Certainly, it is difficult to make the demands of the Gospel understandable to secularized people. But this pastoral difficulty must not lead to compromises with the truth.
Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds
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Site: The Orthosphere
My dear friend Bruce Charlton – an Orthospherean from before our first days and indeed the moderator at his own site of the discussion in which we decided to call this blog “the Orthosphere,” a pen friend of mine for years beforehand, and an honored contributor here still (so far as WordPress is concerned, he can post here anything he likes) – has it seems taken my recent post on the difficulties that bedevil radical ontological pluralism as a philosophical challenge. It was not intended as such, but so be it. It would be cheap of me to ignore his response, so, here goes: a fisking, alas.
At his own site, far more influential than ours, he writes:
Kristor, of The Orthosphere, is very good at expounding his own metaphysical assumptions (which are essentially those of Thomistic Roman Catholicism); but when it comes to making a comparative evaluation of different metaphysical “systems”… well, he just doesn’t ever do it!
I used to do it. But after four decades of work on it I moved on to other problems, because it became clear to me on the basis of a wide ranging comparative evaluation of different metaphysical systems that the traditional, classical Platonico-Aristotelian system of the West, and so of the Church (Roman and Orthodox, and thus derivatively of Protestantism), simply works better than the alternatives (along the way I considered process metaphysics, Tychism (of Peirce and of later quantum thinkers), Bergsonian philosophy, advaita Vedanta, Taoism, Sufism, Spinozan and Eleatic monism, Democritean materialism, Deism, LaPlacean determinism, Platonism, Aristotelianism, Hermeticism, and a number of others (indeed, I even for a few weeks seriously entertained pagan polytheism of the Viking and Greek sorts (on account of my interest in nature mysticism and the Eleusinian Mysteries, which were both taken seriously by many serious people), and later of the Mormon sort; come to think of it, I suppose the only major systems I did not investigate were those of Gnosticism (which seemed silly prima facie, like New Age) and Neo-Platonism (which I figured was just Platonism, and I’d get around to it (I did))). The classical metaphysics of the West subsumes all the good bits of the other systems. After a while indeed it seemed to me that most of those other systems were either protoevangelia or partial quotations and borrowings from the mature Christian metaphysical tradition.
In a recent post; Kristor discusses the matter of whether reality is ultimately one (monism) or many (pluralism). By his argument, Kristor apparently supposes that he has logically rejected pluralism as in essence incoherent, therefore necessarily wrong.
On the contrary, I suppose that reality is both a Many and a One. It looks that way to me: I suffer at every moment a Many that is at One, so that many disparate things hang together coherently, indeed immaculately, and always. The difficulty then is to reconcile these two notions.
We run into trouble when we dully suppose – allured by an Ockhamian temptation to improper reduction – that reality is either simply pluralist or simply monist. Neither of those options can be correct, because they both founder immediately on our daily experience – on experience per se, so far as it has been ever vouchsafed to us. At every moment we all apprehend both a Many and a One. There’s no way around it.
Yet what he has done in his discourse is merely to demonstrate that when someone has accepted the assumptions of monism – then swapped out the assumptions that everything is one and replaced it with an assumption of pluralism, the result does not make sense.
I am not a monist. Monism is inadequate to experience. And it is logically incoherent; indeed, it refutes itself: on monism, there can be no such thing as an argument for monism. So, I have not accepted the assumptions of monism.
Kristor’s argument does not at all mean that pluralism is necessarily incoherent; for example when pluralism is one part of a different set of fundamental assumptions concerning the nature of reality.
On radical ontological pluralism, entities have nothing essentially to do with each other, as a matter of their common basic being. In that case, they cannot together form an integral cosmos, for there is no way to obtain a system of entities out of entities that can have nothing to do with each other. We find that there is an integral cosmos. Ergo, ¬ radical ontological pluralism. QED.
Bruce has not addressed this argument.
Perhaps he advocates something other than radical ontological pluralism as I have characterized it, so that my argument does not really touch his metaphysical opinions. Or perhaps he does think that radical ontological pluralism as I have characterized it is true, but has in mind metaphysical axioms that render it agreeable to our experience of an integral cosmos. At least in the conversation so far – three posts, now, counting this one – he has not been forthcoming about either of those alternatives.
Now if on the other hand plural entities *do* have something essentially to do with each other, why then they can well proceed to form together an integral cosmos – to have relations with each other, to exert causal effects upon each other, and so forth, and so together to form a world system, a cosmos. But if they do have this thing in common, the question then becomes, whence that thing? Is it in them essentially or necessarily? Why? How did it get into them in the first place?
Excursus: So we get to the familiar cosmological arguments.
NB: on radical ontological pluralism, none of the cosmological arguments can get underway; for, on that ontology, there can be no such thing as a cosmos, from which such arguments might proceed.
And perhaps Kristor regards his own assumptions as necessarily true because he does not acknowledge that they lead to any fundamental problems.
For example, I think he does not acknowledge the ineradicable depth of the problem of explaining genuine free agency for Men in a reality conceptualized as created from nothing by an “omni-God.”
Nah, this is easy. It is not logically possible to create actualities, that as actual can act, in any way other than as free, i.e., *as capable of action:* of decision among real options, thus also (to boot) of wicked decisions. Easy.
Nor do I think Kristor appreciates the ineradicable depth of the problem of accounting for the existence of evil in a reality wholly created by a wholly Good (and omnipotent) God.
Again, this is easy. If creatures are real, then they can really act; and if they can really act, then they can really choose between options, some of which are necessarily suboptimal. Their knowledge being finite and therefore imperfect, some of them are almost certain to choose unwisely and suboptimally. Some do, and catastrophe ensues. A sad situation, but unavoidable if you want actual and free creatures to begin with, who can do things like love, create, worship, enjoy …
Easy.
I think Kristor does not acknowledge the depth of these problems, because he is satisfied by those abstract and complex “answers” provided by Thomism.
Actually, I figured out theodicy on my own, before I began to read Aquinas seriously. I got started on it because I was personally and deeply engaged in a struggle to understand a massive horrid evil that permanently befell my innocent son, then just a boy. So far as I yet know, the solution is original with me. Once you see it, the solution is easy. So easy that it becomes obvious that there just is no Problem of Evil. There is rather only confusion about evil and actuality.
I limned the theodicy in a few sentences just supra. It took me a decade, and hundreds of pages of work, to figure it out.
And (to complete the circle) these are answers that themselves assume the metaphysical primacy of abstractions.
To talk of abstractions – indeed, to talk at all – is to employ abstractions. There is no way around it. So, never mind this objection: it tells with equal minuscule force against all language. If abstraction is bad per se, then the abstraction that abstraction is bad is itself bad. The notion that abstraction is bad per se refutes itself. Abstraction then is not eo ipso bad.
Kristor – following traditional RC teaching – assumes the fundamental and necessary truth of God’s omniscience / omnipotence / omnipresence (etc.) – and these are abstractions. Similarly; creation from nothing (ex nihilo) is assumed to be necessary, and that is an abstraction. More fundamentally; Kristor’s understanding of God as God, is an abstract one: his understanding of God is in terms of the definitional necessity of God having certain abstract attributes – such as those above.
Bruce on the other hand talks of God by using different abstractions. So, what? How is it possible to talk of God at all, pray – or of anything else whatever, for that matter – other than by employing abstract concepts? The question then is not whether this or that person uses abstract concepts, but rather whether the abstract concepts they use are both coherent and adequate to experience.
Radical ontological pluralism simply *cannot* adequate to experience, inasmuch as it proposes that the myriad entities of the Many are noncontingent; as such, they can have nothing to do with each other – this is just part of what it means to say that they are noncontingent – so that they *cannot* conspire to such a world as we experience.
Thus I propose something a bit less radical than radical ontological pluralism; namely, the traditional pluralist teaching of the Church, and of Western philosophy in the main stem from its root in Plato (who got his chops in the schools of Syria – of the Hebrews, i.e. (his Forms are the ancient Hebrew types, in terms of which – in types of which – the scriptures are written)), in which each one of the Many is supposed to be the providential fruit of an One, without at all escheating the actuality of each entity among the Many.
The reason this teaching is traditional is that it works better than the alternatives.
Although we can note that such a focus [on abstractions] seems to date from early in the history of Christianity (albeit there is no evidence of it in the contemporary eye-witness account of the Fourth Gospel) …
Even if there were no such evidence in John’s Gospel – a hard notion to square with his prologue thereto – no matter. We can see it in his students, Polycarp and Ignatius, and in the others of his school. Of course; for, it is not possible to communicate metaphysical or theological propositions in any way other than by employment of abstract concepts. Again, the idea that abstract concepts are by nature suspect is itself just such an abstract concept.
… we can still ask why is it that abstraction occupies such a fundamental position in Christian metaphysics?
OK, wait a minute here; how do you propose to discuss metaphysics without employing conceptual abstractions? Metaphysics *just is* a discourse about, and employing, conceptual abstractions. Dude, it isn’t even physics: it’s metaphysics.
For Kristor (and apparently for most Christians since some time after the ascension of Jesus) there can be no such thing as Christianity except from within the perspective of The Church (however that “The” is defined).
What does that tell you? We’ve got billions of Christians treating Christianity in the traditional way to which Bruce objects, for two thousand years. Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Coptic, and even all the churches of the East who rejected Chalcedon. Then Bruce shows up and has … himself. Not that Bruce is nothing. He’s a formidable guy. But, really? Really? Whom does he trust?
Think of it this way. The market, composed of millions of highly qualified and interested investors, traders, analysts, etc., all arrive together – against each other, NB – at a current valuation of Apple at $x. Bruce values it differently. Who is likely to be right? Bruce, or all of them? I mean, come on.
This is why Tradition is utile. It saves so much time and trouble, such as Bruce and I have engaged in.
For Kristor; Thomism is just true, the nature of Christianity derives from the truth and necessity of the RCC; and therefore all legitimately Christian futures must build upon these.
Sorry, this just isn’t so. Indeed, it’s backward. I’ve proceeded as an honest investigator, and have learnt thereby (not always altogether happily, given my initial preferences) that, after 2,000 years of careful investigation and conversation, the RCC just has it almost completely right, mirabile dictu. Who’d a thunk it? I sure didn’t, to begin with.
I didn’t decide that Aquinas was just right about everything before thinking about any of it. Rather, I thought about it, and eventually – often after much difficulty – figured out that Aquinas had been right about almost everything after all. With respect to the rest, the jury is still out. Still working on it …
For what it’s worth, I’m a Whiteheadian Thomist (so that lots of the ontological pluralism that Bruce loves is woven into my metaphysics). I’m sure that would scandalize Thomas, at least until he heard my arguments …
So! These apparently trivial interpersonal debates between myself and Kristor – or, failures to debate, as I regard them – are like the tip of an iceberg of differences; that I regard as ultimately sustained by a deep and long-term problem of wrong metaphysical assumptions about Christianity being instead regarded as necessary and true metaphysical assumptions.
OK, but then let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we? Which metaphysical principles are wrong?
NB: Bruce has not in his response actually addressed the inherent difficulty of the radical ontological pluralism I noticed in my post the other day. Namely: does it really work to suppose that reality is at the most fundamental level constituted of many utterly independent and non-contingent – and, thus, utterly unrelated – entities?
Is radical ontological pluralism coherent – whether in itself, as a proposal for the construction of world systems, or in re our quotidian experience of just such a world system?
So far as I can tell, it is not. For, how does one go about constituting a coherent world out of utterly independent entities, that have nothing at bottom in common, or therefore to do with each other? How does one build an integral world out of mutually incommensurable entities?
This, NB, is the nub of the problem of the Many and the One. How do you get a coherent, integral universe out of a set of disparate events, that are all different from each other?
The traditional answer is that, while they are indeed disparate and different, each of the Many has something in common, in virtue of which they can find each other mutually intelligible, so that they can then accommodate themselves to each other in such a way as to constitute together an integral world. And the thing they have in common, according to tradition, is that they are all members of a communion with their common origin, and thus with each other.
No common origin, no common basis of communication, then no possibility of communion, or then of any common world. Rather, then, only islands of being, cut off from all others. Not a Many, then – not a set of members, not a group or genus – but rather just a Democritean chaos.
No One → no coordinate Many; no coordinate Many → no cosmos.
It is hard indeed to see how a coherent integral cosmos could be accomplished in any other way than in virtue of a prior One. It would be good to hear how it might be done. Until such an account has been provided, skepticism about the notion is bound to perdure.
It would be terrific to hear of such an account. Useful and possibly productive conversation on the topic could then proceed. Otherwise, not.
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Site: Public Discourse
In this interview, historian and author Bronwen McShea joins contributing editor Nathaniel Peters to discuss her new book, Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know, co-published by Ignatius Press and the Augustine Institute.
Nathaniel Peters: St. John Paul II and other Christian leaders have written about a “feminine genius” that women bring to their lives and work. What is this, and how do you see it manifest in the lives of the women you studied?
Bronwen McShea: As an historian, I defer to what various popes and other Christian leaders have said, in a philosophical and theological way, on the subject of women’s special receptivity to God’s graces and to others and women’s special sensitivity toward, and ability to nurture, others. I also recommend the foreword that Patricia Snow wrote for Women of the Church. She has some good words on the feminine genius there. I’m grateful that she agreed to write the foreword for the book, as I admire her and have learned a lot from her, both as a writer and as a “woman of the Church,” over the years.
I will add, though, that the great variety of Catholic women and historical experiences and contributions that I cover in the book (and I barely scratch the surface of what is known by specialized scholars on different periods of Christianity’s history!) is sometimes inadequately reflected in what Catholic leaders say about women. For example, at a recent conference on the theme of “Women in the Church” in Rome, Pope Francis referred to the feminine genius exhibited by various saints who engaged in charitable, educational, and prayerful work “at times in history when women were largely excluded from social and ecclesial life.” Such words are well meaning. But they unintentionally erase vast amounts of historical female contributions to the life of the Church and wider societies over many centuries—centuries in which women were, at times, less excluded from positions of influence and power than various nineteenth and twentieth-century narratives that spotlighted activities and especially words by certain men (often clergymen) have led us to believe was the case.
I’m hopeful, therefore, that not just ordinary readers, but also readers at the higher levels of ecclesial leadership, will learn some new things about women and Church history from my book. I also hope that some might reconsider and refine what they say in connection to the past and present role of women in Christian ecclesial and social life.
NP: How did the women you studied exercise power inside and outside the Church? What can women—and lay people more generally—learn from them?
BM: Some of the women I cover in Women of the Church exercised considerable power within the Church of their time and in their wider societies. For example, prominent abbesses of the medieval period, such as Saint Hildegard of Bingen, shared certain powers of territorial ecclesial governance with abbots and bishops in their day. Some elite laywomen, too, wielded power and influence within and for the Church in ways that would seem strange to Catholics today. Indeed, the extent to which some did so was one of my entry points into writing this book in the first place. The project grew, in part, out of my work for my last book, La Duchesse: The Life of Marie de Vignerot, Cardinal Richelieu’s Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France. That book is about one of the most powerful and influential Catholic leaders of the seventeenth century—recognized as such in her day by secular and ecclesiastical princes alike, including Pope Alexander VII, and deferred to by various eventually famous churchmen and religious whose careers she helped to make, including Saint Vincent de Paul. Among other powers that Vignerot exercised was the selection of various bishops of the Church, both within her country and overseas in new missionary dioceses in Asia and North America.
Vignerot is just one of a number of laywomen covered in my book who contributed to the governance, disciplining, and reform of the Church in diverse ways going back to the earlier centuries of Christian history. An example that might startle some readers is that of Irene of Athens, the Byzantine empress who convoked the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 that settled the iconoclasm controversy that was tearing the Church violently apart at that time. Others include better-known figures such as the controversial Isabella of Castile and Maria Theresa of Austria, as well as lesser-known figures such as Saint Adelaide of the tenth century. Adelaide was the first papally consecrated Holy Roman Empress. Co-ruling with her husband, Emperor Otto I, she employed her power to protect ecclesiastical institutions in a time of chronic warfare. She also helped facilitate the famous Cluniac reform, which restored spiritual and moral rigor to many monasteries and ecclesiastical leadership more generally, while serving as regent for her grandson, Otto III.
Readers of my book will also learn about some powerful women who helped to establish the Jesuit order and various other religious congregations in various parts of Europe and across the globe. These women exercised patronage powers within and for the Church in ways possible for lay elites for many centuries but which were phased out in favor of more strict governance of the Church by bishops and popes alone, from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. I hope that lay readers, male and female, might, after considering some of this history, look at their own callings within and for the Church in a new light. They might question more the idea that it is somehow not traditionally Catholic, or somehow only a progressive or “democratic” concept, that laypeople and women might, and perhaps should, have some genuine co-responsibility with the clergy in the governance as well as the disciplining and reform of the Church today. (And the Church certainly has grave needs in this regard, given the way the clerical hierarchy has handled the sexual abuse scandals, and sometimes related financial corruption scandals, in recent decades.)
NP: Some of these women remained faithful through times of cultural and political turmoil. Others helped lead a revival or renaissance in a nation or religious community after a time of great conflict or change. What do those women have to teach us today?
BM: My book covers numerous women who persisted in their faith and particular Christian callings, sometimes at the expense of their lives or at least their livelihoods and basic personal security, in the face of all manner of persecutions. Englishwomen such as Saint Margaret Clitherow, executed for protecting Catholic priests in the time of Queen Elizabeth I’s persecutions, and French nuns such as the Carmelites of Compiègne, who were guillotined during the revolutionary Reign of Terror, stand out in this regard. Some of the Church’s most honored, famous saints, such as Teresa of Avila who was declared a Doctor of the Church, faced fierce opposition at times from Catholic authorities when attempting to fulfill callings by God to reform their lax religious congregations or communicate important messages to the Church, sometimes in writings that were suppressed in their lifetimes. It’s tempting for Catholics today, accustomed to how much the Church has elevated such saints, to assume that their paths to sanctity and recognition by the Church were straightforward and even easy in some regards. But the study of such figures in historical context helps to shake us out of that false assumption. Hopefully, it can also help us to examine our own present-day struggles, confusions, and moments of being misunderstood or unjustly treated—both within and beyond our communities of faith—with new eyes, and with new determination to stay true to what the Lord asks of us.
NP: George Eliot wrote that “the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” The director Terrence Malick took this as the title and epigraph for his biography of Bl. Franz Jägerstätter, A Hidden Life. What “hidden lives” did you uncover in the course of your work?
BM: Well, insofar as each woman I cover in the book made it, one way or another, into written historical records, she engaged in “historical” acts, memorialized both by me and by scholars I depended upon for my own awareness of them. That said, there are some women in my book—including Native American and Asian women in past centuries, who worked alongside well-remembered missionaries and saints—whose names went unrecorded, whose stories are mostly hidden or misrepresented in existing written records.
I also try to cover in the book a bit of what’s known in each period of Church history about ordinary women devoted to their families, local parishes, and wider communities who left behind legacies of service even though their names and fuller stories are mostly lost. Such women, indeed, can be said to have contributed—more than we can ever quantify, but in ways that do not have to be completely lost to memory—to “the growing good of the world.”
NP: Public Discourse has hosted numerous articles debating the nature of contemporary feminism: Is feminism inherently harmful to the dignity of women and society as a whole, or does modern feminism need correction from previous generations of feminists? Do the figures you studied shed light on this debate and the project of cultivating alternative forms of feminism?
BM: There indeed have been important discussions in this vein in recent years. I hope that my book will offer people on all sides of these debates some new data to work with, with respect to the sorts of experiences many women had, and the sorts of contributions many were able to make to the Church and their societies, both before and after modern feminism emerged. Some readers may learn from my book for the first time, for instance (although I’m not the first historian to bring it up), that various Catholic authors, who lived long before Mary Wollstonecraft and other Enlightenment-era feminists, argued in favor of the complete moral and intellectual equality of women and men.
As for whether feminism is inherently harmful to the dignity of women and society, there is plenty of evidence that certain kinds of feminism have been. As an historian, I’m reticent about wading into this subject in generalizing terms. But my book offers examples of how Christianity contributed over time to maturing understandings of the equal dignity of man and woman—sometimes radically, and in ways that were put into practice only in fits and starts. It shows how, too, forces outside the Church, such as revolutionary radicalism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, violated the inherent dignity of spiritual gifts of women, sometimes in vicious ways. An example was when contemplative religious congregations were suppressed—with the prayers and sacrifices offered by veiled, consecrated virgins and widows treated as economically and socially “useless”—by centralizing, industrializing, and socially and politically democratizing nation states that explicitly excluded women from voting and holding public offices. Sadly, some Catholic leaders in Europe, not just post-Christian revolutionaries, contributed to that devastation where the once vibrant contemplative tradition of the Church was concerned. It may not be a coincidence that, as our Church has lost, more and more, her deeper sense of the complementarity between cloistered contemplatives and our more active, “secular” clergy, consecrated people, and laypeople, our societies increasingly have fallen prey to visions of gender equality that seek to erase, rather than safeguard and celebrate, deeper, complementary differences between men and women.
NP: Did any of the figures you studied emerge as new favorites for you, or as especially compelling models of living a heroic life for Christ?
BM: I really can’t narrow things down to a few new favorites! I learned about so many women I had only vague ideas about before taking on this project, and I learned new things about figures that had been well known to me and already among my favorites. The latter include Saint Louise de Marillac and the first Daughters of Charity; the first women ever to venture across great seas and oceans to found charitable hospitals and schools; saints such as Teresa of Avila and Edith Stein who contributed great writings to the Church’s spiritual and intellectual treasury. As a laywoman and scholar, I’m drawn more to some of the women in my book than to others. But I’ll say that I appreciate to a new extent how critical to the Church’s development, and to the building up of more humane societies, consecrated women have been over so many centuries—cloistered and more active; saints, blesseds, and (in the case, for example, of several pioneering African-American religious sisters such as Mary Lange, Henriette de Lille, and Thea Bowman) not yet raised to the honors of the altar.
Growing up long after Vatican II and the steep decline in women’s religious life that ensued, I’ve rarely encountered habited sisters over the years. When I started Women of the Church, I didn’t expect to fill as many pages as I did with remarkable stories about women vowed to poverty, chastity, and obedience. But the legacy of such women jumped out from the pages of the specialized histories I consulted—a legacy that I hope my book will help more people appreciate.
Image by Dave and licensed via Adobe Stock.
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Site: Henrymakow.com
Illuminati Insider Harold Rosenthal (with Sen. Walter Mondale)--Seeking Satisfaction Outside YourSelf is Servitude"The very moment you seek happiness outside yourselves, you become our willing servants.""You have become addicted to our medicine through which we have become your absolute masters...""A dissatisfied people are pawns in our game of world conquest.""It seems clearer every day that the moral problem of our age is concerned with the love of money, with the habitual appeal to the money motive in 9/10 of the activities of life. Religions ...have less and less interest for most people...just because they do not touch ...on these essential matters."---John Maynard Keyes (1925)The Illuminati's Secret Weapon - SinUpdated from 2-3-2023by Henry Makow PhDAn Illuminati member sent shivers down my spine when he echoed my words.In an article "Entertained to Death," posted in December, 2015, I said people today are "externalized." We seek happiness outside of our true selves, i.e. our soul.Recently, I was astonished to read this quotation by Harold Rosenthal (left, with Walter Mondale) from 1976: "The very moment you seek happiness outside yourselves, you become our willing servants."Forget about the Patriot Act and the NSA. Our enslavement takes a much more subtle and pervasive form. Truly, we are unconscious victims of a diabolical spiritual attack.ENTERTAINED TO DEATHFirst my description.We are "feel-good" addicts. We need a cocktail of money, sex, knowledge, drugs, purchases, hits, "likes," food, love, praise, etc. If we make our quota, ego is happy. We had a good day.
But this habit degrades us and makes us feel empty. We have displaced our soul-identity and identified with our "wants" instead. In my article, I compared our souls to the light bulb in a slide projector. We covet the slideshow displayed on a screen. "Wanting" them makes us miserable. We may not get them; or even when we do, we find they are a chimera. The mind is a prison where the soul is tortured by thoughts. The key is to not identify with the slides ("thoughts") but with the light.There is no mystery about religion. It is simply obeying God's voice speaking through the soul. This is not an option. We cannot thrive and find happiness without obeying His directives. "Sin" is being enslaved to material desire instead."The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall not Want."If we don't want to be beggars, we must say, "I have enough" and renounce the pursuit of money. Marriage is the way to say I have "enough" when it comes to sex.Instead of arranging our beggar bowls each day, we must serve God instead. Define what that means for you. For me, it means dedicating every thought and deed to Him. It means dedicating my life to a spiritual ideal, like Truth, Beauty, Love (service, family) or Justice. It means praising and thanking God for the gift of life and the miracle of creation. (I don't pretend to have mastered this.)It means shutting out the world and vibrating according to an inner voice. God is Consciousness, a spiritual dimension we enter only by rededicating and purifying ourselves.This is the basis of all true religions. The scary thing is that the Illuminati understand this and deliberately sabotage this process (the devil's work.)ENTERTAINED TO DEATH BY THE ILLUMINATIHarold Rosenthal was an Illuminati Jewish insider. He worked for NewYork Senator Jacob Javits. (See my Protocols of Zion Updated.)In an 1976 "tell all" interview, he said the following:
(Left, "Masters of Sex" promotes Cabalist gospel that sex and relationships are the meaning of life.)"Your people never realize that we offer them only worthless baubles that cannot bring fulfillment. They procure one and consume it and are not filled. We present another. We have an infinite number of outward distractions, to the extent that life cannot again turn inward to find its definite fulfillment. You have become addicted to our medicine through which we have become your absolute masters..."We have converted the people to our philosophy of getting and acquiring so that they will never be satisfied. A dissatisfied people are pawns in our game of world conquest. Thus, they are always seeking and never able to find satisfaction. The very moment they seek happiness outside themselves, they become our willing servants."The Illuminati Jews display a deep spiritual understanding. If we had a first-hand connection to God, we would need nothing else. Because we don't, they can mystify and sell us baubles to fill the vacuum- sex, romantic love, art, knowledge, toys etc.They suffer from this ailment themselves. Rosenthal gave this revealing interview, which ultimately cost him his life, to get some "gambling money."
(Jonah Hill in The Wolf of Wall Street which celebrates greed, sex and dishonesty. Uses the f-word three times per minute.)Most of us see sin in terms of human frailty. We don't realize that society is organized by Satanists to entrap us. It is a giant behaviour modification laboratory. The goal is to enslave us mentally and spiritually, and ultimately physically.Wherever something degrades us and distracts from Truth, we will find Illuminati Jews and Masons pulling the levers: War. Sexual liberation. Pornography. The stock market. Sexual deviance. Movies and TV preaching the liberal gospel.
Wherever we find ugliness being promoted as beautiful, lies promoted as truth, evil promoted as goodness, and sickness promoted as health, we will find these people. Wherever evil is advocated as "tolerance", and self-discipline is condemned as "repression", you will find these satanists who preach "do as thou wilt."Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.We cannot afford to be naive about the world in which we live. At the same time, we can still find true happiness personally. Belief in God is really a belief in oneself. Not because we are God, which is ridiculous, but because we answer to no one but God. We live in the Spirit of God and need nothing else. That's why the illuminati have worked hard to displace God and become our master. Without the God connection our lioves are trivial.-----Related - E Michael Jones on God's Plan Good listen!The books and YouTubes of Eckhart TolleRelated:----------Thinking is an Addiction----------How's Your Inner Beggar?---------- Humanity is Satanically Possessed--------- Cohabiting With a Monkey -
Site: The Remnant Newspaper
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Site: LifeNews
To their great shame, there is a push by the radical and pro-abortion extremist Biden administration to bully the newly elected Guatemalan government to change their protective laws governing abortion.
A sudden influx of chemical abortions in countries like Guatemala would be disastrous. Chemical abortions pose serious health threats to women; four times the rate of immediate complications than from surgical abortions, while thirty-three percent of cases of second-trimester women whose pregnancies had been misdiagnosed required surgical intervention.
There are no hospitals or medical posts in many regions of Guatemala. How can this American government claim to have “deep concern” for women’s health? Guatemalan women have nowhere to go if they experience complications from abortion.
The abortion drugs’ impacts on maternal mortality cannot be ignored, and it would wreak havoc in developing countries like Guatemala. Why?
Guatemala is one of the poorest countries in the world. In fact, it’s the poorest country in Latin America and second-most poor in this hemisphere—only the people of Haiti are in more significant distress. Seventy-five percent of Guatemalans live below the poverty line, and more than 60% live in what the World Bank deems “extreme poverty.”
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Access to healthcare is so dire the World Health Organization declares that “Preventable diseases often result in death; malnutrition is common among children and young adults, and infant mortality rates are high.” The few government-sponsored “health posts” are understaffed and have few medical resources and supplies.
Fifty percent of all girl children under the age of 5 show signs of “stunting” – a failure to physically develop at standard rates. Stunting is the most common indicator of chronic malnutrition, and additionally, one in four women of childbearing age suffer from anemia. Most live in shanties made of salvaged materials on dirt floors without toilets or running water.
The combination of severe poverty, malnourishment, and stunting has a devastating impact on women of childbearing age in Guatemala. These women often face higher risks during pregnancy and childbirth, including higher maternal mortality rates. Additionally, they may lack access to quality healthcare and support services, further exacerbating health challenges.
Although the newly elected administration in Guatemala offers much hope for the future, the women of Guatemala must have access to doctors, schools, adequate health care, potable water, and a nutritional safety net. What they do not need is an influx of unregulated abortion and toxic abortion drugs. To protect its women and girls, Guatemala must continue to keep its protective laws in its constitution.
Shame to the Biden administration for insisting on a policy that would put so many more women at risk.
LifeNews.com Note: Raimundo Rojas is the director of Hispanic outreach for the National Right to Life Committee. He is a former president of Florida Right to Life and has presented the pro-life message to millions in Spanish-language media outlets. He represents NRLC at the United Nations as an NGO. Rojas was born in Santiago de las Vegas, Havana, Cuba and he and his family escaped to the United States in 1968.
The post Joe Biden is Pressuring Pro-Life Guatemala to Stop Protecting Babies From Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Rorate CaeliCall for the Resignation of Pope FrancisMay 2, 2024St. Athanasius of Alexandria(downloadable PDF here)Since 2013, the words and actions of Pope Francis have caused an unprecedented crisis in the Catholic Church, and have done great harm to the Church and the whole world. The members of the hierarchy of the Church have a duty to act in order to prevent Francis from causing further harm.We Peter Kwasniewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05136784193150446335noreply@blogger.com
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Site: LifeNews
The latest CNN poll is so bad for pro-abortion Joe Biden and so good for pro-life former President Donald Trump that you only imagine the tremors it sent through the Biden camp. Here’s a down and dirty summary, followed by a complete breakdown. The summary is from Byron York
New CNN national poll: Trump over Biden 49-43 in 2-way race, 42-33 in 5-way race. 55% say Trump’s presidency was a success, while 44% say it was a failure. 61% say Biden’s presidency has been a failure, 39% a success.
Momentarily we will also look at latest Gallup Poll which in some ways is even worse for President Biden. The headline is “Biden’s 13th-Quarter Approval Average Lowest Historically: Averages 38.7% job approva.l”
Back to the CNN poll. Jennifer Agiesta, CNN Polling Director, tries to softens the blow, but Guy Benson will have none of that:
Horror show of a CNN poll for Biden. Trump ahead outside the margin of error, up even bigger w/ expanded field. Majorities see Biden’s presidency as a failure & Trump’s as a success. 60% disapproval for the incumbent.
Negative views of Biden’s work in office have held for much of his presidency. In the new poll, 60% disapprove of his handling of the job and 40% approve, about the same as it’s been in CNN polling for more than a year. Even Biden’s strongest issue approval ratings in the poll are also in negative territory, with 45% approving of his handling of health care policy and 44% approving his handling of student loan debt. And his worst issue approval rating – for his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza – yields 28% approval to 71% disapproval, including an 81% disapproval mark among those younger than 35 and majority disapproval among Democrats (53%).
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What about the economy?
Biden’s approval ratings for the economy (34%) and inflation (29%) remain starkly negative, as voters say economic concerns are more important to them when choosing a candidate than they were in each of the past two presidential contests. In the new poll, 65% of registered voters call the economy extremely important to their vote for president, compared with 40% who felt that way in early 2020 and 46% who said the same at roughly this point in 2016. Those voters who say the economy is deeply important break heavily for Trump in a matchup against Biden, 62% to 30%.
Let’s get back to Gallup. First, its opening paragraph
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Joe Biden averaged 38.7% job approval during his recently completed 13th quarter in office, which began on Jan. 20 and ended April 19. None of the other nine presidents elected to their first term since Dwight Eisenhower had a lower 13th-quarter average than Biden.
and then its “Bottom Line”:
With about six months remaining before Election Day, Biden stands in a weaker position than any prior incumbent, and thus faces a taller task than they did in getting reelected.
We’ve examined President Biden’s faltering numbers for well over a year. On his best days he garners in the low 40s. On his worst day—see latest Gallup and CNN numbers—President Biden’s job approval numbers hover in the mid-to-high 30s.
One other important survey, analyzed by NBC’s election analyst Steve Kornacki. Midway through his interview on “Meet the Press,” moderator Kristen Welker says, “And I stop here because competent and effective, that was President Biden’s, the crux of his campaign pitch back in 2020.”
KORNACKI: And we actually polled this question in 2020, and it was basically the exact opposite. It was Biden with about a ten-point advantage over Trump and, again, same with handling of crisis. Biden had the edge over Trump.
And how about this? It’s the former president vs. the current president. We don’t really see matchups like this. Well, now we can measure it. Who has the strongest record as president? And, again, Trump outpacing Biden on that front. And, again, you’ve got to mention this one, too. “Necessary mental and physical health.” We asked this four years ago, it was a wash. It’s now a clear liability for Joe Biden.
So these are all troubling numbers for Biden, but it’s not to say there aren’t warning signs for Donald Trump in this poll either.
Always in the background but increasingly in the foreground are concerns about President Biden’s capacity to continue. Pew Research found poll
More than a third of voters say they are extremely or very confident that Trump has the physical fitness (36%) and mental fitness (38%) needed to do the job of president.
Far fewer say the same of Biden (15% are at least very confident in his physical fitness; 21% are extremely or very confident in his mental fitness). Majorities say they are not too or not at all confident in Biden’s physical and mental fitness.
Pew also did a demographic breakout:
- White voters favor Trump (56%) over Biden (42%) by a wide margin.
- Roughly three-quarters of Black voters (77%) support Biden, while 18% back Trump.
- Hispanic voters are more evenly divided – 52% favor Biden, while 44% back Trump.
- Asian voters favor Biden (59%) over Trump (36%).
In light of all this, it’ll be very, very interesting to see what the Democrat Party does going forward.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
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Site: LifeNews
I vividly recall the young woman, dropping to her knees in fervent prayer outside an Ohio abortion facility.
Her eyes were filled with tears as she made her entreaties to God. When she looked up, I walked toward her, thanking her for her prayers.
I learned that she had been badly emotionally scarred from her experience of having an abortion at that center. When she began to speak, the floodgates opened, and she shared with me the details of that terrible trauma.
I prayed for her to find healing, and she did—through a ministry program devoted to women who have suffered the loss of children to the abortion tragedy.
On this National Day of Prayer, I am reminded of that day, so long ago, when I was first exposed to the unbelievable pain of coerced abortion. The young woman’s mother had exerted tremendous pressure on her to abort, which severely damaged their relationship.
Abortion is ultimately a civil rights issue, representing the freedom of children to be born and the freedom of women to give birth to their babies in a loving, supportive environment. You can have no faith at all and be pro-life.
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Yet many of us in the pro-life movement treasure a deep and abiding faith in an all-loving, all-merciful God who is the creator and sustainer of life. We see His providence at work, showering blessings on pregnant women, their babies, and their families.
I am reminded of a petite woman who was a giant in the pro-life movement—Mother Teresa. Despite experiencing an extended dark night of the soul, she continued to trust in God to provide for all her needs and the needs of those she served. Fueled by her faith, she made a bold proclamation, stating that she would take in any child who was threatened by abortion. She knew that her Lord would not turn away from the babies He created with a tender and loving heart.
My prayer this day is that all pregnant women will receive the support they need for themselves and for their offspring, and that we as a nation will rediscover the beauty and hope that human life holds. May you be richly blessed by the God who hears every prayer and consoles every heartache!
LifeNews.com Note: Maria Gallagher is the Legislative Director and Political Action Committee Director for the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and she has written and reported for various broadcast and print media outlets, including National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and AP Radio.
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Site: Vox Cantoris
The "last post" if you will.
Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment: Was Gueranger a Great Liturgist? (liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com)
May he rest in peace.
What a voice! What a teacher!Fr. John Hunwicke - Medieval Liturgy and Society (youtube.com)
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Site: LifeNews
A pro-life organization seeking to ensure Indiana’s abortion industry follows state laws, contends that the state health department is shielding abortion providers from public accountability after the department decided it would no longer release abortion records. Represented by Thomas More Society attorneys, Voices for Life filed a complaint in Marion County Superior Court on May 1, 2024, against the Indiana Department of Health and State Health Commissioner Dr. Lindsay Weaver, for violating the state’s Access to Public Records Act.
Since 2022, Voice for Life has requested and reviewed Termination of Pregnancy Reports for potential violations of health and safety standards. Indiana law requires abortion providers to submit reports, without patient names or other identifying factors, each month to improve maternal health and ensure abortions are performed legally. In reviewing these reports, Voices for Life has discovered about 700 instances of illegal activity among abortion providers and filed complaints with the state health department and the attorney general’s office.
The state health department routinely complied with Voices for Life’s requests until last fall, when the organization requested the August 2023 records. After several months delay, the department responded that it would no longer release individual Termination of Pregnancy Reports, citing confidentiality of patient medical records. Instead, the department now only releases quarterly reports of aggregated data, which do not provide the necessary detail to identify potential violations or the licensed professional or facility performing the abortion.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has argued that Termination of Pregnancy Reports are not exempt from public disclosure, noting that the reports have been available for public review for decades without contention that they are medical records. Rokita issued an advisory opinion critical of the health department’s refusal to release individual reports, and noted that concealing the data impedes his office from investigating complaints against abortion providers and effectively enforcing Indiana’s abortion laws.
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Thomas Olp, Thomas More Society Executive Vice President, stated: “Voices for Life, other pro-life organizations and the attorney general’s office must be able to review individual records in order to ensure abortion providers do not ignore laws designed to protect Indiana women and children. Indiana’s abortion industry has a history of health and safety violations. Those who run afoul of the law must be held accountable.”
Benjamin Horvath, Thomas More Society Special Counsel, added: “Indiana citizens have a right to this vital information and to transparency in their state government. By refusing to comply with Voices for Life’s request for access to public records, the health department is depriving citizens of their role in petitioning the attorney general to investigate cases that suggest terminating a pregnancy was unlawful.”
Read the Complaint, filed May 1, 2024, by Thomas More Society attorneys in the Superior Court of Indiana on behalf of Voices for Life in Voices for Life v. Indiana Department of Health and Dr. Lindsay Weaver, M.D., here
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Site: LifeNews
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has signed the bill to repeal Arizona’s abortion ban, making it so babies will continue being aborted in the southwestern state.
In a gleeful message, Hobbs celebrated her own signing of the bill.
“With the stroke of my pen, the 1864 abortion ban is about to OFFICIALLY become a thing of the past,” she wrote on X (Twitter).
However, under the state Constitution, any law repeal doesn’t take effect until 90 days after the legislative session ends, and the end date can vary. For example, if this session ends in late July like last year, the repeal would only become effective in late October or early November.
This week, the Arizona Senate bowed to the pro-abortion mob by approving a measure to repeal the state’s new abortion ban before it ever reached implementation to begin saving babies.
With the ban repealed, babies would lose almost all protection in the state. A 15-week abortion ban would go into place that only allows protecting babies up to that point – meaning 90% of more abortions would become legal.
Two Republicans, T.J. Shope and Shawnna Bolick, sided with Democrats on Wednesday to deliver enough votes to pass House Bill 2677, which would repeal the pro-life law that made Arizona one of 19 states to protect babies from abortion.
Bolick described herself as pro-life but said she supported abortions in some rare circumstances. Instead of backing legislation to allow abortions in those very rare cases, she voted to subject every single unborn children to potentially be killed in an abortion.
State Sen. Jake Hoffman condemned the Republican members who voted in favor of the measure and other ARepublicans complained the bill was fast-tracked through the legislature instead of committees having time to evaluate the legislation and take public input.
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The Arizona Life Coalition was saddened by the developments.
“This repeal signifies more than a legislative shift; it marks a profound loss for those who stand for the sanctity of every innocent human life from conception,” it told LifeNews. “Every abortion is a loss of a priceless human being and a failure to protect the most defenseless among us.”
“Arizona continues to operate under the current permissive law allowing abortions up to 15 weeks with certain exceptions beyond this period,” it said.
Beyond the immediate legal changes, the repeal signals a deeper erosion of cultural values in the state that once protected innocent human life at every stage. This decision reflects a societal shift towards valuing convenience over life and individual choice over responsibility to protect the most innocent and defenseless.
There is also a significant concern about the long-term consequences for women. Abortion not only ends a life but also exposes women to physical harm and emotional trauma, a perspective overshadowed in the broader public debate over individual freedom and rights.
As pro-life supporters grapple with this defeat, the focus turns to future battles, particularly the upcoming ballot measure that seeks to enshrine a “fundamental right” to abortion in the state constitution. This measure, if passed, would effectively legalize late-term abortions up to birth, leading to even more unborn children being killed every year, and potentially wiping out all existing common-sense healthcare protections for women.
The repeal of the abortion ban is not the end of the pro-life cause in Arizona, but a challenge to recommit to our foundational values. It serves as a motivation for those who believe in protecting both unborn children and women, to continue working towards changing culture and inspiring pro-life choices in all circumstances.
A leading pro-life group lameted the news.
“We mourn for the loss of the children who would have been protected, and the mothers who would have received life-affirming help to address their holistic needs, under Arizona’s strongest pro-life law. After months of confusion, the people of Arizona will soon have clarity on the state’s abortion laws: a 15-week protection for the unborn who can feel excruciating pain, with exceptions for life of the mother, rape, and incest,” said SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser.
“Between now and November, the far Left and pro-abortion forces will spend tens of millions of dollars to muddy the waters, fearmonger, and sow confusion to advance an extreme abortion agenda. Their goal is to repeal Arizona’s 15-week abortion law and replace it with a constitutional amendment that would allow unlimited painful late-term abortions in the fifth, sixth, seventh month of pregnancy and beyond.
“Kari Lake and all GOP candidates and elected officials must bring clarity to Arizona voters by campaigning vigorously in support of Arizona’s 15-week protection with exceptions and in opposition to the extreme no-limits abortion amendment.”
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Site: Euthanasia Prevention CoalitionAlex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Hartheim May 2, 2024I will be speaking at a conference in Germany on Saturday, so I decided to go to Germany for few days to visit some of the T-4 euthanasia killing sites. I decided to first visit the euthanasia memorial at the Grafeneck psychiatric facility because it was the first of the T-4 euthanasia euthanasia sites.
Today I visited the Hartheim castle euthanasia memorial. 18,269 people were killed under the T-4 euthanasia program and at least 30,000 people in total were gassed to death at Hartheim. I have been reading more about the T-4 euthanasia program because history seems to be repeating itself.
The Hartheim castle is an historic property that became a home for people with mental disabilities after being donated by the Prince of Starhemberg to the Upper Austrian State Welfare Society in 1898. The German government took over the property in 1939 to convert it into a killing center.
I am republishing much of the wikipedia information about the Hartheim killing centre. Here is a link to great information about the Hartheim Castle (Link).The Hartheim killing centre (German: NS-Tötungsanstalt Hartheim, ... was a killing facility involved in the Nazi programme known as Aktion T4, in which German citizens deemed mentally or physically unfit were systematically murdered with poison gas. Often, these patients were transferred from other killing facilities such as the Am Spiegelgrund clinic in Vienna. ... Other victims included Jews, Communists and those considered undesirable by the state. Concentration camp inmates who were unfit for work, or otherwise deemed troublesome, were also executed here. The facility was housed in Hartheim Castle in the municipality of Alkoven, near Linz, Austria, which now is a memorial site and documentation centre. (This paragraph was edited because wikipedia was wrong).
Hartheim and T-4 statisticsIn June 1945, during investigations by US Forces into the former gassing facility at Hartheim, the American investigating officer Charles Dameron broke open a steel safe in which the Hartheim statistics were found. This was a 39-page document produced for the internal purposes of the Nazi "euthanasia" programme (Aktion T4), and contained monthly statistics of the gassing of mentally and physically handicapped patients (called "disinfection" in the document) carried out in the six killing centres on the territory of the Reich. In 1968 and 1970 an ex-employee of the establishment revealed, as a witness, that he had to compile the material at the end of 1942. The Hartheim statistics included a page on which it was calculated that "disinfecting 70,273 people with a life expectation of 10 years" had saved food in the value of 141,775,573.80 Reichsmarks.
Victims of the first extermination phase in Hartheim
Hartheim gas chamberAccording to the Hartheim statistics, a total of 18,269 people were murdered in the gas chamber at Hartheim in the period of 16 months between May 1940 and September 1941:
1940: May, 633, June, 982, July, 1449, August, 1740, September, 1123, October, 1400, November, 1396, December, 947.
1941: January, 943, February, 1178, March, 974, April, 1123, May, 1106, June, 1364, July, 735, August, 1176.These statistics only cover the first extermination phase of the Nazi's euthanasia programme, Action T4, which was brought to an end by Hitler's order dated 24 August 1941 after protests by the Roman Catholic Church. (specifically Bishop von Galen)
In all it is estimated that a total of 30,000 people were murdered at Hartheim. Among those killed were sick and disabled persons as well as prisoners from concentration camps. The killings were carried out by carbon monoxide poisoning.
14f13 "Special Treatment"
Just three days after the formal end of Action T4, a lorry arrived at Hartheim with 70 Jewish inmates from Mauthausen concentration camp who were subsequently executed there. The Hartheim killing centre achieved a special notoriety, not just because it was where the largest number of patients were gassed, but because as part of Action 14f13 Hartheim was also the institution in which the most concentration camp prisoners were executed. Their numbers are estimated at 12,000.
Some of the prisoners at Mauthausen who were no longer capable of working, especially in the quarries, and politically undesirable prisoners were brought to Hartheim to be executed. In the papers these transfers were disguised with terms like "recreation leave". The entries under "sickness" included "German-haters", "communist" or "Polish fanatic". From 1944 on, the prisoners were no longer selected by T4 doctors; the objective was simply to gain space in the Mauthausen camp quickly. Other transports came from the concentration camp of Gusen, and probably also from Ravensbrück during 1944, made up of women inmates who were predominantly tuberculosis sufferers and those deemed mentally infirm.
Execution Doctors
Rudolf LonauerThe Action T4 organisers, Viktor Brack and Karl Brandt, ordered that the execution of the sick had to be carried out by medical doctors because Hitler's memorandum of authorisation of 1 September 1939 only referred to doctors. The operation of the gas tap was thus the responsibility of doctors in the death centres. However, during the course of the programme, the gas valves were occasionally operated by others in the absence of the doctors or for other reasons. Also, many doctors used pseudonyms rather than their real names in the documents.
The following execution doctors worked in Hartheim: Head: Rudolf Lonauer: 1 April 1940 to April 1945. Deputy head: Georg Renno: May 1940 to February 1945
Move of headquarters from Berlin to Hartheim and Weissenbach am Attersee
Hartheim euthanasia staffIn August 1943, due to allied bombing of Berlin, the head office for the National Socialist Euthanasia Programme was moved from Tiergartenstrasse 4, Berlin, to the Ostmark region, which was then humorously described as the air raid shelter of the Reich. The statistic and documents by Paul Nitsche, correspondence, notices and reports were taken to Hartheim (office department, accounts office) and the Schoberstein Recreation Centre near Weißenbach am Attersee (medical department).
References can be found on wikipedia (Link)Links to more articles on this topic: -
Site: LifeNews
This report compares gestational limits on abortion in the United States with gestational limits in other countries and serves as an update to the Charlotte Lozier Institute’s original study published in 2014.[1] The goal is to determine where the United States stands now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Court returned abortion policy to the American people and their elected representatives.[2] When this report refers to the United States’ abortion policy, it is referring to federal law which lacks any gestational limit on abortion.[3]
The sample group for this project includes all 193 of the United Nations (U.N.) member countries. Of these 193 countries, 70 allow abortion without restriction as to reason, otherwise known as elective abortion or abortion on demand, until an unborn child reaches a specified gestational age. The remaining 123 countries specify designated reason(s) that must be present to obtain an abortion, ranging from the most restrictive (abortion is completely prohibited or permitted only when necessary to save the life of the mother), to least restrictive (abortion is permitted based on “socioeconomic grounds”), with various reasons in between (e.g., if the pregnancy poses risks to the mother’s physical and/or mental health).[4]
Overall, the U.S. is one of only eight countries that allows elective abortion with no gestational limit at the federal level. Since 70 countries allow abortion on demand up to some point in pregnancy, it is appropriate to research what gestational limits those are for the remainder of this paper. The remaining 123 countries demonstrate a clear public policy preference for protecting human life over abortion by permitting abortion only under specified circumstances.
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This report finds that the United States is one of only 15 countries (among U.N. member countries) in the world that permit abortion on demand past 15 weeks. The findings suggest that recent proposals in the United States to restrict abortion on demand past 15 weeks, which should serve as a minimum gestational limit, at the federal level would move the United States away from the fringe, ultra-permissive end of the spectrum.
Terminology and Method of Comparison
Not all countries use the same terminology in statutes restricting abortion. When drafting a gestational restriction on abortion, the most common measurement of fetal age is “gestational age” or “gestation.” Gestational age marks the duration of pregnancy, which is most commonly and medically measured from the first day of the woman’s last menstrual period. This occurs approximately two weeks before conception or fertilization.
Over 80% of countries that maintain some restriction on abortion on demand use gestational age as the method of calculating duration of pregnancy. However, a minority of countries measure duration of pregnancy from “conception” or “fertilization.” One country (Austria) measures from the time of “implantation,” which occurs approximately one week after conception or fertilization or three weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period. Some statutes do not specify a method of measurement, using the vague term “weeks of pregnancy” without indicating a precise method of measuring the duration of pregnancy.
While conception or fertilization is the moment when an ovum and sperm unite to create a unique human being, few women know the exact date they conceived. Because the first day of the last menstrual period is a more ascertainable date, doctors generally add two weeks to a woman’s last menstrual period, when ovulation generally occurs, to approximate the unborn child’s gestation.
Using Gestational Age to Produce the Best International Comparison
For clarity, this report uses gestational age to compare restrictions on abortion on demand that are based on duration of pregnancy. For those countries that base limits on the weeks since conception, fertilization, or implantation, this study converts the limits into gestation, and for those countries that designate the limits in days and months, this study converts the limits into gestational weeks.
International Gestational Limitations on Abortion on Demand
As mentioned above, the sample group of countries for this project included all 193 U.N. member countries. Of these, 70 allow abortion without restriction as to reason (in most, until an unborn child reaches a specified gestation), otherwise known as elective abortion or abortion on demand.[5]
The remaining 123 U.N. countries require some reason to obtain an abortion, ranging from the most restrictive (abortion is completely prohibited or permitted only when necessary to save the life of the mother), to least restrictive (abortion is permitted for socioeconomic reasons), with various reasons in between (e.g., if the pregnancy impacts the mother’s physical or mental health).[6]
Of the 70 U.N. countries permitting abortion on demand:
- 7 countries limit abortion on demand before the 12th week of gestation[7]
- 38 countries limit abortion on demand at 12 weeks of gestation[8]
- 10 countries limit abortion on demand between 12 and 15 weeks of gestation[9]
- 15 countries permit abortion on demand past 15 weeks or have no gestational limit [10]
- Of these 15 countries, 8 countries permit abortion on demand with no federal gestational limit[11]
More than 65% of the U.N. countries permitting abortion without restriction as to reason do not permit abortion on demand past 12 weeks of gestation.
Only 21% (15 out of 70) of the U.N. countries permitting abortion without restriction as to reason permit abortion on demand past 15 weeks of gestation, and only 8% of the countries permit abortion without restriction past 15 weeks of gestation out of the 193 countries included in this study.
U.S. federal law and the laws in at least 29 states place the United States among the 15 countries that permit abortion on demand past 15 weeks. No matter how duration of pregnancy is measured, whether by gestational age, conception/fertilization, or implantation, all countries in this category pass the 15-week threshold. These countries – in order by gestational limit to no gestational limit – are:
- France – 16 weeks[12]
- Sweden – 18 weeks[13]
- New Zealand – 20 weeks[14]
- Iceland – 22 weeks[15]
- Netherlands – Viability[16]
- Colombia – 24 weeks[17]
- Singapore – 24 weeks[18]
- United States – The federal government does not place gestational limits on abortion and 29 states allow abortion on demand past 15 weeks of gestation.
- Australia – The federal government does not place gestational limits on abortion. The strictest limit is 16 weeks, and the Capital Territory of Australia (an internal territory) has no gestational limit. [19]
- Mexico – The federal government does not place gestational limits on abortion.[20]
- Vietnam – No restriction in law[21]
- South Korea – No restriction in law[22]
- Canada – No restriction in law[23]
- China – No restriction in law[24]
- Guinea-Bissau – No restriction in law[25]
European Abortion Laws by Gestational Limits
The United States has a far more extreme abortion policy than those found in Europe. Forty-six out of 50 European countries limit abortion after 15 weeks.[26] A more detailed breakdown of European countries’ policies is as follows:
- Three countries prohibit abortion altogether (Andorra, Malta, and Vatican City)
- Three countries prohibit abortion except to preserve the physical and/or mental health of the woman (Liechtenstein, Monaco, and Poland)
- Two countries permit abortion on broad socioeconomic grounds (Italy through 90 days and the United Kingdom through 24 weeks)
- 42 countries permit abortion on demand. However:
- 6 countries limit abortion on demand after 10 weeks[27]
- 26 countries limit abortion on demand after 12 weeks[28]
- 6 countries limit abortion on demand between 12 and 15 weeks[29]
- 4 countries allow abortion on demand after 15 weeks.[30] The country with the latest gestational limit is the Netherlands, which limits abortion after viability.
- 0 European countries permit abortion on demand without gestational limits, as the United States does.
Implications
U.S. federal law does not place any gestational limits on abortion. Consequently, 29 states permit elective abortion past 15 weeks of gestation, and in at least 19 states, abortion drug prescribers are shielded from legal repercussions if they ship abortion pills into those states that restrict abortion from conception and/or that have health and safety requirements that apply to abortion-inducing drugs.
In 2022, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) introduced bills in their respective chambers seeking to protect unborn babies by prohibiting abortion on demand after 15 weeks at the federal level (H.R. 8814/S. 4840). This bill is based on the scientifically supported premise[31] that at least by 15 weeks unborn children are capable of feeling pain.
Permitting abortion on demand past 15 weeks places the United States among the top 8% most permissive countries in the world (15 out of 193) based on gestational limits on abortion. The United States should seek to move away from the ultra-permissive fringe policies of the 14 other countries that permit abortion past 15 weeks and aim to protect life at even earlier gestational limits, as 178 other U.N member countries do – ranging from complete protection of the unborn to protecting the unborn after 15 weeks of gestation.
Conclusions
In terms of gestational limits, out of 193 countries, the United States is one of eight countries that permits elective abortion with no federal gestational limit. Internationally, abortion is most frequently limited to the first trimester or earlier with even highly permissive countries establishing limits around 15 weeks of gestation.
[1] The original study can be found here: https://lozierinstitute.org/internationalabortionnorms/. When this study was published in 2014, the focus of the paper was comparing the U.S.’ current “federal policy… which allows abortion past 20 weeks and without restriction until viability” with the abortion laws of other countries. The study found that, because the United States Supreme Court restricted legislatures from enacting most pro-life laws, the United States was one of seven countries that allowed for abortion on demand after 20 weeks. In the wake of the Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022, this update to the 2014 paper focuses on 15-week gestational restrictions that have been introduced at the national level. However, it is important to note that the United States remains one of only 12 countries that permit elective abortion past 20 weeks, as of April 2024, even as multiple U.S. states have enacted limits at varying gestations. Further, 29 states (and the District of Columbia) continue to permit elective abortion beyond 20 weeks.
[2] 587 U.S. 2015 (2022).
[3] While abortion policy has been returned to the American people and their elected representatives, states with statutory or state constitutional protections for abortion are circumventing pro-life states’ laws through “abortionist shield laws,” including protections for mailing abortion pills into pro-life states. An example of a comprehensive abortionist legal shield is NY Senate Bill S1066B, which was signed into law in June 2023. See Harned, Mary. Abortion “Shield Laws”: Pro-Abortion States Seek to Force Abortion on Life -Affirming States. August 2023. Charlotte Lozier Institute On Point, Issue 96. Available at https://lozierinstitute.org/abortion-shield-laws-pro-abortion-states-seek-to-force-abortion-on-life-affirming-states/. Recent reports have also shown how interstate abortion commerce has skyrocketed since the Dobbs decision, meaning that residents of states with gestational limit protections for the unborn are obtaining abortions in states without them, such as Illinois, Kansas, and New Mexico. Currently, abortion remains unrestricted at the federal level as there is no federal legislative gestational limit. As a result, women in pro-life states can obtain an abortion at any time throughout her pregnancy in the 29 states (and D.C.) that allow elective abortion past 15 weeks or throughout a woman’s pregnancy.
[4] See https://www.fiapac.org/media/uploads/abortion_laws_around_the_world_sam_rowlands_rev_2022.pdf and https://reproductiverights.org/maps/worlds-abortion-laws/. Sixty-four countries prohibit abortion altogether or only permit it in cases to save the life of the mother. These countries include Andorra, Malta, Afghanistan, Antigua & Barbuda, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Burma/Myanmar, Chile, Republic of the Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Gabon, Gambia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kiribati, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Marshall Islands, Maldives, Mauritania, Micronesia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Tanzania, Timor Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Yemen. Forty-eight countries prohibit abortion except in cases to preserve the health of the mother (physical and/or mental health).These counties include Algeria, Angola, Bahamas, Barbados, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lesotho, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Mauritius, Monaco, Morocco, Namibia, Nauru, Niger, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Qatar, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Swaziland, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Vanuata, and Zimbabwe. Eleven countries permit abortion for socioeconomic reasons. These countries include Belize, Benin, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Italy, Japan, Rwanda, Saint Vincent’s and Grenadines, United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and Zambia.
[5] https://www.fiapac.org/media/uploads/abortion_laws_around_the_world_sam_rowlands_rev_2022.pdf; https://reproductiverights.org/maps/worlds-abortion-laws/; https://reproductiverights.org/sites/default/files/World-Abortion-Laws-Map.pdf; https://abortion-policies.srhr.org/countries/.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Namely, Guyana, Portugal, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Serbia. Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia limit abortion on demand past 10 weeks of pregnancy, so even if that converts to 12 weeks of gestation, they remain in this category.
[8] Namely, Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Slovakia, Switzerland, Ukraine, Sao Tome and Principe, Thailand, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cape Verde, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Nepal, South Africa, Tajikistan, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan. Three countries (Croatia, Macedonia, and Montenegro) limit abortion on demand past 10 weeks from conception. Converting this statutory language to gestational age, these three countries limit abortion on demand past 12 weeks gestational age. They therefore belong in the category of limiting abortion “at 12 weeks.”
[9] Namely, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Romania, Spain, Argentina, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Tunisia. Three countries (Belgium, Germany, and Luxembourg) limit abortion on demand past 12 weeks from conception. Converting this statutory language to gestational age, these three countries limit abortion on demand past 14 weeks and therefore belong in this category. Tunisia limits abortion on demand past 3 months gestation which converts to 14 weeks of gestation. According to the Austrian Criminal code, abortion is permitted on demand only up to 3 months. However, since pregnancy is defined as beginning at implantation, abortion is permitted somewhat later by gestational age. Patient information appears to indicate that abortion is permitted until the beginning of the 16th week of pregnancy, i.e. around 15 weeks.
[10] Namely, France, Iceland, Mexico, Netherlands, Sweden, Guinea-Bissau, South Korea, Colombia, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, China, Singapore, Vietnam, and parts of the U.S. In 2022, France liberalized its abortion policy and now permits abortion on demand through 14 weeks from conception, which converts to 16 weeks of gestation. A guide explaining France’s updated abortion law can be found here: https://abortion-policies.srhr.org/documents/countries/25-France-Voluntary-Interruption-of-Pregnancy-Guide-2023.pdf#page=3. Some countries, like China and Vietnam, have prohibitions on sex-selective abortion, but seemingly permit abortion for any other reason. Some provinces in China appear to have prohibited abortion, but the country as a whole still permits it. Mexico is included in this category because the country no longer has a national limit as a result of a 2023 Mexican Supreme Court decision. Twelve out of 32 Mexican states (including the capital Mexico City, though it is not technically a “state”) currently permit abortion on demand. This almost always has a limit of 12 weeks, or 13 weeks in Sinaloa. However, many states define gestation as beginning at implantation, which occurs 3-4 weeks after the last menstrual period. Hence the limit in these states is closer to 15-16 weeks of gestation (or perhaps 16-17 in Sinaloa), with an exact limit unclear since the date of implantation is not normally certain. Mexico’s official abortion guidance, by contrast, defines “gestational age” from last menstrual period. In addition to this complexity there is an ongoing dispute about the authority and scope of the September 2023 Supreme Court’s decision to decriminalize abortion nationwide. For this reason, although around a third of Mexican states have legalized abortion on demand, and their Supreme Court has dictated this position, most Mexican states through their legislatures have so far not complied. While it may not be the “norm” that elective abortion is performed past 15 weeks of gestation, Mexico is included in this paper’s count of countries permitting elective abortion with no federal gestational limit because of the country’s lack of gestational limit. Australia, while having a federal system and different abortion policies in every state and their capital territory, has no national gestational limit. Furthermore, the Capital Territory of Australia does not limit abortion on demand at any gestational point. For these reasons, Australia is categorized as allowing abortion on demand without gestational limits. Although other countries have federal systems, the only other countries with significant diversity in gestational limits are the U.S. (where 29 states and D.C. clearly permit elective abortion beyond 15 weeks and there is no federal limit), and Australia (where every state permits abortion on demand and the lowest limit is 16 weeks in Tasmania).
[11] Namely, Australia, Canada, China, Guinea-Bissau, Mexico, South Korea, United States, and Vietnam.
[12] See footnote 10.
[13] https://www.law.cornell.edu/women-and-justice/resource/abortlag_(1974_595_-_abortion_law).
[14] In 2020 abortion was made available during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. After that, abortion is permitted if one health practitioner deems it “clinically appropriate.” See: https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2020/0006/latest/LMS237600.html.
[15] https://www.government.is/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=60ae8fd2-0b91-11ea-9453-005056bc4d74.
[16] Viability in the Netherlands typically means the 24th week of gestation. See: https://www.government.nl/topics/abortion.
[17] In 2022 the Constitutional Court of Colombia legalized abortion up until 24 weeks of gestation. See: https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/21/americas/colombia-decriminalize-abortion-intl/index.html.
[18] https://abortion-policies.srhr.org/documents/countries/01-Singapore-Termination-of-Pregnancy-Act-1974.pdf#page=2.
[19] https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/blog/can-i-have-an-abortion-in-australia.
[20] See footnote 10 for more details on the current state of abortion policy in Mexico.
[21] Although some internet resources claim that Vietnam limits abortion after 22 weeks by regulation, the country’s statute does not include a gestational limit, thus making abortion on demand legal. See: https://reproductiverights.org/maps/provision/vietnams-abortion-provisions/.
[22] Abortion was decriminalized in South Korea in January 2021 by a 2019 order of the country’s Supreme Court. As such, abortion remains unregulated in the country and is available without gestational restrictions as bills seeking to limit abortion after 14 weeks of gestation did not pass. See: https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2021-03-18/south-korea-abortion-decriminalized-since-january-1-2021/.
[23] The law or lack thereof in Canada is that abortion is legal throughout pregnancy, which is why
Canada is categorized in this paper as a country that allows elective abortion without gestational limits.[24] https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/The_Peoples_Republic_of_China_on_Maternal_and_Infant_Health_Care_Revised_in_2017_Chinese-and-English_unofficial-document.pdf.
[25] Guinea-Bissau appears to prohibit only “unprofessional” and forced abortions in its penal code, implying no legal limit on consensual abortions performed in sanitary conditions, but news reports suggest that this has resulted more in legal ambiguity than a clear legalization of abortion without restrictions: https://www.dw.com/pt-002/guin%C3%A9-bissau-especialistas-defendem-legisla%C3%A7%C3%A3o-espec%C3%ADfica-sobre-aborto/a-61249598.
[26] Kosovo and Vatican City were included in this section’s analysis of European gestational laws regarding abortion but not in the broader study as they are not U.N. members.
[27] Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey.
[28] Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Ukraine.
[29] Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Romania, and Spain.
[30] France, Iceland, Netherlands, and Sweden.
[31] https://lozierinstitute.org/dive-deeper/prenatal-stress-and-pain/.
LifeNews Note: Mary Harned, J.D., is an associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Mia Steupert, M.A., is a research associate with the Charlotte Lozier Institute, where this column originally appeared.
The post America is 1 of Just 8 Countries Worldwide That Allows Abortions Up to Birth appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: PeakProsperityThe economy is weaker than advertised. The BLS and other government agencies are no longer even pretending to tell the truth and aren't ashamed to be colossally wrong as long as the errors help support the idea that things are better than they really are.
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Site: PeakProsperityHow big is too big? We're talking about farm-scale excavators...
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Site: AsiaNews.itThe pontiff met with the Jordanian monarch today at the Vatican. The Holy See noted the "cordial" conversation and the two sides' shared commitments. For the Jordanian priest, the bilateral relationship is well established with Jordan as a 'model' of Christian-Muslim relations. Both are concerned about the escalation in the region, while stressing the importance of tourism, especially 'religious tourism'.
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Site: LifeNews
Women who experience an emergency during pregnancy continue to have access to lifesaving care under Florida’s heartbeat law, according to a rule announced by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration Wednesday afternoon. The rule calls on hospitals to write policies for doctors who act under the pro-life law’s ‘life of the mother’ provision and includes examples of conditions that can require immediate treatment such as premature rupture of membranes, ectopic pregnancy, and trophoblastic tumors.
The guidance comes as Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Democrats like state Sen. Lauren Book have falsely said “women and girls will die” because of a physician’s inability to treat life-threatening conditions under pro-life laws. Yesterday on X, Jason Weida, Secretary of AHCA, called out the misinformation on the heartbeat protection:
“The pro-abortion left is lying for political gain. The attempts to demonize standard healthcare for women make a physician’s job more difficult and can put a pregnant woman’s life at risk. The Heartbeat Protection Act protects women from life-threatening complications while protecting the life of the unborn.”
As the Texas Medical Board considers a similar rule on their state’s pro-life law, SBA Pro-Life America and the Charlotte Lozier Institute this week submitted comments encouraging Med Ed guidance to educate doctors. The comments emphasize the importance of doctors relying on their “reasonable medical judgment” and that the law does not require a health emergency to be immediate for a doctor to act, but that it allows for intervention when a serious situation is foreseeable.
In the comment from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, Dr. Ingrid Skop, M.D., FACOG, and a practicing OB-GYN in Texas, writes:
“Texas law does not require that a mother’s risk of death or ‘serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function’ be immediate. . . Physicians understand that it is difficult to predict with certainty whether a situation will cause a woman to become seriously ill or die, but all physicians know what situations could lead to these serious outcomes. At the time of diagnosis of a potentially life-threatening pregnancy complication, a physician must be reassured that the law allows intervention.”
Every state with a pro-life law allows women to receive emergency care. In March, South Dakota became the first state in the nation to establish a Med Ed law to end the confusion caused by the abortion industry through direct education to medical professionals. In addition to Florida and Texas, other states have taken similar steps administratively, including Oklahoma and Kentucky attorneys general who have issued advisory opinions.
Under South Dakota’s HB 1224, training materials will be established through the Department of Health and with input from the attorney general, medical professionals and legal experts. The video will cover the details of the state’s abortion law, the most common medical conditions that threaten the life or health of a pregnant woman, the standards of care for treating a pregnant woman in a medical emergency, and a practitioner’s ability to use reasonable medical judgment in all situations.
The post Florida Health Department Confirms Pregnant Women Still Receive Health Care Under New Heartbeat Law appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeCOVID-19 Linked To 'Alarming Rise' Of Rare And Highly Lethal Fungal InfectionTyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 13:35
Authored by Megan Redshaw, J.D. via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
(Freepik/Shutterstock)
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an alarming rise of an aggressive and highly fatal secondary fungal infection among those with active or recovered COVID-19.
Research suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the overuse of immunosuppressive COVID-19 treatments such as corticosteroids and antibiotics, and the global pandemic response made people more susceptible to coinfections such as COVID-19-associated mucormycosis (CAM).
Mucormycosis, also known as black fungus, is an opportunistic fungal infection that typically affects the sinuses, lungs, and brain. It is caused by a group of molds commonly found in the environment. Before COVID-19, these fungi rarely caused infection because of low virulence, but the second wave of COVID-19 brought tens of thousands of reported cases. Even the Omicron variant, which was generally attributed to mild COVID-19, has been linked to lethal mucormycosis infections in the United States and Asia.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are several types of mucormycosis:
- Rhinocerebral mucormycosis is an infection of the sinuses that can spread to the brain and is most commonly diagnosed in people with diabetes or in those who have had a kidney transplant.
- Pulmonary mucormycosis is the most common type of mucormycosis, mainly affecting people with cancer or those who have had organ or stem cell transplants.
- Gastrointestinal mucormycosis affects the digestive tract and is more common among children and young adults.
- Cutaneous mucormycosis is the most common form of infection among those without weakened immune systems. It occurs when the fungi enter through a cut, scrape, or surgical incision in the skin.
- Disseminated mucormycosis is where the infection gets into the bloodstream and spreads to the brain and other organs. The mortality rate with this type of mucormycosis is 96 percent.
According to a 2022 paper published in Vaccines, mold spores that cause mucormycosis are found in soil, leaves, or decaying matter. These spores can be dispersed in dust particles and gain entry into the human body through the respiratory tract, skin, or a weakness in the mucosal barrier. Once inside the body, the fungal spores can germinate and multiply, leading to infections such as cutaneous necrotizing fasciitis and disseminated mucormycosis.
The symptoms of mucormycosis vary depending on the patient, their underlying medical conditions, and the organs affected by the infection. Early symptoms may include nasal pain, vision loss, headache, fever, blackish nasal discharge, facial pain on one side, and mouth swelling. The infection primarily affects the nose, sinuses, lungs, eyes, and brain but can disseminate through the blood to other areas of the body.
According to a 2023 paper published in Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, mucormycosis strikes patients within 12 to 18 days after COVID-19 recovery, and nearly 80 percent require surgery. A delayed or untreated diagnosis can result in a mortality rate as high as 94 percent.
COVID-19-Associated Mucormycosis Is a ‘Worldwide Phenomena’
In a 2022 review published in The Lancet, researchers analyzed 80 cases of COVID-19-associated mucormycosis from 18 countries, including eight cases from the United States, and found mucormycosis infection can be a serious complication of severe COVID-19, especially for those with diabetes and hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar.
Additionally, the authors noted that systemic corticosteroid treatment can reduce mortality in people with severe COVID-19, but the treatment, combined with immunological and other clinical factors, can also predispose patients to secondary fungal diseases like mucormycosis. This particular infection is associated with high morbidity and mortality, even in those with mild COVID-19 cases. The same is true for COVID-19 patients who received intensive antibiotic treatment.
Of the 80 cases analyzed by researchers, 74 patients were hospitalized for COVID-19 after receiving a mucormycosis diagnosis. In six cases, patients had COVID-19 before hospitalization for mucormycosis-associated symptoms—four of whom were hospitalized for COVID-19 within one to three months before a mucormycosis diagnosis.
Researchers identified 59 patients with rhino-orbital cerebral disease, 20 with pulmonary disease, and one had gastrointestinal mucormycosis. With cerebral mucormycosis, the fungus initially invades the nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses, presenting similarly to acute sinusitis. It can then lead to angioinvasion, where tumor cells get through blood vessel walls and cause blood clots. The infection rapidly spreads to orbital and brain sites and is associated with high morbidity and mortality.
Nearly 50 percent (39 patients) died. The median survival time from the day of the mucormycosis diagnosis was 106 days for rhino-orbital cerebral disease and only nine days for patients with pulmonary mucormycosis. Among survivors, 46 percent (19 patients) lost their vision.
The researchers noted several underlying health conditions among the patients with mucormycosis in addition to COVID-19, including uncontrolled or poorly controlled diabetes, hypertension or high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease, and cancer. Those with diabetes were more likely to have rhino-orbital mucormycosis and mild to moderate cases of COVID-19. Those without diabetes were more likely to have other manifestations of the infection and severe COVID-19. Researchers found that pulmonary mucormycosis almost exclusively occurred in the ICU setting.
The Lancet paper’s corresponding author, Dr. Martin Hoenigl, is an associate professor of translational mycology at the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, and the current president of the European Confederation of Medical Mycology.
“Our study outlines that COVID-19-associated mucormycosis, although more prevalent in parts of the world that have traditionally higher mucormycosis rates due to higher levels of environmental exposure (e.g., India, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, China), is a worldwide phenomenon,” Dr. Hoenigl told The Epoch Times in an email.
“Our study has been performed early during the COVID pandemic before the extent of the COVID-19 associated mucormycosis crisis in India was recognized/came into the public focus, and raises attention to this serious, often deadly complication that can be very difficult to diagnose and requires aggressive treatment for a chance of successful outcome,” he said.
Numerous countries observed a sudden increase in CAM cases in 2021 during the second wave of the pandemic. India, a “hot spot” for the deadly infection, typically diagnosed 50 cases of mucormycosis each year but had already observed 28,252 cases as of June 2021. The number of mucormycosis cases has been increasing since.
Deadly Fungal Infection More Common With COVID-19
Dr. Hoenigl told The Epoch Times that mucormycosis is more common with COVID-19 than other infectious diseases due to specific risk factors that emerged with the pandemic and its management, as well as specific immunological mechanisms that predispose patients with severe COVID-19 to developing the condition.
“In terms of clinical risk factors, the increased population of undiagnosed or uncontrolled diabetes (driven by reduction of routine healthcare services during the early COVID pandemic) was an important driver of COVID-19 associated mucormycosis, as was overuse of systemic corticosteroids for COVID-19 treatment that happened in some countries where steroids were available for purchase over the counter, and at the same time, there was a lack of availability of supplemental oxygen,” Dr. Hoenigl said.
“In terms of immunological mechanisms, conditions such as hyperglycemia, steroid overuse, and high levels of iron and ketone bodies, but also COVID-19 itself via the virus-induced endoplasmic reticulum stress cascade are upregulating the expression of glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78), which, besides acting as a cofactor in viral entry, binds to spore-coating CotH3 invasin on the fungal surface and favors invasion of nasal epithelial cells by mucorales, resulting in rhino-orbital cerebral mucormycosis,” he explained.
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a large structure within a cell that performs many functions, including calcium storage, protein synthesis, and lipid metabolism. GRP78 plays a significant role in regulating the ER. It is often upregulated in patients with COVID-19, which predisposes people to getting mucormycosis.
GRP78 helps regulate the ER’s stress response, can form a complex with the spike protein and the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) to encourage entry and infection of SARS-CoV-2, and acts as a host receptor that allows molds that cause mucormycosis to enter cells and cause disease.
“There are other important immunological mechanisms as well that explain how severe COVID-19 can predispose patients to develop mucormycosis,” Dr. Hoenigl added.
Other Studies Identify Mucormycosis Risk Factors
In a 2021 review published in the Journal of Infection and Public Health, researchers found that hyperglycemia, impaired immunity, acidosis, raised ferritin—which is often indicative of higher iron levels, inflammation, or infection—glucocorticoid therapy, and COVID-19-specific factors were implicated in the pathogenesis of CAM.
In a 2022 study published in Cureus, researchers followed 62 patients with cerebral mucormycosis for up to 12 weeks to evaluate the risk factors, symptoms, and impact of various interventions on the disease outcome. All participants reported being symptomatic with flu-like illness during the two months preceding their diagnosis, with 58 of the 62 subjects testing positive for COVID-19 and 54 of the 58 patients receiving treatment.
“COVID-19 patients are more susceptible to opportunistic fungal infections due to the immune dysregulation caused by iatrogenic immunosuppression (via corticosteroids or undefined antibiotic treatment), uncontrolled diabetes mellitus, use of invasive or noninvasive ventilation, and other pre-existing conditions,” the paper’s authors wrote.
The researchers found that COVID-19 and diabetes mellitus were significant risk factors for developing mucormycosis. Common signs and symptoms of mucormycosis often appeared within a few weeks of COVID-19, although neurological symptoms were either absent or appeared later. The most common initial symptoms included ptosis—a drooping eyelid—or severe headache.
The median time between COVID-19 infection and the first noticeable symptom of mucormycosis was 16 days. The mean time between the first symptom of mucormycosis and the first neurological symptom was 19 days. The most common initial neurological symptom was hemiparesis—a weakness or inability to move one side of the body.
The study found that 18 (29 percent) patients were symptomatic for mucormycosis even before the resolution of their COVID-19. At the end of 12 weeks, only 18 patients had completely recovered without any residual symptoms, while 19 had persistent symptoms.
Of the 62 subjects, 53 required surgical intervention, eight patients needed their eyes extracted, 21 patients died, 37 survived, and four were lost at follow-up. The higher-than-expected survival rate was attributed to the study occurring in a hospital facility with access to prompt antifungal treatments.
In a January review of 20 papers on mucormycosis and COVID-19, researchers discovered numerous fungal coinfections in COVID-19 patients, 0.3 percent of which were related to mucormycosis.
The researchers attributed CAM to hyperglycemia from previously existing diabetes or excessive use of steroids, increased ferritin levels due to the “inflammatory cascade” initiated by COVID-19, immunological and inflammatory phenomena that occur with SARS-CoV-2 infection, immunosuppression from steroid use or other therapies, germination of fungal spores due to reduced white cell counts in those with COVID-19, and hypoxia—or insufficient oxygen levels which promote growth of the fungus.
Researchers also found that fungal infections were greater in critically ill COVID-19 patients, those requiring mechanical ventilation, and those hospitalized for more than 50 days.
According to the paper, medical management of the disease includes antifungal treatments and surgical debridement of the associated lesions. This is challenging for COVID-19 patients because many are given immunosuppressive therapies, such as steroids, and withdrawing immunosuppressive medications used to treat COVID-19 is part of the treatment for mucormycosis. They further suggest using hyperbaric oxygen therapy for hypoxia and acidosis.
To prevent mucormycosis in those with COVID-19, researchers suggest taking a detailed medical history to assess risk factors, using a controlled steroid regimen, sterilizing water in humidifiers, halting excessive antibiotics, and controlling blood sugar.
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Site: LifeNews
Joe Biden is not happy that Florida will protect babies from abortions. And he’s taking out his anger on Donald Trump.
Biden blames Trump for appointing the Supreme Court justices who issued the Dobbs decision that allowed states to pass laws protecting women and unborn children from abortions.
In his comments, Biden uses the tired old phrases that call killing babies in abortions “reproductive care” even though women still enjoy all reproductive care in Florida.
“Today, an extreme abortion ban takes effect in Florida, banning reproductive health care before many women even know they are pregnant. There is one person responsible for this nightmare: Donald Trump,” Biden said after the Florida pro-life law protecting unborn children with beating hearts went into effect.
“Trump brags about overturning Roe v. Wade, making extreme bans like Florida’s possible, saying his plan is working ‘brilliantly,” Biden added.
“He thinks it’s brilliant that more than 4 million women in Florida, and more than one in three women in America, can’t get access to the care they need,” Mr. Biden said. “Now he wants to go even further, making it clear he would sign a national abortion ban if elected.”
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The pro-life law will save thousands of babies from abortions and end Florida’s status as an abortion destination in the southeast. Florida is surrounded by states with pro-life laws in effect that protect babies and help women and the abortion industry has been directing customers to Florida for abortions instead of helping women and unborn children.
As a result, thousands of babies are expected to be saved from abortion and will get a chance at life.
According to 2023 data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, about one-third of all abortions in the South occurred in Florida. The data showed more than 9,300 of those abortions involved people who traveled from other states. These babies will now be protected and their mothers can find pro-life alternatives.
The Heartbeat Law includes exceptions, such as rape, incest, and human trafficking, all of which must be officially documented. The law retains the exceptions from the 15-week law, such as: to preserve the life of the mother, which includes ectopic pregnancies; fatal abnormalities where the unborn baby is unexpected to survive outside the womb; and to “avert a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment or a major bodily function of the pregnant woman other than a psychological condition.”
In addition, before an abortion is performed under any of the exception categories, Florida abortion laws require giving a pregnant woman an option to view an ultrasound, a 24-hour reflection period unless there is an emergency, and informed consent.
The law also requires doctors to use more than just an ultrasound to determine the gestational age of an unborn child. Doctors are now required to utilize a more objective physical measurement with calipers to measure “crown to rump” length, or top of the head (crown) to the bottom of the buttocks (rump), which can more accurately determine the unborn child’s gestational age.
The Heartbeat Law will also provide $30 million in reoccurring state funding to support pregnant women and their families. This support includes:
- Clothing
- Cribs
- Car Seats
- Formula
- Diapers
- Pregnancy Testing
- Counseling (for mothers and fathers)
- Mentoring
- Education Materials
- Pregnancy Classes
- Parenting Classes
- Adoption Classes
- Life Skills Training
- Employment Readiness
- Wellness Services
Florida also has 167 pregnancy centers across the state where pregnant women and their families can receive aid and support.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “On May 1, Florida will become a sanctuary for life. The Heartbeat Law will save countless lives, some of whom may become world leaders in science, medicine, and technology that will benefit the world. The Heartbeat Law protects the valuable lives of both the unborn child and the mother and provides a wide range of options and support for women. The Heartbeat Law will provide $30 million in public funds to help pregnant women and their children. Florida is now on the side of life.”
Implementation of the new pro-life law comes after the Florida Supreme Court upheld pro-life legislation.
On April 14, 2022, Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 5, known as the “Reducing Fetal and Infant Mortality Act,” to protect the lives of Florida’s most vulnerable by prohibiting all abortions after 15 weeks of gestation. Florida Planned Parenthood affiliates and a group of independent abortionists sued the state on June 1, 2022. The complaint alleges that the 15-week ban violates a right to privacy within the Florida Constitution.
Later, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation to save babies from abortions who have beating hearts.
DeSantis made Florida the next state to officially protect the lives of unborn children after Roe was overturned. Pro-Life Americans from across the country celebrated the new law, which protects babies whose heartbeats can easily be detected and whose lives have existed for a month and a half starting at conception.
The law would save tens of thousands of lives annually and provide $25 million in aid to women and families but it was held up by the same lawsuit.
Earlier this month, the state’s high court upheld both the 15 week and heartbeat laws. In a 6-1 ruling, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Florida’s law protecting preborn children from most abortions after 15 weeks. The decision paves the way for additional protections for preborn babies beginning at 6 weeks.
“This is a big win for life and the Florida constitution,” stated Lynda Bell, president of Florida Right to Life. “We salute the Florida Supreme Court for getting this right!”
Another pro-life group also applauded the ruling.
“Today’s victory for unborn children who have a heartbeat and can feel pain is in line with the views of the majority of Floridians who want to protect babies and serve mothers and families. As Florida faces what may be its biggest ballot fight yet, Gov. Ron DeSantis must be at the forefront of protecting Florida from Big Abortion’s attempt to eliminate the rights of unborn children, parents, women, and girls. Gov. DeSantis signed protections for babies who feel pain and have a heartbeat into law and now he must lead in defending those protections,” said SBA ProLife State Policy Director Katie Daniel of Tampa in response to the ruling.
Polling shows the heartbeat law is right in line with the views of Florida residents.
Not only do a majority of Floridians support protecting babies from abortion, they support the heartbeat law by a strong 62% margin.
Polling conducted by Ragnar Research for SBA Pro-Life America and the Florida Family Policy Council shows likely Florida voters strongly support protecting human life in the womb once a heartbeat can be detected. Almost three-quarters of voters oppose allowing abortion on demand up until birth. The poll, with a ±4% margin of error, surveyed 500 Floridians statewide from February 27-March 2.
Key poll findings include:
- 62% of Floridians support legislation to protect unborn babies when a heartbeat is detected, with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.
- 61% of Independents and 58% of women surveyed support such legislation.
- Hispanic voters were even more likely than others to support the legislation, at 76%.
- Only 22% of likely voters support allowing abortion until the moment of birth.
DeSantis signed the bill immediately so it could be defended in court. The bill would also provide $25 million in aid to women and families.
“We are proud to support life and family in the state of Florida,” DeSantis wrote in a statement. “I applaud the Legislature for passing the Heartbeat Protection Act that expands pro-life protections and provides additional resources for young mothers and families.”
The post Joe Biden Slams Donald Trump for Letting Florida Protect Babies From Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeBiden Calls US Allies Japan & India 'Xenophobic': "They Don't Want Immigrants"Tyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 13:15
President Biden chose a strange moment to lash out at allies and humiliate them, given his administration is busy trying to build international consensus against Russia as it continues the war in Ukraine, and on sensitive flashpoint issues like the Israel-Hamas conflict.
On Wednesday Biden called Japan and India 'xenophobic' during off-camera remarks at a campaign fundraiser in D.C. He included these longtime US allies in the controversial statement alongside Washington rivals and enemies China and Russia.
President Joe Biden, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol last year, via Reuters.
He said all of these countries are unwelcoming to migrants ultimately "because they are xenophobic." Leaders in Japan and India are without doubt blistering with outrage.
"This election is about freedom, America and democracy. That’s why I badly need you. You know, one of the reasons why our economy is growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants," the president began.
"The reason — look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic."
And he continued to pile on: "They don’t want immigrants. Immigrants are what makes us strong. Not a joke. That’s not hyperbole, because we have an influx of workers who want to be here and want to contribute," he added.
The criticism of Japan comes at the very moment Tokyo and Washington are deepening their defense cooperation in regional waters, with an eye on countering Chinese influence and maritime expansion. Yet Biden just lumped Japan and China together in the devastating criticism.
But Japan seems to be doing just fine in comparison to the United States on a socio-economic level. Anyone who has traveled to Japan in the last number of years has likely witnessed the phenomenon of streets and cities that are so safe that 8-year old children can wonder freely and no one will give it a thought.
Pot, meet kettle...
Violence is exceedingly rare in Japan. The murder rate is so small that is barely registers.
— Bloomberg Opinion (@opinion) August 1, 2019
Similarly, its crime rate has continued to plummet in recent years, leaving some police departments with little to do https://t.co/4X8h7UzYu9 pic.twitter.com/xKyhF463G8As for India, one very obvious reason they are not opening the flood gates of immigration (assuming there are even many foreigners actually seeking to enter and settle in the highly population dense south Asian country to begin with), is that they have a struggling economy and over 1.4 billion people to look after.
Recently, President Biden hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (in early summer) and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio - with the latter visiting the Oval just last month. Both were treated to state dinners, and of course Biden didn't have the guts to tell these key leaders to their faces that their countries were 'xenophobic'.
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Site: Henrymakow.com
Please send links and comments to hmakow@gmail.comChristianity is antisemiticCriticism of Israeli genocide also deemed "antisemitic"The House vote was 320 to 91 with 70 Democrats and 21 Republicans voting against the bill. The GOP opposition largely came from the right flank of the conference. The bill would next need to be taken up by the Senate.Andrew Torba, Founder of Gab--"The bill adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of "antisemitism" which includes the basic Biblical Truth that the Jews killed Jesus Christ as "classic antisemitism." The bill has raised serious concerns among Christians who believe that their First Amendment rights are being threatened. For example H.R. 6090 could potentially make it a crime for pastors to preach sermons that adhere to Biblical passages, of which there are many, which explicitly state that the Jews killed Jesus.As a result, churches may become targets for Civil Rights Act discrimination lawsuits, leading to a wave of anti-Christian sentiment and the stifling of religious expression. This legislation follows just a few weeks after we learned, during Holy Week of all times, that saying "Christ is King" is "antisemitic" from many of the gatekeeping establishment voices on the right. It also follows a slew of similar "hate speech" legislation at the state level that is being passed by Republican governors in red states, including Ron DeSantis who flew to Israel to sign his.Are you paying attention yet, Christian? Do you see what is happening here and what is at stake?The New Testament provides ample evidence that the Jews killed Jesus. This is a basic core tenet of the passion story and thus a basic core tenet of our faith that we are required to affirm as Christians."-E Michael Jones- "320 congressmen betrayed the American people for Jewish money. Judas got 30 pieces of silver from the Jews to betray Jesus. Mike Johnson got $500,000 from AIPAC to put Americans in legal jeopardy for quoting the Bible. By the way, is it now anti-Semitic to say that Judas got 30 pieces of silver from the Jews, or is it just illegal?"--
Zionists open new front by assaulting protestersZionists wearing black outfits and white masks attack UCLA Protestor CampAfter violent protests at UCLA, UC president launches investigation into responseA person wields a baton during clashes between demonstrators at UCLA.Just before midnight Wednesday, a large group of counterdemonstrators, wearing black outfits and white masks, arrived on campus and tried totear down the barricades surrounding the encampment, which had been erected days earlier in a demand for divestment from Israel and an endto the country's military actions in Gaza.--Whether it's Communism or Zionism, Satanist Jews and their helpers impose their beliefs on everyoneWoman arrested for publicly praising Oct. 7 Hamas attackThe Vancouver Police Department arrested a woman as part of a hate crime investigation.--Texas goes full militant police state to silence critics of IsraelSpeaking up on behalf of the innocent Palestinians being slaughtered by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza is an "antisemitic" act, according to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott who says that all of the students and faculty members at The University of Texas at Austin who are exercising their First Amendment rights in this way "belong in jail."-Alex Newman---Soros and Rockefellers Fund Pro-Hamas "Revolution" on CampusesThe increasingly violent and lawless pro-Hamas "protests" taking place at leftwing universities across America are being funded by billionaire George Soros and the Rockefeller dynasty.A number of the key organizations involved in the chaos ripping across academia are on the Soros payroll. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), for instance, which described the October 7 terror attack by Hamas as a "historic win," has received funding from a network of organizations funded by Soros' Open Society Foundations and others. The group's members have been seen chanting "We Are All Hamas."-
In Plain Sight: COVID Has Helped Globalists Usher In a Global Cashless Society - WEF BankerA powerful central banker has gloated to his fellow World Economic Forum (WEF) members that the Covid pandemic has helped globalists usher in a global "cashless society."Central Bank of Bahrain governor Khalid Humaidan discussed plans for eliminating physical cash while speaking at the WEF's "Special Meeting on Global Collaboration, Growth and Energy Development" on Sunday.During a panel discussion, titled "Open Forum: The Digital Currencies' Opportunity in the Middle East," Humaidan told WEF elites that the goal of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is to replace cash with "100% digital" payments.-Mahmod Od----Netanyahu, IDF refuse to cooperate with Israeli State Comptroller audit of Oct7 (because they were complicit)--
The Zionist-Communist Masonic Jewish tag teamBill Ackman Is Among Thousands Of Donors To UNC Frat Defending US Flag From Marxist Protesters"Law-abiding, freedom-loving Americans are finally catching on. The chaos spreading across the nation's colleges and universities is a direct result of failed woke ideologies pushed by radical Marxist teachers, school groups, and school administrators. These schools have brainwashed an entire generation of 'useful idiot' youngsters in classrooms, otherwise called 'indoctrination camps.'Let's begin with one Marxist extremist preaching the quiet part out loud to hundreds of youngsters this week:"There's only one solution, intifada revolution. We must have a revolution so we can have a socialist reconstruction of the USA."--BREAKING: CDC LIED About COVID Vaccine Deaths - Internal DocumentsInternal documents contradict claims from the CDC, which refused to explain the discrepancy.U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials found evidence that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines caused multiple deaths before claiming that there was no evidence linking the vaccines to any deaths, The Epoch Times has learned.-
British MP Andrew Bridgen: Between 10 and 20 Million People Have Been Killed by COVID Shots Worldwide"the vaccine rollout is the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust"The study, published in the prestigious Cureus journal, found that the risk of dying from cancer dramatically increased each time a patient received an mRNA injection.The study was conducted by world-renowned Japanese experts specializing in cardiovascular medicine and cancer research.-As bird flu outbreaks worsen, experts say the situation threatens to spiral out of controlRecent testing has revealed H5N1 outbreaks are more widespread than previously thought yet we aren't testing enough"However, infectious disease experts are warning that these positive tests are a sign that the outbreak is much bigger than previously thought, and indicate that the government doesn't have a good grasp on the situation.-Bird Flu (H5N1) Explained: USDA Will Test Ground Beef Samples From Grocery Stores-HarryVox - JEWS HAVE MAGICAL POWERS! -
Site: LifeNews
In early 2023, North Dakota passed legislation that required public schools to show “a high-definition video, at least three minutes in duration, showing the development of the brain, heart, sex organs, and other vital organs in early fetal development.” ND House Bill 1265 faced its share of scrutiny from the Left, as lawmakers across the country such as Iowa State Representative Jennifer Konfrst (D) claimed a video mapping out fetal development “is just politics” and “not scientifically correct.”
The video used as an example in the bill was produced by the pro-life organization Live Action and entitled, “Meet Baby Olivia.” In three minutes, it follows the development of a baby from conception to birth as the end of the nine-month “journey,” as the video describes. North Dakota State Senator Janne Myrdal (R), who referenced the Live Action content during hearings on HB 1265, said, “For me, it wasn’t a life issue. It was education.” She added that part of what stirred her to advocate for this legislation is because she found it “odd” human development wasn’t already part of some school curriculums. And roughly a year later, it would seem the state of Tennessee came to the same conclusion.
On April 23, a second state followed North Dakota’s lead, and Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Lee signed into law House Bill 2435, which also requires teaching this science to students. As The Christian Post reported, “The votes in both chambers came down along party lines, with all Republicans supporting the legislation and all Democrats opposing it.” As the bill text states:
“A family life curriculum that directly or indirectly addresses human growth, human development, or human sexuality must include the presentation of a high-quality, computer-generated animation or high-definition ultrasound of at least three (3) minutes in duration that shows the development of the brain, heart, sex organs, and other vital organs in early fetal development, such as ‘Meet Baby Olivia,’ a high-quality, computer-generated animation developed by Live Action that shows the process of fertilization and the stages of human development inside the uterus.”
Please follow LifeNews.com on Gab for the latest pro-life news and info, free from social media censorship.
Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, celebrated the momentum in a press release, “Tennessee is setting a precedent for other states to follow in prioritizing comprehensive education on human development by mandating state-of-the-art life-like animation explaining human development, like Live Action’s Baby Olivia video, in state education standards.”
She continued, “Tennessee has joined North Dakota in setting the standard for world-class education that ensures students are equipped with the knowledge they need. Tennessee has over 1 million public school students who will now be equipped with cutting-edge educational material on human development in the womb.” And as the statement from Live Action read, “Women are indeed less likely to choose abortion if they are shown the humanity of their children.”
Some have pointed out that the passage of this bill is significant as the gap between Republicans and Democrats increasingly widens on the issue of life. But in Tennessee, the House’s marginwas “an overwhelming 67-23 vote in March,” and a 21-6 margin in the Senate. And with HB 2435 to go into effect in the fall, Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Tenn.), lead sponsor of the bill, stated, “The fruits of including Meet Baby Olivia as a part of every family life curriculum used in Tennessee’s public schools will be long-lasting and widespread across Tennessee.”
Mary Szoch, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, told The Washington Stand, “The passage of TN House Bill 2435, the Baby Olivia Act, is a huge win for all Americans.” She explained that Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of the abortion giant Planned Parenthood, “recently noted that approximately 70% of the abortions carried out by Planned Parenthood are done using the abortion drug, mifepristone. Planned Parenthood describes this process as one where the woman takes the drug mifepristone, then takes misoprostol, then passes the ‘pregnancy tissue.’”
But according to Szoch, the reality is, “Countless women have described their horror at taking these drugs, experiencing horrific pain and bleeding, and then delivering what they were promised was a clump of cells or ‘pregnancy tissue’ but is visibly and recognizably their dead unborn baby into the toilet.” As such, the pro-life expert added, “Many of these women experience heartbreak and regret once they recognize that the abortion drug, mifepristone, killed a baby — their baby.”
This is why “legislation like the Baby Olivia Act” is needed, Szoch insisted, since it “will help many to recognize the biological fact that what Planned Parenthood refers to as ‘pregnancy tissue’ is actually an unborn baby and an abortion kills that child.”
She concluded, “The Baby Oliva Act will make certain both men and women know this BEFORE mothers and fathers experience the heartbreak of abortion. I hope more states follow this path!”
LifeNews Note: Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand, where this originally appeared.
The post New Pro-Life Laws are Teaching Students About Fetal Development appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero Hedge"We Have To Have Law And Order": Trump Lays Out Plan For Second Term In TIME InterviewTyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 12:55
Authored by Chase Smith via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
President Donald Trump (L) takes the oath of office as his wife Melania Trump (C) holds the bible and his son Barron Trump (R) looks on, on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol, on January 20, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
In an in-depth interview with TIME magazine, former President Donald Trump laid out his agenda for a second term should he retake the White House in 2025 following the election later this year.
The wide-ranging interview, held over two days at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, with a follow-up phone interview, was the cover story for the magazine titled “If He Wins.”
The interview covers all of the big issues in the 2024 election, ranging from border security and immigration to economic policy, abortion, and foreign affairs.
President Trump also touched on the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol breach and the related court cases, as well as the legal issues he faces.
Immigration, Border Policy
In a transcript of the interview with TIME’s national politics reporter Eric Cortellessa, President Trump said on day one of his second term he would take aggressive action over the illegal immigration crisis.
President Trump plans to initiate a vast deportation operation, citing unsustainable numbers of illegal immigrants, expressing a desire to replicate Dwight Eisenhower’s mid-20th century mass deportations.
President Trump said he plans to do this by using local law enforcement as well as the National Guard when necessary.
“When we talk military, generally speaking, I talk National Guard,” President Trump said, according to the transcript. “But if I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military, per se. We have to have safety in our country. We have to have law and order in our country. And whichever gets us there, but I think the National Guard will do the job.”
Regarding housing illegal immigrants in detention facilities or even expanding the nation’s stock of detention facilities, he said it would likely not be necessary due to his policy of mass deportations but did not rule it out if needed.
If local police departments did not want to cooperate, President Trump said the best option to get them to comply would be to incentivize their cooperation.
“Well, there’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate, and they won’t partake in the riches, you know,” he said in the interview. “I want to give police immunity from prosecution because the liberal groups or the progressive groups ... that ... want to leave everybody in ...[S]anctuary cities are failing all over the place, and I really believe that there’s a pent-up demand to end sanctuary cities by people that were in favor of sanctuary cities, because it’s just not working out for the country.”
He added he didn’t believe that his proposals were “bold” but rather “common sense” and that he would uphold any court decisions regarding his policies.
Economy
President Trump is advocating for significant tariffs, especially against China, to protect U.S. industries and jobs.
He said that he didn’t believe that additional tariffs would amount to another tax on Americans and that he didn’t believe it would lead to higher inflation, noting his belief that higher tariffs against China under his first administration were successful.
“So how did it cost us if we had such a good economy,” President Trump asked in response to a question about economists saying his tariff policy cost jobs and lost hundreds of billions. “Everybody admits it. If we didn’t do that, we would have no steel industry right now. They were dumping steel all over this country. And I put a 50% tariff on steel. It was gonna go higher. And the people that love me most are businesses, but in particular, the steel industry. They love me because I saved their industry.”
He said he believed that those tariffs did not and would not lead to businesses passing on higher costs to American consumers.
“I actually think that the country that is being taxed makes less,” President Trump said. “I think what happens is you build. What happens to get out of the whole situation is you end up building, instead of having your product brought in from China, because of that additional cost, you end up making the product in the United States.”
President Trump said that some countries are very tough on the United States when it comes to tariffs.
“[China] charges us 100%,” President Trump said. “But they charge us much more than that. India charges us more than that. Brazil charges us what—Brazil’s a very big, very big tariff country. I ask people, who are the worst to deal with? I’m not going to give that to you because I don’t want to insult the countries because I actually get along with them. But you'd be surprised. The E.U. is very tough with us.”
Foreign Policy
President Trump said that he would not rule out placing conditions on aid to Israel, but aimed to have the Israel-Hamas conflict resolved quickly.
“I think that Israel has done one thing very badly: public relations,” President Trump said. “I don’t think that the Israel Defense Fund or any other group should be sending out pictures every night of buildings falling down and being bombed with possibly people in those buildings every single night, which is what they do.”
He said his record and support of Israel was clear and that his record on being tough with Iran was clear, despite noting that he had a “bad experience” dealing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Look, there’s been no president that’s done what I’ve done for Israel. When you look at all of the things that I’ve done, and it starts with the Iran nuclear deal. You know, Bibi Netanyahu begged Obama not to do that deal. I ended that deal.”
He also brought up Iran in relation to its role in funding Hamas, the terrorist group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“During my term, there were stories that Iran didn’t have the money to give to any, there was very little terrorism,” President Trump explained. “But we had no terror ... and we got rid of ISIS 100%. Now they’re starting to come back.”
The former president also said that Mr. Netanyahu “rightfully has been criticized for what took place on October 7.”
President Trump said that the United States would support Israel militarily if Iran and Israel were to go to war, although he suggested that the recent attack by Iran on Israel was a “ceremonial attack,” given that it was widely known about beforehand.
He added, “I gave them [Israel] Golan Heights,” and that he was responsible for having the U.S. Embassy moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and recognized the former as Israel’s capital.
On NATO, President Trump criticized European countries for insufficient defense spending and said NATO was fine as long as European countries paid their fair share, but he still did not believe NATO would come to the aid of the United States if necessary and as required by the treaty.
Jan. 6, Election Integrity
President Trump criticized the justice system as biased and discussed potential pardons for individuals allegedly involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
“It’s a two-tier system,” President Trump said. “Because when I look at Portland, when I look at Minneapolis, where they took over police precincts and everything else, and went after federal buildings, when I look at other situations that were violent, and where people were killed, nothing happened to them. Nothing happened to them. I think it’s a two-tier system of justice. I think it’s a very, very sad thing. And whether you like it or not, nobody died other than Ashli [Babbitt].”
President Trump said that he “tried to stop the attack” and that his rhetoric was peaceful and patriotic, placing blame on then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, for turning down his offer of “10,000 soldiers” during the “very dramatic and horrible period” on Jan. 6 after the Capitol was breached.
Concerning political violence after this November’s election, President Trump said it was not something he was worried about happening.
“I think we’re gonna have a big victory,” President Trump added. “And I think there will be no violence.”
In response to his legal woes, as he has said in press conferences after his court appearances in New York City the past few weeks, he said that the prosecutions against him are unfair and driven by a corrupt legal system on behalf of President Biden.
To those prosecuting him, he did not say he would go after them using the Department of Justice if re-elected, rather he said, “We are going to have great retribution through success. We’re going to make our country successful again. Our retribution is going to be through success of our country.”
When asked about appointing a special prosecutor to investigate President Biden if he were to be re-elected, he said it would depend on what the U.S. Supreme Court says about presidential immunity in his own case, which is currently before the court.
“Look, a president should have immunity,” President Trump said. “That includes Biden. If they’ve ruled that they don’t have immunity, Biden, probably nothing to do with me, he would be prosecuted for 20 different acts, because he’s created such.”
As far as going after his political opponents, he said that’s currently what’s happening with him.
Abortion
Regarding potential federal legislation on abortion, President Trump expressed confidence that such measures would not garner the required 60 votes in the Senate. He stressed that the issue should be left to states to determine, as evidenced by recent legislative actions in conservative-leaning states like Ohio and Kansas.
When asked about the Life at Conception Act and enforcement of the Comstock Act, President Trump deferred to states’ prerogatives, refraining from committing to specific positions. He hinted at forthcoming statements on related matters.
President Trump declined to offer a personal opinion on women’s access to abortion pills and the enforcement of laws prohibiting their mailing, indicating an intention to address these issues soon.
Regarding potential state-level penalties for obtaining abortions after bans, President Trump reiterated his stance that states should decide such matters, emphasizing the diversity of approaches among states.
When queried about Florida’s upcoming abortion referendum, President Trump refrained from disclosing his voting intentions, reiterating his belief in the importance of states making their own determinations on such matters.
He emphasized a focus on policies that help women and families, referencing the acceptance of his stance on in vitro fertilization by Republicans and recent state legislation affirming it.
“I’ll be doing it over the next week or two,” he said. “But I don’t think it will be shocking, frankly. But I'll be doing it over the next week or two. We’re for helping women, Eric. I am for helping women.”
Other Details
President Trump discussed his past decision to invoke a minimum ten-year sentence for desecrating monuments, which he felt effectively deterred such actions. President Trump stated he would use the National Guard rather than the military to address protests if necessary, such as Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
President Trump also acknowledged a perceived anti-white bias in the United States, critiquing the Biden administration for its policies and expressing concern over discrimination against various groups, including white people and Catholics.
He was non-committal about whether the United States should defend Taiwan, preferring not to disclose his stance to maintain negotiation leverage.
President Trump discussed the strategic deployment of U.S. troops overseas, suggesting adjustments might be necessary but emphasizing the ability to manage troop deployments effectively. He criticized South Korea for renegotiating a financial agreement that reduced their payment to the United States for military protection.
The former president also championed democracy over dictatorship, highlighting freedom as a key advantage. However, he expressed concerns about the current state of U.S. democracy, citing the weaponization of federal agencies against political figures.
He refuted claims that he wanted to terminate parts of the Constitution or become a dictator; instead, he accused Democrats of violating constitutional principles through judicial and administrative actions.
He noted when he said he would only be a dictator “on day one” while in an interview with Sean Hannity, that it was clearly a joke and that most people understood it as such.
“That was said sarcastically. That was meant as a joke. Everybody knows that.”
Regarding the pandemic, President Trump reflected on Operation Warp Speed and praised his administration’s rapid development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics.
“You know, you have strong opinions both ways on the vaccines,” President Trump said. “It’s interesting. The Democrats love the vaccine. The Democrats. Only reason I don’t take credit for it. The Republicans, in many cases, don’t, although many of them got it, I can tell you. It’s very interesting.”
He was also skeptical about the efficacy of permanent pandemic preparedness offices, suggesting they were politically motivated and financially wasteful.
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Site: AsiaNews.itFormer Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele will be the new prime minister. Analysts expect him to adopt a less confrontational approach despite ties to China. Pacific nations are torn between loyalty to their Western partners and agreements (especially on security) with China.
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Site: Zero HedgeTurkey Halts All Trade With Israel As Relations At Breaking PointTyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 12:35
For months, relations between Turkey and Israel have been on the brink of breaking point. Already there has been the recalling of ambassadors, inflammatory rhetoric exchanged between leaders, and then things got more serious when Turkey a month ago moved to restrict 54 products from being exported to Israel until a Gaza ceasefire can be reached.
But Turkey's government on Thursday has taken the next big step, halting all exports and imports to and from Israel, according to Bloomberg which cited Turkish government officials. It has begun effective today, but Ankara has yet to officially announce the dramatic move.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has confirmed that the breaking headlines are accurate. He said that Ankara has already begun to block Israeli imports and exports at Turkish ports.
Katz has ordered the foreign ministry to immediately pursue alternatives for trade which focus on "local production and imports from other countries."
Bilateral trade volume between the two countries, which prior to Oct.7 were enjoying warmer relations, had stood at $5.4 billion last year.
- Turkey sells $5B-$7B of exports to Israel every year.
- Israel sells $2B-$3B of exports to Turkey every year.
But President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been unrelenting in his attacks on Israel and directed against Netanyahu personally.
In March, he went so far as to suggest the Israeli prime minster should be assassinated for overseeing war crimes in Gaza and against Muslims.
In a prior election rally the Turkish president vowed to "send [Netanyahu] to Allah to take care of him, make him miserable and curse him."
This week Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced Turkey will join South Africa’s case against Israel before the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC).
Source: Bloomberg
So it appears at this point Turkey is waging both full-scale diplomatic and economic war on Israel. This is unprecedented for a NATO member, which also happens to have the second largest military within the Western military alliance, and is sure to put Western officials in an awkward spot.
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Site: non veni pacem
(Just remember, there is no good side to be on, but this is remarkable. -nvp)
Adams, NYPD cite ‘global’ effort to ‘radicalize young people’ after 300 arrested at Columbia, CUNY
New York City Mayor Eric Adams slams movement to ‘radicalize our children’ amid widespread anti-Israel campus protests
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Police Department (NYPD) leadership cited a “global” movement to “radicalize young people” in announcing approximately 300 arrests at Columbia University and City College that took place overnight.
“I know that there are those who are attempting to say, well, the majority of people may have been students. You don’t have to be the majority to influence and co-opt an operation. That is what this is about. And so, if we want to play the word police, you could do so. I’m going to play the New York City police,” Adams said at a press conference. “There is a movement to radicalize young people, and I’m not going to wait until it’s done and all of a sudden acknowledge the existence of it. This is a global problem that young people are being influenced by those who are professionals at radicalizing our children. And I’m not going to allow that to happen as the mayor of the city of New York…We can’t create environments while children could be in danger, and we must push back on all attempts to radicalize our young people in this city like we’re seeing across the entire globe.”
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Site: Zero HedgeSaudi Arabia Worried About Islamist Uprising As US-Backed Normalization With Israel 'Close'Tyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 12:15
Arrests of Saudi citizens over social media posts related to 'Israeli genocide' in Gaza have markedly increased in recent months, as Riyadh is reportedly concerned that "Iran and Islamist groups could exploit the conflict to incite a wave of uprisings," according to people familiar with the matter who spoke with Bloomberg.
Recent arrests include "an executive with a company involved in the kingdom’s Vision 2030 economic transformation plan," who reportedly expressed views on Gaza deemed "incendiary," an unnamed media figure who said "Israel should never be forgiven," and a citizen who called for the boycott of US fast food chains in the kingdom.
Image source: Reuters
According to one of Bloomberg's sources, over the past six months, there has been a "significant increase" in the number of prisoners entering a maximum-security prison south of Riyadh. The New York-based publication says this account was corroborated by diplomats in the Saudi capital and human rights organizations who have tracked a "spike in social media-related arrests" since 7 October.
"The Saudi arrests for Gaza-related posts indicate Prince [Mohammed bin Salman's] regime will take a hard line against citizens not toeing the line when it comes to normalizing ties with Israel," Bloomberg reports.
In a visit to the Gulf kingdom on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that intensive work has recently been done toward a Saudi–Israel normalization deal, which he said is "potentially very close to completion."
Nevertheless, on Wednesday, the Guardian reported that Riyadh has devised a "more modest" defense pact with Washington as authorities prepare to move past Israeli normalization over Tel Aviv's intransigence regarding the formation of an independent Palestinian state and their determination to assault Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah.
The British daily described this "Plan B" as a joint US–Saudi effort to "contain Iranian expansionism and [as part of] Washington’s ‘great-power competition,’ particularly with China."
Moreover, Israeli media on Thursday cited a source in the Saudi royal family as saying that the kingdom sent a message to Tel Aviv stating that any military operation in Rafah "would be a big mistake and would push normalization between the two parties away."
"Riyadh will appear as a traitorous country in that case," the Israeli report adds, as Saudi leaders reportedly believe "Saudi Arabia will not be able to normalize relations with Israel if there is no Palestinian state."
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Site: Eccles is savedSpending 23 hours per day on Twitter has enabled me to appreciate some fundamental truths, which need to be recognised more widely. This post is less spiritually nourishing than some, but I'll do my best. 1. Actors have nothing intelligent to say if they are not given a script, and often not even then.Socialist actor Brian Cox calls the Bible 'one of the worst books ever' and says 'the theatre' is the 'one true church'. 2. Never click on anything described as "hilarious". It will just be mildly amusing. A few from the Daily Mail to illustrate my point. Would you really bother with any of these? Spilling the dirt! Hilarious moment man covers himself in soil after wheelbarrow tips over. Plane passenger reveals his hilarious take on what your seat selection means about your journey. We're live, guys! Hilarious moment BBC's Chris Mason realises he's standing in the wrong spot at start of live News at Six broadcast. 3. All those in positions of power in the 1960s were stark staring bonkers. Well, you may be thinking of Beeching closing the railways, Vatican II doing untold damage to the Catholic Church, and almost any 1960s architecture:
St Horten in Ahaus, Germany. Before and after. 4. "Could" is journalese for "won't". There are many variations on this, e.g. "explains" is journalese for "guesses".
We're doomed, do you hear me? Doomed! Another example:
There's more than one way of being doomed. 5. Anyone with pronouns in their profile is bonkers. I think the non-binaries are the most bonkers, but kids these days are always attracting attention, and asking to be referred to as "whee/whoosh" or whatever is probably less of a public nuisance than breaking windows. 6. Finally, applicable to religion and politics: those who rant and rage are usually wrong: those who can laugh and joke are generally right. Rather than posting yet another picture of Pope Francis or Austen Ivereigh throwing a wobbly, let's be synodal (hmm... I feel another Eccles law coming on here...).
Nobody sensible actually enjoys synods.
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Site: Mises InstituteBiden has embraced the trade war. But, if protectionism actually produced competitiveness, American steel manufacturers would have become world leaders long ago.
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Site: Zero HedgePeloton CEO Stepping Down Following 92% Stock Plunge In Two YearsTyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 11:55
Barry McCarthy, CEO of Peloton Interactive, is stepping down after the company's stock plummeted 92% since he took over in a bid to revitalize the connected fitness company known for slapping iPads on stationary bikes and charging high markups.
In February 2022, McCarthy—a former Spotify and Netflix executive—took over from co-founder John Foley. He attempted to turn around the company, which had experienced thousands of layoffs, management shake-ups, and outsourcing business as the Covid pop in demand faded.
However, those efforts failed when Peloton announced a new restructuring program on Thursday. The struggling company plans to cut 15% of staff, or about 400 workers, and reduce its retail footprint to save $200 million by the end of 2025.
"This restructuring will position Peloton for sustained, positive free cash flow, while enabling the company to continue to invest in software, hardware and content innovation, improvements to its member support experience, and optimizations to marketing efforts to scale the business. Upon full implementation, the company expects the plan to result in reduced annual run-rate expenses by more than $200 million by the end of its 2025 fiscal year," the company wrote in a press release.
A series of product recalls over safety issues only added to problems for McCarthy as lower sales and profits continued sliding. The share price has plunged 92% during the CEO's tenure.
Besides a new restructuring program, the company also reported it lost $167.3 million, or 45 cents per share, for the third quarter. That's better than the $275.9 million, or 79 cents per share, in the same quarter last year. Revenue totaled $717.7 million, below the average Wall Street estimate of $719.2 million tracked by Bloomberg.
Here's a snapshot of third-quarter results (courtesy of Bloomberg):
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Revenue $717.7 million, estimate $719.2 million
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Connected fitness revenue $279.9 million, estimate $288.2 million
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Subscription revenue $437.8 million, estimate $429.7 million
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Connected fitness subscribers 3.06 million, estimate 3.08 million
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Paid digital subscribers 674,000, estimate 742,266
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Adjusted Ebitda $5.8 million, estimate loss $25 million
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Loss per share 45c
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Cash flow from operations $11.6 million vs. negative $40.9 million y/y, estimate negative $29.6 million
Peloton also lowered its full-year revenue guidance by $25 million to a range of $2.675 billion to $2.7 billion, a dip from last year's $2.8 billion.
Here's a snapshot of the full-year outlook (courtesy of Bloomberg):
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Sees revenue $2.68 billion to $2.70 billion, saw $2.68 billion to $2.75 billion, estimate $2.71 billion (Bloomberg Consensus)
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Sees adjusted Ebitda loss $5.0 million to $20.0 million, saw loss $25 million to loss $75 million, estimate loss $62.9 million
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Sees connected fitness subscribers 2.96 million to 2.98 million, saw 2.99 million to 3.01 million, estimate 3.04 million
Here's what Wall Street analysts are saying (list courtesy of Bloomberg):
Bloomberg Intelligence, Geetha Ranganathan
- The headcount cuts will aid free cash flow "yet the core issues remain, namely the weakness in demand and uncertainty over subscription growth, with 44,000 subscriber losses in 3Q"
JPMorgan, Doug Anmuth
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Says he's encouraged by the company returning to positive free cash flow, and reporting lower operating expenses and positive adjusted Ebitda
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In addition, "the cost reductions announced today should better align the cost profile to PTON's current revenue trends & help make debt refinancing increasingly likely, which should help the equity story"
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Rates overweight with PT $8
BMO Capital Markets, Simeon Siege
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"From our outsider's viewpoint, we continue to believe growth is behind us and focusing on bear-hugging brand loyalists/walking away from expensive growth hopes can improve FCF/Ebitda (seemingly happening)"
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If this happens with new management, shares look undervalued, but if growth remains new management's priority, "we worry about sustained FCF/looming debt questions."
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Rates market perform with PT $7.50
Peloton's recovery depends on another Covid lockdown by the government that shuts down businesses and forces everyone into their homes for months.
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Site: Zero HedgeBiden Satisfies No One With Lackluster Speech Decrying 'Antisemitism & Islamophobia'Tyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 11:48
Summary: Last night, CNN spent its prime time segment decrying the Democratic president's "radio silence" on the Gaza-related campus protests and chaos. MSM pundits have pointed to his lack of leadership as violence at times erupted from UCLA to Columbia to a number of elite schools.
As expected, Biden began by trying to chart a kind of middle course condemning "antisemitism" and "Islamophobia"... though many conservatives have pointed out it's only the former they are seeing evidence of during these campus protests.
"Dissent is essential to democracy. But dissent must never lead to disorder or denying the rights of others... no place for hate speech in America," Biden said. The line about "denying the rights of others" appears a very vague reference to students occupying buildings, and denying the ability of tuition-paying students to go to their classes, libraries, or to take exams.
"There is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind, whether its antisemitism, Islamophobia or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans. It's simply wrong," Pres. Biden says during remarks on campus protests. https://t.co/8o7HAK8j8x pic.twitter.com/Slq8PrStJo
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 2, 2024"In moments like this, there are always those who rush in to score political points. But this isn’t a moment for politics. It’s a moment for clarity. So let me be clear…Violent protest is not protected. Peaceful protest is."
"Destroying property is not a peaceful protest, it’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation. None of this is a peaceful protest, threatening people, intimidating people," Biden said.
We should note that Biden's 'middle way' attempt (akin to "good folks on both sides" rhetoric that the Left gets angry about) is unlikely to satisfy either side. In the end, this lackluster speech is not going to make the encampments disappear, or the protesters disperse. In fact, he has most certainly lost almost the entirety of the Progressive vote, and increasingly young voters as well.
Update: Sure enough, it is about the protests, which apparently have had zero impact on anything as expected:
- *BIDEN: RULE OF LAW, FREEDOM OF SPEECH MUST BOTH BE UPHELD
- *BIDEN: DISSENT MUST NEVER LEAD TO DISORDER, DENIAL OF RIGHTS
- *BIDEN: RIGHT TO PROTEST DOESN'T MEAN RIGHT TO CAUSE CHAOS
- *BIDEN: NATIONAL GUARD SHOULD NOT INTERVENE ON CAMPUS PROTESTS
- *BIDEN: NO CHANGE IN MIDDLE EAST POLICY OVER CAMPUS PROTESTS
* * *
The White House has announced that President Biden will deliver unscheduled remarks at 10:30am ET (so he is already about 30 minutes late). It is unclear what Biden's handlers will feed the teleprompter but it is a very safe bet that the university protests around the country will be a key topic... pause.
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Site: LifeNews
Over the last few weeks, we have seen intense debate reignite over the role the federal government plays in limiting abortion. The backdrop to such debates is the upcoming presidential election, as well as the cultural reverberations around the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
There has been some confusion about the Dobbs decision. It did not simply “return abortion to the states.” Rather, it returned the power to protect the unborn to the voters, who can exercise this power through both their state and federal elected officials.
The Dobbs decision empowers states to enact pro-life laws that cover the period before viability — that is, approximately 22 weeks into a pregnancy or earlier. Under the Roe regime, states were not able to enforce such laws. Thankfully, many states have now implemented life-protective laws since the decision came down. To date, 24 states protect women and unborn children prior to viability. (Three of these are currently in litigation.)
Of course, the reverse is also sadly true. Twenty-six states currently have few or no protections for unborn babies, even at the stages where their hearts are beating, where they suck their thumbs or where they can feel pain. Seven of these states, along with Washington, D.C., have virtually no limits on abortion — not even a prohibition on painful dismemberment abortions.
This is why the U.S. must enact some form of a federal limit that protects unborn children nationwide. Otherwise, we continue on our deadly path, where over half of the country is exposed to the harms of abortion, and the human rights of the unborn are ignored.
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It can be hard to comprehend that the most developed country in the world, the U.S., permits late term abortion in more than half of our states, even though 65 percent of Americans consistently believe that abortion should be illegal at least after the first trimester (about 12 weeks), and 80 percent believe that it should be illegal after the second trimester (about 24 weeks).
Our nation is in shameful company with its lack of protections for the unborn. Only seven other countries allow late-term abortions, including some of the worst international violators of human rights such as China and North Korea. In comparison, 47 out of 50 European countries have stronger protections for the unborn, limiting elective abortion to 15 weeks’ gestation or earlier.
Even pro-choice Americans know that a seven-pound baby, almost fully formed, who has not yet been born, deserves the right to live. But the law does not reflect this reality.
Pro-abortion rights activist groups are relentlessly fighting against this truth. The American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood are pushing to increase the number of states with a right to abortion in their state constitutions through lavishly funded abortion ballot initiatives that are often confusing, full of euphemisms and deceptively worded to hide their true meaning.
Their efforts have successfully turned even pro-life states like Ohio into abortion destinations, and they are set on doing the same this fall in Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and numerous other states.
National pro-life protections are critical as these pro-abortion rights activists continue to fight for extreme abortion legislation at the federal level, such as the abortion lobby-backed Women’s Health Protection Act, which goes even further than Roe, nullifying the commonsense protections in place in pro-life states and allowing abortion everywhere until the moment of birth.
Biden has explicitly supported the passage of that bill, saying, “Put it on my desk, so I can sign it into law.”
We cannot be naive. Abortion activists and elected officials have coalesced into a formidable, unified force that is laser-focused on legalizing abortion on demand, up until birth, in every state in the nation and enshrined at the federal level.
This radical vision for America will become reality if pro-life elected officials do not similarly unify around a strong federal stance to protect human life. In the face of this aggressive assault on life at both the state and federal level, we simply do not have the luxury of abandoning the federal fight.
We must remember our ultimate goal of saving unborn children, protecting vulnerable women and ultimately making abortion unthinkable — and we will keep Marching for Life in the nation’s capital, at the doorstep of our federal policymakers — until we have achieved this goal.
Ignoring the need for federal protections of unborn life will do untold damage: in actual lives lost, in women who regret being involved in abortion and in our culture at large. Mother Teresa once famously said of our country and abortion laws, “America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation….Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign.”
The cultural stakes are high; the world is watching to see if our great country, land of the free and worldwide arbiter of human rights, will remove itself from the radical ranks of China and North Korea on abortion policy, and instead embrace a culture of life.
LifeNews Note: Jeanne Mancini is the president of the March for Life.
The post We Need a Law to Protect Babies From Abortion in Every State appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: AsiaNews.itOne million foreigners visited the country in the first quarter of 2024. Once a remote destination, it is now popular with eco-friendly travellers. But its weak currency and high debt push it ever closer to China and Thailand in exchange for a big slice of Mekong River hydroelectric power.
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Site: AsiaNews.itOne million foreigners visited the country in the first quarter of 2024. Once a remote destination, it is now popular with eco-friendly travellers. But its weak currency and high debt push it ever closer to China and Thailand in exchange for a big slice of Mekong River hydroelectric power.
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Site: Zero HedgeYen Carry Trade Ever More Exposed To Rising FX VolatilityTyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 11:35
Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,
Rising volatility in USD/JPY will make the yen carry trade less attractive. Dollar-yen is now more correlated with US 2-year yields compared to the 10 year, meaning FX volatility is likely to keep rising the closer the Federal Reserve gets to making its first change in rates.
It’s getting precarious for yen carry traders. Twice in recent days has Japan been suspected of intervening to strengthen the yen, with the latest occurring not long after Wednesday’s Fed meeting, where the FOMC pushed back against further rate hikes and tapered quantitative tightening more than expected.
The carry trade depends on rate differentials. Traders borrow the yen, swap it for dollars, i.e. buy USD/JPY, then use the proceeds to buy a US asset, such as T-bills or Treasuries. But that leaves them long USD/JPY and therefore exposed to falls. A big enough move in spot could wipe out the profit from the US versus Japanese rate spread.
That’s why the volatility of the currency matters to carry traders. If it is too high, then the trade becomes too risky. Which is one of the reasons, as Paul Dobson mentions, that the MOF likely prefers to intervene when market liquidity is low.
Adjusting the US-Japan real rate differential for USD/JPY volatility shows the measure is still high, but it is beginning to fall. The more vol rises, the more it will keep falling (other things equal).
Aside from the intentional introduction of vol premium from intervention, USD/JPY volatility is likely to pick up more the closer the Fed gets to making its next interest-rate move – which is more likely to be a cut if they shift rates this year.
The reason why is that USD/JPY is now more correlated to US 2-year yields than 10-year yields. Since the Fed started hiking in 2022, and the yield curve kept inverting with the 10-year UST’s yield falling versus the 2-year, the latter’s yield has been more correlated to USD/JPY.
Shorter-term yields are likely to get more volatile, which will feed into FX volatility and make the yen-dollar carry trade less attractive.
Still, carry is a moreish drug, and it’s unlikely to be enough to completely derail the trade. The endgame’s not likely to come until the Fed cuts rates – given the US Treasury’s swelling interest bill and the impact on market liquidity, the likelihood they do is increasing, despite rising inflation.
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Site: LifeNews
Our pro-life pregnancy ministries in New York are facing an existential threat at the hands of the Empire State’s pro-abortion Attorney General, Letitia James.
Last week, NY AG Letitia James blitzed at least a dozen pregnancy help organizations—like our clients Heartbeat International, CompassCare, and other pregnancy centers—with a “Notice of Intention to Sue,” threatening ruinous prosecution that could shut down every pregnancy center in New York.
Her threat letter falsely accuses New York’s life-affirming pro-life ministries of “repeated and persistent misleading statements and omissions” about Abortion Pill Reversal.
AG James gave our pro-life clients only 5 business days to respond to why the hammer shouldn’t be dropped on them for “false advertising.”
They face $5,000 in fines for every violation: that’s $5,000 for every time that Heartbeat and our brave centers take a phone call from a desperate pregnant woman trying to save her baby or say anything to the public about Abortion Pill Reversal.
We didn’t wait 5 days… We immediately jumped in to defend our pro-life ministries and their constitutional rights. We’ve just gone on the offensive and filed a hard-hitting lawsuit for an immediate injunction against Attorney General James.
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It’s unconscionable that Letitia James and the New York government protect abortionists and celebrate abortion on demand up until birth.
On behalf of Heartbeat, CompassCare, and a dozen pregnancy centers in total across the Empire State, we moved at rapid speed, launching a frontal assault to stop Letitia James in her tracks and block her threatened prosecution.
This latest threat could bankrupt New York’s pregnancy centers and shut down the pro-life movement’s efforts to help pregnant moms with counseling and assistance so they will choose life for their babies.
As you may remember, California Attorney General Rob Bonta came after Heartbeat and California pregnancy centers late last year, suing them to censor their right to help women save their babies through Abortion Pill Reversal, or “APR” for short…
We’re proudly defending Heartbeat in that case, to protect their right to help these pregnant mothers and their babies. Now, Letitia James is copying Bonta’s playbook wholesale and turning up the heat, by targeting Heartbeat and a swath of pregnancy centers.
Here’s the truth: APR works—Heartbeat has records of thousands of pregnancies saved and babies born because of APR.
If Letitia James succeeds, pregnant mothers who are in the middle of a chemical abortion—and immediately regret it—will have nowhere to turn. Our pro-life pregnancy centers would be censored from providing these mothers the urgent access to Abortion Pill Reversal that they need.
In these moments, every minute and every hour counts. If our pregnancy centers are not able to help these mothers, their precious babies will die.
The abortion lobby and their allies in government, like Letitia James, want to force pregnant mothers to complete dangerous chemical abortions they do not want—even if the abortion was started against these mothers’ will, by force or by trick. We’re going to court to make sure she doesn’t get her way.
Letitia James claims that offering Abortion Pill Reversal or sharing information about it is “misleading” and “false advertising.” But the truth is, she and her allies at Planned Parenthood are the ones actually deceiving women about the dangerous effects of the abortion pill—and misleading women about the real success of Abortion Pill Reversal…
Our lawsuit aims to combat her vindictive attack on all fronts. We will defend the right of our pregnancy help organizations to provide free, charitable, loving support to pregnant mothers and their babies.
Here are the facts:
- More than 5,000 women have had successful abortion pill reversals, and that number grows higher each day.
- The First Amendment protects the right of our non-profit pro-life ministries to help pregnant mothers—free of charge—and continue sharing critical information about Abortion Pill Reversal.
- Even the U.S. FDA concluded that the abortion pill “is antagonized by progesterone allowing for normal pregnancy and delivery.”
The facts speak for themselves. While we can’t guarantee a result, we are confident in our legal position and the quality of our ace Thomas More Society attorneys.
Letitia James’ assault on pregnancy centers would be a death knell for our pro-life ministries in New York.
Please pray for our brave pro-life ministry clients as we go into court to fight on their behalf and for our legal team on the frontlines of this battle.
LifeNews Note: Peter Breen is the Executive Vice President & Head of Litigation for the Thomas More Society.
The post New York AG Letitia James Declares Total War on Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: The Orthosphere
“But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.”
Matthew 21: 38-39.
One event only has made the Holy Land holy. It is an event that was in many ways odd. It was certainly quite unlike conventional notions of a holy and sanctifying event. Harps were absent; the air was most likely heavy and foul; diaphanous light was nowhere to be seen. It was, to be frank, a shabby event, on a grubby day, in a squalid place. And I am sorry to say that the conduct of every man who took part was disgraceful.
There may be other holy lands on other planets, reverenced by beings quite different than ourselves; but this is the Holy Land of men. They say everyone gets the face he deserves. I say all planets and beings get the holy land they deserve.
Ours, the holy land of mankind, is a shabby, squalid, grubby place of disgrace.
In Scripture, the word grace means favor, so when we read that Noah “found grace in the eyes of the Lord,” we are being told that Noah found favor. He became, not without reason, God’s favorite. In a proverb it is said of God, “Surely he scorneth the scorners but he giveth grace to the lowly,” and we are thereby supplied with the antonym of the word grace. That antonym is scorn.
We have another proverb from the playwright poet William Congreve, commonly rendered as “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Few men pass through life without seeing this confirmed, either intimately or at some short distance. The actual lines from Congreve are,
“Heaven has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.”The woman in question is raging and furious because she is no longer her former lover’s favorite. She has been scorned, has fallen out of favor, has been disgraced. In scripture disgrace likewise means withdrawal of God’s favor (see Jeremiah 14:21).
What Congreve tells us, and all experience confirms, is that the withdrawal of favor very often makes the former favorite insane. It sometimes causes the former favorite to seek the reasons he or she fell from favor, and to try to reform. But since men and women are, for the most part, narcissistic and vainglorious beings, this does not happen very often.
It certainly did not happen when God’s favor was withdrawn in our Holy Land.
Many Christians are in the habit of chanting that the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world, but I daresay very few consider that he first took away what had been the world’s grace. God’s former favorites fell out of favor, and much of their conduct ever since, like that of Congreve’s jilted woman, has been predictably disgraceful.
Rage, hate and fury; fury, hate and rage. At God, and more especially at God’s new favorite. There is, it appears, no jealousy so deathless as the jealousy of men who no longer find grace in the eyes of God.
All of this was, of course, foretold in a parable that is hot, strangely enough, a homiletic favorite. This is sometimes called, “The Parable of the Householder Demanding Fruit from His Vineyard.” In the parable said householder plants and trims an excellent vineyard, and then graciously lets it to some favored husbandmen (i.e. caretakers). The householder thereupon travels to a far country. After a time, the householder sends servants to receive the fruits of his vineyard, and these servants the favored husbandmen stone and kill. At last, the householder sends his son, thinking that even the most obstreperous husbandmen will respect his flesh and blood. But he is mistaken, as the line in my epigraph relate.
The householder therefore withdraws his favor from the obstreperous and homicidal husbandmen. In modern terms, the former favorites are fired, sacked, given the boot. Because the householder’s former favorites rendered no fruit and murdered his son, they no longer find grace in his eyes. They are now and forever disgraced.
Thus, when Jesus asked his disciples what the householder would do to his former favorites, they correctly answer.
“He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.”
This parable of course foretells the disgrace of the Jews, the termination of their days of employment as God’s favorites. As Jews (not as individual human beings), they are scorned from that day hence (their former status having been been “miserably destroyed”), and this withdrawal of God’s favor has, predictably, made made many of these former favorites insane.
I have said that our Holy Land is a place of disgrace. No doubt many of you are itching to remind me that it is a place of grace also. This is true, but that is not something of which Christians needs to be reminded. Christians remembers without bidding that Christ rose from the dead. Christians must be reminded that, before that glorious advent of grace, “the veil of the temple was rent in twain.”
“From the top to the bottom,” in case there is any doubt.
Our Holy Land must a place of disgrace because we are narcissistic and vainglorious beings who must be reminded that God has no fixed favorites. He does not love us for what we are, but for what we do. He could snap the Cross in two, just as he rent the veil of the temple in twain. Disgrace may come to any man, any tribe, any church.
Jesus loves me, but I know,
It may not always be thus so,
Serve him well, he has your back,
Otherwise you get the sack.Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
But he can let me go! -
Site: Novus Motus LiturgicusI am very saddened to report (via the Facebook page of the Oxford Oratory) that the great Fr John Hunwicke died on Tuesday, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. As many of our readers know, he was a priest of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham; his blog, Fr Hunwicke’s Mutual Enrichment, was an incomparably valuable repository of wisdom, wit and erudition, and we have very often Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0
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Site: LifeNews
South Dakota could be the next state to vote on an amendment that would make killing babies in abortions a supposed state constitutional “right” up to birth.
Yesterday, the sponsoring group filed a petition with 55,000 signatures to place the radical pro-abortion amendment on the November ballot. Abortion activist Rick Weiland presented the petition at a press conference at the Downtown Library in Sioux Falls on Wednesday.
The Life Defense Fund, a pro-life group, announced it will challenge the legitimacy of the abortion amendment and say there is a lack of transparency in the petition signatures. The pro-life group confirms it gathered evidence that circulators failed to distribute the required circulator handout information to petition signers and encouraged signing the petition twice.
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Jon Hansen, Co-Chair of the Life Defense Fund says one of the things they’ve observed is people asking to sign the petition to repeal the sales tax on food, who were given the abortion petition instead.
The post South Dakota Amendment Would Make Killing Babies in Abortions a “Right” Up to Birth appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: LifeNews
A trio of pro-life congressmen, led by Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-OK, penned a letter to the Biden administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week, demanding accountability for the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) industry’s destruction of human lives.
In the Tuesday letter to CDC Director Mandy Cohen, Brecheen was joined by Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-MT, and Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-GA. Rosendale is Catholic.
CatholicVote is among the pro-life groups in support of the letter.
“Our nation’s birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence, clearly recognizes the government’s role in securing the natural right to life,” the congressmen wrote.
“In spite of this, the IVF industry has long operated under the radar of lawmakers in the United States,” they continued.
The three lawmakers noted that “other Western countries prohibit clinics from practicing eugenics or carelessly destroying human life.” However, “the U.S. does not even require clinics to be transparent about their participation in these activities.”
“This carelessness has earned the U.S. the title of the ‘Wild West’ of assisted reproductive technology,” Brecheen and his two colleagues added.
They specified:
[IVF] Clinics are not required to disclose the total number of embryos they create, how many they store indefinitely, or how many they destroy and for what reasons. Shockingly, clinics are not even required to disclose statistics on their application of genetic screening, which more than 70% of fertility clinics utilize for sex-selection.
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“Congress cannot allow clinics to continue concealing these activities, which carry significant moral and ethical implications, from the public,” emphasized the trio of Republicans.
Later in their letter, the congressmen asked the CDC if the agency “is aware of” the number of embryos “created in total each year through the process of IVF?”
They also asked for the number of embryos destroyed each year, as well as the number of embryos “currently in storage,” and “[t]he average length of time an embryo created through IVF is kept in storage.”
Furthermore, the lawmakers asked for the number of embryos subject to genetic screening – and the number of embryos destroyed after such screening.
“Does the CDC maintain any moral or ethical concerns regarding the use of genetic
screening to select embryos based on genetic abnormalities, sex, or physical attributes?” Brecheen, Rosendale, and Clyde went on to ask:
Does the CDC maintain any moral or ethical concerns regarding the intentional creation and destruction of excess embryos during the process of IVF?
Does the CDC maintain any moral or ethical concerns regarding the indefinite storage of embryos created through IVF?
The CDC is an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS is led by Secretary Xavier Becerra, a self-professed Catholic who supports abortion and the LGBTQ movement.
Co-signer Rosendale stated in a Tuesday press release: “Human life should be respected as a miracle from our Creator, not treated as a fully customizable luxury vehicle.”
“Just because society can, does not mean it should alter the genetics of the Lord’s already perfect work,” added the Catholic congressman. “We should be working towards the protection of every human life, not finding more ways to toss away human embryos like they are undesirable parts.”
The Daily Signal’s Mary Margaret Olohan noted that the congressmen’s letter “comes as Republicans grapple with both messaging and legislating on IVF … given the expendable way in which human embryos are often treated.”
Olohan continued:
Following the Alabama Supreme Court ruling in favor of protecting embryonic human life, Republicans on Capitol Hill have suddenly found themselves being asked to state their position on IVF, a nuanced subject matter tied closely to the dignity of the human person and the fight for life.
LifeNews Note: Joshua Mercer writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
The post Pro-Life Members of Congress Say Human Beings Killed in IVF Need Protected Too appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Zero HedgeUS Factory Orders Rise In March... But February Saw Yet Another Downward RevisionTyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 10:11
The roller-coaster ride of US durable goods and factory orders continued in March (final data just released) as the flip-flopping data series
Having plunged by the most since COVID lockdowns in January, US factory orders continued to accelerate in March, +1.6% MoM (as expected) - but February was revised lower... again. This pushed the YoY factory orders up 1.7% (nominal)...
Source: Bloomberg
This is the 17th monthly downward revision in the last 22 months... come on!!!
Source: Bloomberg
Core Factory Orders also rose MoM (+0.5% vs +0.2% exp)...
Source: Bloomberg
The final durable goods orders data prints for March were in line with the preliminary data but more problematically - Capital Goods Shipments Non-Defense Ex-Air was flat MoM, downwardly revised from the initial print...
Source: Bloomberg
...strongly suggesting the capex cycle is stalling.
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Site: Steyn OnlineGreetings, shalom one and all and welcome to the POST PASSOVER edition of Laura's Links. I thought kvetching about the cleaning and Passover prep would get the kvetching out of my system but no, I still would like to complain a little bit about being
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Site: Steyn OnlineProgramming note: As part of the Mark Steyn Club seventh birthday observances, I'll be launching a new weekly show on Serenade Radio this Saturday at 5pm UK time/12 noon North American Eastern. I hope you'll join us. We continue to receive very generous
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Site: LifeNews
The Biden administration is under fire for selectively prosecuting pro-life advocates who protested abortion inside abortion centers while ignoring hundreds of pro-abortion attacks on churches, pro-life groups and pregnancy centers.
Heather Idoni is one of the dozen pro-life advocates who have been charged or convicted of violating the bogus FACE law that denies free speech rights to pro-life Americans. As LifeNews reported, the pro-life advocates have been found guilty of violating a federal law protecting abortion centers and now face the possibility of 11 years in prison.
That political persecution is bad enough, but recent reports indicated Idoni was placed in solitary confinement for 22 days for sharing food with fellow prisoners. https://www.lifenews.com/2024/04/29/pro-life-advocate-placed-in-solitary-confinement-for-22-days-for-sharing-food/
Now, a new report indicates Idoni has suffered a stroke as a result of the cruel and unusual punishment.
Idoni was reportedly “rushed to the hospital this week after suffering a stroke while being held at Northern Neck Regional Jail in Virginia. She is reportedly stabilized and will be taken back into custody to await sentencing on May 17.”
LifeNews is on TruthSocial. Please follow us here.
“In an exclusive interview, she said that she received this punishment for sharing food with fellow prisoners. Idoni alleged that she was allowed to walk outside her cell only for two hours in the middle of the night each day and that the lights of her cell were continually kept on. Idoni has been in prison since she was convicted last autumn,” the report says.
Idoni’s attorney says the federal prison should be following international human rights standards for the humane treatment of prisoners and there is concern tat those standards are being abrogated in her case.
Idoni has been treated shoddily while in prison and was shackled like a death row inmate during a court appearance – and was subjected to 22 days of solitary confinement for sharing food with other prisoners.
In an exclusive interview, she said that she received this punishment for sharing food with fellow prisoners. Idoni alleged that she was allowed to walk outside her cell only for two hours in the middle of the night for two hours each day and that the lights of her cell were continually kept on. Idoni has been in prison since she was convicted last autumn.
Fellow pro-life advocate Cal Zastro, who joined Idoni in another traditional pro-life rescue in Tennessee and has also been convicted of violation of the FACE Act, told LifeSiteNews that when Idoni was brought into the courtroom for a trial in Nashville, the U.S. marshal had the middle-aged woman shackled at the wrists, waist, and feet, as if she were a dangerous criminal.
Zastro said that, upon entering the courtroom, the shocked judge ordered the shackles removed. Initially the marshal agreed to remove the shackles from only one wrist to allow Idoni freedom to write, a concession necessary for her to take notes, as she was then representing herself in court. Only at the insistence of the indignant judge were the shackles of both wrists finally removed, although the marshal left the bars around her waist and feet.
According to the report, Idoni is relying on her faith in God saying that, despite the prison hardship “God is going to be glorified” and she has “never not felt His presence.”
Idoni and the other pro-life advocates are appealing the bogus convictions.
The post Pro-Life Advocate Suffers Stroke After She’s Placed in Solitary Confinement for 22 Days appeared first on LifeNews.com.
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Site: Ron Paul Institute - Featured Articles
American universities are besieged by students protesting their schools’ investments in U.S. suppliers of weaponry to the Israeli government, which Israeli officials are using to carry out their military campaign in Gaza. Some universities are now calling in riot police to break up the protests as well as suspending or expelling the protestors. Some university officials and their supporters in the mainstream press are accusing the protestors of being antisemitic.
The accusation of being antisemitism from supporters of the Israeli government is a longstanding one. The supporters are saying that when one opposes the polices and practices of the Israeli government — or the Israeli state itself — that shows that one is antisemitic — that is, that one not only opposes the Israeli government but also that he hates Jews in general. That response has always been a very successful strategical way to suppress dissent against the Israeli government. Since many people do not wish to be perceived as antisemitic, they decide to keep their criticisms of the Israeli government to themselves rather than being labeled as antisemitic.
However, in conflating the Israeli government with Judaism, the proponents of the Israeli government end up actually encouraging antisemitism. That’s because critics of the Israeli government who don’t know much about Judaism are induced to believe that the Israeli government and the Jewish faith are one and the same thing. Therefore, if one concludes that the Israeli state is doing something immoral or bad, the notion is that the immoral and bad act is also part of the Jewish religion. Therefore, conflating the Israeli state and the Jewish religion as a strategic device to suppress dissent against the Israeli government actually serves to encourage the very antisemitism that defenders of the Israeli government lament.
During the child-abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, there were people who criticized the Vatican for what they perceived was indifference to child abuse on the part of the Catholic state. As far as I know, the Vatican never made it a policy to respond to the criticisms by accusing critics of being anti-Catholic. Such being the case, people were able to discern that while indifference to child abuse might well have been part of the Catholic state, it was not part of the Catholic religion. Thus, people could separate out the two concepts by criticizing the Vatican while not being perceived as being anti-Catholic.
Let’s assume, however, that the Vatican or its supporters had responded in the same way that defenders of the Israeli state respond. Let’s assume that they said that the criticisms of the Vatican reflected the religious prejudice of the critics. That is, the defenders of the Vatican would be saying that if you criticize the Vatican, it shows that you are prejudiced against Catholics. In that case, one could easily imagine people who didn’t know much about Catholicism would conclude that Catholicism and the Vatican were one and the same thing. Therefore, given that they opposed what they perceived to be the Vatican’s indifference to child abuse, the conflation of the Vatican and Catholicism would encourage them to oppose Catholicism as much as they opposed the Vatican.
Therefore, to diminish antisemitism, the defenders of the Israeli government would be wise to discard their strategy of conflating the Israeli state and the Jewish faith as a way to suppress dissent against the Israeli state. They should instead be emphasizing that the Israeli state and the Jewish religion are two separate and distinct things and that the policies and practices of the Israeli state are not necessarily the tenets of the Jewish religion. In that way, students and others would feel free to criticize the Israeli state while, at the same time, support and embrace the Jewish religion.
Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.
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Site: Zero Hedge'Unity': Pro-Israel And Pro-Palestine Supporters Chant "F**k Joe Biden" In Solidarity As Democrats In 'Panic Mode'Tyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 09:35
How it started:
How it's going:
Biden finally managed to unify the country https://t.co/Oppf7ssAXn
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 2, 2024In early March, President Biden and the Democrats called for the "Unity of all Americans."
Fast forward to the Marxist revolution spreading like stage four cancer at the nation's colleges and universities, anti-Israel and counter-protesters found common ground, or perhaps a glimpse of solidarity, when both sides were heard chanting "F**K Joe Biden" this week at the University of Alabama.
"It finally happened. Joe managed to get both sides of the protest to hate him for different reasons," X user Alex The Ghost wrote.
It finally happened. Joe managed to get both sides of the protest to hate him for different reasons @ShamashAran @ClairNova4k @Carlkeck1 @DefiantlyFree @Piper010100 @Katie_likes_it @ImissPresTrump @CreativeVerveM
— Alex The Ghost (@GhostOfAlex1) May 2, 2024Others on X agreed...
See, he really did unify the country.
— Jason Lambeth (@JLambo79) May 1, 2024Finally!
— flyby (@Barbara88625178) May 1, 2024
America agrees on one thing!He’s finally found a way to unite the country after 3.5 years. Bravo. pic.twitter.com/t3L9weU4c7
— Shooting News Weekly (@SN_Weekly_) May 1, 2024Finally something we can all agree on. Thanks Joe.
— Bernard (@BBD100) May 2, 2024The president and the radical left are walking a very fine line between supporting the Marxist kids at schools and their right to protest while simultaneously denouncing antisemitism. The surge in criticism from both the left and the right of the elderly president's Israel policy risks the unity of both sides in their hatred of the president.
Meanwhile, Axios reports Democrats are in full-blown' panic mode' behind the scenes as campus takeovers by extremists of their own party produce terrible optics ahead of the presidential election in November.
"The longer they continue, and the worse that they get, the worse it's going to be for the election overall," one House Democrat said.
The House Democrat warned that school chaos will only "bring out [the public's] most conservative side."
What's clear is that campus protesters are becoming a political liability for Biden and Democrats.
Republicans are now seizing on the opportunity from New York to California to inform voters that under this administration, the destruction and chaos of America continues. Add this chaos to the long list of failures by the Biden administration, including the migrant invasion, worsening drug overdose crisis, violent crime proliferating across metro areas, disastrous foreign policy moves in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, risking World War III, and, of course, the failure of Bidenomics that has ignited stagflation, crushing America's middle class.
"[Democrats] were trying to make a big deal out of these Trump trials, but they've taken a back seat" to the protests, John Feehery, a Republican strategist and former congressional aide, told Financial Times.
This week, the White House has been awfully silent on the campus takeover crisis.
"When will the president himself, not his mouthpieces, condemn these hate-filled little Gazas?" Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, told reporters on Wednesday.
"President Biden needs to denounce Hamas' campus sympathizers without equivocating about Israelis fighting a righteous war of survival," Cotton added.
A recent poll showed that 81 percent of voters aged 18 to 35 disapprove of Biden’s handling of the conflict in the Middle East.
Michael Moore, who correctly predicted Trump’s victory in 2016, even issued a plea to Biden urging him to accomplish a ceasefire or face defeat.
“We’re going to lose the election. We’re going to lose Michigan if we don’t turn this around. If President Biden doesn’t turn this around, that is going to do more to put Trump back in the White House. And I refuse to have Donald Trump back in the White House,” said Moore.
To sum up, the Democrats are in serious trouble if anti-Israel protesters and counter-protesters begin to march in solidarity around their hatred of Biden.
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Site: Ron Paul Institute - Featured Articles
Last week, Congress voted to send $95 billion in additional aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
The largest portion was to Ukraine – $61 billion – after the Congress had previously approved $114 billion, for a total of $175 billion.
The total GDP of Ukraine in 2022 was $160.5 billion. In other words, we basically could have bought the whole country for less than we have sent them.
Of course, most of this money was approved due to the tremendous lobbying effort made and the big campaign contributions given by the giant defense contractors.
For many years now, as Eisenhower warned, almost all of our wars have been more about money and power than about any real threats to this country.
All giant bureaucracies, when it comes to money, just want more, more and more. And most members of Congress don’t seem to realize, or more likely don’t seem to care, that we are spending money we do not have.
It is almost impossible to humanly comprehend our $35 trillion national debt. And take a moment and try to comprehend how much this latest $95 billion foreign aid bill is.
One billion dollars could make 1,000 Americans millionaires immediately. One billion hours is equal to 114,000 years.
This latest $95 billion is equal to over $260 million each and every day.
The largest recipient, Ukraine, in addition to our $175 billion, has received over $53 billion from the countries of the European Union and at least $42 billion from the World Bank (and 17.5% of World Bank funds come from U.S. taxpayers).
As I pointed out in my March 4th column, Ukraine actually has had more money to fight this latest war than Russia has.
As of 2023, the total GDP of the U.S was $26.9 trillion. Russia’s GDP of $2.1 trillion is actually much smaller than California’s GDP and about equal to that of Texas.
Just prior to this war with Russia, Ukraine’s government was rated as one of the most corrupt in the world. We would probably be sickened if we could ever really find out how much of this aid has been or will be wasted or stolen.
And as for giving billions in additional aid to Israel and Taiwan, I would ask – why? Both countries are much stronger per capita and in relation to GDP than the U.S. with our humongous debt.
The votes in the House were 311 to 112 on the Ukraine aid; 366 to 58 on aid to Israel; and 385 to 34 on the aid to Taiwan.
On the aid to Ukraine, a majority of Republicans (112) voted no, with all the Democrats voting yes. The Democrats in Congress don’t hesitate to spend money on almost everything.
Only two Tennessee Republicans – David Kustoff of Memphis and Chuck Fleischmann of Chattanooga – voted to send more billions down the Ukrainian rathole. Both Tennessee senators voted against the final bill.
The Congressional Budget Office says interest payments on our national debt will total $870 billion this year and $951 billion next year.
The top one percent already pay almost half of U.S. income taxes. Increases in corporate taxes will be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices for everything.
Thus, most of the increased spending this Congress is doing, in foreign aid and everything else, and in Biden’s shameless campaign of forgiving student loans, will be paid for by printing more money and by even more federal borrowing.
Germany, in the 1920s, was probably the most educated country in the world. Yet, read this from the biography of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
“For Germany, 1923 was disastrous. The German mark, which had begun to slide two years earlier, went into free fall. In 1921 it dropped to 75 marks to the dollar; the next year to 400; and by early 1923 it plunged to 4,000. But this was only the beginning of sorrows…. The resultant economic turmoil would make the bleak conditions of a few months earlier look like the good old days: by August a dollar was worth one million marks; and by September, August seemed like the good old days. By November 1923 a dollar was worth about four billion German marks.”
In the last 12 months, people from 150 countries have flooded to the U.S. because their governments have adopted socialist policies that have destroyed their economies.
Reprinted with author’s permission from The Knoxville Focus.
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Site: Ron Paul Institute - Featured Articles
When James Madison was a member of Congress in 1791 and charged with drafting the Bill of Rights, he made two grammatical demands. One was that the word “the” precede “freedom of speech” in the First Amendment, and the other was a command in the Ninth Amendment that the “rights retained by the people,” rights too numerous to enumerate, “shall not be disparaged” by the government.
This principle — that our rights preexisted the government — would be played out over and over in litigation in the centuries following the ratification of the Bill of Rights. The ratification itself was insisted upon by five of the new states who threatened to leave the new union unless restraints were added to the Constitution so as to protect the individual liberties that the Declaration of Independence — then only 15 years old — stated unambiguously were granted by the Creator.
Though the colonists deeply valued all the rights articulated in the Declaration, truly it was the freedom of speech that drove the revolution. Yes, the Americans had Kentucky long guns that enabled the colonial militias to shoot and kill British forces from distances that the British weaponry was unable to reach. Yes, the Americans were animated by defending their homeland.
But it was speech — sung in taverns, written in broadsides, delivered in sermons, distributed in pamphlets, adopted by the Continental Congress and colonial legislatures, and proclaimed in town squares from Boston to Charleston — that whipped the brushfires of freedom into a revolution and a new nation.
I offer this brief historical, philosophical and legal analysis of the freedom of speech as background for the discussion that follows.
Today, this most basic and utterly essential freedom — both a natural human right and a constitutionally protected right — is under assault by governments that hate or fear the content of the speech. I am addressing the demonstrations on college campuses today and the authoritarian responses to them by college presidents, governors and mayors.
Here is the dispute in a nutshell.
Students at various universities are repulsed by the gravity of the assault on Gaza by the IDF. They have chosen to address this assault and not the assault on Israeli civilians and military on Oct. 7. They are free to address whichever assault they choose.
They have also chosen to articulate their views by occupying public places on campuses; shouting, singing and haranguing college administrators. The administrators, fearing a loss of donations from those who disagree with the students or harm to other students who challenge the demonstrators, have engaged local and state police to suppress these demonstrations.
Can the government interfere with speech because of its content? In a word: NO.
How about on private property where campuses are not owned by the government? That depends on the location of the campus, as most states — but not all — have public accommodation laws that make college campuses public places available for the articulation of ideas. Even the colleges in states without these laws that accept federal funds do so in contracts with the federal government, which require that they respect free speech rights.
These public accommodation laws and these agreements with the feds are violative of the property rights of the owners of these colleges. Yet, like free speech, property rights, too, are under attack in America today. Nevertheless, today it is clear beyond dispute that college campuses are places for the free exchange of ideas, whether these ideas are approved by the owners of the campuses or not.
Is speech that preaches hate and threatens violence protected on college campuses? In a word: YES.
In Terminiello v. Chicago (1949), a Roman Catholic priest aimed hatred at President Harry Truman and the hate speech produced violence and property damage. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), a Ku Klux Klan leader aimed hatred at Blacks and Jews. In Terminiello, the violence was caused by the audience members who hated the speech they came to scorn. In Brandenburg, the KKK speaker demanded violence, but it never came about.
The Supreme Court sided with both speakers. The jurisprudence from both cases is now integral to American law. It teaches that all innocuous speech is absolutely protected and all speech is innocuous when there is time for more speech to challenge it.
Moreover, the court ruled, freedom of speech is so essential to human happiness and democratic values that it tolerates violence; meaning, those who cause violence can and should be addressed by the criminal justice system, but those who preach it are immune from prosecution, unless they cause an immediate, unthinking violent act — meaning there is no time for more speech to challenge the call for violence.
In the case of college campuses, the violence has been caused by the government. Whether the property on which the demonstrators stand is owned by the government — like the University of Texas, where the governor sent in police on horseback to rough up peaceful demonstrators — or is privately owned like Columbia University, where the mayor sent in police to arrest peaceful students, is of no moment.
No moment because the students have an absolute right to think as they wish, to say what they think, to read what they want, to publish what they believe; and they can do this alone or in groups, quietly or profoundly — and they can do this with impunity. Anything short of leaving them alone involves the governmental evaluation of the content of speech, the very acts that the First Amendment was written to prevent.
Today, the government wants war, and the students want peace. In the bitter days of the 1960s, student demonstrators chased an incumbent president from reelection and chastised a newly elected one into a policy change over war. Today, the government seems determined to use force to prevent change and suppress freedom. If the British had done this successfully in the 1770s, we’d all be bowing to Charles III today.
To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
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Site: AsiaNews.itOn the occasion of a recent international meeting in Rome with 300 priests from every continent, Francis addresses a letter to all parish priests, urging them to 'Experience the joy of being true fathers, who do not dominate others but rather bring out' their 'precious possibilities'.
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Site: LifeNews
MPs will be given the opportunity to vote on lowering the abortion time limit in an historic vote that will take place on Wednesday 15 May.
This morning, the Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt MP, announced that Report Stage of the Criminal Justice Bill will take place on Wednesday 15th May.
A cross-party group of over 40 MPs have signed a landmark amendment to the Government’s flagship Criminal Justice Bill ahead of Report Stage that would lower the abortion time limit from 24 to 22 weeks in line with advances in medical science.
The group of MPs led by Caroline Ansell includes former health minister Maggie Throup, ex-shadow cabinet Labour minister MP Rachael Maskell, ex-shadow Labour minister Marie Rimmer, ex-Cabinet Minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Miriam Cates.
Parents of children who were born at 22 and 23 weeks gestation along with a large group of MPs delivered a petition, signed by 102,573 people, to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street calling for a reduction to the abortion time limit.
Follow LifeNews.com on Instagram for pro-life pictures and videos.
Over 750 medical professionals have also called on MPs to back the amendment to the Government’s Criminal Justice Bill, in what would be the biggest change to abortion law for a generation.
A 24-week abortion limit is now beyond the point when many babies survive, double that of the most common time limit among European Union countries and represents a contradiction at the heart of our abortion law.
Originally set at 28 weeks, the abortion limit was lowered in 1990 to 24 weeks gestation. Improved survival rates for extremely premature babies between 24 and 28 weeks was one of the key considerations that motivated this change.
By the same logic, and informed by the improved survival rates for babies born at 22 and 23 weeks gestation, MPs are now calling for the abortion time limit to be updated.
In the decade to 2019 alone, the survival rate for extremely premature babies born at 23 weeks doubled, prompting new guidance from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM) that enables doctors to intervene to save premature babies from 22 weeks gestation.
Research published in November 2023 by academics at the University of Leicester and Imperial College London indicates that a significant number of babies born at 22 and 23 weeks gestation can now survive outside the womb. According to this research, there were a total of 261 babies born alive at 22 and 23 weeks, before the abortion limit, who survived to discharge from hospital in 2020 and 2021.
This is compared to the Government abortion statistics, which show that in 2021 alone, 755 abortions were performed under Section 1(1)(a) of the Abortion Act when the baby was at 22 or 23 weeks gestation (the vast majority of abortions are permitted under Section 1(1)(a) of the Abortion Act, for which there is currently a 24-week time limit).
This leaves a real contradiction in British law. In one room of a hospital, doctors could be working to save a baby born alive at 23 weeks whilst, in another room of that same hospital, a doctor could perform an abortion that would end the life of a baby at the same age.
Our 24-week time limit is also out of step with the majority of European Union countries, where the most common time limit for abortion on demand or on broad social grounds is 12 weeks.
Countries with 12-week limits for abortion on demand or on broad social grounds include Germany, Italy and Belgium as well as the more “liberal” Nordic countries Denmark and Finland. Even Sweden has a time limit for abortion on demand or on broad social grounds that is much lower than the United Kingdom at 18 weeks.
Lowering the abortion time limit is supported by a large majority of the British public. Polling undertaken by Savanta ComRes shows that 60% of the general population and 70% of women support a reduction in the time limit to 20 weeks or below.
Caroline Ansell MP, who is leading the group of over 40 MPs who have tabled the amendment, said:
“The increase in survival rates for babies born at 22 and 23 weeks gestation is one of medical science’s great success stories in recent years. More and more babies born at these ages are able to survive thanks to the hard work of neonatal teams”.
“As in 1990, when our laws were last changed to reflect similar increases in survival rates, it is time our abortion time limit was updated. Our current time limit is an outlier compared with our European neighbours and my hope is this amendment will command widespread support across the House”.
Mischa from Surrey, mum to Amaya, who was born at 23 weeks and five days said:
“Our beautiful Amaya was born at 23 weeks and 5 days. She’ll be turning 3 years old in the summer and has come such a long way. She’s the most expressive baby and it is so fun to see what silly face she may pull next, always showing her emotions!”
“She is such a waterbaby and adores her swimming lessons. I’ll never forget bringing her home for the first time and as I opened the ambulance door, the whole family was there cheering and clapping to welcome home my baby. She has brought so much light to so many lives”.
“It’s not easy to raise our premature baby. Every day was a fight; she has been fighting so hard. But we wouldn’t change it for the world. My little one was born at 23 weeks – why does she get to live while a 24-week baby in the womb could still be aborted?”
“The UK abortion law is out of date with medical science – my daughter is living proof of that. She’s a baby, just like others in the womb at 22 or 23 weeks. We hope to see this law changed to bring it in line with modern science so babies in the womb, the same age as my little fighter when she was born, are treated the same”.
Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said:
“The UK abortion time limit is double the average among EU countries, which is 12 weeks gestation, a point in pregnancy when the NHS website describes the unborn baby as ‘fully formed’”.
“At the moment, a baby at 22 or 23 weeks gestation could be born prematurely and have a dedicated medical team provide expert care to try to save his or her life, while another baby at the same age could have their life deliberately ended by abortion in the same hospital at the same time. This is a contradiction in UK law”.
“Polling demonstrates widespread public support for a time limit reduction, with support for this reduction strongest among women”.
The post British Parliament Will Vote on Measure to Save Babies From Abortions appeared first on LifeNews.com.
(Freepik/Shutterstock)
President Joe Biden, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol last year, via Reuters.
President Donald Trump (L) takes the oath of office as his wife Melania Trump (C) holds the bible and his son Barron Trump (R) looks on, on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol, on January 20, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Source: Bloomberg
Image source: Reuters
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