RPI Director Daniel McAdams joins RPI Board Member Judge Andrew Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” program to discuss how Congress skirts its Constitutional obligations while exceeding its Constitutional authority. They also discuss the riots in Los Angeles and the use of the National Guard and Marines. Will Trump attack Iran? The signs are worrying:
Dr. Theresa Burke was a graduate student in psychology in the 1980s when, leading a support group for women with eating disorders, she made a discovery that would change her life – and the lives of millions of others:
Most of the women in the group had an abortion in their past.
This discovery prompted Dr. Burke to look for resources to help these women deal with the trauma left behind by their abortions but she found there were no resources for post-abortion healing.
Rachel’s Vineyard was born. Now the world’s largest ministry for healing after abortion, Dr. Burke and her husband, Kevin Burke, a licensed social worker, developed the weekend retreat program that has spread to 49 states and 70 countries, is offered by numerous Catholic dioceses and has a retreat manual translated into dozens of languages.
In 2019 the Peruvian Rachel’s Vineyard team met with then-Monsignor Robert Prevost to ask for his blessing and support for their new Rachel’s Vineyard (El Viñedo de Raquel) site in the Diocese of Lima. Now we know him as Pope Leo XIV.
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Rachel’s Vineyard became a ministry of Priests for Life in 2004, and both of the Burkes are full-time members of our Pastoral Team.
In 2006, Dr. Burke discovered something startling about those who attend and lead Rachel’s Vineyard retreats: A majority of them have experienced sexual abuse. Grief to Grace: Healing the Wounds of Abuse was born.
Grief to Grace offers a five-day retreat program to women and men who have suffered any kind of abuse – physical, emotional, sexual or even neglect.
“It’s a beautiful journey that Jesus travels alongside us as a fellow abuse survivor,” Dr. Burke said. “We know from the Passion that Jesus was terribly abused. We know he understands what abuse survivors have gone through probably better than anyone.”
Through rituals that will be particularly meaningful to Christians, licensed counselors and compassionate volunteers help participants recall the circumstances of their abuse and help them recognize the coping mechanisms that have allowed them to survive but kept them from living fully.
“Many abuse victims have been conditioned to blame themselves,” she said. “Our goal is ending the isolation and the fear that something is inherently wrong with you that you can’t move on. We help them rearrange their relationship with their trauma.”
The program has spread solely through word of mouth and is now in 25 countries and several states. Grief to Grace has attracted many Rachel’s Vineyard leaders who have not had abortions themselves but have other trauma, or abuse, in their lives. Dr. Burke said the program frequently has Roman Catholic priests and nuns as participants.
“The language for their beliefs we have not seen in other therapy,” Dr. Burkes said. “When we can unite our suffering to Christ, we are on our way because he does the heavy lifting.”
Some attendees will use the program as a springboard to deeper healing but some others, she said, “feel so free that they don’t want to waste another minute of their lives,” being controlled by the past abuse.
While working on Grief to Grace, several personal experiences converged that prompted Dr. Burke to develop another retreat. Duty to Heal helps military veterans and law enforcement professionals reconcile – and grieve – the moral injuries suffered in war and violence.
For information on any of the healing programs – Rachel’s Vineyard, Grief to Grace and Duty to Heal, go to LivingScriptureInstitute.org
“You really can heal,” Dr. Burke said. “We have seen the miracles.”
LifeNews.com Note: Frank Pavone is the national director for Priests for Life.
The post Abortion and Abuse Keep People From Relationships With God, But Help is Here appeared first on LifeNews.com.
I’m thrilled to share that the House Judiciary Committee has voted H.R. 589, the FACE Act Repeal Act, sponsored by Congressman Chip Roy, out of Committee with a 13-10 vote.
This critical step toward ending the abuse and discriminatory enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act reflects years of our tireless advocacy, hard-hitting litigation, and your unwavering support through it all.
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act has long been weaponized to target pro-life advocates, used especially aggressively by Biden’s Department of Justice as a cudgel to punish pro-life speech and peaceful expression with felony charges carrying crippling penalties.
As Thomas More Society Executive Vice President & General Counsel, yesterday I was in meetings all day and on the committee floor monitoring the vote—answering any last-minute legal questions lawmakers had, after having briefed their staff, arming them with the best legal arguments backing the repeal of the FACE Act.
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This monumental vote is a culmination of years of Thomas More Society advocacy efforts, from directly working with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to providing detailed legal analyses and briefing senators, members of congress, and their staffers exposing the FACE Act as being unconstitutional and far too susceptible of being weaponized and rally support for its repeal.
This committee vote is a significant milestone, but we need your urgent help to keep the momentum going, because our opposition won’t let FACE be repealed without a fight.
Our defense of pro-life heroes targeted under the FACE Act across the country was the spark that lit the fire behind this repeal battle—but we haven’t let up outside of the courtroom either.
All the while, I’ve been in constant contact with lawmakers and their staff, providing them with hundreds of pages of legal arguments in favor of repealing the FACE Act, meeting with them repeatedly.
In May 2023, our client and pro-life dad, Mark Houck, testified before a congressional subcommittee, sharing his chilling experience of the early morning SWAT-style FBI raid on his home and weaponized prosecution by the Biden DOJ—sparked by baseless FACE Act charges. His story laid bare the law’s abuse.
In December 2024, TMS Senior Counsel Steve Crampton and our client Paul Vaughn, another pro-life dad targeted under the FACE Act, testified before the same congressional subcommittee in a watershed hearing, exposing another egregious abuse of government power by telling the harrowing story of his early morning SWAT-style arrest and prosecution.
This January, our team of attorneys submitted to the incoming Trump Administration a formal pardon request package for the pro-lifers unjustly convicted after being hauled into federal court by Biden’s DOJ, calling on President Trump to deliver on his campaign promise of restoring justice.
Backed with our sound legal arguments, unshakeable evidence, and our pro-life clients’ full testimonials, President Trump pardoned 23 of our pro-life heroes.
Then in February, we were back on Capitol Hill, where TMS Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation Peter Breen presented powerful arguments before another house subcommittee, highlighting the FACE Act’s abuse, selective enforcement, and urgent need for repeal.
We are forging the momentum behind yesterday’s vote by the House Judiciary Committee to send the FACE Act repeal bill to the floor of the House.
LifeNews Note: Andrew Bath is Executive Vice President & General Counsel of the Thomas More Society.
The post The FBI Raided Mark Houck’s Home Because He’s Pro-Life. That Must Never Happen Again appeared first on LifeNews.com.
In a recent editorial in The New York Times entitled, “The Delusion of Porn’s Harmlessness,” Christine Emba challenged the dogma that suggests anything goes in the bedroom as long as everybody consents. Emba, the author of the book Rethinking Sex, goes on to slam the feminist Left for being unable to admit that pornography has been terrible for society and promotes objectification and violence against women. All this, in fact, even when everybody involved technically consents.
And yet, many feminists and progressives still indulge the fantasy that porn can be made and imbibed “ethically.” Emba thinks that’s because they are deeply afraid of sounding like religious killjoys:
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Criticizing porn goes against the norm of nonjudgmentalism for people who like to consider themselves forward-thinking, thoughtful and open-minded. There’s a dread of seeming prudish, boring, uncool. … Most recently, the only people who seem willing to openly criticize the widespread availability of pornography tend to be right-leaning or religious, and so are instantly discounted—often by being disparaged as such. But cracks are beginning to appear in the wall.
Emba’s critique of the sexual revolution is one of those cracks. Because she writes for a secular, left-leaning audience, her work has been a necessary challenge to our cultural delusions, including the myth that “porn can be harmless.”
In fact, a growing chorus of mainstream, non-religious voices, such as Nicholas Kristof and Louise Perry, are now arguing that much of what was called “sexual liberation” victimized the vulnerable and degraded our society. These critics are right as far as they go. However, they don’t go far enough.
Even the harshest critics of porn and sexual “freedom” seem unable or unwilling to say that sex belongs exclusively within marriage and that honoring this Divinely blessed union is the one and only healthy sexual ethic. In her book, Emba proposed that partners should refuse to objectify each other and instead “will the good” of the other, drawing on Thomas Aquinas’ definition of love. Aquinas, of course, believed monogamous marriage is exclusively where this kind of love happens. As my Breakpoint This Week co-host Maria Baer observed in her review of Emba’s book, “Before we can will the good of another, we’ll have to know what ‘good’ means. … We don’t need a new sexual ethic. We need to recover a really, really old one.”
That recovery requires not only a clear and stable definition of “good,” but it also will require a new definition of “freedom.” After all, the rallying cry that brought us infinitely accessible and increasingly dangerous pornography, not to mention hookup culture, rampant unwed births, the spread of STDs, the normalization of divorce and abortion, Harvey Weinstein, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and a generation burned out from all of it was the promise of “sexual freedom.”
Specifically, it was a cry that reduced freedom to only freedom from rules, responsibilities, and constraints. It was never a call to freedom for our purpose or anyone’s good. This is a deeply impoverished view of what freedom is, and one that dismisses the most important questions about sex: What is sex for? What are our bodies for? What are we for? We were told that the only answer to these questions is, “to do or be whatever I want!” But that type of freedom has proven to be profoundly dehumanizing and enslaving and has left uncountable victims.
Christians should never be embarrassed to speak to what is true about human nature and God’s design for us. We absolutely should stop listening to the many voices, especially the ones claiming to be Christian, who tell us to be less “obsessed” with sex and focus on social justice issues. Even secular writers are beginning to recognize that justice and sexual ethics are connected and rooted in our culture’s lies about sexual freedom.
We have every reason to be confident in our “really old” sexual ethics. The Bible was ahead of the curve on this, and the revolution was wrong. The only sexual ethic capable of protecting and enhancing the good of all involved is the covenantal view of marriage. In other words, we do not need an adjustment to our culture’s idea of sexual freedom. We need to be liberated from it.
LifeNews Note: John Stonestreet writes for BreakPoint.org. This article was originally posted here. This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris.
The post “Sexual Freedom” is Hurting Relationships, Porn and Abortion are Destroying Society appeared first on LifeNews.com.
Four months after her resignation as chairman of the United States Libertarian Party, Angela McArdle has been singled out for ostracism by the Libertarian National Committee (LNC) that oversees the party.
“Whereas the Special Investigatory Committee finds that former Chair Angela McArdle violated her fiduciary duty to the Libertarian Party by concealing conflicts of interest and misusing donor funds, be it hereby resolved that the Libertarian National Committee deems Angela McArdle unfit to serve on the Libertarian National Committee, as an affiliate leader or as a candidate representing the Libertarian Party,” read a resolution the LNC approved at its Monday meeting.
The report referenced in the LNC resolution was made public by the LNC at the meeting as well. The report can be read here.
For a short description of some of relevant details from the report, check out here a Tuesday article by Jordan Willow Evans at Independent Political Report.
Earlier this week, 38-year-old Justin Anthony Banta was arrested in Texas on charges of capital murder after allegedly dosing his pregnant girlfriend with “Plan C” (abortion pills), likely procured online.
“Operation Rescue has raised the alarm again and again about the abortion cartel’s ‘Virtual Back-Alley,’” says Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “Cash for pills and no questions asked.”
Banta is an IT employee with the Department of Justice. In September, his girlfriend told him she was pregnant. According to a press release from Parker County Sheriff’s Office, Banta “proposed to cover the cost of an abortion and suggested they order the ‘Plan C’ online.”
Banta’s then-girlfriend refused the offer, telling him she wanted to keep the baby.
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The following month, on October 17, Banta’s girlfriend went in for a six-week ultrasound. The girlfriend reported her baby had a strong heartbeat and was said to be healthy. She met Banta at a coffee shop sometime after the appointment.
The very next day, she became extremely tired and experienced heavy bleeding. She sought emergency care but reportedly lost her baby on October 19, just two days after coffee with Banta. Later, she told police she believed Banta dosed her drink with abortion pills.
Detectives conducted an interview with Banta and collected his phone as evidence. Afterwards, investigators believe Banta accessed his phone remotely and performed a “reset,” deleting evidence related to the possible purchase or internet search of “Plan C.”
Banta was arrested on Friday, June 6, for capital murder and tampering with physical evidence.
“This is the perilous world the FDA created when it removed nearly all safety guards from the abortion drug, mifepristone,” says Newman. “Anyone can order these pills – an angry boyfriend like Banta, a sexual abuser trying to hide his crimes, even a vengeful, jealous co-worker. As it stands right now, there are no protections in place to prevent these abortion pills being obtained for nefarious purposes. The FDA has literally opened the door for forced abortions.”
Thanks to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the FDA has recently been tasked with conducting a complete review of mifepristone, focusing on the safety of the drug. No timeline has been announced for that review.
“This case raises another pressing question,” adds Newman. “This man will be tried for the intentional, seemingly pre-meditated murder of his own child in the womb, facing capital punishment for a capital crime. How is this intentional murder by a father any different than when a mother orders pills, knowing those pills will kill her child, and then ingests them of her own free will? The rise of the Virtual Back-Alley creates a devastating scenario where the mother becomes the abortionist in the privacy of her own home. She can plan the death of her child – the time, the means, and the location – from her phone. How long can we shield one parent for such a crime, while prosecuting the other parent?”
LifeNews Note: This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America. The author, Sarah Neely, is Chief Operating Officer for Operation Rescue.
The post Man Faces Murder Charge for Killing His Own Unborn Child appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a reconciliation bill hailed as a significant pro-life victory, which will defund major abortion companies like Planned Parenthood and redirect support to women, children, and families.
The legislation is now waiting action in the U.S. Senate, where a critical vote is expected soon, according to Jennie Bradley Lichter, president of March for Life Action.
The bill, which also aims to save taxpayer dollars, includes measures that Lichter described as a “major pro-life victory” that would “defund Big Abortion and support women, children, and families across our nation.”
She credited grassroots efforts for the House passage, stating, “Thank you to all of you who contacted your U.S. Representatives and helped make this happen!”
But action is needed now to urge senators get the bill over the finish line – first with a vote in the full Senate without pulling the language to defund Planned Parenthood.
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Lichter urged immediate action to ensure Senate support, emphasizing the bill’s potential to advance pro-life goals.
“Now, the fate of the bill and its pro-life provisions rest in the U.S. Senate’s hands, and a vote is just around the corner,” she said. “If it passes, you, me, we — the pro-life movement — will be one step closer to defunding Big Abortion — and saving countless lives.”
Highlighting the stakes, Lichter pointed to Planned Parenthood, which she called “one of the biggest players in Big Abortion.” She noted the organization is “actively rallying their pro-abortion activists to counteract your voice” and noted that Planned Parenthood “is singlehandedly responsible for ending the lives of over 400,000 children in 2022-2023 alone, all while receiving $2 million a day in taxpayer funding.”
Lichter called on supporters to contact their senators to back the bill, which she said carries “powerful pro-life and pro-family implications.” She stressed the need to counter pro-abortion advocacy, adding, “Our women and girls deserve better than abortion.”
The Senate vote’s outcome remains uncertain, with pro-life and pro-abortion groups intensifying efforts to sway lawmakers. The bill’s passage could reshape federal funding priorities, potentially redirecting resources away from abortion providers toward family-focused programs.
The post Action Needed to Urge Senate to Defund Planned Parenthood appeared first on LifeNews.com.
A new Gallup poll has revealed that the percentage of surveyed Americans who say they are pro-life has risen two points since last year to 43%, a number that is consistent with past survey results over the last two decades. Experts say the numbers suggest that the efforts by the Democratic Party, pro-abortion activists, and the mainstream media to sway the American electorate towards widespread acceptance of abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision have been largely unsuccessful.
The survey, released Monday, was based on phone interviews of a random sampling of 1,003 American adults from every state and the District of Columbia from May 1-18. The results showed that the gap between men and women who say they are pro-choice has widened since Dobbs, with 61% of women and 41% of men identifying as such.
Gallup noted that the pro-choice position “jumped into a 16-point lead” in 2022 after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and has remained ahead of the pro-life position since then. Still, the pro-choice position dropped to 51% this year compared to 54% last year. In addition, the percentage of Americans who say abortion should be legal “under any/most circumstances” dropped since last year, while the percentage who say abortion should be legal in “only a few/Illegal in all circumstances” rose since last year and is now almost even at 49% to 48%.
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In terms of partisanship predicting views on abortion, Charlotte Lozier Institute scholar Michael New pointed out Monday that the Gallup results show that “Democrats have become more sympathetic to legal abortion, and Republicans have become less supportive. Interestingly though, this most recent Gallup survey found a short-term reduction in support for legal abortion among both Republicans and Democrats.”
Overall, the 43% of Americans who say they are pro-life is largely consistent with percentages in past Gallup polls stretching back 25 years. The number reached a low of 33% in 1995 and peaked at a high of 51% in 2009, with the percentage fluctuating up and down between 40 and 50% in the intervening years.
“[P]ro-lifers should take heart,” New, who also serves as an assistant professor at the Catholic University of America, observed. “This Gallup survey shows that since May of 2021, the percentage of Americans identifying as ‘pro-choice’ has increased by only two percentage points. While there have been gains in support for legal abortion among Democrats and independent women, Republicans have actually become more pro-life in recent years. The mainstream media spin that there has been a large gain in public support for legal abortion is simply incorrect. Despite an onslaught of negative media coverage about recently enacted pro-life laws, pro-life sentiment has actually remained remarkably durable.”
Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, emphasized that the poll results should compel the pro-life movement to redouble their efforts to witness to the culture.
“The Dobbs decision was not the end of abortion in America,” she told The Washington Stand. “The pro-life movement has considerable work to do educating Americans about the dignity of the unborn. This work starts in our homes with our own children, but then, we must continue it with our friends and neighbors. Those conversations are difficult to have at first, but sharing the truth in love is always worth it — regardless of the cost.”
“This poll should serve as encouragement for each of us to share the joy and blessing that children are with at least one person today,” Szoch concluded.
LifeNews Note: Dan Hart writes for the Family Research Council. He is the senior editor of The Washington Stand.
The post Three Years After Dobbs, Americans are Becoming More Pro-Life on Abortion appeared first on LifeNews.com.
Will New York become the 12th state to legalize assisted suicide? That decision officially rests in the hands of Governor Kathy Hochul (D).
On Monday, the New York State Senate passed the Medical Aid in Dying Act (MAID). The vote was 35-27, “with six Democrats — Senators April Baskin, Siela Bynoe, Cordelle Cleare, Monica Martinez, Roxanne Persaud, and Sam Sutton — voting against it,” the New York Post reported. If signed, MAID allows mentally competent adults with six months or less to live to request and self-administer medication for physician-assisted suicide.
State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D) hailed the legislation as “one of the great social reforms of our state.” The senator, who also co-sponsored the bill in the upper chamber, went on to claim, “This is about personal autonomy, this is about liberty, this is about exercising one’s own freedom to control one’s body.” Similarly, state Senator Rachel May (D) said MAID “isn’t about controlling the disease or controlling the pain, it’s about having control at the end of your life.”
But critics of the bill are raising ethical and practical concerns, arguing that the legislation, unlike similar laws in the 10 other states and D.C. where assisted suicide is legal, lacks critical safeguards. “Under the bill,” the Post added, “recipients would need approval from two doctors and a sign-off from two independent witnesses, after which they would receive a prescription for drugs they could use to take their life at a time of their choosing. Doctors also do not have to conduct a mental health screening for each patient, but may refer a patient for one under the legislation.”
ACTION ALERT: Tell Governor Kathy Hochul to veto the dangerous assisted suicide bill.
Questions linger as to whether there is any statutory waiting period that would serve in “establishing [a] clear chain of custody for the pills, mandating the doctor and recipient meet in-person, and requiring a disclosure that someone indeed used the drugs to take their own life.” This, Hoylman-Sigal claimed, is “rational.” However, opposition to the bill is fierce, with critics framing it as a dangerous step toward normalizing suicide.
National Review branded New York as the “state of death.” The New York Post called the legislation “monstrous.” Others described Monday’s decision as “a dark day.”
“For the first time in its history,” said Dennis Poust, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, “New York is on the verge of authorizing doctors to help their patients commit suicide. Make no mistake — this is only the beginning, and the only person standing between New York and the assisted suicide nightmare unfolding in Canada is Governor Hochul.” In a statement, The New York Alliance Against Assisted Suicide added, “The governor still has the opportunity to uphold New York’s commitment to suicide prevention, protect vulnerable communities, and affirm that every life — regardless of disability, age, or diagnosis — is worthy of care, dignity, and protection.”
Chairman Gerard Kassar of the Conservative Party of New York also urged Hochul to veto the “dangerous legislation.” As he put it, “This legislation is not about dignity — it’s about surrender.” Rather than “investing in pain management, mental health services, and real palliative care, the Democrat-led Senate wants to offer death as a substitute for support. It’s appalling.” He added, “The so-called ‘right to die’ becomes a duty to die when insurance companies realize it’s cheaper than treatment, or when an overwhelmed caregiver sees no alternative. There is nothing progressive about normalizing suicide. This isn’t a left vs. right issue — it’s right vs. wrong. Governor Hochul has a chance to stop this madness and draw a line for decency and life.”
Hochul, however, has yet to reveal her stance. Her office has only stated that she “will review the legislation,” leaving both supporters and opponents anxiously awaiting her decision. As lobbyists from both sides press their cases, the debate underscores profound moral and ethical questions about life, dignity, and compassion. In a comment to The Washington Stand, Family Research Council’s Mary Szoch put it bluntly: “Physician-assisted suicide is a false form of compassion — one that has no place in America.”
Szoch, director of FRC’s Center for Human Dignity, went on to explain, “Each of us must recognize that true compassion means a willingness to suffer with someone else — to be there every single step of the journey of life. Proponents of assisted suicide may believe that a person’s dignity can be lost if their capacity to live autonomously decreases. However, as Christians, we are called to witness to the truth that a person’s dignity is immutable because that dignity comes from being a son or daughter of Christ.”
LifeNews Note: Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand, where this originally appeared.
The post Kathy Hochul Should Stop New York From Becoming 11th State to Legalize Assisted Suicide appeared first on LifeNews.com.
After yesterday's mediocre, if solid, 3Y auction nerves were less on edge ahead of today's sale of $39BN in 10Y paper. And with good reason: moments ago the Treasury announced the result of today's benchmark auction and they were nothing short of stellar.
The auction priced at a high-yield of 4.421%, up from May's 4.350% but down from April's "freak out" 10Y sale when the bond priced at 4.465%. The auction also stopped through the When Issued 4.428% by 0.7bps, the 4th consecutive through in a row, if more modest than last month's 1.2bps, and certainly April's 3.0bps.
The bid-to-cover was a bit on the weak side, at 2.52, down from 2.60 last month, and the lowest since February; it was also below the six-auction average of 2.59.
The internals were solid, with Indirects almost unchanged from last month, as foreigners took down 70.6% of the auction, vs 71.2% last month. And with Directs awarded 20.5%, up from 19.9% in May and the highest since January, Dealers were left holding 9.0%, up ftactionally from 8.9% last month and the 3rd lowest on record.
Overall, this was an impressive auction, coming at a time when the global surge in duration supply has made it very dangerous to sell debt (especially in Japan). But in the US, animals spirits are back right now, and the market is clearly buying anything and everything, which is why 10Y yields slumped to session lows, just north of 4.40% after the auction and the lowest in the past week.
House Republicans have advanced a bill that would roll back the federal government’s ability to fine or imprison peaceful pro-life advocates, while Democrats slurred its Republican sponsors as “terrorists” who want to “green light violence” and see women raped, abused, and killed.
On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee approved the FACE Act Repeal Act (H.R. 589) by a 13-10 vote. The legislation, introduced multiple times by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), would delete the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act — a Clinton-era law that prohibits blocking the entrances to any abortion facility, reproductive health office, or house of worship — from the books. The act, which would codify President Donald Trump’s executive orders on “Ending The Weaponization Of The Federal Government,” “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment,” and “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias,” now moves forward for a vote before the full House.
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“What the Biden-Harris administration did to peaceful pro-lifers like Mark Houck, Paul Vaughn, and Lauren Handy, among many others, can never be erased. The FACE Act is unconstitutional, and today’s committee vote on its repeal is an important step to restoring justice for the pro-life advocates who were targets of weaponized prosecutions and for restoring the rule of law for all,” Peter Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation at the pro-life Thomas More Society, told The Washington Stand. The Thomas More Society legally represented many of those charged and successfully petitioned President Trump to pardon 21 sidewalk counselors.
Pro-life advocates have long condemned the one-sided enforcement of the FACE Act, which Roy said Democratic administrations had “politicized and weaponized against people across this country, including people of faith” nationwide. “The Biden Department of Justice brought almost a quarter of all the FACE Act prosecutions, 24% of all charges targeting pro-life activists, in less than four years” while “turning a blind eye to the anti-life activists engaged in destroying, vandalizing, and even firebombing pregnancy resource centers and churches at the same time.”
Only 8% of Biden-Harris FACE Act cases were against those who vandalized pro-life pregnancy centers, he said. Studies show pro-life pregnancy resource centers are 22 times more likely to be attacked than abortion facilities. The Biden-Harris administration also declined to prosecute a single one of the 436 church attacks that took place in 2024 under the FACE Act.
Legal experts highlighted that, for the first time, the Biden-Harris administration charged peaceful pro-life advocates with violating both the FACE Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act’s ‘Conspiracy Against Rights’ felony provisions (18 U.S.C. § 241). Together, the charges could bring more than a decade in prison. “The previous administration weaponized the FACE Act to prosecute nonviolent pro-life Americans with the harshest sentences,” said Roy.
“Since 1994, 97% — I repeat that — 97% of FACE Act prosecutions have been against pro-lifers,” added Rep. Bob Odner (R-Mo.). The Biden-Harris administration particularly engaged in thuggish, intimidating behavior against peaceful pro-life activists,” including Mark Houck and Paul Vaughn. Odner described the disproportionate prosecution of Christian conservatives as the “intended effect of the FACE Act.”
For three decades, “the FACE Act was always intended as a cudgel against pro-life speech, with 97% of prosecutions brought by the DOJ over its 30-year history having targeted pro-lifers,” Breen told TWS. “Our clients — loving moms and dads, grandparents, priests, and nonviolent people of faith — have faced harsher charges and sentences than convicted drug dealers and fraudsters.”
“To ensure this never happens again and to protect the constitutional rights of peaceful pro-lifers to advocate against the injustice of abortion, Congress must repeal the FACE Act,” said Breen.
Some ‘Resistance’ from the Trump Administration against Repealing the FACE Act
Yet Roy revealed he had been “getting some resistance even from our own [Trump] administration” over entirely repealing the FACE Act, saying DOJ officials “will use it to defend churches more.” Likewise, Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) threatened, “If this bill comes out of committee,” she will tell “the rabbis and members of the Jewish community in my district” that “the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee no longer care about enforcing federal law when it comes to our synagogues.”
Still, Roy said he remained concerned about the general plague of “overcriminalization” and “the overempowerment of the Department of Justice … regardless of who’s in the White House.”
One Republican opposed the bill: Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) called himself pro-life and found the Biden-Harris administration guilty of “the abuse of this act.” But McClintock claimed the FACE Act “protects every person, pro-life or pro-abortion, in their right to assemble and express their views openly.”
“When this bill was drafted, great pains were taken to keep its enforcement balanced,” claimed McClintock, who said he wanted to see the act amended rather than repealed, because “the law itself is viewpoint-neutral.” He stated the law is “important to protect the pro-life [minority] in California.”
“I’m glad to hear you oppose this bill,” Nadler, one of the authors of the 1994 bill, told McClintock.
Roy remained steadfast. “Freedom is just an illusion when the government buries its own citizens under ridiculous and never-ending criminal laws,” Rep. Roy told TWS. “Almost any American could be indicted [and] charged from some crime, often without even knowing they had violated a law or regulation.” The Texas conservative’s comments came as his committee marked up another of his bills, the Count the Crimes to Cut Act of 2025, intended simply to come up with a formal list of all crimes in the federal register.
Democrats: Pro-life Advocates Are ‘Terrorists’ Who ‘Want’ Women to Be Raped, Abused, or Killed
Rather than debate the act’s history of lopsided legal enforcement, most of the committee’s Democrats maligned the motives of Roy and others who sought the punitive bill’s repeal.
“The only people in America who are asking for this legislation to be repealed are terrorists,” averred Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who said opponents had “a sick obsession” with “telling women what to do with their bodies.” Said Trump does not support nonviolent protests, because he just sent Marines to oppose “protesters” in Los Angeles.
“This is a green light for more violence against women,” said Swalwell.
“We have people in this body who are essentially saying it is okay to harm, to hurt, maybe even to kill someone,” insisted Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.). After discussing a woman who was raped and assaulted by her male partner, she said, “If you want to repeal this, you’re saying it’s okay for that to happen to her.” She then claimed those who wanted to repeal the weaponized FACE Act had violated their faith, saying, “You cannot be a Christian and condone that kind of activity.”
“We’re considering this legislation for one reason: to green light violence against abortion care in this country. … The reason the FACE Act exists is because anti-abortion extremists refuse to renounce violence,” asserted Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.).
“There is only one reason” anyone would want to repeal the FACE Act, agreed Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.): “They want to see violent obstruction.”
Several Democrats — including the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) — dismissed concerns that a judge had jailed a 75-year-old grandmother who prayed peacefully at an abortion facility by citing a “fact-check” from Associated Press reporter Melissa Goldin, claiming the elderly Paulette Harlow had been arrested for a FACE Act violation, not prayer. Harlow allegedly blockaded the Washington Surgi-Center, where pro-life advocates discovered the bodies of five viable babies who had possibly been subjected to illegal late-term abortions by Cesare Santangelo. Media and social media “fact-checkers” have been documented misinforming the public about the origins of COVID-19, the efficacy of masks, and natural immunity; the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop; and abortion’s safety. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee who has handed down numerous pro-abortion opinions, sentenced Harlow to two years and dismissed concerns over Harlow’s age and ill-health, telling her husband that the 75-year-old should “make an effort to remain alive,” since pro-life beliefs are “a tenet of her religion.”
“No, you are not being arrested for praying. You are being arrested for making threats,” insisted Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.). “There is no evidence that there is selective enforcement here, that the FACE Act has been weaponized against abortion protesters.”
Nadler similarly decried “the slanders against the FACE Act.”
President Trump has taken executive action to protect pro-life advocates and end the weaponization of government rampant under his predecessor. In his first week in office, President Donald Trump fulfilled a campaign promise made at the 2023 Pray Vote Stand Summit and pardoned 23 pro-life advocates convicted of violating the FACE Act during the Biden-Harris administration. The president said they “should not have been prosecuted” and called their imprisonment “ridiculous.”
“This is a great honor to sign this,” said President Trump.
But pro-life advocates say executive actions turn on a dime with the change of administrations. For peaceful sidewalk counselors to rest easy, lawmakers must expunge the underlying law from the nation’s legal code.
“We are grateful for the House Judiciary Committee’s leadership on this crucial matter, applaud the passage of Rep. Chip Roy’s FACE Act Repeal bill, and urge Congress to send it to the president’s desk,” Breen told TWS.
LifeNews Note: Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
The post Republicans Fight to Protect Free Speech Rights of Pro-Life Americans appeared first on LifeNews.com.
Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,
Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Brodksy said that Israel transferred US-made Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine but was contradicted by his Foreign Ministry. They were unconvincing though so ties with Russia might be harmed after its UN envoy warned of “certain political consequences” last summer if this happened. The region has changed since then after Hezbollah chief Nasrallah was killed, Assad fled Syria, and Iran resumed nuclear talks with the US, however, so such consequences might be limited.
After all, it’s no longer realistic to countenance the scenario of Russia arming Hezbollah, finally allowing Syria to use its S-300s to defend itself from attacking Israeli jets, or providing other forms of indirect support to the Resistance in its regional proxy war with Israel that’s now practically lost. Those were always far-fetched to begin with, but now they’re less likely than ever, thus suggesting that Russia will probably just file a formal complaint and at most flirt with designating Israel as an “unfriendly country”.
Nevertheless, the second possibility can’t be taken for granted seeing as how Israel is reportedly lobbying the US to keep Russia’s bases in Syria as a counterweight of sorts against Turkiye, and the recent Trump-Bibi rift could be taken advantage of to present Putin as a more reliable partner. Moreover, Israel still doesn’t formally comply with the West’s anti-Russian sanctions, yet its leadership might finally relent if Russia officially designates them as “unfriendly”, so the Kremlin will probably tread cautiously.
The preceding insight contextualizes why Israel waited until now to finally transfer some of its US-made Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine. Considering that the realistic range of Russia’s retaliatory options is now limited, Bibi likely calculated that the harm to bilateral ties will be manageable, ergo why Israel wouldn’t have much to lose by going through with this. As for why he did so, it might be an attempt to curry favor with US hawks, hoping that this can in turn mitigate the consequences of his rift with Trump.
This unnecessary zero-sum gamble didn’t reap any tangible dividends, however, as evidenced by the continued tensions in their ties. To the contrary, it revealed how desperate Bibi has become that he’d now risk harming ties with Russia with the expectation that this would then return Israel to the US’ good graces, which makes him look worse than before in the eyes of objective observers. The recent pressure has clearly clouded his thoughts otherwise he wouldn’t have done this.
Trump and his like-minded allies certainly took note of his calculations and might soon exploit them to the hilt, knowing as they do now how desperate Bibi has become and consequently sensing that they might now be able to extract more concessions from Israel than ever. This could take the form of getting Israel to agree to some level of Iranian nuclear enrichment as part of the deal that they’re negotiating with it instead of Israel unilaterally bombing Iran in the scenario that such a deal is reached.
Interestingly, while Israel’s transfer of some US-made Patriot missiles might harm ties with Russia, it might therefore worsen ties with the US even more if Trump makes politically unacceptable demands of Bibi after sensing how much weaker he’s become as a result of their recent rift. In response, Bibi will either capitulate at the expense of losing more support from his base, or he’ll defy the US at the expense of Israel’s national security if he goes through with bombing Iran but is then hung out to dry by Trump.
Finally some actual detail around what was actually agreed upon during yesterday's trade talks.
With questions swirling about the fate of Chinese rare earth exports to the US under the "framework", the WSJ reports that China is putting a six-month limit on rare-earth export licenses for U.S. automakers and manufacturers, giving Beijing leverage if trade tensions flare up again while adding to uncertainty for American industry.
Chinese negotiators agreed to the temporary restorations of the licenses after the latest round of intense talks with their American counterparts in London, aimed at upholding an interim agreement forged in Geneva last month.
In exchange, the U.S. negotiators agreed to relax some recent restrictions on the sale to China of products such as jet engines and related parts, as well as ethane, a component of natural gas important in manufacturing plastics.
According to people who consult with senior Chinese officials, Beijing wants to keep its chokehold on the supply of such critical commodities as leverage for future negotiations and when, not if, trade relations turns sour again.
During the London meetings, China agreed to approve rare-earth license applications for U.S. companies right away, pending the signoff of President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the trade framework. The earliest an application could be approved is within a week of the two leaders officially signing off on the framework originally established in meetings last month in Geneva.
The WSJ source noted that as China approves the applications, the US will start to drop its countermeasures, including export controls on the jet engines and ethane.
In other words, the US now has six months to create its own rare earths supply chain or else Beijing will be able to use this trump card during the next negotations.
Trump said Wednesday that the deal with China to restore the trade cease-fire was done, subject to final approval from himself and the Chinese leader. “FULL MAGNETS, AND ANY NECESSARY RARE EARTHS, WILL BE SUPPLIED, UP FRONT, BY CHINA,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, without giving additional details on the Chinese commitment.
China’s grip on rare-earth exports has become a key point of leverage for Beijing in trade negotiations with the U.S. In the wake of the trade truce in Geneva in mid-May that was expected to ease the flow, Washington accused Beijing of slow-walking export licenses. Beijing, in turn, blamed the Trump administration for undermining the Geneva agreement.
As part of the trade framework, the temporary rare-earths licenses Beijing is expected to start issuing immediately will mostly involve elements used in manufacturing electric vehicles, wind turbines, consumer electronics and military equipment.
Authored by Connor O'Keefe via The Mises Institute,
One of the reasons the American political establishment really hates it when Trump is president is that his administration has a tendency to bring out and exaggerate dynamics at play in Washington, DC that the establishment would prefer to keep hidden.
One such example is the weaponization of media access.
Right at the beginning of this term, Trump’s team shook things up by announcing that, going forward, they would control which journalists were allowed into White House press briefings and would determine where each would sit.
Establishment journalists did little to hide their displeasure as the administration brought right-wing news sites, podcasters, and influencers to briefings that had always been reserved for “respectable” outlets. They characterized it as Trump shattering a decades-long tradition of media independence to prop up media figures loyal to him.
The anger with Trump’s shake-up came to a head when the administration banned the Associated Press (AP) from White House Briefings after the news wire service refused to call the Gulf of Mexico by its new official name, the Gulf of America.
As a result of that ban, which has mostly held up in court, many are trying to portray the president’s approach to the press pool as a brand-new form of authoritarianism that Trump has only recently introduced to Washington.
But that isn’t true. Granting, controlling, and revoking access to official briefings, restricted government facilities, and the sites of government activities has been one of the political establishment’s favorite tools of media control for over a century.
An urban legend says that the White House press pool was formed one night in 1900 when President Theodore Roosevelt noticed a group of reporters struggling to find sources outside in the rain and invited them into the White House.
The story is likely not true. But still, the imagery of a president inviting struggling journalists in from a cold rainy night and giving them access to the White House is perfect symbolism for the government’s approach to the press. It appears benevolent and, on the surface, seems to embody the democratic principle of transparency. But by bringing certain journalists in, excluding others, and retaining the power to revoke access, the government gained leverage and control over much of the press.
Not all presidents shared Roosevelt’s approach to media control. Woodrow Wilson, for instance, was famously unwilling to engage directly with reporters. And when his administration needed to crack down on anti-war rhetoric to ensure enough of the public would accept the American entrance into World War I, Wilson used strong-arm tactics like intimidation, suppression, and even imprisonment against journalists and media figures who continued to oppose the war.
But as the years went on and Americans grew increasingly horrified by the naked authoritarianism overtaking Europe, a new appreciation for Roosevelt’s approach took root. Unlike the regimes in Berlin and Moscow, the American political class came to understand that the key to good media censorship does not lie in muzzling the media “watchdogs” but in transforming them into lapdogs.
So, in the 1950s, President Eisenhower formally established the White House press pool as it is known today. Because of limited space, an “independent” organization called the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) was tapped to formally choose the rotating roster of outlets and journalists that would get access to briefings.
But the independence of this process was an illusion because the White House had complete control over which outlets were eligible to be chosen by the WHCA in the first place. And they would charge participating media organizations hefty fees when traveling with the president on government aircraft. This is presented as a way to protect the taxpayer, but it just so happens to ensure that only a few very wealthy corporate media outlets have been able to accompany presidents on trips.
Together with the government’s seizure of the airwaves, the selective access the White House granted through the press pool gave the federal government considerable control over which newspapers and broadcasters gained prominence in the American media landscape.
But there was still room to go. During the Vietnam War, White House officials grew frustrated that American journalists were roaming the country, writing stories that contradicted what officials were saying about the progress of the war.
So in 1991, when the US again found itself in a major war, the government did the media the “favor” of granting them access to an official, government-sanctioned media center near the Iraqi border where they were fed information officials wanted the public to know. Then, occasionally, some of those journalists would get to join American troops and tour specific areas on and around the front lines.
It became clear, though, that putting strict limits on what embedded journalists could do, say, or be told was unnecessary. The thrill of getting to ride around in armored vehicles with a bunch of heavily armed guys who were both interested by and working to protect the reporters as if they were VIPs was, as Peter Van Buren put it, “seductive.”
The government discovered that granting journalists the credentials to embed with US forces was an extremely effective way to effectively control the public’s perception of the war—all while appearing to embrace radical transparency. So, the approach was used heavily in the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sometimes, the White House has combined its pooling and embedding approach to great effect, such as in 2003 when Mike Allen—then at The Washington Post—was brought along for President George W. Bush’s secret trip to Baghdad. Or, two decades later, when Wall Street Journal reporter Sabrina Siddiqui was tapped to accompany President Biden on his secret train ride to Kyiv in early 2023.
The press dutifully wrote accounts of the trips that were more obnoxiously dramatic than anything the White House communications teams could ever get away with. But that was the point. These were publicity stunts. The journalists weren’t there to observe the trips; they were the entire point of the trips.
Today, some of the most extreme examples of weaponized access are not coming from officials in Washington but from their allies in Kyiv and Tel Aviv. The Ukrainian government has been very quick to revoke the credentials of foreign journalists when their reporting either reveals things the government wants to remain secret or debunks aspects of the regime’s official narrative. And the Israeli government has banned any foreign journalists from entering Gaza unless they’re brought in by the IDF.
So it’s ridiculous to hear the legacy media, here in the US, trying to act like Trump is breaking tradition with his use of access and accreditation to control how the media is reporting on his administration. That has been one of the hallmarks of the political establishment’s strategy for controlling the public’s understanding of current events for many decades. The only reason why they suddenly see it as a problem is because, now, they’re not the ones benefiting.
The Louisiana legislature has passed a key pro-life bill aiming to crack down on illegal sales of abortion pills in the state so its abortion ban can truly protect unborn children.
The state legislature has signed off on House Bill 575 – which passed yesterday allowing women to sue anyone who “knowingly performed or substantially facilitated” an abortion for at least $100,000 in damages.
HB 575 by Reps. Lauren Ventrella and Julie Emerson empowers Louisiana citizens harmed by abortion to file lawsuits against abortion drug dealers who unlawfully sell abortion services, including predators and abuser.
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With pro-abortion states like New York refusing to assist pro-life states like Louisiana in prosecuting illegal abortion pill sellers, this legislation would empower women injured by abortion pills to sue the sellers – which could help put them out of business or prompt them to stop selling abortion pills in the pro-life state for fear of legal accountability.
Executive Director for Louisiana Right to Life, Benjamin Clapper, said the following after the Senate passage:
We applaud the Louisiana Senate for passing these two pro-life bills that continue Louisiana’s legacy of defending life and protecting women from the abortion industry. The reckless sale of abortion pills by out-of-state businesses have led to increased instances of women being coerced to have abortions. HB 575 and HB 425 strengthen laws to prevent coerced abortion and allow women hurt by abortion to seek justice.
Louisiana Right to Life is committed to a future where women and girls are safe from the predatory tactics of the abortion industry and can pursue justice for themselves and their families.
The post Louisiana Legislature Passes Pro-Life Bill Targeting Illegal Abortion Pill Sellers appeared first on LifeNews.com.
Goldman Sachs gaming analysts Minami Munakata and Haruki Kubota were spot on in forecasting the explosive popularity of Nintendo's newly released Switch 2, which shattered records with millions of units in sales in just four days.
Nintendo wrote on X late Tuesday night that it sold over 3.5 million Switch 2 consoles in just four days, surpassing the original Switch's first-month sales of 2.7 million back in 2017.
Switch 2 has become "the fastest-selling Nintendo hardware ever globally," the Japanese gaming company said. This strong sales momentum sets a strong pace toward the company's goal of 15 million units sold by March 2026.
#NintendoSwitch2 has sold over 3.5 million units worldwide in its first four days, becoming the fastest-selling Nintendo hardware ever globally. pic.twitter.com/JNrl3Z92pv
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) June 11, 2025"We believe sales are tracking above our shipment assumption of 3.9 mn units in the April-June 2025 quarter, and also above the initial sales pace for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 (Exhibit 1, Exhibit 3)," Munakata wrote in a note to clients earlier.
Exhibit 1
Exhibit 3
The analysts also highlight a robust third-party game pipeline and a premium price of $79.99 for Mario Kart World as key drivers of stronger revenue...
We focus in particular on the strong pipeline of third-party titles for the Nintendo Switch 2 (in terms of both quantity and quality), and the higher selling price for the new Mario Kart World title (US$79.99), which is above prices for previous titles in the series. We expect to see an increase in per-console revenues (from content, services, peripherals, etc.) in the transition from the Nintendo Switch to the Nintendo Switch 2, similar to that seen in the transition from the PS4 to the PS5. Our FY3/26 operating profit estimate is 15% above the Bloomberg consensus. As seen during the PS4/PS5 transition, we believe Nintendo can maintain and expand user engagement, allowing it to secure higher margins from the first year of the successor console launch compared with the previous console launch (see our report here). We make no changes to our earnings estimates or our 12-month target price of ¥14,500, and we maintain our Buy rating.
Here's the third-party game pipeline:
Nintendo shares in Tokyo have hovered near ¥12,000 over the past six weeks, with upward momentum showing signs of exhaustion.
Our reporting so far:
Nintendo Shares Jump After Goldman Sees Switch 2 Unlocking Dormant Users
Nintendo Switch 2 Frenzy: "Selling Out" Across US Retailers As Tariffs Won't Impact Pricing
Goldman Thinks Nintendo's Switch 2 Will Blow Away Estimates, Sees No Supply Constraints
We've previously highlighted the gaming industry's long-running deflationary spiral—development costs have soared while retail prices stagnated. Now, however, an inflection point may be emerging as AAA games begin creeping toward the $100 mark.
By Michael Every of Rabobank
Yesterday’s UK labor market data were a clear story – and an ugly one. Yet the US NFIB survey summarized: “Although optimism recovered slightly in May, uncertainty is still high among small business owners. While the economy will continue to stumble along until the major sources of uncertainty are resolved, owners reported more positive expectations on business conditions and sales growth.” That’s still more ‘uh?’ for now.
In geopolitics, Russia warned it won’t end the Ukraine war until NATO pulls its troops out of the Baltic states. Whatever asset you look at, take a step back and think about that for a moment.
Is that a bluff – how can you know? Does it mean the EU surrendering those states back to Russian influence – and where afterwards? That’s the end of the EU as we know it, let alone the version that breezily states it wants to expand to Moldova, next to a Russian client state, and Georgia, next to Russia itself. Or it implies a permanent state of EU-Russia hostility --the latter not with “an economy the size of Italy”, but a war economy with a purchasing power parity of $7 trillion and a world of physical resources-- with profound implications for both sides socio-politically, economically, and financially.
Now think about what that implies for your asset again.
The US reportedly told Israel to end the Gaza war so it can try to get an Iran deal. Meanwhile, Israel attacked the Houthis by sea for the first time, seen as a warmup for Iran; and the head of US Central Command told the House Armed Services Committee he’d presented Defence Secretary Hegseth and President Trump with a "broad range of options" for military action against Iran if negotiations fail. So, keep an eye on those negotiations!
The US Ambassador to Israel stated the White House doesn’t fully back a Palestinian state under current circumstances: “Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture,” which are unlikely to occur “in our lifetime,” then “there’s no room for it.” Moreover, he added a Palestinian state doesn’t need to be in the West Bank/Gaza and could be created by taking territory from another country. This is as EU states such as Spain, Ireland, and France are pushing in the opposite direction, opening another transatlantic rift. It’s also as the UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, and Norway sanctioned two far-right Israeli government ministers, one of whom (the finance minister) responded by paralysing the Palestinian economy by freezing links between its banks and Israel’s.
In Asia, senior staff in the last Taiwanese administration were arrested for spying for China; and Pakistan accused India of manipulating the flow of the Indus River to disrupt its food security, against the backdrop of a potentially wobbly military ceasefire.
In geoeconomics, a federal appellate court ruled Trump’s IEEPA tariffs could continue as a full appeal will be heard at another court on July 31. US-India trade talks are reportedly going well; and the US and China agreed a “framework” to roll back recent export controls, so each side gets the key inputs recently cut off by the other - but that’s a pinkie swear not an FTA.
Summing things up, the Financial Times op-ed from Martin Wolf talks of ‘An ever-riskier world economy’ as “Trump’s tariff war brings with it unpredictability and a consequent loss of confidence.” Fair enough.
Yet, in recent FT fashion, it then argues the US is in the early stages of a “revolution” aimed at changing it into an “arbitrary dictatorship”, following yesterday’s op-ed from Edward Luce that the US is falling into “authoritarianism.” That will be seen as a pinkie paper swear by some. It certainly has far more significant implications than are being priced in by markets if it’s true; and for FT intellectual credibility if it isn’t.
The EU (again) proposed lowering the Russian oil price cap from $60 to $45, banning the use of the Nord Stream pipelines, and cutting another 22 Russian banks from SWIFT, demanding “an end to the war” – which Russia just made clear requires entirely different EU actions.
Europe also placed 62.4% tariffs on Chinese plywood – which is what cynics see its flat-pack plans for strategic autonomy and replacing the US as home to reverse assets and the reserve FX are made of.
As the potential sale of ports at either side of the Panama Canal and a slew of others to a consortium led by ocean carrier MSC sees concerns it may end de facto neutral treatment for all cargo, the Federal Maritime Commission was warned by the Seafarers International Union of the risks of the growing “dark fleet” registering and flagging outside regulatory oversight. In short, the ‘level playing field’ assumption in global trade is seeing larger and larger potholes ahead.
In politics, Poland’s PM is expected to win his no confidence vote but still won’t be able to govern with the new president in place; and as France saw another teacher murdered by a pupil, and Austria a school shooting that killed 10, the government is to ban social media for under-15s.
And as riots continue in LA and a curfew is to be imposed in parts of it, a Wall Street Journal op-ed runs: ‘Tom Cotton: Send in the Troops, for Real’ arguing, “When local police can’t restore order, the federal government has a duty to do so with a show of force.” That echoes his June 2020 op-ed in the New York Times that led to a staff revolt and a political hoo-ha. Today’s call isn’t getting much attention, especially in markets. Which, to be fair, aren’t paying attention to the riots either: as Bloomberg ‘sagely’ noted yesterday, ‘these kinds of things don’t have an impact on stocks (or bonds or FX)’.
Unless, of course, they aren’t noise against the backdrop of a globalized world order predicated on free trade and “because markets” but are a symptom of larger breakdowns and structural changes that shatter that order, and the markets based on it.
However, you’d need to look at far more than a Bloomberg screen in an air-conditioned, first-world city-centre office to know which way those fat tail risks really lie; but that takes up valuable time in which one could be counting beans or shouting “Rate Cuts!”
On which note, Treasury Secretary Bessent was just named by Bloomberg as a likely candidate for Fed Chair.
First, that’s a year before it’s even vacant, which is not how things used to work and suggests the risks of a Shadow Fed Chair emerging, with a remains-to-be-seen effect on markets. Second, it would be a successive switch from Treasury to Fed when we are constantly told these are sacrosanct positions which must co-ordinate but always remain fiercely independent of each other (“because markets”). Can even Bloomberg-screen readers spot a pattern there?
However, the Bessent story has since been shot down by the White House. Yet names like former Fed member Warsh --who’s given some jaw-dropping comments on central banking of late-- and Director of the National Economic Council Hassett -- who’d meet the Trump insider loyalty test-- haven’t been.
But, relax: everything is as it ever was and ever will be, everywhere.
Normal 0 false false false EN-CA X-NONE X-NONE This article was published by Compassionate Community Care on June 11, 2025.
By Kathy Matusiak Costa
Executive Director, Compassionate Community Care
A grieving family from Eastern Canada is speaking out following the unexpected decision of their elderly aunt to proceed with a scheduled Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) procedure at a hospital in British Columbia, just days after a fall that led to her admission into rehabilitation care.
According to her niece, the woman had not suffered a serious injury—“she didn’t even break a bone”—and had only recently been told by doctors that she had arthritis. But the family was stunned to learn that she had already scheduled her euthanasia and was resolute in her decision to go through with it.
Canada’s unemployment rate rose to 7% in May — its highest in over eight years, excluding the pandemic — with just 8,800 jobs added, according to the Financial Post..
Full-time employment increased by 58,000, offset by a decline in part-time work. Private sector jobs grew by 61,000, while public sector employment fell by 21,000 due to fewer temporary hires after April’s federal election.
The Financial Post writes that manufacturing lost 12,200 jobs last month, contributing to a four-month decline of 55,000. Transportation and warehousing also shed 15,000 positions. Employment grew in wholesale and retail trade, utilities, finance, and real estate but dropped in manufacturing, public administration, and accommodation and food services.
Economists say the rise in unemployment is partly due to U.S. tariffs dampening hiring, with trade-sensitive regions like Windsor (10.8% jobless rate) and Oshawa (9.1%) hit hardest. Indeed Canada noted job postings have remained steady since February but are lower in trade-impacted areas.
“The impact of tariffs shows up in the industry pattern and regional unemployment pattern,” said Leslie Preston, senior economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank. “The manufacturing sector was down 12,200, as was transportation and warehousing (-15,000).”
Preston said manufacturing has lost a total of 55,000 jobs over the past four months.
Youth unemployment reached 20.1%, reflecting the start of the summer job market. The employment rate held steady at 60.8%, with total hours worked unchanged from April but up 0.9% from a year ago. Average hourly wages rose 3.4% year-over-year.
Bank of Canada policymakers are closely watching these developments, holding rates at 2.75% last week amid inflation concerns. In a note, Andrew Grantham, senior economist with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said: “We expect that the gradual rise in joblessness will continue into the second half of the year, with positive developments regarding U.S. tariffs and some further interest rate cuts from the Bank of Canada required to help stabilize conditions before year-end and bring a reduction in the unemployment rate again in 2026.”
Still, economists said the larger trend of the rising unemployment rate could mean further rate cuts by the Bank of Canada during the second half of this year, with the jobless rate expected to peak above seven percent.
The Satanic Temple (TST) in Iowa filed a complaint June 10 with the Iowa Office of Civil Rights, claiming that it is a religious group and that state officials discriminated against it by denying it permission to host a satanic event in the Iowa Capitol.
TST applied to hold a winter celebration in the Capitol in December 2024 in an attempt to educate Iowans about satanism and its beliefs, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, which filed the complaint on behalf of TST.
Mortimer Adramelech, a satanic minister of TST Iowa, claimed that he and his group are simply “seeking to exercise our right to freedom of religion.” The event would have included “satanic holiday carols,” DIY satanic ornaments, a Krampus costume contest, and a ritual.
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State officials denied the application, stating that events involving violence, gore, or sexual themes are not permissible. TST claims that the event would not have included such content and would have remained family-friendly.
This is not TST’s first incident at the Iowa Capitol. In December 2023, the group placed a satanic display in the rotunda of the building, prompting Christian Navy veteran Michael Cassidy to destroy the figure, CatholicVote previously reported.
“I saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged. My conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted,” Cassidy said at the time. “The world may tell Christians to submissively accept the legitimization of Satan, but none of the founders would have considered government sanction of satanic altars inside Capitol buildings as protected by the First Amendment.”
In response to Cassidy’s actions, CatholicVote Vice President Josh Mercer explained that tearing down the statue was not a violation of TST’s First Amendment rights.
“The state of Iowa has every right to exercise its own government speech on its government property,” Mercer stated in 2023. “You do not have a First Amendment right to have every viewpoint represented.”
LifeNews Note: Hannah Hiester writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
The post Iowa Refuses to Allow Satanic Temple to Host Ritual at State Capitol appeared first on LifeNews.com.
Of late, there have been several attacks on my writings and on me personally, in the vanguard of which has been the ex-satanist, ex-Catholic, now Eastern Orthodox writer Michael Warren Davis. The attacks are based on my occasional use of the term ‘magic’, for which Davis claims I must be embroiled in the dark occult, and that I am attempting to entangle others in its web. When I replied to Davis’s…
In the largest private-sector investment in Pennsylvania history, Amazon is plowing $20 billion into two data center campuses to boost its artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing capabilities, as the company looks to help solidify America's technological edge over competitors in China and elsewhere.
A data center owned by Amazon Web Services, front right, is under construction next to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Berwick, Pa., on Jan. 14, 2024. Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo
The investment by Amazon Web Services (AWS) will create 1,250 high-skilled jobs spanning engineering, cybersecurity and network operations, the company said in a Monday announcement. It will also lead to thousands of construction jobs, and spur broader economic growth through demand for services and suppliers within the data center industry.
One campus will be located next to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Salem Township, Luzerne County, while the other will be located in Falls Township, Bucks County, where a US Steel facility was formerly located.
"Amazon’s multi-billion-dollar investment in Pennsylvania reinforces our dedication to advancing AI innovation while creating lasting economic opportunities in the state," according to the company's chief global affairs and legal officer, David Zapolsky.
As the Epoch Times notes further, to help meet the demand for skilled workers, Pennsylvania will allocate $10 million toward workforce development programs tailored to data center construction and operations, including vocational training and community college partnerships, Shapiro’s office said in an announcement.
Speaking at a press conference in Berwick on Monday, Shapiro said the investment is a generational opportunity to transform Pennsylvania’s economic future, adding that Amazon’s announcement is “just the beginning,” with additional data center projects under consideration in the state.
“From coal and steel, to server farms and fiber optic cables, Pennsylvania is poised to power our future,” Shapiro said. “A future where America dominates the next frontier of AI and doesn’t cede this ground to China or any other nation.”
The announcement comes as the Trump administration intensifies efforts to counter China’s push for global tech supremacy. CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis recently said that President Donald Trump’s intelligence team is prioritizing the denial of any strategic advantage to China—particularly in advanced technologies AI, semiconductors, and quantum computing.
Calling China an “existential threat,” Ellis said the CIA is focusing increasingly on the tech race. He said that a decisive technological advantage is essential to confronting the Chinese Communist Party’s malign actions against the United States.
The intelligence community’s latest threat assessment underscores these concerns, identifying China as “the most active and persistent cyber threat” to U.S. government systems and critical infrastructure.
In the event of a potential conflict with the United States—most notably over Taiwan—China is likely to carry out cyber offensives designed to paralyze U.S. command infrastructure, stir public confusion, and obstruct the swift deployment of troops, the report warns.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has ramped up efforts to defend U.S. interests from foreign cyberthreats.
Trump signed an executive order on June 6 aimed at overhauling cybersecurity policy, directing agencies to adopt secure software development practices, improve defenses against hijacking of network interconnections, and accelerate readiness for advanced cryptography.
