical Center clinic in Richland.
“After being made aware of an alleged violation by one of our providers, we fully cooperated with the Washington State Department of Health throughout their investigation. While Kadlec does not recommend or allow ivermectin for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19, we respect the rights of patients and physicians to discuss and explore all available treatment options, based on patients’ unique health and medical situations,” a spokesperson for Kadlec told The Epoch Times in an email.
“We remain dedicated to providing high-quality care for all patients we serve, and we are pleased this matter has been resolved.”
If Dr. Lin had contested the allegations, the commission would have heard arguments and then ruled, potentially suspending his license. The commission has already ruled against several doctors who prescribed ivermectin for COVID-19, most recently forbidding pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole from practicing medicine in the state for five years.
“Dr. Lin was willing to fight this all the way but when we looked the risk-reward matrix we felt—and he felt—it was in his best interest to go ahead and settle,” Pete Serrano, an attorney with the Silent Majority Foundation representing Dr. Lin, told The Epoch Times.
“He was ready to kind of close the chapter and move on with his life,” Mr. Serrano added later.
Dr. Lin was initially facing a $25,000 fine and harsher repercussions but negotiations on the settlement ended up reducing some of the penalties.
Dr. Lin can petition to terminate the order in three years.
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Site: RT - News
Some US defense contractors are reportedly already there, repairing weapons provided to Kiev
Several US allies within NATO are “inching closer” to sending soldiers into Ukraine to train its armed forces, the New York Times has reported. Some American military contractors are already on the ground to repair US-supplied weapons systems.
Facing troop shortages, the government in Kiev has asked the US and NATO to “help train 150,000 new recruits” inside Ukraine, so they could be sent to the front faster, according to the American outlet.
The move “would be another blurring of a previous red line” and could draw the US and the EU “more directly into the war,” the Times noted. Although the White House has publicly opposed sending instructors, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff thinks it is inevitable.
“We’ll get there eventually, over time,” General Charles Q. Brown Jr. told reporters on Thursday, while traveling to Brussels.
One problem with deploying NATO instructors to Ukraine would be having to shift already scarce air defenses away from the battlefield in order to protect them from Russian air and missile strikes, the Times noted. According to the outlet, the US would be obligated to defend any NATO instructors inside Ukraine from attack, “potentially dragging America into the war.”
Read more
Ukraine situation ‘incredibly dire’ – Washington
French President Emmanuel Macron first raised the issue of sending NATO troops to Ukraine back in February, as an idea that should not be ruled out. Estonia and Lithuania have since expressed support for either sending instructors or support troops, to free up Ukrainian soldiers for combat duty.
The White House is “adamant” that it will not put American troops on the ground in Ukraine – including instructors – and has urged NATO allies not to do it either, an anonymous White House official told the Times.
Meanwhile, Britain, France and Germany are working on a plan to send contractors to maintain weapons in the combat zone, the US outlet has revealed. Though the US has banned defense contractors from going to Ukraine, “a small number have already been allowed in, under State Department authority, to work on specific weapons systems like Patriot air defenses,” the Times noted.
American instructors used to be part of a NATO training program in Yavorov, in western Ukraine, but were withdrawn in early 2022. Russia has since struck the facility with missiles multiple times.
NATO has trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops in Germany, Poland, the UK and elsewhere. Western tactics have proven less than adequate during the summer 2023 offensive, however. The Times has described the Ukrainian battlefield as “far different and more intense than what American forces have fought on in recent years.”
READ MORE: Here’s why Russia’s Kharkov offensive is far more than just a military setback for Kiev
According to anonymous US military officials, training inside Ukraine would allow American instructors “to more quickly gather information about the innovations occurring on the Ukrainian front lines, potentially allowing them to adapt their training.”
Earlier this week, British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said that “moving training closer” to Ukraine would make sense, but added that London did not want to put British troops on the ground.
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Site: LifeNews
Catholic League president Bill Donohue wrote the following letter today to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell regarding the controversy over Harrison Butker. Please contact his communications chief: Brian.McCarthy@nfl.com
May 17, 2024
Mr. Roger Goodell, Commissioner
National Football League
345 Park Avenue
NY NY 10154Dear Mr. Goodell:
NFL senior vice president Jonathan Beane addressed the commencement speech by Kansas City Chiefs’ player Harrison Butker as follows: “Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity. His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.”
So by stigmatizing Butker—in effect excluding him—for defending Catholic moral theology, you are flexing your inclusion muscles? Nice to know what you think about Catholicism—that is the real issue. Too bad you couldn’t cite a single sentence that was objectionable.
Your credibility has long been shot. I will do what you cannot do—I will be specific in my criticisms of the NFL.
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I wrote to you on October 11, 2011 about your decision to invite Madonna to perform at the 2012 Super Bowl. A week earlier I spelled out my concerns (which I repeated in December). Here is what I said.
In 2004, the NFL disinvited ‘N Sync’s JC Chasez from performing during the halftime of the Pro Bowl game. It objected to the sexist lyrics of his songs. This led me to draw a comparison with the NFL’s handling of Madonna, citing her frequent “offensive lyrics, lewd behavior and misappropriation of sacred symbols.” I also mentioned her repeated mocking of “the heart and soul of Christianity: Jesus, Our Blessed Mother, the Eucharist and the Crucifixion.” But none of that bothered the NFL one bit. So revealing.
In 2013, when asked about the propriety of the Washington NFL team using the name “Redskins,” you said, “If one person is offended, we have to listen.” But you didn’t listen when Catholics flooded your office with complaints following my statement on Madonna.
A lot more than one person was offended in 2018 when you announced a long-term extension of your partnership with Nike. Nike uses slave labor in China, exploiting the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority. Yet in 2019 you lauded your relationship with Communist China.
Anti-Catholicism doesn’t bother you, but racism does. In 2022 you authorized a host of anti-racism slogans to appear on the players’ apparel. If you were consistent you would condemn both expressions of bigotry, but you are not. And you certainly wouldn’t approve slogans like “End Abortion” to appear on players’ jerseys.
Earlier this year the NFL paired with an anti-Catholic organization, GLAAD, during the Super Bowl. You celebrated “A Night of Pride with GLAAD.” This is the same organization that heralded the decision of the Los Angeles Dodgers to honor a viciously anti-Catholic group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, at its June 16, 2023 game.
There is no question that you would veto any decision to give a platform to a group that celebrates gay bashing. But when it comes to allowing a group that bashes Catholics, you are okay with it.
Harrison Butker speaks for millions of Americans, not all of whom are Catholic. The contempt you have shown for him, Benedictine College and Catholicism is repugnant. You are also a classic phony.
Sincerely,
William Donohue, Ph.D.
President
The post NFL Partners With Nike, Which Uses Slave Labor, But Slams Harrison Butker appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: LifeNews
The Justice Department’s Kristen Clarke issued a statement this week celebrating news that seven pro-life activists would spend time in prison for attempting to stop abortions from taking place.
Clarke, who heads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and is responsible for enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, painted the pro-life activists as violent radicals in her remarks: “Violence has no place in our national discourse on reproductive health.”
The activists’ actions were non-violent, and the DOJ’s release on the matter even notes that they “passively” resisted “their anticipated arrests.”
“Using force, threatening to use force or physically obstructing access to reproductive health care is unlawful,” she added, before referring to the 1993 murder of a Florida abortionist. “As we mark the 30th anniversary of the FACE Act, it’s important that we not lose sight of the history of violence against reproductive health care providers including the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Florida — tragic and horrific events that led to passage of the law.”
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The FACE Act is a 1994 law that supposedly protects both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, but has been heavily enforced by President Joe Biden’s DOJ against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“The Justice Department will continue to protect both patients seeking reproductive health services and providers of those services,” the DOJ official concluded. “We will hold accountable those who seek to interfere with access to reproductive health services in our country.”
Lauren Handy is the pro-life activist who received the longest sentence. She will spend 57 months in prison and was the first person sentenced for violating the FACE Act.
The enforcement of the FACE Act is led by Clarke, who, following a report from The Daily Signal, recently admitted that she hid an arrest and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post.
The president’s critics have accused Biden and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe would soon be overturned.
Some, among them Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act, arguing that it serves no purpose but to target pro-life activists.
“The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for non-violent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal in a Tuesday statement.
“Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law,” he added, “and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.”
The DOJ’s release on the seven pro-lifers who sentenced to prison time this week describes how the pro-life activists, motivated by a desire to protect unborn babies from abortion, planned a “blockade” at Washington Surgi-Clinic in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The pro-life activists describe this type of activity as a “rescue,” hoping to stop mothers from aborting their unborn.
Under the FACE Act, such activity is considered a crime. The FACE Act prohibits use of force, obstruction, or property damage intended to interfere with “reproductive health care services.” Since 2022, the year the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Justice Department has hit at least 40 pro-life activists with FACE-related charges at five different rescues or blockades.
The DOJ describes the D.C. event as a “clinic incursion,” noting that “the defendants met with other co-conspirators to plan their crime, which included making a fake patient appointment to ensure the group’s entry into the clinic, using chains and locks to barricade the facility and passively resisting their anticipated arrests to prolong the blockade.”
“The clinic invasion was advertised on social media as a ‘historic’ event that was live-streamed on Facebook,” the DOJ said “The defendants’ forced entry into the clinic at the outset of the invasion resulted in injury to a clinic nurse. During the blockade, one patient had to climb through a receptionist window to access the clinic, while another laid in the hallway outside of the clinic in physical distress, unable to gain access to the clinic.”
The case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg pointed to the matter as evidence that “the FBI and our judicial system will not tolerate the obstruction of civil rights.”
“The FBI will continue to investigate FACE Act violations in all jurisdictions, so patients and providers can exercise their right to receive or provide lawful reproductive health care without the threat of violence or intimidation,” he added.
LifeNews Note: Mary Margaret Olohan writes for Daily Signal, where this article originally appeared.
The post Top Biden Official Kristen Clarke Celebrates Throwing Pro-Life Americans in Prison appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: AsiaNews.itAccording to police, the lone, armed man who carried out the attack early this morning belonged to Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people.
Source: Bloomberg
L-R: Shani Louk, Itzhak Gelerenter and Amit Buskila
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