Evil too, will always be part of the mystery of the Church. And when we see what men, what the clergy have done in the Church, then that is nothing short of proof that he [Christ] founded and upholds the Church. If she were dependent on men, she would long since have perished.
Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds
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Site: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
This article was published by National Review online on June 1, 2025.
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. 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.
Wesley Smith
By Wesley J. Smith
The New York Times Magazine has a very long article out today 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?”:
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.
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Site: LifeNews
Kentucky’s abortion ban remains intact to protect babies from abortions after the ACLU of Kentucky withdrew its lawsuit challenging the pro-life law.
The dismissal ensures that abortions will continue to be banned in nearly all cases, except to save the mother’s life or prevent severe injury.
The lawsuit, Poe v. Coleman, filed in November 2024 in Jefferson County Circuit Court, targeted Kentucky’s trigger law and six-week abortion ban, enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The trigger law bans abortions except in life-threatening situations or to prevent permanent injury, offering no exceptions for rape, incest, or fatal fetal anomalies.
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The plaintiff, a Louisville woman using the pseudonym Mary Poe, argued the bans violated her constitutional rights, even though there is no right to abortion in the Constitution. The ACLU of Kentucky, representing her, sought class-action status to include all pregnant Kentuckians unable to have abortions.
On May 30, 2025, the ACLU voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit without specifying a reason, though executive director Amber Duke reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to abortions.
Pro-life leaders hailed the outcome as a triumph for Kentucky’s commitment to life.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, a defendant in the case, vigorously defended the bans, arguing they reflect the state’s values. In a November 2024 statement reported by LifeNews.com, Coleman’s office called the ACLU’s lawsuit “baseless” and a “desperate attempt to impose a radical abortion agenda.” On X, Coleman celebrated the dismissal, stating, “Kentucky’s pro-life laws stand strong, protecting innocent lives and reflecting the will of our people.”
In 2023, the state Supreme Court ruled that abortion businesses lacked standing to sue on behalf of potential customers, prompting the ACLU and Planned Parenthood to file Poe v. Coleman with a pregnant plaintiff. A prior suit by a woman identified as Jane Doe was dropped in December 2023 after her embryo was deemed nonviable, highlighting the legal challenges of challenging the bans.
Kentucky’s laws have slashed abortions. The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services reported just 23 abortions in 2023, all deemed medically necessary, compared to 4,441 in 2021 when abortion was fully legal. Pro-life advocates view this as evidence of the bans’ success in protecting unborn lives.
The post Kentucky Abortion Ban Will Keep Saving Babies After ACLU Drops Lawsuit appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: LifeNews
A peer-reviewed analysis by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) not only confronts the widely-professed claim of abortion activists that abortion-inducing drugs are “safer than Tylenol,” but also finds no evidence of its credibility.
Published Tuesday in the journal BioTech, the research, titled “The Origins and Proliferation of Unfounded Comparisons Regarding the Safety of Mifepristone,” revealed there is no “controlled, scientifically appropriate study” that compares the abortion drug to the drug Tylenol in existence.
Indeed, one overarching finding of the analysis by CLI director of life sciences Cameron Louttit, Ph.D., is that the popular abortion industry talking point is founded on “flawed methodology,” CLI noted.
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A second major outcome of the analysis is that, by backing up the catchy slogan with reports on death rates alone, the abortion lobby has failed to acknowledge other risk factors related to mifepristone, including the dangers of “sepsis and hemorrhage.”
Citing yet a third discovery, CLI states that studies claiming Tylenol-related deaths are more numerous than those from abortion drugs are guilty of “context misrepresentation.”
“While Tylenol-related deaths often result from misuse in a much larger user base, deaths from abortion drugs occur under prescribed use,” CLI points out.
“Put simply, it is not possible to draw any conclusion from the comparison of drugs with different uses, administered in different manners, and used by individuals with different risk factors,” Louttit writes. “Not only have the comparisons between mifepristone and other drugs failed in their duty to adequately assess this impossibility, but they have also demonstrated a complete disregard for the need to communicate comprehensive and truthful safety information to patients, policymakers, jurists, and the public.”
The researcher explains that the ease with which abortion advocates – including government officials who influence public health and safety policy – have reiterated the false claim over the past 20 years defies true science.
“In collapsing complex safety considerations into simplistic comparisons that leverage wholly incomparable metrics, these assertions systematically violate the norms and regulations that inform evidence-based biomedical communication,” Louttit asserts. “Despite this, however, they have reached both the most diffuse and influential levels of our discourse over the span of roughly two decades, buoyed by the false and dangerous perception of scientific reference and expert consensus.”
In April 2023, Texas-based OB/GYN Dr. Ingrid Skop debunked claims of mifepristone’s overwhelming safety, explaining how the abortion lobby and its allies have covered up the dangers of the drug with a gross oversimplification and a flippant slogan.
“Regarding chemical abortion, the industry tells us it’s safer than Tylenol,” Skop testified. “They’re comparing Tylenol overdose deaths to the undercounted deaths from chemical abortion. There’s no comparison. Women assume they mean normal Tylenol use. They don’t realize that they’re comparing it to deaths that happen from overdoses.”
The OB/GYN explained why abortion providers have limited awareness of the serious complications from mifepristone.
“But my experience has been, because the women have been assured it is so safe, when they have a complication, they do not return to the abortion provider,” Skop stated. “They come to me as their gynecologist, or they come to the emergency room in distress.”
“And, so, when we look at good quality records linkage studies that detect all chemical abortions and all subsequent events, we find 5 to 6% of these women present to an emergency room within a month,” she explained.
“Approximately the same number will require surgery because their bodies cannot evacuate all of the dead tissue,” Skop argued. “And I am still caring for these complications in Texas – even though we’ve had abortion limitations for quite some time – because these drugs are circulating in the state to try to circumvent our state laws and provide abortions, to these unfortunate women.”
Louttit’s research backs up those points. “[T]he simplistic slogan that ‘mifepristone is safer than Tylenol,’ though easily disseminated, defies both an intuitive understanding of how we evaluate drug safety and our norms and regulations for doing so,” he writes. “Indeed, if such an assertion was attributable to the manufacturer, it would precipitate a reprimand by the FDA given the lack of specific, controlled, and head-to-head evidence rightly required for its support.”
Since the claim is frequently echoed by “medical societies, abortion centers, clinical researchers, and government officials,” a critical look at the evidence behind it has been essential, the researcher adds, as many of those who repeat it have already influenced public health policy and, subsequently, the lives of women and girls who attempt a “do-it-yourself” (DIY) abortion.
“For years now, the abortion lobby’s claim that abortion drugs are ‘safer than Tylenol’ has dominated public discussion, propelled by the illusion of scientific consensus,” Louttit concludes. “However, no such support exists. This baseless claim, repeated by medical societies, politicians, media pundits and researchers, has profoundly influenced public opinion and policy. But as this paper details, those spreading it lack the evidence they routinely claim.”
LifeNews Note: Susan Berry writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
The post Study Confirms Abortion Pill is Not Safer Than Tylenol appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: RT - News
Macron speaks, Merz contradicts, and the EU drifts into irrelevance
Modern Western Europe is quickly becoming a real-world demonstration of Hegel’s famous dictum – that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. In the past, the missteps of its leaders could be seen as awkward but forgivable moments against the backdrop of a still-coherent West. Today, farce is becoming the default operating mode for the region’s political elite.
Whether the antics come from small states like Estonia or from former heavyweights like Germany, France, and Britain, the effect is the same: Europe, or more precisely the European Union and its close NATO-aligned partners in the West, is no longer behaving like a serious geopolitical actor. What was once merely weakness has become a lifestyle – a self-parodying style of politics defined by empty declarations, theatrical gestures, and media spectacle.
The reasons are not difficult to identify. Western Europe has lost its strategic compass. What we’re witnessing now, unfolding near Russia’s borders, is a crisis of direction with no clear destination. Recent developments, in fact, would have seemed unimaginable even a few years ago.
In the space of just a few weeks, the leaders of the EU’s most prominent countries issued ultimatums to Russia – with no thought as to what they might do if Moscow ignored them. Unsurprisingly, the efforts of the four most vocal backers of Ukraine – Britain, Germany, France, and Poland – collapsed into rhetorical theater with no follow-through.
Estonia, never one to miss a moment for posturing, saw a group of its sailors attempt to seize a foreign ship en route to St. Petersburg. The move, swiftly rebuffed by the Russian military, triggered a political scandal back in Tallinn – though perhaps not the kind they’d hoped for.
Read more
The last drone parade: Ukraine tries to reset a war it already lost
In Paris, President Emmanuel Macron continues to rely on dramatic pronouncements to remain in the spotlight. In Berlin, newly appointed Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared that Ukrainian forces were permitted to strike Russian cities with Western missiles – only to be contradicted hours later by his own finance minister. As for the long-touted “peacekeeper deployment plan” pushed by Paris and London, European media finally admitted what had been obvious for months: the plan is dead, lacking support from Washington.
Some of this, admittedly, stems from a media environment that has grown dangerously overheated. Western news outlets now thrive on alarmism, churning out a steady stream of war talk and pushing politicians to match the rhetoric. Since the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, media across the Atlantic and in Brussels have played the role of propagandist, not watchdog.
But the problem runs deeper than headlines. Europe’s political class has drifted into a world of abstraction, where politics has become an intellectual game – untethered from real capabilities or consequences. In some cases, the farce is provincial, as with Estonia’s attempted maritime stunt. In others, it is cloaked in academic posturing, such as the wordy performances Macron delivers with the help of philosophically literate aides.
In all cases, one truth emerges: the European Union and its near partners are no longer serious actors in world affairs. They are still loud, still self-important, but no longer decisive. Their actions do not shift the global balance. The only real questions now are how long this detachment from reality can persist, and what the next stage of decline will look like.
This is not a matter of personalities or party lines. Whether globalist liberals or national conservatives take charge in Europe, the result is increasingly similar. Right-wing governments that replace the establishment often prove just as erratic and symbolic in their behavior.
What makes this transformation even more surreal is that Europe still has the ability to turn its politics into a spectacle. Many of its politicians – or at least their speechwriters – are highly educated. Macron’s speeches, rich in historical and philosophical references, are products of minds trained at the best institutions. Once, such intelligence was used to shape policy and outplay rivals like Russia. Now, it produces only clever phrasing for empty statements.
Read more
The Biden years: When America started to resemble the late-stage USSR
Macron, of course, helped set the tone when he declared NATO “brain dead” back in 2019 – a remark that was amusing at the time. But after the laughter faded, Western Europe began churning out similarly dramatic slogans, each more detached than the last. The British followed suit. Now the Germans are joining the script.
More troubling than the words, though, is the lack of accountability for them. European leaders say much and do little – and when they do act, it is often misguided. Worse, they seem genuinely unaware of how their provocations are perceived outside their own echo chamber. What looks absurd in Moscow, Beijing, or even some quarters of Washington, is seen in Brussels or Berlin as noble posturing. These leaders are living in a different dimension, but the rest of us still have to engage with their declarations, however disconnected from reality.
And while it is tempting to dismiss this as just another European drama, the risks are real. Britain and France still possess nuclear capabilities. The EU’s economy, while faltering, retains global influence. Even the smallest states – like Estonia – can trigger crises that draw in larger powers. The Baltic naval stunt may have been primitive theater, but under the wrong conditions, even small acts of political play-acting can spiral into genuine danger.
No one seriously believes the United States is prepared to defend its European satellites at the cost of war with Russia. But given the destructive power of both Russian and American arsenals, even the faintest chance of escalation must be treated seriously – even if Western Europe itself has lost the ability to understand the consequences of its actions.
Ironically, Poland – once one of the most loudly anti-Russian voices in Europe – now appears almost restrained compared to the behavior of France, Germany, or Britain. In recent years, Warsaw has moved toward a more conservative, if still adversarial, stance – offering a rare glimpse of something resembling balance.
In the last century, Western Europe unleashed two of the most devastating wars in human history. Today, it plays at war once again – but with less awareness, less responsibility, and far less capacity. The danger lies not in its strength, but in its delusions. This is not Liechtenstein brandishing a sabre. These are nations with real armies, real missiles, and an increasingly fragile grasp on reality.
If there is to be stability in Europe’s future, it must start with accepting the truth of the present. The continent is no longer the center of world politics. The logical next step is to strip Western Europe of the destructive capabilities it no longer knows how to wield. Demilitarization is not humiliation. It is realism – and the only way to bring Europe’s role back in line with its actual relevance.
This article was first published by Vzglyad newspaper and was translated and edited by the RT team.
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Site: Zero HedgeGOP Megabill Moves To The Senate, But Rand Paul Says 'Math Doesn't Really Add Up'Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 10:40
The narrowly passed "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" makes its way to the Senate this week, where it faces a handful of GOP spending hawks who say it's far too expensive to pass.
One holdout, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), said that he would support the bill if the debt ceiling hike was removed - telling CBS' Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan that he and three other GOP senators will hold out against the bill unless it's modified.
"I think there are four of us at this point, and I would be very surprised if the bill at least is not modified in a good direction," said Paul. "I want the tax cuts to be permanent. But at the same time, I don't wanna raise the debt ceiling five trillion," he continued, adding "The GOP will own the debt once they vote for this."
The American people, like the Great People of Kentucky, do not support Biden spending levels and $5T in new debt. Therefore, I will not. It’s simple. pic.twitter.com/m9sTuDiGZK
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 1, 2025According to Paul, there are more holdouts...
"I think there are four of us at this point, and I would be very surprised if the bill at least is not modified in a good direction," he told CBS News.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump warned Paul that he would be "playing into the hands of the Democrats" if he votes against he bill.
"If Senator Rand Paul votes against our Great, Big, Beautiful Bill, he is voting for, along with the Radical Left Democrats, a 68% Tax Increase and, perhaps even more importantly, a first time ever default on U.S. Debt," Trump wrote on Truth social Saturday afternoon.
"Rand will be playing right into the hands of the Democrats, and the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him! The GROWTH we are experiencing, plus some cost cutting later on, will solve ALL problems. America will be greater than ever before!"
The bill will move through Congress under a budget process known as reconciliation, which allows Senate Republicans to pass legislation with a simple majority vs. the a 60-vote threshold. While this would normally allow the GOP-controlled Senate to pass legislation without any support from Democratic lawmakers, Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) can only afford to lose three members of his party.
In addition to Rand Paul, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Fox News that the bill was "completely unsustainable," and he plans to hold a hearing on it before a full Senate vote.
A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the bill's tax provisions concluded that the package's tax provisions - which include an extension of President Trump's 2017 tax cuts - would raise the deficit by an estimated $3.8 trillion over the next decade - something both JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and billionaire Elon Musk have spoken out about, with Dimon predicting a "crisis" in the bond market from undermining public confidence.
According to Sen. Johnson, "I agree with Jamie Dimon here," adding that he wants to return spending to pre-pandemic levels and break the House bill into two separate Senate bills.
When asked if he was willing to 'blow up' the Trump agenda, Johnson said "My loyalty is to the American people, to my kids and grandkids," adding "We cannot continue to mortgage their future."
Ron Johnson makes the case against the House GOP spending bill: "The transfer of wealth from old people like me to young people is literally immoral. It has to stop." pic.twitter.com/tAkjsDpJMA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 1, 2025 -
Site: Zero HedgeBond Market Paradigm Shift?Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 10:20
Some bearish bond investors in Japan and the US appear to believe that a paradigm shift is underway in the sovereign bond markets.
To wit, consider the following statement from Jim Bianco on Thoughtful Money:
“If these deficits are really going to kick in and cause problems, these rates are going to go much higher than this.”
The bond market paradigm shift we observe is that some people believe the governments and central banks of the largest nations are no longer managing interest rates.
For those who believe in this paradigm shift, we ask a simple question: Why Would They Stop Now?
The governments and central banks of developed countries have long-standing policies that keep high levels of public and private debt serviceable.
Moreover, these same policies aim to incentivize further debt accumulation.
The bearish voices in the bond market, claiming a paradigm shift is underway, show a disregard for history.
Bond bulls and bears can all agree that global fiscal debt trends are not sustainable.
However, do you think the governments are now willing to pay the price for such malfeasance?
Two years ago, the Japanese government uncapped its interest rates, and not surprisingly, they have surged higher.
However, with their 30-year bond approaching 3%, they announced that they are considering adjusting their debt issuance patterns. As shown below, its 30-year bond fell 35 basis points after the announcement.
Bond yields in the US and around the world fell in sympathy.
Governments around the world will preserve their debt-driven financial systems and economies by keeping a lid on interest rates.
Again, ponder the one simple question if you believe in the paradigm shift: why would the governments and central banks stop manipulating the bond market now?
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Site: RT - News
The Biden administration chose not to publicly disclose the true health impact of a 2023 train derailment in Ohio, investigators claim
The administration of former US President Joe Biden tried to cover up serious public health risks related to a 2023 toxic chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio, a whistleblower protection and advocacy group has claimed.
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) has published a set of documents obtained through a lawsuit from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which allegedly prove that the White House deliberately chose to withhold the true scale of the catastrophe while intentionally avoiding contact with affected residents.
On February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying toxic chemicals, including vinyl chloride, derailed near the village of East Palestine, spilling its hazardous contents into a nearby waterway. Five tankers were later also deliberately ignited in a controlled burn. The incident forced evacuations, was linked to animal deaths, and led to reports of unexplained illnesses in the weeks that followed.
Several months later, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publicly declared that East Palestine residents were “not in danger,” citing air and water monitoring results. Biden had also praised what he called his administration’s “herculean efforts” to resolve the crisis.
The government’s response was heavily criticized at the time, with many calling out Biden for not visiting East Palestine sooner, downplaying the severity of the disaster, and prioritizing public relations over the health and safety concerns raised by residents and experts.
Read more
US Senate to investigate who really ran country under Biden
According to GAP investigator Lesley Pacey, the public’s fears have turned out to be justified, with internal documents showing that the White House, the EPA, and FEMA had privately discussed the serious dangers associated with the chemical spill, described internally as “really toxic,” and “deliberately kept this information from the community.”
In an interview with NewsNation published on Saturday, Pacey explained that FEMA knew that the controlled chemical burn resulted in a “really toxic plume” and that it could cause cancer clusters in the region and other health risks that would require 20 years of medical monitoring.
The information was never publicly disclosed or acknowledged by FEMA or the White House as the Biden administration chose to focus on “public reassurances” rather than “worrying about public health,” Pacey told the New York Post.
The emails obtained by GAP have also shown that FEMA’s coordinator – sent to East Palestine to oversee recovery efforts, communicate with residents and assess their needs – was actually directly instructed to avoid engaging with the locals.
“They completely botched this event from the very beginning,” Pacey surmised.
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Site: RT - News
Lindsey Graham has said he hopes the activist, who is sailing to Gaza to protest the Israeli naval blockade, can swim
Joining the flotilla that aims to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip may end badly for Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, US Senator Lindsey Graham has warned in a post on X.
On Sunday, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FCC) announced that one of its yachts, crewed by 12 people, including Thunberg, had left Sicily for Gaza with a “symbolic” cargo of humanitarian aid.
"Hope Greta and her friends can swim!” wrote Graham, a staunch supporter of Israel and an ally of US President Donald Trump, apparently implying that Thunberg’s boat, the Madleen, could be sunk.
The previous Freedom Flotilla mission was aborted in early May after one of the boats, named Conscience, was hit by two drones in international waters near Malta. The FCC blamed Israel for the attack. Israel did not comment.
Thunberg said before her departure that “no matter how dangerous this mission is, it is nowhere near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the lives being genocized [sic],” in the Gaza Strip.
Hope Greta and her friends can swim!https://t.co/Noab4QyJtV
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 1, 2025Israel has denied accusations of perpetrating genocide, and has blamed the brutal suffering of the Palestinian population on the unwillingness of Hamas to lay down arms. West Jerusalem has justified the naval blockade of Gaza, in place since 2007, by the need to prevent arms deliveries to the Palestinian fighters.
According to the UN, one in five people in the Gaza Strip is now facing starvation, following a renewed Israeli offensive that began in March.
READ MORE: Man throws Molotov cocktails at pro-Israel activists in Colorado (VIDEOS)
Israel began its military operation in the enclave in response to a cross-border raid by Hamas on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people died and 250 others were taken prisoner. Israel’s 18-month military response has killed more than 54,400 Palestinians, almost half of whom are women and children, and wounded over 124,000, according to the latest data from the enclave’s Health Ministry.
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Site: AsiaNews.itThe Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has again avoided taking a position on autocephaly. Among the bishops, the influence of Metropolitan Feodosiy of Cherkassk, who backs 'fidelity in submission to the Mother Church of Moscow", is growing. Despite losing numerous parishes to Filaret's Orthodox Church (recognised as an autonomous by Constantinople), it is hard to know which of the two Churches really has primacy among the faithful.
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Site: OnePeterFive
Dear OnePeterFive donors, supporters, and readers, Christ is risen! Happy Sacred Heart month everybody. This is a glorious month filled with the glory of Christ in His Church. Turns out if you Google “Restore June to the Sacred Heart” you get our articles on this subject: Thank you, Artificial Intelligence! This is the month where Catholics can show forth their love for…
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Site: LifeNews
Satanists who hosted a satanic ritual in March at the Kansas State Capitol that escalated into violence are not facing criminal charges and are planning another public satanic ceremony for August, according to a May 29 article.
The Kansas Reflector reported that local prosecutors decided May 28 not to pursue charges against the leader of the Satanic Grotto, Michael Stewart, and two other members. CatholicVote previously reported that Stewart had been detained by police after he punched a man trying to prevent him from making a dedication to Satan inside the Capitol during the March 28 Satanic ritual.
Stewart had a permit to host the Satanic ritual outside the Capitol, but was informed that protests held inside the building would violate his permit.
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CatholicVote reported that Stewart was involved in another physical altercation earlier the same day as videos show him holding a communion wafer aloft and then beating a counter-protester who snatched the wafer away from Stewart to prevent it from being desecrated. It was unclear, however, whether or not the wafer was consecrated.
Following the incident inside the Capitol, Stewart and two other members were taken to jail and charged with unlawful gathering, the Kansas Reflector reported. Stewart was charged with disorderly conduct as well.
Though prosecutors decided not to pursue charges at this time, the statute of limitations lasts five years, according to the Kansas Reflector.
The outlet additionally reported that Stewart went to the Capitol building after the hearing to discuss his next Satanic ritual with a law enforcement officer. He reportedly hopes to hold a “Witches Hour Protest” in early August from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., with attendees including satanists, wiccans, pagans, and others.
LifeNews Note: Hannah Hiester writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
The post Satanists Who Hosted Violent Ritual at Kansas Capitol Face No Charges, Plan Another Ritual appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: RT - News
Latvia has reportedly cited national security concerns over some real estate holdings close to critical infrastructure
Latvia has prohibited entry for Russian citizens who own real estate near strategically important sites in the country, citing national security concerns, local broadcaster TV3 reported on Monday.
According to a statement from the Latvian State Security Service (VDD) cited in the report, a series of agency probes has identified risks emanating from Russian-owned properties near critical infrastructure.
As a result, “in several cases,” Russian property owners have been blacklisted and prohibited from entering Latvia.
Latvian authorities are trying to limit purported Russian influence within its borders. A former Soviet republic, like Baltic neighbors Estonia and Lithuania, it has adopted an increasingly hardline stance against Moscow since the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022.
Riga announced sweeping travel restrictions for Russian nationals, barred Russian-registered vehicles from entering the country, and introduced a mandatory Latvian language test for Russians, deporting thousands of those who refused to take it or failed.
Read more
EU state calls for Schengen ban on Russians
Riga has also moved to ban Russians from owning property. A bill presently before parliament aims to prohibit citizens of Russia and Belarus, as well as companies linked to them, from acquiring real estate in Latvia, citing potential threats to national security and circumvention of Western sanctions.
Latvian Interior Minister Rihards Kozlovskis has cited “a hybrid war” with Russia, and urged EU members prohibit the issuance of Schengen tourist visas to Russian nationals, alleging risks of sabotage.
The three Baltic states, all NATO members bordering Russia, have also warned of potential invasion once the Ukraine conflict ends. Russia has repeatedly dismissed the warnings as “nonsense” meant to scare the European population and justify increases in military spending.
READ MORE: EU country reveals how to spot ‘Russian spies’
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova recently accused the Latvian authorities of “blatant discrimination against Russians,” saying many of their policies were openly Russophobic. She said Russophobia had “reached a new high” in the Baltics in recent years and warned that Latvia, in particular, would have to answer to the International Court of Justice if it continued with its discriminatory practices.
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Site: Zero HedgeUS Manufacturing Surveys Mixed In May As Imports Collapse; Prices Paid At 3 Year HighsTyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 10:05
With 'soft' data turning back up to hard data's reality, all eyes are on this morning's Manufacturing PMI surveys for signs of continued reality-checks on the economy.
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S&P Global's US Manufacturing PMI rose from 50.2 to 52.0 in end May (but that was down from the flash print of 52.3) - Highest since February.
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ISM's US Manufacturing PMI fell from 48.7 to 48.5 (below expectations of 49.5) - Lowest since November
Source: Bloomberg
But, "the rise in the PMI during May masks worrying developments under the hood of the US manufacturing economy," according to Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
"While growth of new orders picked up and suppliers were reportedly busier as companies built up their inventory levels at an unprecedented rate, the common theme was a temporary surge in demand as manufacturers and their customers worry about supply issues and rising prices.
“These concerns were not without basis: supplier delays have risen to the highest since October 2022, and incidences of price hikes are at their highest since November 2022, blamed in most cases on tariffs. Smaller firms, and those in consumer facing markets, appear worst hit so far by the impact of tariffs on supply and prices.
Prices remain at or near 3 year highs while new orders and employment continue to contract...
Imports plunged in April (to the lowest since 2009)...
But, uncertainty remains:
“Encouragingly, manufacturers regained some optimism in May after sentiment had been hit hard by tariff announcements in April, partly reflecting the pauses on new levies.
However, uncertainty clearly remains elevated amid the fluid tariff environment, and factories have so far shown a reluctance to expand headcounts in the face of such volatility.”
Baffle 'em with bullshit surveys continue...
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Site: RT - News
Portuguese political activist Afonso Goncalves has said a local bank closed his personal account without warning or explanation.
Goncalves, 24, is the founder of Reconquista, a right-wing nationalist movement established in 2023, who describes his association as a “metapolitical” initiative aimed at reshaping Portugal’s cultural and political landscape.
The activist said Novobanco, a major Portuguese bank, closed his account without explanation and did not respond to requests for answers.
“I asked them to send me a reason in writing. They simply said ‘no’,” Goncalves said a video posted to YouTube on Friday.
The activist is known for his vocal support of financial transparency and freedom of speech. In his video, he appeared to link the closure to his political views, though he did not provide evidence for this claim. He stated, “This is what happens when you speak the truth. You get shut down.”
Account closures by banks in Portugal are legally allowed under certain conditions, such as suspected fraud or compliance with anti-money laundering laws. However, financial institutions are typically required to provide a reason upon request. Goncalves did not say whether he intends to file a formal complaint.
Read more
German bank restricts ex-chancellor’s account over sanctions fears – Bild
No court proceedings or legal actions related to the closure have been reported so far. Goncalves concluded his video by saying he would continue to “fight for financial freedom” and encouraged others to be aware of what he described as “systemic censorship.”
Bank account closures have become increasingly common in the West. In Britain, right-wing Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage said in June 2023 that private bank Coutts closed his account. Parent company NatWest first cited financial grounds, but internal documents later reportedly showed his political views influenced the decision.
In Canada, authorities froze the bank accounts of Freedom Convoy protesters in 2022 under emergency powers. Then-Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the measure targeted those funding the anti-government protests.
The most recent case took place in Germany last month when former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder faced payment blocks from Sparkasse Hannover over concerns about Russian ties. The bank reportedly blocked nearly €500,000 in annual transfers linked to Schroeder’s role on the board of Nord Stream 2, a pipeline project owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom, despite him not being under sanctions.
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Site: Mises InstituteElon Musk has found out the hard way that one can ferret out hundreds of billions of dollars that Congress wastes, but fail in getting its members to stop wasteful spending. Jim Bovard learned that hard lesson 30 years ago.
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Site: Steyn OnlineProgramming note: Mark gives a rare interview to his similarly defenestrated GB News comrade and Steyn Cruisemate Dan Wootton. Dan is one of the most energetic forces in broadcasting, and his Outspoken show goes from strength to strength. You can find
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Site: Zero HedgeMarco Rubio Declares War On The Global CensorsTyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 09:55
Winston Churchill once warned that “appeasement is feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last.”
When it comes to the crocodile of censorship, history is strewn with defenders who later became digestives.
Censorship produces an insatiable appetite for greater and greater speech limits, and today’s censorship supporters often become tomorrow’s censored subjects.
This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stopped feeding the crocodile.
On May 28, 2025, Rubio shocked many of our allies by issuing a new visa restriction policy that bars foreign nationals deemed “responsible for censorship of protected expression” in the U.S.
The new policy follows a major address by Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich challenging our European allies to end their systematic attacks on free speech.
Vance declared, “If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people that elected me and elected President Trump.”
At the time, I called the speech “Churchillian” in drawing a bright line for the free world. Rubio’s action is no less impressive and even more impactful.
Europe has faced no consequences for its aggressive efforts at transnational censorship. Indeed, this should not be a fight for the administration alone. Congress should explore reciprocal penalties for foreign governments targeting American companies or citizens for engaging in protected speech.
After Vance spoke in Munich, I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum, where European leaders gathered in one of the most strikingly anti-free speech conferences I have attended. This year’s forum embraced the slogan “A New World Order with European Values.”
That “new world order” is based on an aggressive anti-free speech platform that has been enforced for years by the European Union. At the heart of this effort is the Digital Services Act, a draconian law that allows for sweeping censorship and speech prosecutions. Most importantly, it has been used by the EU to threaten American corporations for their failure to censor Americans and others on social media sites.
After the World Forum, I returned home to warn that this is now an existential war over a right that defines us as a people —the very “Indispensable Right” identified by Justice Louis Brandeis, which is essential for every other right in the Constitution.
The irony was crushing. I wrote about how this nation has fought to protect our rights in world wars, yet many in Congress simply shrug or even support the effort as other countries move to make Americans censor other Americans.
What was most unnerving about Berlin was how Americans have encouraged Europeans to target their fellow citizens. At the forum was Hillary Clinton who, after Elon Musk purchased Twitter on a pledge to dismantle its massive censorship system, called upon the EU to use the Digital Services Act to force him to resume censorship.
Other Americans have appeared before the EU to call upon it to oppose the U.S. Nina Jankowicz, the former head of President Joe Biden’s infamous Disinformation Governance Board, has recently returned to the EU to rally other nations to oppose what she described as “the autocracy, the United States of America.”
She warned that the Digital Services Act was under attack, and that the EU had to fight and beat the U.S.: “Do not capitulate. Hold the line.”
Former European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services Thierry Breton even threatened Musk for interviewing Trump before our last presidential election. He told Musk that he was being “monitored” in conducting any interview with now-President Trump.
The EU is doubling down on these efforts, including threatening Musk with prosecution and massive confiscatory fines if he does not resume censoring users of X. The penalties are expected to exceed $1 billion.
Other countries are following suit. Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes shut down X in his entire country over Musk’s refusal to remove political posts. These countries could remotely control speech within the U.S., forcing companies like X to meet the lowest common denominator set by the EU and anti-free speech groups.
There are free speech concerns even in such measures designed to protect free speech. This policy should be confined to government officials, particularly EU officials, who are actively seeking to export European censorship systems worldwide. It should not extend to academics or individuals who are part of the growing anti-free speech movement. Free speech itself can counter those voices. These are the same voices that we have heard throughout history, often using the very same terms and claims to silence others.
However, Rubio showed Europe that the U.S. would not simply stand by as European censors determined what Americans could say, read, or watch. As the EU threatens companies like X with billion-dollar fines, it is time for the U.S. to treat this as an attack on our citizens from abroad.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt put it simply during World War II: “No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it.”
It is time to get serious about the European threat to free speech. And Rubio is doing just that — finally imposing real consequences for censorship. We are not going to defeat censors by yelling at them. Speech alone clearly does not impress them.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
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Site: LifeNews
Étienne-Émile Baulieu, the French scientist who developed the abortion pill RU-486, also known as mifepristone, died Friday at his home in Paris at the age of 98. Pro-life advocates worldwide mourned the millions and millions of babies the abortion drug has killed.
Baulieu, born Étienne Blum on Dec. 12, 1926, in Strasbourg, developed RU-486 in 1982, a dangerous drug that blocks progesterone, a hormone essential for pregnancy, leading to the starvation of an unborn baby and his or her eventual death. The drug, which pro-life groups note has facilitated the loss of countless unborn children, not accounts for approximately 63% of abortions in the United States in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Baulieu’s invention has been a tragedy for the unborn. Millions of babies have been denied life because of this pill, and its widespread use has desensitized society to the sanctity of human life from conception.
Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com
Baulieu, an endocrinologist who earned doctorates in medicine in 1955 and science in 1963, founded a pioneering hormone research unit at INSERM, France’s health and medical research institute. His work on RU-486, which he described as a “non-invasive” alternative to surgical abortion, faced fierce opposition from pro-life groups, including threats and criticism labeling him a facilitator of mass killing. Despite this, Baulieu spent decades advocating for the drug’s global approval, arguing it somehow helped women despite killing millions of girl babies and killing and injuring many women who took the pill.
In 2023, when Wyoming became the first U.S. state to ban the abortion pill, Baulieu, then 96, called the decision “scandalous,” insisting he had dedicated his life to “increasing the freedom of women.” Pro-life advocates countered that such bans protect both unborn children and women from what they claim are significant health risks, citing a study reporting that 1 in 10 women experienced serious complications from mifepristone.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who awarded Baulieu the Grand Cross of the Legion d’Honneur in 2023, called him “a beacon of courage.”
Pro-life voices, however, see his death as an opportunity to reflect on the ethical questions surrounding his creation.
The post Man Who Created Abortion Pill That Has Killed Millions of Babies Dies at 98 appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: PeakProsperityIt was another huge weekend of news. Here's all the things you were too busy gardening to read, condensed and distilled to its malodorous essence.
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Site: LifeNews
With great pleasure I can inform you that the Illinois Legislature has adjourned early Sunday morning with no further action on SB 1950, a dangerous bill that would have legalized assisted suicide.
Over the last few days, I have kept you updated on the progress of SB 1950 and urged you to reach out to Illinois Senators. When assisted suicide legislation stalled in the Senate, proponents attached it instead as an amendment to an unrelated food safety bill. This procedural trick succeeded in the Illinois House as representatives narrowly voted to approve the bill as amended.
All eyes went to the Senate as advocates in Illinois and around the country called, emailed, and brought to action their friends and neighbors. This was the time to be counted and you made your voices heard!
Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com
However, while SB 1950 was not called for a vote in the Senate, it has the possibility to return in a future session, so our work continues.
The tremendous work done by our Ilinois coalition prevented a vote from occurring to legalize assisted suicide. I am so impressed with their tireless efforts and am so grateful to all of you who answer the call to speak up and speak out.
Proponents will be heartened by the slim House passage and we know they will come back. So will we.
LifeNews Note: Barbara Lyons is the Special Projects Coordinator for the Patients’ Rights Action Fund.
The post Illinois Bill to Legalize Assisted Suicide Fails in State Legislature appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Novus Motus LiturgicusThis year, the feast of Ss Peter and Paul falls on the Sunday after the feast of the Sacred Heart (June 27). A priest friend has put forth the question, What does one do about the external solemnity of the Sacred Heart, which would be celebrated on that day? The short answer, according to the rubrics of both the 1960 Missal and of the prior editions, is, Omit it.The Allegory of the Holy EucharistGregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: southern orders
God bless the pastor of St. Anne Church in Charlotte for his excellent homily under duress and his advice on how to deal with the arrogance of the spirit of Vatican II shoved down the throats of so many in the most pre-Vatican II ways. A great, pastoral homily. Read The Pillar’s article by pressing the title below.
‘Mass is not a show here’ — Young Charlotte Catholics respond to liturgy policy
Young Catholics on ‘Traditionis custodes’ in the Diocese of Charlotte
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Site: AsiaNews.itAfter the removal of conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol, the country will go to the polls tomorrow to pick a new president. If elected, the frontrunner Lee Jae-myung will lead a divided country, seeking a balance between social justice and growing polarisation. For Prof David C. Kang of the University of Southern California, this is a test of democratic stability, but South Korean society is not in decline.
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Site: RT - News
London says its militarization plan is a “message” to Moscow
Britain is moving towards a war footing with the launch of a major rearmament campaign, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a keynote address on Monday.
Starmer unveiled his cabinet’s Strategic Defense Review, which includes an expansive armaments program mirroring similar efforts across NATO. Last week, UK Defense Secretary John Healey said London was sending “a message to Moscow” by allocating billions of pounds for new munitions plants, long-range missile systems, and other capabilities. Russia has accused Western nations of using alarmist rhetoric to justify shifting public funds toward military spending.
”We are moving to war-fighting readiness,” Starmer said at a shipyard in Govan, Glasgow, adding that “our defense policy will always be NATO first.” He vowed to transform the UK into “a battle-ready, armor-clad nation with the strongest alliances and the most advanced capabilities equipped for the decades to come.”
Read more
UK to step up cyberattacks on Russia and China – minister
According to Starmer, the overhaul will enable Britain to make its “biggest contribution to NATO since its creation.” He also pledged that the country would become “the fastest innovator in NATO,” with defense research operating at a “wartime pace.” The reforms are expected to make the British military “ten times more lethal by 2035,” he claimed.
The prime minister reaffirmed his government’s goal to increase defense spending to 3% of GDP. He framed the effort as replacing the post-Cold War “peace dividend” with a “defense dividend” through the creation of thousands of new jobs in weapons manufacturing, including production of nuclear arms.
Starmer blamed Moscow for what he called a series of provocations, accusing Russia of “menacing” the UK, demonstrating “aggression” in British waters, and “driving up the cost of living here at home,” harming British workers.
Russian lawmaker Aleksey Pushkov has accused the UK of planning an “ice war” with Russia, noting that “there is no difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party” in their attitude.
READ MORE: Russia has ‘fair concern’ about NATO expansion – Trump envoy
Commenting on Starmer’s pledge to build additional nuclear submarines, Pushkov asserted that no British investments could bring the country to an equal footing with Russia, the US, and China. However, “Starmer needs them [those boats] to report his achievements” to domestic and international players who stand to benefit financially from the project, Pushkov claimed.
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Site: Ron Paul Institute - Featured Articles
Japanese company Nippon Steel’s plan to purchase US Steel was bound to provoke a strong reaction from left- and right-wing economic nationalists. After all, US Steel was once the world’s largest company, and it was the first company to be valued at over a billion dollars. US Steel was thus a symbol of America’s economic dominance. So it was not surprising that Nippon Steel’s purchase of US Steel was blocked by both the Biden and Trump administrations. This was disappointing — especially since Nippon Steel planned to invest billions in modernizing US Steel’s facilities.
Last week, President Trump praised the deal with some added conditions. One major condition is that the US government will receive a “golden share” in US Steel. This will enable the government to overrule any business decision made by the company’s management if the government determines the business decision threatens “national security.” This power could be used to prevent US Steel from exporting steel to certain countries, as well as to require US Steel to prioritize production for the military and other government agencies. It could also be used to interfere with labor-management relations based on the idea that a labor dispute can disrupt production and thus harm national security. In fact, there is almost no decision US Steel’s management could make that cannot be labeled as involving “national security.”
Supporters of the “golden share” have forgotten (or never learned) the lessons from the failures of allowing politicians and bureaucrats to run private businesses. When government takes a full or partial ownership interest in a business, the result is decisions made based on political considerations rather than on seeking to improve the company’s productivity and profits. This causes the company to lose money, resulting in laid off workers unless the government tries to cover up failures with subsidies. It also distorts the signals sent to other market actors via the price system because the government-run company is allocating resources based on considerations other than their most efficient use.
This is not the only case where the Trump administration is harming the economy by interfering with businesses. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government sponsored enterprises created to support the housing market, may soon go public. President Trump has stated that the government would nonetheless continue to guarantee Fannie and Freddie backed mortgage loans. This will cause over-investment in housing as investors see only an upside from investing in Fannie and Freddie since the government will bail out Fannie and Freddie if they lose money while investors will keep the profits. The result will be a housing bubble, followed by a housing crash that may be worse than the one Fannie and Freddie — along with the Federal Reserve — helped cause in 2008. Once again, President Trump and his advisors have failed to learn from history.
Government involvement with businesses may be promoted as intended to protect national security, or to protect “great American companies” from being taken over by foreign companies, or to make the American dream of homeownership possible for every American, or to accomplish a myriad of other goals that may sound good in sound bites on the campaign trail. However, the result will be economic stagnation, recessions, or even depressions. To ensure a strong economy, government can get out of the way. A policy of limited government, free markets, free trade, peace, and sound money is the path to prosperity.
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Site: AsiaNews.itToday's news: Cambodia set to file suit with the International Court of Justice over border disputes with Thailand. Police in Assam arrested dozens for 'sympathising' with Pakistan. Saudi authorities barred 269,000 people from making the pilgrimage to Makkah because they lacked permits. China accuses the US of violating the terms of a trade truce.
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Site: LifeNews
Senate Republicans are set to debate a sweeping legislative package that includes provisions to defund Planned Parenthood, following a narrow House victory on May 22, 2025, for President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
The Hyde Amendment already prohibits federal funds from directly paying for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life. However, Planned Parenthood receives approximately $700 million annually through Medicaid reimbursements and Title X grants. Pro-life leaders argue this funding frees up resources for Planned Parenthood’s abortion operations.
The bill, which passed the House 215-214, aims to strip federal funding from the nation’s largest abortion company, a move pro-life advocates hail as a critical step toward protecting unborn lives.
Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com
The House-passed bill, now under Senate consideration, includes language to prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds, including Medicaid payments, redirecting those resources to community health centers that do not kill babies.
Pro-life groups argue that Planned Parenthood, which killed over 420,000 babies in its most recent reported year, should not receive taxpayer support. The organization received nearly $700 million in federal funding in its 2022-2023 fiscal year, according to its annual report.
“Defunding Planned Parenthood is a non-negotiable priority for pro-life Americans,” said Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., who has led efforts to ensure the provision remains in the final bill. “Taxpayer dollars should not subsidize an organization that profits from ending unborn lives. Community health centers can provide comprehensive care without abortion.”
The Senate, led by Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., faces pressure to maintain the defunding measure as it reviews the broader reconciliation bill, which also extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, boosts border security funding, and reforms Medicaid. Thune has expressed a goal of delivering the bill to Trump’s desk by July 4, but some Senate Republicans are pushing for changes, including deeper spending cuts and modifications to Medicaid reforms.
Pro-life advocates, energized by the House vote, are urging senators to hold firm on keeping the defunding provisions.
However, the bill faces challenges in the Senate, where Republicans hold a slim 53-seat majority, allowing only three defections with Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote. Some senators, including Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., have raised concerns about other unrelated provisions.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a fiscal hawk, has vowed to push for deeper spending reductions, potentially complicating negotiations.
Despite these hurdles, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who secured the bill’s passage after intense negotiations with conservative holdouts, remains optimistic.
“This is a generational opportunity to enact President Trump’s America First agenda, including protecting life,” he said after the House vote.
Pro-life leaders are rallying supporters to pressure senators.
“Planned Parenthood’s billion-dollar abortion business must not receive another dime of taxpayer money,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., a longtime advocate for defunding the abortion giant.
The Senate’s timeline is tight, with debates expected to intensify next week. If the Senate alters the bill, it will return to the House, where Speaker Johnson can afford few defections. Pro-life advocates remain hopeful but vigilant, emphasizing that 2025, with Republican control of Congress and the White House, offers a rare chance to advance their cause.
The post Senate Republicans Take Up Bill to Defund Planned Parenthood appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Ron Paul Institute - Featured Articles
Given Marco Rubio’s long history of subservience to the State of Israel — which has earned him a mountain of campaign cash from the country’s US-based collaborators — many Americans were understandably wary that his ascension from senator to secretary of State portended disturbing moves to advance Israel’s interests. However, few foresaw Rubio orchestrating the abduction, imprisonment and deportation of foreign students for using their universal human right of free speech to criticize the Israeli government and advocate for Palestinians.
With President Trump’s blessing, Rubio has targeted many foreign students in this fashion — students who’ve been charged with no crimes. However, no case better illustrates the campaign’s casual cruelty than that of 30-year-old Tufts University PhD candidate Rumeysa Ozturk. Ozturk, who’s been studying child development, was arrested in March and whisked away to a far-off prison merely because — an entire year earlier — she co-authored a Tufts Daily op-ed urging the university to formally characterize Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide, and to sell the school’s Israel-associated investments.
Rubio would like you to assume her essay must have been an unhinged, antisemitic, violence-inciting screed. To the contrary, harkening back to Tufts’ 1989 decision to divest from apartheid South Africa, its tone is decidedly calm and measured. Read this excerpt of the essay’s most pointed language about Israel and judge for yourself:
These [student senate] resolutions were the product of meaningful debate…and represent a sincere effort to hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law. Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.
…the student body is calling for … the University to end its complicity with Israel insofar as it is oppressing the Palestinian people and denying their right to self-determination — a right that is guaranteed by international law. These strong lobbying tools are all the more urgent now given the order by the International Court of Justice confirming that the Palestinian people of Gaza’s rights under the Genocide Convention are under a “plausible” risk of being breached.
Ozturk’s persecution represents a major escalation of an aggravating dynamic in which people in the United States are vilified as dangerous, volatile antisemites for saying things about Israel that are frequently said by respected people and institutions in Israel. For example, in an op-ed of his own, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this week wrote, “What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians … Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.”
In March of this year, the State Department revoked Ozturk’s student visa without notifying her — she had no idea that her presence in the country was now illegal. Four days later, in an incident captured on video, she was grabbed off a Somerville, Massachusetts street by masked, plain-clothed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, taken to New Hampshire and then Vermont, before being shackled in chains and airlifted 1,400 miles to a federal detention center in Louisiana.
For the next month and a half, she was stuffed with 23 others in a cell meant for 14. Ozturk says constant exposure to dust and inadequate ventilation sparked more than a dozen asthma attacks — after having previously had only about 13 in her entire life. Sleep was hard to come by, as motion-detecting fluorescent lights repeatedly triggered throughout the night.
Trying to justify the unjustifiable, the Trump administration has gone to slanderous extremes to vilify Ozturk. In a since-deleted social media post following her arrest, Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said “DHS + ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.” (As an aside, note that, while some 43 Americans — including dual nationals — died in the Oct 7 attacks, there’s no history of Hamas ever setting out to target Americans.)
When protests of Israel’s tactics in Gaza erupted in 2022, Israel supporters across government, major media and social media branded all pro-Palestine protesters as Hamas supporters and antisemites. With the ascendency of the second Trump administration, that tactic has evolved from a malicious PR smear to a government-weaponized allegation that’s putting nonviolent foreign students in prisons and derailing their lives — all in service to a foreign country.
In a partial reversal of her appalling treatment, Ozturk was released from confinement on May 9 on the orders of a federal judge, who also denied the government’s wish to make her wear an ankle monitor. However, her troubles are far from over: In addition to the enduring harm of a six-week interruption of her academic pursuits, she is still targeted for deportation.
When DHS initially leveled the “activities in support of Hamas” accusation against Ozturk, many people assumed the government must have something on her other than an essay in a student newspaper. However, as the weeks ground on, the government never pointed to anything else, something US District Judge William Sessions noted when he ordered her to be released from her cage in Louisiana :
I suggested to the government that they produce any additional information which would suggest that she posed a substantial risk. And that was three weeks ago, and there has been no evidence introduced by the government other than the op-ed. That literally is the case. There is no evidence here...The court finds that Ms. Öztürk has raised a substantial claim of a constitutional violation.
Judge Sessions called Ozturk’s seizure “a traumatic incident” and said “her continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens.” That is most certainly the Trump administration’s goal.
Falling for Rubio’s dishonest portrayal of his prey and failing to scrutinize the facts, many so-called “conservatives” have enthused over his drive to deport anti-Israel activists and rushed to defend it. In their flimsiest argument, you’ll find them claiming Ozturk and others have no right of free speech because they’re not US citizens. That hollow attack rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of rights — one that wrongly views rights as government-granted privileges, rather than something that springs from one’s humanity. As I’ve explained elsewhere at Stark Realities, the Constitution’s Bill of Rights isn’t a granting of rights, it’s a prohibition against government interference with pre-existing rights shared by everyone on Earth.
Employing a quintessential straw man argument, Rubio and others also say “nobody has a right to a visa.” The controversy has never been about any mythical entitlement to visas — it’s about the morality and constitutionality of using visa revocations as a means of punishing and suppressing expression of certain political beliefs.
To mete out that punishment, Rubio and the Trump administration are exploiting the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which recklessly empowers the secretary of State — a single individual — to deport foreigners the secretary deems “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” of the United States. The law provides no elaboration on that standard, much less any provision for its application with any semblance of due process for the affected individual.
Invoking that provision, the administration told a court that DHS and ICE determined Ozturk “had been involved in associations that ‘may undermine U.S foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.”
First, note how tangential and tenuous the opening and concluding allegations are. The government says Ozturk is being targeted for unspecified “associations,” and because her stance on Israel merely overlaps with the stance of a campus group that was only temporarily banned.
Next, we see the Trump administration dishonestly saying Ozturk “indicat[ed] support for Hamas” by writing an op-ed calling for Tufts to say Israel is committing war crimes, and to divest from the country. The op-ed never mentions Hamas or Oct. 7 or even implicitly endorses the group or its tactics, and there’s been no allegation of any other form of her supposed “support for Hamas.”
The administration also employs the Israeli-propagandist idea that criticism of the State of Israel — a political entity — creates a “hostile environment” for Jewish students. That notion is itself a form of bigotry — as it presumes all Jews endorse Israel’s actions. Of course, that presumption is belied by the significant presence of Jewish students in many protests of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Meanwhile, the notion that pro-Israel Jews should be protected from hearing contrary views is wildly hypocritical from an administration that — in regard to other topics — has rightly targeted censorship meant to prevent so-called “snowflakes” from having their feelings hurt.
Defenders of the administration’s conduct are compelled to do more than point to its supposed legality under a 1952 law. From FDR putting Japanese-Americans in concentration camps to Woodrow Wilson jailing opponents of the draft, there’s a difference between legality and morality and bona fide constitutionality. Meanwhile, Ozturk’s ongoing challenge of her arrest and pending deportation may well reset the bounds of what’s legal under the Immigration and Nationality Act, with the courts potentially ruling it’s unconstitutional to revoke a visa over the expression of an opinion.
Finally, even the most ardent backers of the Israeli government should recognize that the use of the Immigration Act to round up and deport people whose views are inconsistent with the current administration’s foreign policy threatens to set a dangerous precedent — one that could see a future, Israel-hostile White House seizing, jailing and deporting foreign students who advocate US aid to Israel.
Over his political career, Rubio’s unwavering dedication to the agenda of the State of Israel has earned him a wealth of campaign contributions: Between 2019 and 2024, his largest and third-largest donors were the Pro-Israel PAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition. Those donors are again cashing in as their mercenary carries out a ruthless and deceitful drive to suppress anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian speech.
Consistent with the broader campaign of mass character-assassination that Israel’s advocates have long directed against critics of Israel, Rubio has repeatedly smeared Ozturk by insinuating that she is guilty of behavior that neither the federal government nor anyone else has accused her of, and even implying she is insane. For example, here’s what Rubio said at a March press conference:
We revoked her visa…and here’s why…If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student and you tell us that the reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa….Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa. We’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up.
Challenged last week in a House Foreign Affairs hearing, Rubio said he “proudly” revoked Ozturk’s visa, defiantly adding “we’re going to do more of them.” Refusing to answer pointed questions about the constitutionality of deporting Ozturk for writing an op-ed, Rubio again reflexively resorted to maliciously dishonest hyperbole, saying “We’re revoking the visas of any lunatics we can identify.”
Ozturk is one of an unknown number of foreign, Palestinian-sympathizing students targeted for deportation by the Trump administration, which is providing very little transparency about the individuals concerned or specific rationales for the revocation of their visas.
The censorship blitz is disturbing enough on its face, but there’s another dimension that makes it even more sinister: In selecting Ozturk and other foreign students for persecution, the Trump administration is apparently heeding the suggestions of two shadowy and menacing pro-Israel organizations that use intimidation tactics on Israel’s behalf: Canary Mission and Betar.
According to its website, Canary Mission “documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses and beyond.” (Including “the USA” in its mission statement is dishonest pandering; listing it first is a joke.) In practice, Canary Mission works to silence Israel’s critics by using false allegations of antisemitism, doxxing, and the threat of career and reputational harm that could come from landing on its internet blacklist.
In one of the most unsettling incidents attributed to the group, two men in canary costumes stood silently in a George Washington University lobby in 2018 as the student government was set to vote on an Israel divestment resolution. In the days before the vote, Canary Mission flyers posted on campus warned “THERE ARE NO SECRETS. WE WILL KNOW YOUR VOTE AND WILL ACT ACCORDINGLY.”
Shortly after Ozturk’s arrest, Canary Mission posted a triumphant social media thread, saying “sources point to her Canary Mission profile as the primary cause.” That profile is thin. Linking to her Tufts op-ed, Canary Mission only claims she “engaged in anti-Israel activism in March 2024” (the month the op-ed was published) and is “a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.”
Betar brags that it is directly providing a list of targets to the administration. Maliciously referring to Ozturk and other peaceful activists as “jihadis,” the group took credit for her arrest: “She was on our list. Many more jihadis are. We will be making a new submission Monday with approximately 1800 more jihadis.”
Betar is a Zionist youth group founded in 1923 by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who promoted an expansive vision of Israel that would see it take over not only the West Bank and Gaza, but part of Jordan too. The group’s ideology, rhetoric and embrace of vandalism, theft and vigilantism prompted even the staunchly Zionist Anti-Defamation League to list it among extremist and hateful groups.
An appalling incident in February illuminates the enormity of Betar’s Jewish-supremacist fanaticism. When a journalist posted a long list of names of Palestinian infants killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, Betar’s official account replied, “Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!”
The group has also endorsed the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. The irony is sickening: The Trump administration arrested Ozturk for saying Israel is committing genocide in Gaza — and the recommendation to revoke her visa came from a group that calls for genocide in Gaza.
While Betar and Canary Mission seem to be playing a key role in identifying targets, the broader scheme of weaponizing the Immigration and Nationality Act by smearing Israel’s critics as pro-Hamas antisemites who undermine US foreign policy was the brainchild of the Heritage Foundation. According to New York Times, the group in 2023 launched Project Esther, “an ambitious plan to fight antisemitism by branding a broad range of critics of Israel as ‘effectively a terrorist support network,’ so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excluded from what it considered ‘open society’.”
Achieving new heights of hypocrisy, Rubio this week declared that “free speech…legally enshrined in our constitution, has set us apart as a beacon of freedom around the world.” His soaring rhetoric came as he announced a new policy that will deny visas to “foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans.”
While Ozturk’s story has received significant media attention, the same mainstream media that relentlessly promoted the 2020 Russia-collusion hoax is now failing to cast the Trump administration’s campaign against pro-Palestinian campus activism for what it is: The unconstitutional suppression of the human right of free expression in appalling subservience to a foreign government and its domestic, America-Second accomplices.
In case you’re inclined to shrug off Rubio’s campaign because its victims are foreigners, make no mistake — there are people inside and outside the US government who would love to see American citizens similarly seized and shackled for criticizing the State of Israel. Over the past several years, those forces have been aggressively pushing various means of using government power to suppress Israel’s critics:
- The proposed Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would use an expansive definition of antisemitism to inflict penalties on schools that allow various forms of criticism of Israel to be expressed on their campuses — even by American citizens
- The successful enactment of state laws requiring contractors to certify that they will not participate in boycotts of Israel — alongside repeated attempts to pass a similar federal law
- Lawfare in the form of bogus lawsuits filed against universities, accusing them of failing to prevent “antisemitic incidents” that are simply expressions of opinions about Israel that Zionists revile
- The Trump administration’s withdrawal of federal education funding from schools that tolerate “antisemitism” — with that term purposefully misdefined to encompass criticism of the Israeli government
Amid Americans’ steadily-shrinking support for Israel — even 50% of Republicans under 50 years old now view the country unfavorably — those forces are only going to grow more desperate and brazen in their assault on free expression in the United States. It’s the patriotic duty of every American — including Israel’s backers and critics alike — to resist them every step of the way.
Reprinted with permission from Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey.
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The latest news on the war front serves to introduce today’s column.
The Ever-Widening War
With Putin focused on useless “peace talks,” Ukraine (or Washington or NATO) attacked four Russian Air Force bases and destroyed a number of strategic Russian bombers. The BBC reports:
“In an operation said to have taken 18 months to prepare, scores of small drones were smuggled into Russia, stored in special compartments aboard freight trucks, driven to at least four separate locations, thousands of miles apart, and launched remotely towards nearby airbases.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0r1jv0rn0ko
If this is true, Russia’s strategic nuclear forces were attacked from inside Russia. This seems to be a massive failure of Russian intelligence.
Curiously, the Russian English language sites, RT and Sputnik, have little to say this morning about the successful attack that Ukraine claims destroyed one-third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. Instead, the news services babble on about the second round of peace talks.
There are also Russian news reports that two bridges inside Russia were blown up resulting in deaths and injuries. https://sputnikglobe.com/20250601/bridge-collapses-disrupt-rail-traffic-in-russias-bryansk–kursk-regions-seven-dead-and-66-injured-1122163963.html
It seems that Putin still does not realize that Russia is at war.
Putin’s Condition for Peace is the Roll Back of NATO’s Border from Russia
Paul Craig Roberts
During the long conflict in the Russian provinces in Ukraine, I have posted many reports on the ever-widening war. We are approaching the point where the conflict opens into a full-fledge war. The question is: Does anyone in the Western governments understand this?
It remains to be seen whether the successful Ukrainian attack on Russia’s strategic bombing fleet will finally wake Putin up to the cost of his ever-widening war. The cost is likely to rise as the Europeans have removed all limits on the weapons and on the range of the missiles that will be supplied to Ukraine. Is this a negotiating tactic to pressure Putin, or is it Europe’s entry into a war with Russia that European politicians have recently talked so much about? If it is the latter, why does Trump permit it as it undercuts the peace negotiations that Trump said would end the conflict?
I have explained Putin’s patience with the conflict in terms of his hope that peace negotiations can be turned into a wider agreement that achieves mutual security and an end of the conflict between Russia and the West. Putin’s view of what these conditions are have gone without examination in the Western world. Instead, there have been absurd demands that Putin agree to an immediate cease fire before he knows what the agreement is, that Putin agree to give back some of the conquered territory, that Putin drop his demand for demilitarization of Ukraine, and so forth.
It is long past time for the West to come to terms with Putin’s conditions for peace. Putin’s principal condition is that NATO be rolled back from Russia’s borders to the position that existed in the late 1990s. In other words, the failure must be rectified of the Clinton regime to keep the promise made by Washington that in exchange for Soviet approval of the reunification of Germany, NATO would not move one inch to the East.
NATO must roll itself back from Russia’s borders. No more Poland, Finland, Romania in NATO.
If peace negotiations turn out not to be an opportunity for Putin to achieve a broad agreement that addresses Russia’s security requirements, a likely consequence is that Putin will find himself under pressure to drive NATO out of Ukraine as a demonstration that NATO can be defeated. If a mutual security agreement is not then forthcoming, will the Kremlin conclude that Russian security is impossible to obtain unless NATO is driven out of Europe?
I have emphasized from the beginning of this conflict that what originated as a low level conflict would, as a result of the restraint Putin put on Russia’s conduct of the conflict, widen and eventually spin out of control. It remains to be seen whether the successful Ukrainian attack on Russia’s strategic forces will wake Putin up to this fact.
Possibly Putin has not yet rid himself of his hopeful delusions, but Russia has. If Putin is again refused a mutual security agreement, as he was in the winter of 2021-2022, thereby forcing Russia’s entry into Donbas, the conflict in Ukraine could cease being limited to a military operation to protect the Russian occupied provinces now reincorporated into Russia. Putin will be pressured to take off his constraints on the conflict.
Russia intends to be sovereign, and Russia intends to survive, with or without Putin.
If you look at the data on Russian armament production, it has increased dramatically, and it is not deployed on the front in Ukraine. It seems that Russia is building a powerful military force that NATO cannot withstand, especially if Washington is preoccupied with Iran and China.
The real question is whether Europe and America are even capable of fighting. No European government has the support of its ethnic nationality. Are white European and American ethnicities willing to fight for governments that have intentionally overrun citizens with immigrant-invaders? In the United States discrimination against white American citizens is institutionalized. The Assistant Attorney General in the US Department of Justice has revealed the fact that it is the intent of the US Civil Service to make white heterosexual Americans second-class citizens: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/05/27/will-the-effort-to-restore-equal-treatment-under-law-for-white-americans-succeed/
In the Western world, the narrative is that it is Russia that is in the wrong and the US, NATO, and Ukraine that are in the right. This is nonsense, and the Russians know it.
The West used the Soviet collapse to break up Russia, turning former Russian and Soviet provinces into independent countries. Then the West financed and orchestrated “color revolutions” that overthrew Russian-friendly governments, installed Russian-hostile governments, and used them as in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 to attack Russians and Russian interests. Similar attempts were unsuccessful in Belarus and in former Soviet Central Asian provinces. On top of these hostile Western moves against Russia, US missile bases are operative in Poland and Romania.
Is it possible that Western policymakers think that Russia does not see the hostility directed against them? If this hostility cannot be ended and rolled back with a Great Power Agreement, is Russia preparing for a wider war with the West?
For Russia this is an existential issue. It is a serious mistake for the West to continue its provocations of Russia. All of humanity is at risk.
Putin could not care less about a negotiated peace in Ukraine. He wants an end to the 75-year old East-West conflict, and that requires a rollback of NATO to its 20th century border, the end of sanctions, the end of Washington’s hegemony. This is the real issue, and no one is discussing it.
I think that Putin’s hope for a great power agreement is unrealistic. It exceeds the imagination of the American foreign policy community. The Western world is lost in its own false narratives. War will be the result. This time Russia won’t stop at the border with Western Europe
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Site: Mises InstituteThe mainstream economic belief is that a growing economy needs a growing money supply to ensure “price stability.” Austrian economists, however, believe that there is no “optimum” money supply, which means government should not engage in monetary expansion.
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Site: Mises InstituteThe mainstream economic belief is that a growing economy needs a growing money supply to ensure “price stability.” Austrian economists, however, believe that there is no “optimum” money supply, which means government should not engage in monetary expansion.
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Site: southern orders
MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIVTO PARTICIPANTS IN THE SEMINAR
“EVANGELIZING WITH THE FAMILIES OF TODAY AND TOMORROW:
ECCLESIOLOGICAL AND PASTORAL CHALLENGES”,
ORGANIZED BY THE DICASTERY FOR LAITY, FAMILY AND LIFE[2-3 June 2025]
__________________________________
(MY ASTUTE COMMENTARY IN RED!)
Dear brothers and sisters,
I am pleased that on the eve of the celebration of the Jubilee for Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly a group of experts has gathered at the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life to reflect on the theme, “Evangelizing with the Families of Today and Tomorrow: Ecclesiological and Pastoral Challenges”.
This theme clearly expresses the Church’s maternal concern for Christian families throughout the world as living members of the Mystical Body of Christ and the primary nucleus of the Church, to whom the Lord entrusts the transmission of faith and the Gospel, especially to the new generations.
The profound thirst for the infinite present in the heart of every human being means that parents have the duty to make their children aware of the fatherhood of God. In the words of Saint Augustine: “As we have the source of life in you, O Lord, in your light we shall see light” (Confessions, XIII, 16).
Ours is a time marked by a growing search for spirituality, particularly evident in young people, who are longing for authentic relationships and guides in life. Hence, it is important that the Christian community be farsighted in discerning the challenges of today’s world and in nurturing the desire for faith present in the heart of every man and woman. (AND NOT TO CRUSH THE YOUNG WHO ARE FINDING THIS IN THE OLDER LITURGIES OF THE CHURCH!)
This effort requires that special attention be paid to those families who, for various reasons, are spiritually most distant from us: those who do not feel involved, claim they are uninterested or feel excluded from the usual activities, yet would still like to be part of a community in which they can grow and journey together with others. How many people today simply do not hear the invitation to encounter God?
Sadly, in the face of this need, an increasingly widespread “privatization” of faith often prevents these brothers and sisters from knowing the richness and gifts of the Church, a place of grace, fraternity, and love.
As a result, despite their healthy and holy desires, while they sincerely seek ways to climb the exciting upward paths to life and abundant joy, many end up relying on false footholds that are unable to support the weight of their deepest needs and cause them to slip back down, away from God, shipwrecked on a sea of worldly concerns.
Among them are fathers and mothers, children, young people and adolescents, who find themselves at times alienated by illusory lifestyles that leave no room for faith, and whose spread is facilitated by the wrong use of potentially good means – such as social media – yet prove harmful when used to convey misleading messages. (THE PREVIOUS PONTIFICATE SEEM TO WANT TO DANCE WITH PRECISELY THAT WHICH ALIENATES AND IS HARMFUL, ESPECIALLY MISLEADING MESSAGES WHICH THE PREVIOUS PONTIFF WAS WLL KNOWN FOR DOING!)
What drives the Church in her pastoral and missionary outreach is precisely the desire to go out as a “fisher” of humanity, in order to save it from the waters of evil and death through an encounter with Christ.
Perhaps many young people today who choose cohabitation instead of Christian marriage in reality need someone to show them in a concrete and clear way, especially by the example of their lives, what the gift of sacramental grace is and what strength derives from it. Someone to help them understand “the beauty and grandeur of the vocation to love and the service of life” that God gives to married couples (SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Familiaris Consortio, 1). (YES POPE LEO! YES! BUT WHEN A POPE ALLOWS PRIESTS TO BLESS ILLICT UNIONS, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?)
Similarly, many parents, in raising their children in the faith, feel the need for communities that can support them in creating the right conditions for their children to encounter Jesus, “places where the communion of love, which finds its ultimate source in God, takes place” (FRANCIS, General Audience, 9 September 2015).
Faith is primarily a response to God’s love, and the greatest mistake we can make as Christians is, in the words of Saint Augustine, “to claim that Christ’s grace consists in his example and not in the gift of his person” (Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum, II, 146). How often, even in the not too distant past, have we forgotten this truth and presented Christian life mostly as a set of rules to be kept, replacing the marvelous experience of encountering Jesus – God who gives himself to us – with a moralistic, burdensome and unappealing religion that, in some ways, is impossible to live in concrete daily life.
In this situation, it is the responsibility of the Bishops, as successors of the apostles and shepherds of Christ’s flock, to be the first to cast their nets into the sea and become “fishers of families.” Yet the laity are also called to participate in this mission, and to become, alongside ordained ministers, “fishers” of couples, young people, children, women and men of all ages and circumstances, so that all may encounter the one Saviour. Through Baptism, each one of us has been made a priest, king, and prophet for our brothers and sisters, and a “living stone” (cf. 1 Pet 2:4) for the building up of God’s house “in fraternal communion, in the harmony of the Spirit, in the coexistence of diversity” (LEO XIV, Homily, 18 May 2025).
I ask you, then, to join in the work of the whole Church in seeking out those families who no longer come to us, in learning how to walk with them and to help them embrace the faith and become in turn “fishers” of other families.
Do not be discouraged by the difficult situations you face. It is true that families today have many problems, but “the Gospel of the family also nourishes seeds that are still waiting to grow, and serves as the basis for caring for those plants that are wilting and must not be neglected” (FRANCIS, Amoris Laetitia, 76).
What great need there is to promote an encounter with God, whose tender love values and loves the story of every person! It is not a matter of giving hasty answers to difficult questions, but of drawing close to people, listening to them, and trying to understand together with them how to face their difficulties. And this requires a readiness to be open, when necessary, to new ways of seeing things and different ways of acting, for each generation is different and has its own challenges, dreams and questions. Yet amid all these changes, Jesus Christ remains “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8). Consequently, if we want to help families experience joyful paths of communion and be seeds of faith for one another, we must first cultivate and renew our own identity as believers. (YES, THE PREVIOUS PONTIFF ERODED CATHOLIC IDENTITY BY REOPENING ISSUES SETTLED BY THE PREVIOUS TWO PONTIFICATES! CATHOLIC IDENTITY NEEDS TO BE RECOVERED AND IT ISN’T THE SPIRIT OF VATICAN II, BUT THE TRUTH OF THE REAL PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST HANDED DOWN THROUGH THE CENTURIES THROUGH MAGISTERIUM AND LITURGY!)
Dear brothers and sisters, thank you for what you do! May the Holy Spirit guide you in discerning criteria and methods that support and promote the Church’s efforts to minister to families. Let us help families to listen courageously to Christ’s proposal and the Church’s words of encouragement! I will remember you in my prayers, and I cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.
From the Vatican, 28 May 2025
Leo PP. XIV
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Site: AsiaNews.itA student who took her own life at Wayamba National College of Education has sparked student protests and prompted the Ministry of Education to launch an investigation. For Father Gamunu Dias, National Director of Catholic Education, no one can be indifferent. This should never happen again while young people and future teachers must be protected.
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Site: Mises InstituteThe pope must defend the family from the state‘s attacks while promoting peace and asserting independence from state power.
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Site: Real Investment Advice
Some bearish bond investors in Japan and the US appear to believe that a paradigm shift is underway in the sovereign bond markets. To wit, consider the following statement from Jim Bianco on Thoughtful Money: “If these deficits are really going […]
The post Bond Market Paradigm Shift? appeared first on RIA.
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Site: Real Investment Advice
Buying stocks is always hard. Particularly during corrections. Or, near market peaks. Or, when stocks are falling. And when they are rising. Oh, buying stocks is also tricky when valuations are high. And when they are low. You get the […]
The post Buying Stocks Is Always Hard appeared first on RIA.
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Site: Catholic ConclavePope Francis died in an elevator, Leo XIV elected twice?: The BackstoryThe Santa Marta Version. With each death of a Pope, the backstories multiply: silences, cryptic hints, suggestions in purple. It is said of Holy Spirits descending to inspire conclaves, of cardinals gathered in prayer, while the Breath - as always - arrives from where no one expected it. But in the Vatican corridors, between Catholic Conclavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06227218883606585321noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: Crisis Magazine
Papal conclaves are a big deal. The one that elected Pope Leo XIV was only my third, as it was for everyone just shy of 50 years old. And, barring tragedy for either Pope Leo or myself, I only have maybe two or three more. A papal conclave is the kind of major event a person only experiences a handful of times in their life. Such experiences take on a special significance in part because of the…
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Site: Crisis Magazine
The Catholic writer Walker Percy used the term “technophilia” to describe a Western—very American—faith in the power of “science.” It finds expression in slogans like “follow the science” and the conviction that “science” is the guiding light to lead humanity up from superstition and obscurantism to progress and happiness. South African bishop Denis Hurley (considered in today’s terms a Vatican…
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Site: OnePeterFive
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. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople. On the Ascension, tom 3 Then Christ went up into heaven, He offered unto the Father the First-fruits of our nature, and the Father marvelled at the offering…
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Site: Mises Institute"The only influence capable of resisting the feudal hierarchy was the ecclesiastical hierarchy; and they came into collision, when the process of feudalism threatened the independence of the Church..."
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Site: Zero HedgeWill Russia's Military Build-Up Along The Finnish Border Likely Be The New Normal?Tyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 03:30
Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,
This is a predictable response to Finland’s unnecessary and highly provocative decision to join NATO...
The New York Times (NYT) recently published an article about how “Russia Beefs Up Bases Near Finland’s Border”, which relied on satellite imagery to reach that conclusion. Russia’s northern military build-up is portrayed as ominous in their piece, with speculation abounding about its post-Ukraine plans among those who they interviewed. To their credit, the NYT’s authors did reference Russia’s perceptions about NATO expansion, but they didn’t take them to their logical conclusion with regard to Finland.
No mention is made about how unnecessary its decision to join NATO was. Prior to that, Finland was already a so-called “shadow member” of NATO in the sense of having closely integrated with the bloc and practically obtained interoperability with its forces after years of joint training. Nevertheless, it didn’t have Article 5 mutual defense guarantees, but they objectively weren’t needed since there was never any credible scenario where Russia would launch an unprovoked attack or all-out invasion of Finland.
Shortly after the special operation began over three years ago, Finland’s liberal-globalist elite fearmongered that their country might be next after Ukraine, which was the false pretext upon which they reversed their decades-long stance towards formal NATO membership. Far from joining out of sincere concerns for their security, they did so solely to expand NATO’s border with Russia, which could then be presented as a symbolic Western victory no matter the outcome of this ongoing proxy war.
Here are three background briefings about this to bring unaware readers up to speed:
* 8 February 2024: “Finland Is Opening Up NATO’s Arctic Containment Front Against Russia”
* 25 May 2024: “A New Iron Curtain Is Being Built From The Arctic To Central Europe”
* 1 October 2024: “Don’t Forget About How NATO’s Northeastern Flank Can Stir Up A Lot Of Trouble For Russia”
They’ll now be summarized and placed in the larger geostrategic context of the New Cold War.
In short, Finland’s NATO membership enables the bloc to divert a portion of Russia’s forces from other fronts like the Ukrainian one while also expanding the West’s capabilities to project force into Russia, thus making it a highly strategic but also extremely dangerous move. The new Iron Curtain that’s descending upon the region upon linking together Finland’s newly strengthened border defenses, the “Baltic Defence Line”, and Poland’s “East Shield” will guarantee that post-Ukrainian tensions persist.
Even in the scenario of the nascent Russian-US “New Détente” evolving into a full-fledged strategic partnership built upon resource cooperation like joint Arctic projects of the sort that Moscow has proposed, NATO’s European members could still unilaterally threaten Russia via these means. In other words, the same strategy that the prior US administration sought to employ against Russia could be used by its nominal allies to provoke a crisis for complicating the new one’s ties with Russia, which is ironic.
That said, the likelihood of this being attempted – let alone succeeding – would be greatly reduced if the aforesaid “New Détente” enters into force since the US might simply refuse to extend Article 5 mutual defense guarantees to any of its “rogue allies” that stir up trouble along this front, thus deterring them. That said, the possibility always remains that a future US administration isn’t so friendly towards Russia or “decouples” from it on whatever pretext, so Russia can’t ever let its guard down from here on out.
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Site: Mises InstituteWhile artificial intelligence is often discussed in terms of automation or productivity, its potential as a creative and intellectual partner is just beginning to be recognized.
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Site: Zero HedgeThese Are The World's Biggest Shadow EconomiesTyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 02:45
The world’s $12.5 trillion informal economy covers nearly every corner of the world, seeing the highest concentration in emerging economies.
Yet in absolute terms, China, the U.S. and India are home to the largest black markets—covering everything from street vendors to illegal activities that evade governmental oversight. Overall, this generates lower tax revenue and poorer working conditions given the absence of worker protections, leaving millions exposed to poor working conditions.
This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows the largest shadow economies in the world, based on data from the EY Global Shadow Economy Report 2025.
Measuring the Informal Economy
While measuring the size of show economy activity is challenging, Ernst & Young used more than 70 variables to analyze unobserved economic activities in a country.
Primarily, a currency demand approach was used to examine cash use patterns across 131 jurisdictions covering 97.2% of world GDP. This is largely due to the informal economy driving significant demand for cash, especially high-denomination bills.
China’s Informal Economy is the World’s Largest
Since 2004, workers employed in China’s informal economy have nearly doubled, reaching approximately 200 million.
Driving this trend are jobs are found in the labor-intensive services sector, such as drivers, nannies, and roadside repairmen. As a result, China’s income tax revenue accounts for about 6% of GDP—far lower than the 24% OECD average.
Ranking in second is the U.S. shadow economy, valued at $1.4 trillion. Overall, states with lower real GDP and higher regulatory burdens tend to have more active underground economies.
Meanwhile, Brazil leads in Latin America, with a shadow economy valued at $448 billion. In Europe, Germany is home to the largest at $308 billion, equal to 6.8% of GDP.
To learn more about this topic from a country-based perspective, check out this graphic on the size of the shadow economy by country.
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Site: Zero HedgeBritish Voters Lash OutTyler Durden Mon, 06/02/2025 - 02:00
Authored by Jake Scott via The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE),
In the United Kingdom, a mini political earthquake has thrown everything up into the air.
At the beginning of May, several local councils held elections for the county, allowing voters a say in how their local services are managed—bin collection, potholes being filled in, local development plans, etc.
These elections are not, therefore, the most decisive electoral events of the calendar. But politically, they can be used to send a message, and that is certainly what happened this time.
Often seen as a chance for voters to express their discontent, local elections can be taken as a test of the current government’s performance, and this is one they definitively failed. Reform UK, the populist-right party led by Nigel Farage, won 677 wards out of 1,632, and took control of ten county councils, including County Durham, a Labour stronghold for 100 years.
Because of their political relevance, but limited national impact, local elections that go against the government can often be hand-waved as protest votes, expressing general discontent with the status quo. On this occasion, doing so would be a serious mistake, for two reasons.
First, the Labour Party, as the current government, did not expect to do well due to the country’s broad dissatisfaction with the economy, high levels of immigration, and climbing costs of living. But it was the Conservatives who suffered the most, having previously held more councils before the elections, and the electorate still has not “forgiven them” since they were voted out in the national elections of July 2024. Indeed, they were the real losers of this round, losing about the same number of wards as Reform gained.
Second, the victories of Reform in the locals, especially in the Midlands and the North East, track with consistent regional patterns that suggest this is truly not a flash in the pan. As I have been pointing out for a while now, Reform’s core areas of support seem to be in the Midlands, North East, and East Anglia, though they are also now breaking through in Kent. Indeed, Reform also won the byelection in Runcorn by six votes, coming from a standing start to take a Labour stronghold.
Meanwhile, YouGov’s first poll after the locals put Reform in the lead on 29 percent, a full 7 percent points ahead of Labour in second place. A national bump after a successful performance in the local elections is to be expected, but this is a serious shift, if it materializes. It may be the case that people who support Reform, but won’t say so publicly out of fear of being judged for it—the “Shy Reformers”—are now emboldened by the success of the party, and no longer shy about supporting them. A similar phenomenon occurred in 2015, when the Conservatives won a majority despite the polls suggesting otherwise.
Reform’s support comes largely from its opposition to mass migration, with leader Farage declaring in April that a Reform government would create a “Minister for Deportations” in the Home Office—which is about the only real concrete policy that the party has put forward. But in this proposal, and in response to the local victories, we can discern Reform’s economic agenda, and it’s one not far from President Trump’s.
In relation to the “Deportations Minister,” Farage stated that “we will need to recruit new people, as the evidence at the moment suggests those who work in the Home Office would willfully obstruct policy if we won the next general election.”
Such comments are reminiscent of Trump’s rhetoric regarding the Deep State, the fear that an obstructive civil service will sabotage any real measures being implemented. Often disregarded as a “conspiracy theory,” there is nevertheless a perception that the “will of the people” is obstructed by independent and unelected officials with their own agendas, contrary to the electorally victorious.
Coming from Farage, it indicates a distrust of the established civil service, and a desire either to strip it back, or to dislodge and replace any servants who are not “on-side.” This would suggest a preference for a minimalist state, but one that is still active in key policy areas.
Such a stance seems to be confirmed by Chairman Zia Yusuf’s statements following the local elections on what Reform plans to do in each council. Talking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Yusuf said that Reform “will cut waste” principally by sending “teams in, taskforces; we will be opening up applications soon.” In a move reminiscent of DOGE’s strategy, of sending small teams into each agency and demanding audits, Reform is clearly hoping to bring public spending under control. Meanwhile, Dame Andrea Jenkyns—formerly of the Conservative Party, and now Reform Mayor for Lincolnshire—has set the goal of cutting departments by 10 percent.
Economically then, Reform’s government strategy seems attractive, and this may well bear fruit at the national level, but the obstacle at the local level is remarkably simple: it doesn’t have that much autonomy.
As I say above, councils are not that significant, but where their spending is directed is pretty tightly controlled. For example, as much as 60 percent of local councils’ budgets are dedicated to social care, a statutory obligation determined by the central government in Westminster, so other services must be the first to be cut. And since these are the issues that residents notice daily—road maintenance, bin collection, bus services, etc.—it can be electorally difficult to cut those without losing support.
Reform’s strategy might, therefore, be a necessary one, but the capacity to implement it at the local level is likely to be a struggle, and one that they may not succeed in.
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