In proclaiming the faith and in administering the sacraments every priest speaks on behalf of Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ.
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Site: PaulCraigRoberts.org
James O’Keefe — American Hero
Paul Craig Roberts
James O’Keefe founded Project Veritas. O’Keefe was highly successful in getting on camera admissions by government officials at all levels of how they ignored law, violated law, and issued regulations in order to impose DEI Woke policies on a citizenry that rejected the policies.
Apparently, O’Keefe was so successful that it seems the ruling establishment threatened or bribed Project Veritas trustees, who, as I understand it, cooked up some charges against O’Keefe and removed him from the organization that he created. At least, that is my impression from reports that I have read.
The American ruling establishment does not want truth told and has no qualms about destroying people in order to suppress truth. Americans live in a fictionalized narrative-controlled world. They have no idea of the real operating agendas.
O’Keefe is continuing his important work (see, for example, today’s posting: “In America Government Is Unaccountable at Every Level”). As I understand it, O’Keefe’s former trustees are trying to shut down his new operation. Perhaps they are trying to bankrupt him with law suits that have no real basis, which is the way NY attorney general Leticia James destroyed the immigration site Vdare.
In America law sees far more use in punishing the innocent than in punishing the guilty.
I encourage you to support O’Keefe and to follow his reports. It will enable to you understand how difficult Trump’s task is.
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Site: PaulCraigRoberts.org
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Site: Catholic ConclaveTheologian advocates for authentic Christianity in the Church crisisModernist, synodalist form as long as your armIs God Uninteresting?Religious commitment has been declining for years. But this could be an opportunity for Christianity, believes theologian Matthias Sellmann. Because where the church functions well, the likelihood of credible encounters increases.Professor Matthias Sellmann (ChairCatholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: La Salette Journey
In an article which may be found here, we read:"There is breaking news today from Rome where Pope Leo is correcting the Francis record on cohabitation. Pope Francis created worldwide scandal when on June 16, 2016, he said cohabitation is 'real marriage' and has the grace of real marriage...today at the Vatican, Pope Leo addressed the issue of cohabitation with these words: “Perhaps many young people today, who choose cohabitation instead of Christian marriage, actually need someone who, in a concrete and understandable way—especially by the example of their life—shows them what the gift of sacramental grace is and what strength it brings; someone who helps them understand ‘the beauty and greatness of the vocation to love and to the service of life’ that God gives to spouses (St. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 1).”
Out of love and concern for His creatures, God has taught us that marriage is a necessary prerequisite for sexual relations. The Catechism #2353 teaches:
“Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young.”
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Commentary
The Sons of Hell, the Children of Belial as St. Louis de Montfort refers to them, are spreading their errors everywhere. The confusion of our own time has become general. And this too was prophesied by the great Jesuit priest Father Nectou, who said that before the triumph of the Church, "The confusion will be so general that mankind will not be able to aright, as if God had entirely withheld His providence from mankind, and during the worst crisis the best thing that can be done will be to remain where God has placed us, and persevere in fervent prayer."
Signs are multiplying everywhere. Today, all across society, people are committing grievous sins and even blasphemously calling these sins virtue. Sin is justified. It is even celebrated. Active homosexuals and lesbians have the audacity to call their perverse practices "love" (practices for which God destroyed the five cities of the plain: Sodom and Gomorrah) and agitate for - demand - the legal status of marriage. As a girl in the Ukraine is reported as hearing from the Blessed Mother: "The present times are worse than at the time of Noah. Then the world was scourged by a deluge of water; now the world is going to be scourged by a deluge of fire." (Firs apparition to Anna at Seredne, December 20, 1954).
Our sin-sick world, puffed up with satanic pride, has become too blind to see its own miserable state. Today our great cities have become new Sodom and Gomorrahs. And at a time when so many confused people look to their priests for moral and spiritual guidance, often they receive chaff instead of wheat.
What a blessing to have a Shepherd in Rome who cares for souls. Let us pray for Pope Leo XIV.
See here.
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Site: Mises InstituteTom Paine is one of the forgotten names of the American Revolution, but it can be argued that no other man was as important in galvanizing the thoughts of American colonials toward independence.
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Site: Catholic ConclaveBad Schussenried, former Norbertine AbbeyThey also have a their own Holy Sepulchre Veneration of the Relic of St Magnus View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jacob Stein (@cruxstationalis) And Mass of the Ascension elsewhere Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Rorate CaeliSol Iustitiæ illustra nosChaperoning two friends from abroad at local attractions, one of them remarked that I seemed very optimistic about the new pope, Leo XIV. I tried to correct him: not optimistic, just not jolted by fear all the time anymore.For twelve years, each day was a potential nightmare -- each moment a "sursaut", as the French would say. And that is perhaps, as I slowly New Catholichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04118576661605931910noreply@blogger.com
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Site: Catholic ConclaveRepurposing - a German TV report- more details belowNew Ideas for Unused ChurchesThe Last Mass in Bad Orb before the Church became a climbing hallIn the coming decades, parishes in Germany could abandon tens of thousands of properties. Many of them are listed buildings. What can become of unused places of worship?While 20 years ago, three-quarters of citizens belonged to one of the two Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Crisis Magazine
When I saw the white smoke rising and heard the joyful cry of Habemus Papam! echoing from St. Peter’s Basilica, my heart swelled with gratitude and hope. The announcement that Cardinal Robert Prevost had been elected as Pope Leo XIV filled many of us with renewed optimism—especially American Catholics. As the first American to ascend the Chair of St. Peter, his election marks not only a historic…
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Site: OnePeterFive
Above: Giotto (1266–1337) From the Roman office. ℣. Grant, Lord, a blessing. Benediction. May God the Father Omnipotent, be to us merciful and clement. ℟. Amen. Reading 4 From the Sermons of St. Maximus, Bishop of Turin. 43rd, 2nd on Pentecost. My holy brethren, ye remember that I have likened the Saviour to that eagle, touching which it is written in the Book of Psalms (cii. 5,)…
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Site: Crisis Magazine
The movies have less and less to offer because the entertainment-industrial complex is growing less and less substantial. The art of cinema has become the art of senselessness, churning out tired-out properties and studio-calculated scripts with far more concern for profit than performance. Mission: Impossible 8. (This movie will self-destruct in five seconds.) Another Superman reboot anyone?
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Site: Mises Institute" Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it."
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Site: Catholic ConclaveFor a long time, he headed the Pontifical Academy for Life – Vincenzo Paglia. Now the archbishop is stepping down and speaks in an interview with katholisch.de about Popes Francis and Leo, today's challenges, and why theology has no future without dialogue.Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia is one of the Church's most prominent voices on ethical issues. This is why Pope Francis appointed him President ofCatholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Mises InstituteTrump is partnering with CIA-funded surveillance operation Palantir to build a database on all Americans.
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Site: AsiaNews.itToday's news: South Koreans go to the polls for presidential elections;UN Secretary-General calls for independent investigation into killings of Palestinians near aid distribution centre in Gaza;New casualties in Ukraine after Russian attack, no truce in Istanbul negotiations;In Japan, the first whales have been caught since the reopening of whaling.
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Site: AsiaNews.itAccording to various estimates, at least 200,000 Chechens now live in European countries, and from Belgium to Norway, passing through France, Austria and Germany, the mosques of this diaspora fuelled by war are not only places of worship but also important centres where the language and traditions of this people are handed down.
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Site: Catholic ConclaveDance in the sanctuary of the Forchheim Monastery Church- story from 2022Dance not the Cross centre of new religionThe "Christmas for All" benefit concert had a special feature. What rosemary, lavender, and rose tell us. (Cathcon: But what does the Gospel tell us!!!)"It has become the face of our annual campaign." This is how Lisa Hoffmann, chairwoman of the District Association of Independent Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Mises Institute
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Site: Mises InstituteJD Vance is clearly “Palantir’s man” and every call for “Vance 2024” is likely music to the ears of the deep state and its Big Tech allies.
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Site: Zero HedgeThe Military Imbalance In The Taiwan StraitTyler Durden Tue, 06/03/2025 - 02:45
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth drew some controversy over the weekend after he called China a "real" and potentially "imminent" threat and said that the country was “credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific”.
The comments were made Saturday at the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore.
In the chart below, Statista's Katharina Buchholz shows the balance (or rather imbalance) of military power in the Taiwan Strait.
You will find more infographics at Statista
China's clearly stated goal has been "reunification" with Taiwan but it has never ruled out the possibility of using military force to achieve this.
In recent years, it has modernized its military, introducing the J-20, an indigenous 5th generation stealth fighter.
It has also commissioned two aircraft carriers along with several modern amphibious transport docking and landing vessels.
Even though the likelihood of China taking Taiwan by force remains unclear, the military balance in the Taiwan Strait is firmly in China's favor.
This infographic provides an overview of that imbalance and is based on an annual U.S. government report released in December.
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Site: Real Jew News
A New Kind Of Comedy
June 2 2025___________________________________
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Site: Zero HedgeResurgent ISIS? Terror Cells Launch Deadly Attacks On Syria's KurdsTyler Durden Tue, 06/03/2025 - 02:00
Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,
At least three members of the Kurdish Asayish security forces were killed on Sunday in northeastern Syria, according to the group. They said they were targeted by an ISIS cell during a patrol on the road between Raqqa and Hasakeh.
The patrol was targeted with a landmine, according to some sources. The official statement from Asayish also reported one person wounded in the attack, who is still receiving medical treatment.
SDF soldiers gather for breakfast at a battle position in Deir Ezzor Governorate. Public domain image via Picryl
ISIS has been launching an escalating number of attacks against northeast Syria, mostly targeting the Kurdish SDF and other Kurdish forces. It has been reported that they carried out 104 attacks so far in 2025.
Regional media details the following recent developments:
The resurgence is not limited to Kurdish-administered areas. On May 30, ISIS claimed responsibility for its first attack on the forces of Syria’s new transitional government, which took power following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. That attack, in Suwayda province, involved an improvised explosive device targeting a patrol from the Syrian Army’s 70th Division, killing one soldier and injuring three others.
The SITE Intelligence Group and SOHR confirmed the operation as ISIS’s first publicly acknowledged assault on the new regime.
Asayish said that “sweep operations and investigations” are being launches in the area to try to find those responsible for the latest attack. Operations against ISIS have also been on the rise in recent weeks, with the HTS government joining in on some operations targeting them.
The SDF reported that late last week they captured an ISIS cell in Deir Ezzor Governorate. They also reported that they had thwarted an ISIS attempt to plant a landmine in that area, killing one “ISIS mercenary.”
ISIS has claimed two attacks in the past two weeks targeting Syrian government forces, which are being presented as the first ISIS attacks against the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government since they took power in December.
Meanwhile, HTS itself is not much removed from ISIS...
The current Syrian government are mix Isis with Al Qaeda (Bin Laden soldiers) that declared war on the west many times before they took over
— Bob (@Shariakill) February 23, 2025
But now they will deceive the west and play moderate to lift sanctions and get funding to build themselves and prepare for offensive pic.twitter.com/9AtDH5qrp3ISIS said the first attack was in Suwayda Governorate, and that it killed or wounded seven soldiers. The second attack was near the first one but a week later, and targeted the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA), killing one and wounding three.
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Site: The Unz ReviewUkraine launched a surprise attack on multiple Russian airfields on June 1, destroying much of Russia’s strategic nuclear bomber force. With that attack, the 2024 mystery of unidentified drone incursions over US military airports such as Langley Air Force Base could potentially be considered as solved. One can validly reason these drone incursions were rehearsals...
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Site: The Unz ReviewLast December, on Chairman Mao’s 131st birthday, China flew two new 6th generation fighter prototypes for the first time – the Chengdu J-36 and the Shenyang J-50. Earlier this year, Trump announced the US has awarded Boeing to build its own 6th gen fighter called F-47. The competition to build and field the most advanced...
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Site: The Unz ReviewDo many Americans understand that it is not only the US federal civil service that works against American citizens in behalf of DEI policies and a Woke agenda? It is also state and local bureaucrats, and perhaps as well your child’s doctor and school teacher. Rights have been taken away from parents and American citizens...
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Site: The Unz ReviewIn the earlier article, I discussed how China is building a Kill Web to deter any foreign intervention in a conflict near its shores around Taiwan, the South China Sea, or the East China Sea. This Kill Web features a multi-layered, redundant, and networked arsenal to achieve mission objectives, particularly in China’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD)...
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Site: The Unz ReviewIsraeli officials often claim that Hamas has been looting aid heading to Gaza, yet the evidence suggests the opposite. New reports and eyewitness accounts indicate that Israel is backing ISIS-linked militants who are working to replace Hamas security forces and are looting humanitarian aid under the watchful eye of IDF drones. New evidence recently emerged...
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Site: The Unz ReviewIn 2020, Christian Brose wrote a book titled “The Kill Chain”, in which he discussed the coming US China military conflict. Brose was the principal advisor to Senator John McCain on national security and military issues and his staff director when McCain was the chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee. In the book,...
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Site: The Unz ReviewChina used to be the most populous country in the world. But because of its extremely low birthrate, deaths now outnumber births there and the country is shrinking. This essay will recount some of the alarming facts about China’s population implosion. It’s much worse than most people think. I rely on two government statistics...
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Site: The Unz ReviewThe philosopher of the Great Replacement. Reynaud Camus talks to Jared Taylor about the Great Replacement, Mr. Camus‘s recently published anthology Enemy of the Disaster, the degeneration of French culture, and the “deculturizing” influence of the United States on the Western world. This video is available on Rumble, Bitchute, Odysee, and X.
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Site: The Unz ReviewStigma, Shame, and Other Negative Sanctions are Vital To Stopping the Transgender Menace The above image features an image of St. Johns Bridge in Portland, Oregon, featured in the last tweet posted by Fosgate’s “charlotteburntfishie” account. Author’s Note: the nature of this essay, a time sensitive “news” story, is particularly subject to revision and expansion....
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Site: The Unz ReviewThis was the mood in informed Moscow – only a few hours before the renewed Istanbul kabuki on Russia-Ukraine “negotiations”. Three key points. The attack on Russian strategic bombers – part of the nuclear triad – was a US-UK joint operation. Especially MI6. The overall tech investment and strategy was provided by this intel combo....
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Site: The Unz ReviewJames O’Keefe founded Project Veritas. O’Keefe was highly successful in getting on camera admissions by government officials at all levels of how they ignored law, violated law, and issued regulations in order to impose DEI Woke policies on a citizenry that rejected the policies. Apparently, O’Keefe was so successful that it seems the ruling establishment...
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Site: The Unz ReviewIsrael has been caught once again in a lie. For a genocidal state, there are no red lines. No one should be surprised that Israel is using its bogus ‘aid system’ to lure Palestinians into a death trap It is entirely unsurprising that Israel has yet again been caught out in a lie – a...
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Site: AntiWar.comReprinted with permission from The Realist Review. The discursive rhetoric President Trump deploys when speaking about Russia and its apex-leader, Mr. Putin, risks lending the impression that once the unfortunate business of the war wraps up, he and Mr. Putin will at last be free to guide US-Russian relations to unimaginable levels of peace, prosperity … Continue reading "Toward a Policy of Restrained Pessimism"
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Site: Zero HedgeIs Birthright Citizenship A National Suicide Pact?Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 23:25
Authored by Frank Miele via RealClearPolitics,
On the day of his second inauguration, President Donald Trump issued an executive order entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.”
Sounds innocent enough, right? But this is the infamous order declaring that birthright citizenship does not extend to children of parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily.
“Not so fast,” said attorneys for illegal aliens and their children. “Our clients snuck across the border fair and square and they want the prize promised them by the Constitution – U.S. citizenship for all children born after they crossed the border.”
But is that really what the Constitution says? Here are the words from the 14th Amendment:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
As President Trump noted in his executive order, the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” have always been used to exclude certain classes of people from birthright citizenship. That included, for instance, children of diplomats, who enjoy immunity in their host country. For several decades, it also included Native Americans of certain tribes that had entered into treaties that provided at least partial sovereignty. Those exclusions are not in the Constitution, but they are in the law. So why can’t there be an exclusion for illegal immigrants?
Trump’s executive order correctly recognizes that the higher purpose of the 14th Amendment was to guarantee citizenship for the children of former slaves, who had not only been subject to the jurisdiction of the American government, but even subject to sale. They had earned citizenship through hardship, pain, and suffering – not through an accident of birth. Obviously, the authors of the amendment recognized the high value of citizenship, and it seems unlikely they would just hand it out willy-nilly.
Which brings us back to “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Were citizenship to be granted simply on the basis of where you were born, that phrase would not have been necessary. Yet there it is. As a matter of law, there is no formal, writ-in-stone definition of what “subject to jurisdiction” means. And that’s what the Trump administration hopes will provide enough ambiguity that the Supreme Court will agree that the president has the authority to declare under his executive powers that the children of illegal immigrants should not be considered birthright citizens because they fail the jurisdiction test.
Three district court judges have already ruled against Trump and issued “temporary nationwide injunctions” to prevent the executive order from being carried out. On May 15, the Supreme Court heard the case, partly to resolve whether district courts should have the authority to apply their rulings nationwide and, ultimately, to make its own determination on the legality of the executive order.
But even if the high court should reject presidential authority to interpret the Constitution, the argument does not end there. Section 5 of the 14th Amendment provides that “Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” In other words, the rare trifecta of a Republican House, Republican Senate and Republican president offers a once-in-a-lifetime chance for Congress to establish once and for all that U.S. citizenship does not hinge on the ability of one’s parents to sneak past the Border Patrol before you are born.
Unfortunately, the Senate’s current filibuster rules would not allow for a simple majority to define “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in such a way that it excludes the children of illegal immigrants. But since senators in recent years have allowed filibuster exemptions for confirmation of presidential nominations and for votes on budget “reconciliation” bills, there is no reason why some smart parliamentarian could not carve out a new exception narrowly tailored to allow a simple majority to define citizenship.
If that seems like using brute force to impose a nation-changing mandate upon the American people, so be it. As Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote in 1963, the Constitution is “not a suicide pact.” Yet allowing the children of well over 20 million illegal immigrants to become citizens of a country whose customs they ignore, whose language they often don’t understand or choose to learn, and whose laws their parents broke even before they were born, is an invitation to chaos and collapse.
If that’s not a national suicide pact, I don’t know what is.
Frank Miele, retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His book “The Media Matrix: What If Everything You Know Is Fake” is available from his Amazon author page. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA and on X/Gettr @HeartlandDiary.
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Site: Zero HedgeIs There A New England Serial Killer? Social Media Says Maybe, Police Say No.Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 22:35
Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
NEW ENGLAND—On the eve of Easter Sunday, detectives in Narragansett, Rhode Island, were busy investigating crimes when messages began to pour in.
“It came from everywhere,” Detective Sgt. Brent Kuzman said, referring to the flurry of emails and phone calls to dispatch that pointed to an anonymous Facebook post on a group called New England SK (the SK referring to serial killer).
While the identity of the person behind the post was unavailable publicly, the post itself suggested the possibility of six bodies buried at Black Point near Scarborough Beach, each positioned vertically and facing the ocean.
And despite the post also stating it was a piece of fiction, Kuzman believed the message contained enough credibility to prompt further investigation.
That same day, on April 19, four detectives from the Narragansett PD and two Rhode Island State Police cadaver dog teams began searching along woodland trails and the Scarborough beachfront. The department also contacted the FBI.
The search lasted for 20 hours and yielded nothing.
“We used our whole detective division over two days,” Kuzman told The Epoch Times. “We had to put off every other case. The area we looked at was an extensive amount of land.”
Kuzman said the investigation concluded the post was a “100 percent” hoax, adding that the creator of the post has since deleted the message, canceled the account, and remains unidentified. The police declined to provide a screenshot of the post to The Epoch Times.
This, however, is just one chapter in a story of murder, conspiracy, and hoaxes revolving around a supposed serial killer, and all being played out on social media.
On the Side of Caution
Social media had been buzzing for months following the discovery of 13 bodies and skeletal remains in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island between March and April.
Most of the remains found were female, including two who had been reported missing in 2024.
In Massachusetts, three cases were identified as homicides, which led to two separate arrests on murder charges. Other causes of death are still undetermined or involve circumstances that police are unable to disclose.
Two cases involve incomplete sets of human remains.
The location near a bike path where police found the body of Meggan Meredith in Springfield, Mass., on May 8, 2025. She was pronounced dead shortly after 8 a.m. on April 22. Authorities have ruled her death a homicide. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times
On March 27, a hunter searching for deer antlers found a portion of a human skull in Plymouth, Massachusetts, according to Boston25 News. Police closed off the area as part of the ongoing investigation.
The department released a statement the next day, stating there was “no threat to public safety.”
On May 4, police reported the discovery of a possible human leg bone near the home of pop singer Taylor Swift in an upscale area of Westerly, Rhode Island. The remains have not been identified.
The Epoch Times contacted the Westerly police for a comment.
Linking Cases
The chatter and differing opinions on social media about a possible serial killer have continued with each grisly discovery.
“LE [law enforcement] still saying it is not a SK [serial killer]. I think now is when they should be most concerned. This ‘killer(s)’ is getting more brazen. They are calling out for recognition,” read one Facebook post.
Another Facebook post read: “I can understand not wanting to jump to conclusions or cause a panic, but why does it always seem like the police are just dead set against even considering the possibility of a serial killer?”
A May 1 post states: “While some of the people found have indeed been victims of foul play, there are others who seem more like a victim of their own demons.”
Kuzman believes there is no evidence linking all the cases, and that social media users have been selectively focusing on certain cases to support a serial killer narrative.
“I feel like the whole movement behind this is cherry-picking—like they have a conclusion—and they’re trying to justify whatever data they have of there being a serial killer,” he said.
“There’s been nothing [from law enforcement] about a potential suspect in a serial killing in this region at all,” he said.
But the story has developed a “life of its own.”
On April 24, Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni issued a statement addressing growing concerns after police found a woman unresponsive on a bike path near the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Meggan Meredith, 45, was pronounced dead shortly after 8 a.m. on April 22. Authorities have classified her death as a homicide.
“We understand the unease that comes with such acts of violence,” Gulluni said, “and we want the community to know that each of these cases is being thoroughly investigated in close coordination with our law enforcement partners.”
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, near the bike path where Meggan Meredith was found unresponsive on April 22, in Springfield, Mass., on May 8, 2025. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times
He advised people to exercise caution when sharing social media posts that aim to spread fear and misinformation.
“Unverified claims can compromise active investigations and contribute to a sense of chaos that does not reflect the full picture,” Gulluni said.
Serial Killers Everywhere
Multiple law enforcement agencies across the country have expressed similar concerns about social media posts claiming that serial killers are active throughout the United States.
Law enforcement classifies a serial killer as someone who murders two or more individuals in separate incidents. Usually, it’s for psychological pleasure, thrill-seeking, attention, or financial gain.
On Dec. 5, 2024, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department addressed social media claims about a serial killer targeting individuals as part of a nationwide “scam.”
“Please be assured that we would inform you immediately of any potential threat to your safety or the safety of our community. Your safety is our greatest priority,” the department posted on Facebook.
On Dec. 9, 2024, police in Odessa, Texas, posted a similar warning on Facebook about a possible serial killer “knocking on doors in Odessa.”
“These posts are intended to cause unwarranted public harm and have been determined to be false,” the post added.
The Eastland Police Department in Texas also addressed allegations of a serial killer, determining them to be false.
“Please be assured that there is no credible threat to our community. Similar posts have appeared in various regions and are designed to create panic and fear,” the department wrote on its Facebook page.
“We urge everyone to verify information through your local law enforcement departments before sharing.”
On Jan. 31, police in Camden, South Carolina, warned residents about a scam circulating on social media that falsely claimed serial killers were targeting several states.
The posts included random names and mugshots to lend credibility to the misinformation.
“Once the post goes viral, they edit the content to promote scams (fake rental listings, phishing links). Do not share or engage these posts,” the notice added.
“Stay informed and always verify information from trusted sources.”
Serial killings make up less than 1 percent of all homicides, according to the World Population Review.
Since the 1990s, the rate of serial killings has declined, with California having the highest number of known victims at 1,777 between 1992 and 2019. Texas had the second highest number of victims with 984, followed by Florida with 933, Illinois and New York round out the top five.
Flowers are placed on the Odessa Police Department sign following a deadly shooting spree in Odessa, Texas, on Sept. 1, 2019. Cengiz Yar/Getty Images
Trolling Law Enforcement
Spreading or discussing false information or rumors on social media is generally not considered a crime under federal law. However, it can lead to legal consequences if done with malicious intent or if it causes harm.
Under Title 18 U.S. Code 1038, known as the false information and hoaxes law, it is a federal offense to engage in any conduct intended to convey false or misleading statements about a major crisis to incite fear and panic.
Kuzman noted that the Facebook post mentioning a gravesite in Narragansett seemed intended to provoke reactions from social media users. Nonetheless, investigators determined it did not constitute a crime.
Read the rest of the report here...
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Site: Zero HedgeGlobal Tobacco Use Is Steadily DecliningTyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 22:10
More than 60 years ago, on January 11, 1964, the Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service, Luther L. Terry, M.D., published the first comprehensive report on the effects of smoking on health.
A committee was appointed to review and evaluate existing research on the topic in order to “reach some definitive conclusions on the relationship between smoking and health in general.”
And, as Statista's Felix Richter reports, while it may seem absurd from today’s point of view that the adverse effects of smoking were ever in doubt, 60 years ago the “tobacco-health controversy” was exactly that: a controversy.
After consulting more than 7,000 articles about the relationship between smoking and disease, the committee did come to a definite conclusion, however, making its report “Smoking and Health” a landmark study in the fight against smoking.
“On the basis of prolonged study and evaluation of many lines of converging evidence, the Committee makes the following judgement: Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action.”
(Smoking and Health, 1964)
The report found that smoking is a cause of lung cancer and laryngeal cancer in men, a probable cause of lung cancer in women, the most important cause of chronic bronchitis and a contributing factor to cardiovascular diseases, resulting in a higher death rate from coronary artery disease among male cigarette smokers. After its release, it dominated newspaper headlines for days and was later ranked among the top news stories of 1964.
And while some tobacco control measures, such as warning labels on cigarette packs, were implemented promptly, cigarette sales in the U.S. continued to rise until the early 1980s, which is when they peaked at more than 630 billion cigarettes per year.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Over the past four decades, measures to discourage smoking and protect the public from second-hand smoke have become more and more strict and wide-ranging, resulting in falling tobacco use prevalence in the United States and large parts of the world. Looking at the U.S., the CDC considers the antismoking campaign a “public health success with few parallels in history”, as it achieved its goal despite “the addictive nature of tobacco and the powerful economic forces promoting its use.”
You will find more infographics at Statista
According to WHO estimates, 21.7 percent of all people aged 15 and older used tobacco in 2020, down from 32.7 percent at the turn of the millennium. As the cvhart above nicely illustrates, the tobacco use rate is highest among 45- to 54-year-olds at 27.5 percent, while it’s just 13.8 percent among 15- to 24-year-olds and 13.5 percent among those aged 85 and older.
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Site: Zero HedgeWith Centuries-Old Ohio Paper Mill Set To Close, Locals Hope For A MiracleTyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 21:45
Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Judy Sowers is the matriarch of a family that has seen generations work at “the Mead,” which is what the paper mill in Chillicothe is known as by many locals.
On May 8, Sowers gathered around a kitchen table with two of her daughters, her brother, and her son-in-law in a house across the street from the mill and its red-and-white striped tower.
Their conversation was on a topic that is on the minds of residents, business owners, and local officials in this community of 21,895 in the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio.
Pixelle Specialty Solutions—and its parent, private equity firm H.I.G. Capital—announced on April 15 that it would be shutting down its paper mill in Chillicothe.
The company said the closure was necessary as part of its effort to “align its operation footprint with long-term business objectives.”
Jobs are on the line for around 830 workers. The company originally intended to shut down the mill in phases over the weeks that followed the announcement.
The decision was delayed after freshman Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) secured a commitment from H.I.G. Capital, which bought the mill in 2022, to pause the facility’s closure until the end of the year.
Chillicothe is known as the “Paper City.” The mill was opened in 1812.
Sowers’s grandparents worked at the Mead. So did John Angus Sr., Sowers’s father. Several other family members have spent their careers at the mill.
“If you didn’t work there, you had family work there, or you knew someone who worked there. Kids grow up hearing stories from generations of family members about working at the mill,” Sowers, 74, said.
John Angus Jr., Sowers’s brother, recalled his 42-year career that stretched from his early 20s to retirement age.
“It took me five years to get on there after I graduated from high school. At the time, it was a job many people wanted to have if they wanted to stay here,” John Angus Jr. told The Epoch Times.
“I worked shift work for almost 43 years, so I missed a lot of stuff with the family, but it put bread and butter on the table. It would be a shame to see it close.”
Chillicothe became the first capital of the Northwest Territory in 1800 and Ohio’s first capital in 1803.
Chillicothe’s downtown has been revitalized over the past decade and serves as the centerpiece of the city, featuring an ambience reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting.
Downtown Chillicothe, Ohio, on May 8, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times
Restaurants, antique shops, coffeehouses, taverns, and Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop occupy historic buildings reflecting an architecture from a bygone era.
With its downtown and attractions such as the amphitheater, where an outdoor drama about Shawnee Indian Chief Tecumseh still plays every summer, Chillicothe draws outside visitors.
Most of the businesses rely on local traffic, though, provided by major employers such as Adena Regional Medical Center, two state prisons, a VA Medical Center, a Kenworth semi-truck manufacturing plant, and the mill.
Trent Fannin and his wife opened Rost Coffee in downtown Chillicothe in 2016. The shop buzzes with traffic from mill workers, employees from downtown businesses, and high school and college students.
“Downtown Chillicothe has a lively pulse that downtowns in most towns across southern Ohio don’t have. It’s a destination, and hopefully, we don’t find out the impact of losing the mill. We’re concerned, but hopeful,” Fannin said.
Residents and local and state legislators are hopeful that Pixelle finds a way to keep the mill open long term or sell it to a company committed to making a long-term commitment to Chillicothe.
It was purchased by Col. Daniel Mead of Dayton, around 75 miles northwest of Chillicothe, in 1890. The Mead was one of the largest paper manufacturers in the country for more than 100 years.
In 2002, the Mead merged with Westvaco in a $3 billion stock transaction.
The headquarters of MeadWestvaco was relocated from Dayton to Connecticut, and then to Richmond, Virginia.
After learning about the plan to shutter the mill, Moreno wrote a letter to H.I.G. CEO Sami Mnaymneh, charging the executive with “selfish business decisions and corporate greed.”
“H.I.G. Capital is an investment firm with $69 billion of equity capital under management, riddled with Wall Street executives, including Mr. Mnaymneh, a billionaire five times over and one of the wealthiest people in the world,” Moreno wrote.
The firm’s business model is “to suck the proverbial blood out of companies it acquires until the companies declare bankruptcy, leaving the employees and communities it decimates behind,” Moreno said, pointing to the outcomes of some of the other transactions the private equity firm has made.
Read the rest here...
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Site: Public Discourse
Editors’ Note: In recognition of the 100th anniversary of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, this article is published as the second in a three-part series on religious freedom.
Should children’s parents or should the government shape the beliefs and values of children? Natural law theorists argue that parents have a responsibility, and therefore possess the prima facie authority, to direct the upbringing and education of their children. This, according to natural law theory, is no mere matter of cultural convention but is an objective moral truth. Children are born to parents—a mother and a father—and are therefore theirs (and, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, in a certain sense a part of them), though not in any sense that would reduce children to the status of their parents’ property. Indeed, parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children are rooted in their duty to bring up their children properly and educate them well.
On this account, government has no free-standing or independent decision-making right or authority with respect to children. Children do not belong to the state in the way they belong to their parents. In extreme circumstances, government may intervene to protect children from parental abuse or neglect, but such interventions are only legitimate where parents actually abuse or neglect their children, forfeiting their rights by defaulting on their responsibilities.
Contemporary progressives, by contrast, view the state as having what amounts to a quasi-parental role. It is true that progressives, at least for the most part, do not seek to entirely replace parents with the state—theirs is not, for example, Plato’s famous stipulation in the Republic that children ought to be held “in common” under the state’s supervision and care, such that “neither will a parent know his own offspring, nor a child his parent.” But they do view the state as having a measure of direct authority over children that rivals, and at times may even supersede, the authority of parents. They typically hold that authority over children is shared between the state and the parents.
Perhaps the most influential proponent of the progressive position is my friend and former Princeton colleague, Dr. Amy Gutmann. Over the course of a distinguished scholarly career that included nearly two decades as President of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Gutmann has mounted vigorous defenses of the state’s right and duty to shape, even independently of parental wishes, the moral character and fundamental beliefs of children. For the sake of forming adult citizens committed to what she describes as the “secular standards” of modern liberal democracies and who are left “free to choose their own [version of] the good life,” she argues that public schools or other governmental institutions “cannot escape looking after children’s souls in many significant and subtle ways.” Between parents and the state, Gutmann maintains, “we have no a priori reason to favor one paternalistic agent over another.”
A more blunt—to put it politely—expression of the progressive view comes from Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Bartholet, who argues that practices such as homeschooling have been abused by parents who are “ideologically committed . . . to isolating their children from the majority culture and indoctrinating them in views and values that are in serious conflict with that culture.” (The subtext, of course, is that such “ideologically committed” parents are those who are committed to living lives and raising families in conformity with traditional religious and moral values.) Criticizing what she identifies as “absolutist” views of parental rights, Bartholet said in a 2020 interview that:
Many homeschooling parents are extreme ideologues, committed to raising their children within their belief systems isolated from any societal influence. Some believe that black people are inferior to white people and others that women should be subject to men and not educated for careers but instead raised to serve their fathers first and then their husbands. The danger is both to these children and to society. The children may not have the chance to choose for themselves whether to exit these ideological communities; society may not have the chance to teach them values important to the larger community, such as tolerance of other people’s views and values.
In truth, the natural law view of parental rights is far from absolutist—and is neither rooted in nor designed to abet prejudice or bigotry. As I’ve noted, the natural law view’s prima facie parental authority over children’s upbringing and formation is not an exceptionless claim—parental authority can be forfeited and government may, in cases of child abuse or neglect, intervene to protect children from demonstrable harm. In cases of genuine abuse or neglect, such as when parents are harming or abjectly failing to protect their children’s physical health, parental rights can be overridden. The state, acting on its duty to advance and protect the common good, could legitimately step in to remove the child from an objectively harmful or dangerous situation by, for example, temporarily placing the child with a relative or in a foster home until the child’s parents are able (if they indeed become able) to fulfill their parental responsibilities again.
Still, under the natural law view, the state plays a purely supportive and subsidiary role in the child’s upbringing, moral formation, and overall well-being. When, in extreme situations, the state justly moves to intervene on behalf of the child, the state’s intervention is still in a sense supplementary to the parents’ fundamental role—never subsuming the parental right, and always moving towards the ultimate goal of restoring the child to his core family unit (though, of course, sometimes this will ultimately be impossible).
Furthermore—and contrary to Bartholet’s caricature—the natural law view of parental rights does not promote, endorse, or sanction indoctrination. Parents are charged with the grave responsibility of forming their children, to the best of their ability, to be good people and to lead good lives.
Formation includes the inculcation of certain values, to be sure; all parents should teach their children to conduct themselves honorably and with integrity. Indeed, any notion of strictly-neutralist parenting is absurd; when parents, no matter their fundamental commitments, teach their children that stealing is wrong, that they shouldn’t cheat on exams, that they should keep their promises, and that they should sit with the fellow student who always eats lunch alone, they are acting on normative judgments to inculcate the virtues and values their children need in order to lead good lives.
But proper formation is not indoctrination. Forming one’s children to be sophists or sycophants, unable to formulate, articulate, and defend their own views in an intellectually robust fashion, is one thing; raising them in accordance with certain religious or moral precepts is something else, and something that all parents inevitably must do. Proper formation encourages the development of an authentic sense of agency and freedom—the freedom to engage in morally worthy choosing—that indoctrination not only fails to impart but actually destroys.
The critic would point out the cases, and they will always exist, in which parents fail to raise their children in accordance with sound moral values. Perhaps a parent will teach a child that stealing can be good, that you should only keep your promises if it benefits you to do so, or that you should cheat on exams if it helps you to get ahead. And I have no doubt, as the critic would point out, that there are parents who seek to indoctrinate their children, rather than authentically form them to be independent and critical thinkers. But the truth is that the state must be willing to tolerate some abuses of parental rights lest the efforts to prevent the abuses undermine the rights themselves.
The same is true of other rights—for example, the right to freedom of speech. We rightly tolerate abuses of the right to speak freely, lest our efforts to prevent abuses (by licensing government to engage in censorship) undermine the right. Of course, we draw certain lines. For example, we tolerate the abstract advocacy of violence, but we draw the line at deliberately inciting people to imminent violence. (This distinction is expressly drawn by the Supreme Court in the 1969 case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, which remains the leading precedent on the subject.) Similarly, we tolerate a misguided parent’s teaching his child that stealing is good, but we punish the parent who is convicted of sending his child to rob the local convenience store.
The progressive approach’s concrete implications—and perhaps indicative of the true intentions all along of some of those seeking to curtail parental rights—can be observed in recent efforts by progressive activists to erode parents’ control over children’s education in order to convert their children to social progressivism. Consider, for example, the recently argued US Supreme Court case Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which progressive activists asked the Court to uphold a decision by Montgomery County, Maryland’s public school system banning parents from opting their children out of programs promoting LGBTQ ideology at the pre-K and elementary school level.
Montgomery County’s case for subjecting young children to overtly pro-LGBTQ materials hinged fundamentally on this same progressive paternalistic conception of the state’s role in child rearing—the view that the state has an independently-grounded, non-subsidiary role to play in making normative judgments about the sorts of ideas that ought to guide a child’s moral and intellectual upbringing. Defending the policy, the county’s lawyer told the Supreme Court that allowing parents to opt their children out of pro-LGBTQ lessons would risk “exposing students who believe the storybooks represent them and their families to social stigma and isolation.” To be frank, the local government’s argument in Mahmoud was that the state has a legitimate role to play in ideologically influencing the moral formation of children enrolled in public schools, at least in part because not doing so would allegedly have a negative impact on other children whose parents seek to raise them with socially liberal moral commitments. (Of course, they are utterly unconcerned with how students whose families hold traditional values are subjected to “stigma and isolation” when they resist pressure to believe that such values are backward or bigoted.)
For the sake of the supposed comfort of their socially progressive peers, the government in Mahmoud claimed an interest in encouraging all students to adopt views normatively favorable to and disposed toward same-sex marriage, transgenderism, sexual liberation, and hotly-contested conceptions of sexuality and gender identity—and claimed that parents had no right to stop their children from being subjected to what truly was indoctrination. It is in cases like Mahmoud that we see the real reason that many progressives are so keen for organs and institutions of the state, at least when they are dominated by ideological allies of social and cultural progressivism, to “share”—and eventually override, as Montgomery County sought to do through banning opt-outs—parental authority with actual parents.
The Supreme Court is, I believe, likely to side with the parents in Mahmoud and reaffirm that our Constitution protects not only the free-exercise rights of parents and their children, but also, and relatedly, the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children. This is because the United States has a long tradition of articulating and upholding the natural law account of parental rights within our constitutional order. Indeed, beginning with the landmark case Pierce v. Society of Sisters, whose one-hundredth anniversary we celebrate this year, we can trace in our constitutional order an essentially unbroken line of efforts to uphold the natural law account of parental rights against myriad efforts to undermine it.
Pierce concerned a statute enacted by Oregon that sought to compel all children, including those enrolled in what had been state-recognized private schools, to attend public schools. The bill was aggressively promoted by the Ku Klux Klan. Its principal targets were Catholic parochial schools—many supporters of the law, such as Oregon’s Democratic governor Walter Pierce, hoped to see Catholic schools shut down and the children who would have attended those schools, many of them immigrants themselves or from immigrant families, incorporated into the dominant Anglo-Protestant culture through compulsory public education. Writing for a unanimous court, Justice James Clark McReynolds held that the law “unreasonably interfere[d] with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children,” adding that “The child is not the mere creature of the State.”
But as Professor Melissa Moschella, my brilliant former student, has argued, the Pierce ruling and its implications went beyond merely affirming that parents, and not the state, have the right to decide on their children’s education—e.g., about where to send them to school. The Court—in keeping with past common law precedents and lower court findings—also upheld a robust account of fundamental parental rights, concordant with the natural law view, that does not stop at the schoolhouse door.
While critics, like University of Connecticut law professor Anne Dailey, have claimed that Pierce is an “ambiguous” ruling, and have (strictly speaking correctly) observed that the proclamation that the child is not the “mere creature of the State” does not mean that the child is the “mere creature of the parents either,” the natural law view of parental rights found in our tradition does not regard children as objects or wholly subservient creatures of anyone—including their parents. While it is true, as I have observed, that under the natural law view of parental rights children do belong to parents in a sense, it is in a very particular and narrowly-tailored sense. Children are neither pieces of parental property nor creatures that possess any less dignity or worth than full-grown adults; rather, they are participants in a unique and timeless person-to-person relationship between themselves and their parents that is replete with duties on the part of parents. And, as I have already noted, proponents of the natural law account freely acknowledge that parental rights are defeasible—not absolute, as someone’s rights might be over a piece of property or some other legitimately instrumentalized object.
As Pierce illustrates, the fight to protect and preserve parents’ fundamental rights to direct their children’s education and shape their values is nothing new when it comes to the American story. But, as the case also demonstrates, the natural law-rooted conception of the relationship between child and parent is deeply rooted in our nation’s constitutional self-understanding. It is not a doctrinally sectarian or even an explicitly religious or theistic position. The natural law account of parental rights is a substantively robust and reason-based position—one that must be defended for all Americans of all faiths and shades of belief. As supporters of the natural law account confront the challenges of today—struggles such as that against Montgomery County’s LGBTQ indoctrination efforts—we must be courageous defenders of the truth of parental rights. These are not rights conferred by a merely human authority, and subject to the whims of such an authority. They are, rather, natural rights.
Image licensed via Adobe Stock.
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Site: Novus Motus LiturgicusThis is the fourth installment of a series on the thirteen papal namesakes of our new Holy Father Leo XIV; click these links to read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4. The tenth and eleventh Popes to bear the name Leo were both members of the Medici family, the ruling dynasty (at first de facto, later de jure) of Florence. Thanks to the family’s disastrous lack of concern for the Church’s laws Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: non veni pacem
(h/t Harvey Millican and Supernerd)
I’m 80 Percent Blind From Glaucoma
Help Me Pay For Home Health Care, Office Work, Transportation (about $1600/mo est.) This applies to the twelve months of 2025; any amounts over the goal will be much appreciated.I’m Paul Mann, 76. I’m 80% blind from glaucoma. I’m the creator of the Douay-Rheims website, drbo.org. I’ve asked my friend to create this webpage for me. I went blind in my right eye in 1992 and now glaucoma has destroyed most of my vision in my left eye. My optometrist was negligent for five years. I finally got surgery but the damage from the glaucoma cannot be reversed.DONATE HERE
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Site: LifeNews
Texas lawmakers passed bills that will help build a Pro-Life culture, but House leadership ignored the biggest threat to women and babies: abortion pills.
State officials began the 2025 legislative session in January with a major opportunity to stop the abortion industry. An estimated 30,000 Texan babies are killed each year by out-of-state procedures and abortion drugs, which also endanger mothers.
Texas Right to Life urged the Legislature to save these children with two Pro-Life Priority Bills:
- The Woman and Child Protection Act (SB 2880) to combat abortion pills; and
- The Stop Tax-Funded Abortion Travel Act (SB 33) to block cities from sending pregnant women to other states for abortions.
Failure to Stop Abortion Pills
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The Woman and Child Protection Act ranked as the top Pro-Life measure of 2025 and would have cracked down on abortion pills brought to Texas from other states and countries. Whether sold online, shipped in the mail, or trafficked over the border, the Woman and Child Protection Act would have saved lives by:
- Allowing Texans to sue abortion pill manufacturers and distributors;
- Giving women and families the right to sue for wrongful deaths or injuries caused by these drugs; and
- Empowering the attorney general to prosecute abortion pill traffickers directly.
While the Texas Senate boldly championed this issue, Texas House leadership refused.
Groups, lawmakers, and activists rallied behind SB 2880 by Sen. Bryan Hughes (R–Mineola) and Rep. Jeff Leach (R–Allen). However, Chairman Ken King (R–Canadian) delayed SB 2880 so long in committee that it never reached the House floor before the deadline.
Without this legislation, an estimated 38,000 abortion pills will be brought to Texas between now and the next regular session in 2027—killing babies and endangering as many as 1 in 10 mothers who take them. The only way Texas lawmakers could save children from chemical abortions before 2027 is if Governor Abbott calls a special session for the Woman and Child Protection Act.
Story continues below.
Building a Pro-Life Texas Progress:
Despite the failure on abortion pills, lawmakers still passed several meaningful Pro-Life measures that help foster a Culture of Life in Texas:
Stop Taxpayer-Funded Abortion Travel Act
(SB 33 by Sen. Donna Campbell, M.D. (R–New Braunfels), sponsored by Rep. Candy Noble (R–Lucas))
Your taxpayer dollars will be protected from funding abortion travel costs (like what happened in Austin and San Antonio). SB 33 clarifies that it is illegal for governments to give tax dollars to abortion groups.Support for Fragile Babies
(SB 1233 by Sen. Kelly Hancock (R–North Richland Hills), sponsored by Rep. Valoree Swanson (R–Spring))
When a family finds out their preborn child may not live very long after birth, hospitals and doctors will now provide information on specialized care for their babies and community support for the parents so they don’t feel alone. The bill offers families hope through nonprofits like Abel Speaks, instead of pushing them toward abortion.The Life of the Mother Act
(SB 31 by Sen. Bryan Hughes (R–Mineola), sponsored by Rep. Charlie Geren (R–Fort Worth))
SB 31 reaffirms that doctors are allowed to intervene if a pregnant woman faces a life-threatening physical condition under Texas’ Pro-Life laws. In most cases, the best option is to deliver the baby early—even if the child is too premature to survive—so both mother and baby receive care. Importantly, this sort of pre-viable delivery is often labeled “abortion” by medical professionals, leading to the misunderstanding that it would be banned. In rare and tragic situations where early delivery cannot save either life, the law permits doctors to act to save the mother. SB 31 also provides education for physicians and their legal advisors, helping them navigate these difficult cases and save as many lives as possible.Adoption Education in High Schools
(SB 1207 by Sen. Phil King (R–Weatherford), sponsored by Rep. Terri Leo Wilson (R–Galveston))
This bill requires public high schools to teach about adoption in their health classes. Currently, for every 50 babies aborted, only 1 is adopted, largely due to fears and myths about adoption. SB 1207 helps young Texans see adoption as a compassionate and life-affirming option.Protecting Pregnancy Center Funding
(SB 1388 by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst (R–Brenham), sponsored by Rep. James Frank (R–Wichita Falls))
SB 1388 ensures that state funds from the Thriving Texas Families program only go to Pro-Life organizations like maternity homes, pregnancy resource centers, and adoption agencies. This way, the funds are not diluted by groups that do not align with the program’s life-affirming purpose.Pro-Life Funding (Thriving Texas Families Program)
The final Texas budget includes $200 million for pregnancy centers, adoption agencies, and maternity homes, thanks to Rep. Caroline Harris Davila (R–Round Rock), Rep. Tom Oliverson, M.D., (R–Cypress), and other leading Pro-Life officials.
At first, lawmakers sought to cut the program to $140 million ($25 million less than 2023). Texas Right to Life does NOT receive any state funding, but we were the only statewide organization in the Capitol that testified for officials to keep the program’s full amount. While the Senate slightly walked back the needed $210 million, Pro-Life nonprofits will still receive a meaningful boost to serve pregnant women and families.
Bad Bills Defeated
This session, we helped defeat several dangerous bills, including efforts that would have:
- Repealed Pro-Life laws or added exceptions for abortion;
- Let fathers avoid paying child support if they offered to pay for an abortion; and
- Honored former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards.
The Bottom Line
We’re encouraged by the good steps taken to help moms and babies, but we cannot ignore the bloodshed by abortion pills in Texas and House leadership’s apathy.
Christians must stay vigilant, engaged, and vocal. Together, we will continue to defend Life at every stage—from fertilization to natural death—and hold elected officials accountable for protecting the most vulnerable.
LifeNews Note: Ashley Leenerts writes for Texas Right to Life
The post Abortion Pills are Killing 30,000 Texas Babies a Year. We Must Stop This appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: LifeNews
Peggy Noonan’s wrote “The End of Roe v. Wade Will Be Good for America” just weeks before the Supreme Court’s June 24, 2022, decision to overturn Roe. The decision had been leaked and even though the Supreme Court said it was a terrible breach of protocol and endangered the lives of justices, the source of the leak was never found.
Last Monday, “FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino announced on X that he and FBI Director Kash Patel would be reopening several cases that occurred under the Biden administration, including the leak of the Dobbs case,” Bridget Sielicki wrote.
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Noonan’s insights were keen and very much worth pondering as we now live in a post-Roe world, and while she covers numerous aspects of Roe’s awful impact on our culture, what I find most inspiring is her explanation for why she is pro-life:
I am pro-life for the most essential reason: That’s a baby in there, a human child. We cannot accept as a society—we really can’t bear the weight of this fact, which is why we keep fighting—that we have decided that we can extinguish the lives of our young. Another reason, and maybe it veers on mysticism, is that I believe the fact of abortion, that it exists throughout the country, that we endlessly talk about it, that the children grow up hearing this and absorbing it and thinking, “We end the life within the mother here,” “It’s just some cells”—that all of this has released a kind of poison into the air, that we breathed it in for 50 years and it damaged everything.
Yes, Roe changed everything—“damaged everything.” Roe undermined the moral obligation mothers—and fathers!—have to their unborn children. Like acid, Roe ate away at the foundations of our culture making abortion seem to be acceptable, a reflex “solution” to an unplanned pregnancy.
Not surprisingly, now that Roe is in the rearview mirror, pro-abortionists have lashed out. Along with their legion of allies in the media, they are formidable foes.
Yet pro-lifers are the eternal optimists. Why? Because we believe the better angels of our nature will not –cannot–be forever silenced. As a nation, we are better than turning a blind eye to well over 900,000 abortions a year would have you believe. Reminding our fellow citizens of this tragedy is among the most important tasks you do, day in and day out.
Noonan’s conclusion is immensely powerful. Remember this was written before June 24, 2022, Dobbs decision was rendered:
And if Roe is indeed overturned, God bless our country that can make such a terrible, coldhearted mistake and yet, half a century later, redress it, right it, turn it around. Only a thinking nation could do that. Only a feeling nation could do that. We’re not dead yet, there are still big things going on here.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. He frequently writes Today’s News and Views — an online opinion column on pro-life issues.
The post I’m Pro-Life for the Most Essential Reason. That’s a Baby in There appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Fr. Z's BlogWelcome registrants: Petroseni The monks of Le Barroux have a project. They are trying to build a museum/shop. To get the project rolling they need to sale 20K bottles of wine. That’s where YOU come in. Help monks, get wine. … Read More →
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Site: LifeNews
The New York Times Magazine has a very long article out Sunday highlighting cases of nonterminally ill people being killed by doctors in Canada. It is too long to comment on the whole thing. (Please take the time to read it.) But one story described was so starkly abandoning, I have to bring it to your attention.
The story describes a woman named Paula, who seems to have been deeply depressed and experiencing chronic pain that could not be diagnosed. She had been abused by her father. She had attempted suicide more than once. After her mother died of cancer, she hit the skids, and she was on the verge of homelessness. Her life went into what would eventually become a literal death spiral. From, “Do Patients Without a Terminal Illness Have the Right to Die?”:
Paula stopped seeing her therapists and her social workers. She stopped seeing a family doctor because she couldn’t find one. She stopped taking mood stabilizers. She didn’t have a cellphone or a computer, and she spent hours a day just talking on an old black landline phone to people back in Perth. Still, Paula said, she was managing things — she was holding it together — until the concussion.
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She was beaten up by two women with whom she had been feuding at the housing complex, suffering a concussion, which caused her life to spiral even further. She wanted euthanasia. Tests showed no brain damage. But she was miserable and wanted to die. She went on a crusade to find a doctor — any doctor — who would approve her being killed by lethal injection under Canada’s “Track 2” euthanasia protocol for the nonterminally ill.
She finally found a death doctor who was willing to kill her, despite knowing that many of her problems were social:
Fundamentally, he [the death doctor] didn’t think the best way to protect poor and marginalized patients was to force them to stay alive, because in some counterfactual version of events, in which the world was a better and more just place, they might have chosen differently. That wasn’t how anything in medicine worked; a doctor always treated the patient as she was. How could it be otherwise? If only those who were rich or well connected were recognized to have autonomy and allowed to choose? . . .
He had read the report from Paula’s neurologist, which said that Paula did not have permanent brain damage and was not eligible for MAID. But he thought the specialist, who was not a MAID provider herself, misunderstood the eligibility criteria. There was nothing in the law that said that Paula’s neurological condition had to be tied to actual, physical damage to the brain. Paula’s pain was real either way. She felt it the same either way.
On the day of the homicide, Paula says she is “terrified.” Of course! She is about to be killed! A “pastor” arrives to “counsel” her. She pushes the killing! This made me regurgitate my lunch:
Then the minister walked in. Paula had spent days calling religious leaders and asking if they would come sit with her while she died. Some said they would not but that they would pray for her. Others wouldn’t even do that. But then, finally, someone agreed to come. She introduced herself as the Rev. Takouhi Demirdjian-Petro, from the United Church of Canada, and she was tall and sturdy, in a pink clerical blouse. She looked down at Paula and took stock of the tearful situation. “You’re in the hands of the everlasting love of God,” she said firmly.
Paula started to cry harder, until she was nearly convulsing. “God have mercy on my soul.”
“God is with you,” the minister said. “And he is guiding you.”
“What if I get lost?” Paula asked. “My mind doesn’t have a very good GPS. I’m scared of getting lost.”
“You won’t. I promise you, honey.” The minister told Paula that she had a vision of Paula’s mother waiting for her, like a mother might wait for her daughter at the airport. “And I’m not B.S.ing you. So just let go of this empty, empty world.”
The death doctor arrives:
For days, Paula had worried that, at the final moment, she would waver, as she did when she tried to take her life before: pick up the pills, put them down, pick them up again; wade into the river, swim back, over and over. She imagined that when Wonnacott reached for the syringe, she would flinch. But Paula was calm and still as the drugs went in. “I don’t feel anything,” she whispered.
“Oh, wow,” she said. “This is horrible. I’m just so sorry.” Paula coughed as if she might vomit. Deep, guttural hacks. After a few moments, her body relaxed. A wet tissue fell from her hands. Her skin slowly turned a pale white.
Soon, Paula is dead.
Paula is not an anomaly. I just interviewed a Canadian man named Roger Foley for my Humanize podcast. The episode will be posted in a week. He is in a hospital with a progressively disabling condition for which doctors, he says, have repeatedly pushed euthanasia on him for several years — as they concomitantly deny him the kind of care that would make his life easier to bear. I’ll link to that interview here when it’s posted.
I also included Alex Schadenberg, the founder of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, in the interview. He described how hospital “MAiD teams” visit patients who might qualify to be killed, offering their death services. Can. You. Imagine?
Euthanasia is awful “medicine” and even worse public policy. It exposes the most vulnerable among us to abandonment and death. It pretends to be kind. It claims to be compassionate. But in the end, it justifies the most callous cruelty.
LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D. is Chair and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. Wesley is a contributor to National Review and is the author of 14 books, in recent years focusing on human dignity, liberty, and equality. Wesley has been recognized as one of America’s premier public intellectuals on bioethics by National Journal and has been honored by the Human Life Foundation as a “Great Defender of Life” for his work against suicide and euthanasia. Wesley’s most recent book is Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, a warning about the dangers to patients of the modern bioethics movement. He blogs at Human Exeptionalism.
The post Canadian Doctors are Euthanizing Patients Who Aren’t Even Terminally Ill appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Euthanasia Prevention CoalitionAlex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
I have terrible news.
The amazing and profound disability activist, Stephen Mendelsohn (63), who worked tirelessly to oppose assisted suicide as a member of Second Thoughts Connecticut and as a member of the EPC - USA board has died.
According to a media report Stephen Mendelsohn died when he was hit by a car on Sunday evening (June 1).
Mendelsohn will truly be missed.Mendelsohn was an incredible researcher. He would read through legislative texts and uncover specific language variations that may not have been noticed immediately. Also, the interventions that he wrote opposing assisted suicide bills often used new talking points and ways to oppose killing by assisted suicide.Mendelsohn followed assisted suicide leglislation closely and regularly sent updates to leaders to inform us on state bills.
Mendelsohn was an activist who was willing to let it be known why he opposed assisted suicide.
Stephen Mendelsohn cannot be replaced. I hope that another active focussed and caring researcher / thinker will soon come forward.
I cannot express enough the loss EPC and others are experiencing in the death of our friend Stephen Mendelsohn.
Zekher tzadik livrakhaSome articles by Stephen Mendelsohn:- Connecticut bill to prohibit drugs for capital punishment must also prohibit drugs for assisted suicide (Link).
- Testimony in strong opposition to Minnesota End-of-Life options act (Link).
- Strong opposition to Connecticut assisted suicide bill (Link).
- Connecticut assisted suicide bill is defeated again (Link).
- Disability leader testifies against Connecticut assisted suicide bill (Link).
- Assisted suicide lobby spreads falsehoods to promote systematic ableism (Link).
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Site: LifeNews
There are a lot of us at National Right to Life that closely scrutinize medical journals. Not, you understand, that they are immune to pro-abortion bias, but you can still learn a lot.
And, every once in a while, the truth seeps out. Take “Ob/Gyns Mostly Stayed Put After SCOTUS Overturned Roe, Study Finds: Surprising results go against the idea that ob/gyns moved from abortion-restrictive states” that appeared here which I wrote about here.
As Rachael Robertson, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, for MedPage Today wrote back in April, “In the post-Roe v. Wade era, ob/gyns continued to practice in similar locations as before, according to a descriptive cohort study.”
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She quoted the authors
“The only statistically significant difference suggested that the share of physicians who are ob/gyns decreased less in threatened states than in protected ones, opposite to the expected finding if ob/gyns were leaving states where abortion is threatened,” the authors wrote.”
Well, Becky Staiger and Valentin Bolotnyy, two of the three authors of the April 21 JAMA Network Open article, brought their results to a larger audience yesterday—The Hill.
The headline was even more explicit: “No, OBGYNs are not systematically fleeing states that banned abortion.” They begin by writing that the 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe, supposedly “added a new layer of legal risk” for ob-gyns. However, this has not caused them to hightail it to pro-abortion states.
But in research just published in JAMA Network Open, we and our co-authors find no evidence of such an exodus of obstetrician-gynecologist physicians from states with abortion bans.
Really? “OBGYNs also continued to move into states with abortion bans at similar rates to other states,” they wrote. “We also considered trends in the practice locations of recent residency graduates and subspecialists in maternal-fetal medicine, as well as trends in the share of OBGYNs who are female and who are licensed to practice in more than one state. All were similar between states, regardless of abortion’s legality.’ [Emphasis added]
They also acknowledged that “Our findings are not unique.”
In December 2024, an independent group of researchers using a different data set came to the exact same conclusions. And in March, researchers showed that the number of obstetrician-gynecologists in states with bans has increased since Dobbs, though perhaps at a slower rate than in a group of states with mixed status.
Michael New came to a perfectly reasonable conclusion:
All in all, these results are unsurprising. Surveys consistently show that a low percentage of OBGYNs perform abortions. The legal status of abortion would likely have little impact on the decisions of most OBGYNs as to where to move or locate their practice.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. He frequently writes Today’s News and Views — an online opinion column on pro-life issues.
The post OBGYBNs are Still Providing Great Care for Women in Pro-Life States appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Fr. Z's BlogWelcome to the 13th edition of News of the Church. It’s 2 June 2025 and it is the Monday after Ascension Thursday and we commemorate Sts Marcellinus and Peter. Some time ago, I saw a movie called News of the … Read More →
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Site: Henrymakow.comPlease send links and comments to hmakow@gmail.comMike Adams' Worst Case Scenario:Western nations are pushing Russia into a nuclear response to cover up planned financial Armageddon"Huge events over the weekend, coordinated with Ukraine, have triggered Russia's nuclear defense doctrine and pushed the world much closer to nuclear Armageddon."How many people realize that by destroying a significant number of Russia's strategic nuclear bombers, Ukraine (and whoever helped them) just caused a crisis-level imbalance in "nuclear parity" which means that Russia, right this very minute, is no doubt debating whether to launch a nuclear first strike on western nations. Ask yourself who benefits from nuclear strikes on western nations. It's obvious. Western leaders are already on the verge of currency collapse and a collapsing debt market. They need a cover story to explain away the great reset / Great Taking. They need Russia to nuke the west so that when all your assets vanish and somehow end up in the hands of the government-connected ultra-wealthy banksters, they can say it isn't their fault. "Russia did it!" The satanic-pedo-lunatics running the UK are leading this effort, and Trump is actually trying to stop it and focus on trade, not war, as far as I can tell. Consider the importance of getting out of fiat currencies if you want to have any assets left at all..."---Alex Jones: NATO's Attack On Russia's Nuclear Triad Is A Deliberate Attempt To Trigger All-Out Nuclear War! Tune In NOW As General Flynn & Other Experts Break Down Why Russia's "Pearl Harbor" Signals The Official Start Of WW3!Poland--Nationalist candidate Nawrocki beat the globalist in the final runoffs of the top two candidates:Suspicious that Trump sabotaged his natural ally in Canada. Is there any doubt that the US would invade Canada in the event of world war? This may be the plan.--Germany's Replacement Migration: 1 in 4 Residents Have Migrant Backgrounds"When it comes to all crimes, the quantity and proportion of foreign suspects both spiked sharply. Like violent crimes, the number of non-German suspects also rose sharply to 923,000, a 17.8% increase compared to 2022.A sharp upward trend is also observable in non-violent cases of theft. Home burglaries jumped 18.9%; car theft 17.5%; shoplifting 23.6%; and pickpocketing 11%. Of the 424,000 theft suspects identified, 187,000, or 44%, were non-German passport holders, representing a 22.8% increase compared to the prior year."-----Let's pause for a moment to thank Organized Jewry and Freemasonry for the mess we are in.Watch as the truth inside a UK migrant hotel is shown, packed with illegal migrants, Arabic NHS posters and a silence from Keir Starmer's Labour government. This insane report reveals the £5+ million a day hotel scandal fuelling Britain's border crisis and so many facts they won't show on the news.Inside Illegal Migrant Hotel EXPOSED - (ACTUAL FOOTAGE)---The John Todd / Lance Collins TapesArchive from the late 1970s of Illuminati bloodline insider John Todd (Lance Collins) on his experiences with the Illuminati and Witchcraft"These excerpts contain a speaker's testimony detailing their experiences within the occult and the Illuminati. The speaker describes rising to a high level in witchcraft, alleging connections between these groups and influential figures in politics, entertainment (especially rock music and television), and even some religious organizations. The transcripts outline the speaker's claims about the Illuminati's goals of world control through financial manipulation and engineered crises. They also discuss the speaker's conversion to Christianity, the perceived threats they faced as a result, and warnings about occult symbols, practices, and preparation for future societal collapse.-Hamdy Mig -"After being cut off from flour for more than a week, today I got some of it after a lot of suffering in searching for it. The price of one loaf of bread exceeded $8 if it were available. Praise be to God, this is a great blessing that we received today."A Way to Help Gaza-Just Like Event 201: 2024 Desktop Exercise War-gamed Bioterrorist Attack That Kills 280,000 Americans in a Single Day - on 4 July 2025"Imagine a second Trump Lockdown only this time in response to a bio-terror attack?"-Sadly, we are still subject to shedding...mRNA Vaccine Can Still Spread from Vaccinated to UnvaccinatedmRNA injections shed -- violating the bodily autonomy of innocent bystanders.Peters et al found that women with daily close proximity (within 6 feet) to vaccinated individuals outside their household had significant menstrual abnormalities:We are being changed at the molecular level, nano-scientists in the field of bio-mimetic and biowarfare technology will likely recognize these materials or at least their synthetic markers as I do from intense and dedicated study of these materials we have all been seeing in blood. Unfortunately, they wont say anything because it is safer that way, or so they thought. It is happening to you too guys, whats safe there? When did the whole world become cowards to the core? speak up, or soon you will forever hold your peace anyway!Putin,Trump, Zelensky, Satanyahu, Hezbollah, Iran, Hamas - all Freemasons!A tour of blood after 30 mins. Devastating. The true signs of nanotechnology frameworks in full take over.We are in phase 3 of 3 of the bio-digital convergence.""Mostly unvaccinated samples. Remember to be nice to the vaccinated, you are not a pure blood if nobody has blood without this material assembling in it. It is not primarily meant to kill, it is meant to reconfigure and alter the human body. I will save the explanations and other information for streams and live material coming soon. Most who have followed have seen some description of the material and behavior in regards to known synthetic constructs. But i wanted to share this stuff with those who will take it seriously while working away still. The Darkfield modifications are of course valid and proving to offer superior darkfield imaging of materials we couldn't see so accurately before. Biological reasoning is now completely out of the window thanks to this modification alone."--Lena Petrova - Goodbye Dollar? BRICS and Asia Ditch the Dollar- $7.5 Trillion Shift That Could Crash U.S. MarketsThe US is going into debt at a rate of a trillion dollars every three months. The world is refusing to finance this debt.-Makow comment 1- In an era of AI and robotics, manufacturing doesn't provide jobs any longer. The most plausible explanation for Trump's tariffs is to repatriate the supply chain in preparation for war.Over all, Trump's mission is to discredit MAGA just like Hitler discredited Nazism and antisemitism.Makow Comment 2- People are at their best when they are rescuing animals. I love these people. These videos show that there is no such thing as a "wild" animal. Raise them from infancy and they think you are their parent. As society beaks down, our relationship with pets is thriving. Animal rescue people seems to benefit as much as their wards!
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