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Apparently the new ChatGPT model is obsessed with the immaculate conception of Mary. There’s a whole team inside OpenAI frantically trying to figure out why and a huge deployment effort to stop it from talking about it in prod. Nobody understands why and it’s getting more intense

— Daniel (@growing_daniel) April 20, 2025

The post New ChatGPT model allegedly obsessed with the immaculate conception of Mary appeared first on LewRockwell.

Bergoglio’s Legacy: Pope Francis Appointed 109 of the 135 Cardinal Electors for the Next Pope

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 16:41

Thanks, John Frahm.

The Gateway Pundit

The post Bergoglio’s Legacy: Pope Francis Appointed 109 of the 135 Cardinal Electors for the Next Pope appeared first on LewRockwell.

Guerra commerciale: i dazi servono per sconfiggere il globalismo

Freedonia - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 10:03

Mentre i globalisti e la stampa generalista reagiscono ai dazi americani con la consueta isteria, i produttori americani hanno reagito con sollievo. Sotto la mentalità “America Last” di Joe Biden e Kamala Harris, i Paesi esteri erano liberi di sfruttare le scappatoie della Sezione 232 per inondare l'industria nazionale dell'alluminio e dell'acciaio con prodotti a basso costo. Canada, Messico e Australia si sono alleati con lo Stato profondo per ottenere esclusioni ed esenzioni, a scapito dei lavoratori americani. Le esportazioni di alluminio dall'Australia verso gli Stati Uniti sono aumentate drasticamente e, allo stesso tempo, Cina e Russia hanno sfruttato scappatoie per far passare l'alluminio attraverso Messico e Canada e inondare il mercato americano. A seguito di ciò Alcoa ha annunciato la chiusura definitiva della sua fonderia nello stato di Washington. Tra le altre chiusure figurano lo stabilimento Century Aluminum in Kentucky, che ha interrotto la produzione nel 2022, e Magnitude 7 Metals in Missouri, costretta a chiudere nel 2024. Molti globalisti sostengono che i dazi sull'alluminio aumenteranno i costi per i consumatori. Si tratta della stessa argomentazione che abbiamo sentito durante la prima amministrazione Trump; non era vera allora e non lo è nemmeno oggi. I dazi non hanno avuto alcun impatto sulla quantità di acciaio o alluminio consumata, non hanno indebolito l'economia e non hanno causato ingenti perdite di posti di lavoro. Al contrario l'utilizzo della capacità produttiva per l'alluminio è aumentato durante il primo mandato Trump e ora sono stati annunciati importanti investimenti nell'industria siderurgica. Mentre alcune aziende attaccano i dazi, altre dicono ai loro investitori che “se tutti i Paesi dovessero ricevere un dazio, l'impatto per noi sarebbe nullo”. E mentre alcuni globalisti proprietari di fonderie di alluminio in Canada attaccano i dazi al 25%, la realtà è che Trump è stato eletto per riportare posti di lavoro ben retribuiti nel settore manifatturiero negli USA, e questo è un impegno che intende mantenere come sottoprodotto alla guerra contro la cricca di Davos. Come ha ripetuto più volte, l'America ha smesso di sovvenzionare il Canada e il resto del mondo. Il cuore di tutta questa storia, comunque, è che la produzione di alluminio e acciaio è fondamentale per la base industriale della difesa americana e la continua dipendenza dai fornitori stranieri ha reso vulnerabili gli americani in un modo a dir poco imbarazzante.

____________________________________________________________________________________

di Brandon Smith

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/guerra-commerciale-i-dazi-servono)

Fin dai tempi di Herbert Hoover e dall'inizio ufficiale della Grande Depressione, il concetto di dazi è stato demonizzato da gran parte del mondo accademico e dalla maggior parte delle ideologie economiche moderne. È in realtà un ambito in cui globalisti ed economisti di libero mercato tendono ad allinearsi (sebbene ogni gruppo abbia motivazioni molto diverse).

I sostenitori della filosofia di libero mercato di Adam Smith o Ludwig Von Mises e la sua Scuola Austriaca hanno le stesse probabilità di opporsi ai piani di Donald Trump di qualsiasi altro globalista presente nelle aule di Davos.

Innanzitutto dobbiamo chiarire cosa sono i dazi: sono tasse sulle imprese internazionali che importano beni da altre nazioni. Queste tasse sono concepite per costringere le imprese a importare da Paesi al di fuori dell'elenco sanzionato o a produrre beni a livello nazionale. I bersagli principali dei dazi sono in realtà le imprese; i bersagli secondari sono i Paesi inclusi nell'elenco dai dazi.

Gli economisti Austriaci, opponendosi ai dazi, partono dal presupposto che le grandi aziende siano entità di “libero mercato”. Presumono anche che la globalizzazione sia un prodotto del libero mercato.

Adam Smith potrebbe aver assistito alla corruzione del mercantilismo, ma non aveva idea della mostruosità del globalismo moderno e di come avrebbe finito per pervertire l'ideale del libero mercato. Lo stesso vale per Mises. Il loro sostegno al commercio globale era condizionato dall'idea che l'interferenza dello stato fosse sempre la radice dei problemi.

Non hanno tenuto conto della sfumatura dei confini tra aziende, stati e ONG, del governo ombra delle multinazionali di Davos e della manipolazione dei mercati in nome del “libero scambio”. Non avrebbero nemmeno potuto immaginare la creazione di organizzazioni come l'FMI, la Banca Mondiale, la BRI, ecc., all'epoca in cui elaborarono le loro teorie economiche.

Dopo la conferenza di Bretton Woods, Mises avrebbe continuato a mettere in discussione le motivazioni del nuovo “ordine globale” e degli accordi commerciali in vigore. Si sarebbe anche opposto ad alcuni aspetti del globalismo prima della sua morte, lasciando gli Austriaci a dibattere sui meriti del “globalismo buono” e del “globalismo cattivo”.

La realtà è che non esiste un “globalismo buono”. Non esiste perché le entità che dettano il commercio globale colludono invece di competere. Non sono realmente interessate al libero mercato, sono interessate al monopolio globale. E le multinazionali sono la chiave di questo monopolio.

Adam Smith criticò l'idea di “società per azioni” (corporation), ma molti Austriaci e anarco-capitalisti difendono le società internazionali come se fossero un'evoluzione del progresso del libero mercato. Non è così. Le multinazionali (e le banche centrali) sono costrutti socialisti, autorizzati dagli stati e dotati di una protezione speciale. La loro immunità alle restrizioni costituzionali serve gli interessi statali e i cavilli legali statali servono gli interessi delle multinazionali.

Questo è l'opposto del libero mercato. Lo ripeto: nelle condizioni attuali i conglomerati globali NON sono organizzazioni di libero mercato. Lo distruggono, invece, utilizzando partnership starali per eliminare la concorrenza.

Il COVID e l'ascesa della propaganda woke negli Stati Uniti sono esempi perfetti della collusione tra aziende e stati per istituire l'ingegneria sociale e cancellare la libera partecipazione economica. Chiunque non sospetti di queste entità dopo tutto quello che è successo, a questo punto è irrecuperabile.

Queste aziende agiscono anche come sifoni di ricchezza: risucchiano denaro dei consumatori in un Paese solo per depositarlo in altri Paesi invece di reinvestire quella ricchezza (dopo la sua spartizione) nell'economia da cui dipendono per le vendite. In altre parole, le multinazionali agiscono come una sorta di macchina di ridistribuzione della ricchezza che sottrae denaro e posti di lavoro agli americani e li distribuisce in tutto il mondo a scapito degli stessi americani.

In qualità di intermediari di questo schema di ridistribuzione della ricchezza, le aziende generano enormi profitti, mentre le persone su entrambe le estremità dello scambio ricevono ben poco in cambio. Il Messico potrebbe sembrare avvantaggiato dagli squilibri commerciali del NAFTA, ma non è così: il popolo messicano e il suo tenore di vita godono di benefici minimi; le aziende che lo sfruttano per la manodopera ne traggono il vantaggio, insieme ad alcuni funzionari statali corrotti.

A sua volta il PIL degli Stati Uniti e la nostra presunta ricchezza nazionale continuano ad aumentare grazie alle multinazionali. Ma la maggior parte di questo aumento di ricchezza non finisce nelle tasche degli americani, bensì in quelle dello 0,0001% delle élite. Più a lungo persiste la globalizzazione, più ampio diventa il divario di ricchezza. Questo è un fatto innegabile e credo che la maggior parte delle persone, sia a sinistra che a destra, concordi su questo punto, ma nessuno vuole prendere decisioni difficili e intervenire.

La sinistra pensa che la soluzione sia un apparato statale più grande e una maggiore regolamentazione. I conservatori pensano che la soluzione sia un apparato statale più piccolo e meno regolamentazione. I conservatori sono più vicini al punto, ma nessuna delle due soluzioni affronta il problema fondamentale della collusione tra stati e conglomerati.

Tenete presente che gli Stati Uniti hanno applicato dazi per centinaia di anni. La parola con la “D” non è diventata una brutta parola fino alla creazione delle società per azioni, del sistema della Federal Reserve e dell'imposta sul reddito.

Quindi concordo con i miei amici economisti della Scuola Austriaca su quasi tutto, ma quando si lamentano dei dazi di Trump, devo ricordare loro che la situazione non è così semplice come rissunto dalla formuletta “l'interferenza statale è dannosa”. Il sistema attuale ha bisogno da tempo di una correzione di rotta e il libertarismo fiscale non la fornirà. Pensano di difendere il libero mercato, ma non è così.

Un altro problema chiave del globalismo è l'interdipendenza forzata. Se ogni nazione produce un'ampia quantità delle proprie risorse necessarie, ha una creazione di posti di lavoro interni resiliente e decide di scambiare beni in eccesso tra di esse, allora i mercati globali hanno senso. Ma cosa succede quando ogni nazione è costretta, attraverso accordi commerciali, a fare affidamento su ogni altra nazione per i bisogni economici fondamentali della propria popolazione?

Allora dobbiamo riesaminare il valore del globalismo in generale.

L'interdipendenza economica internazionale è una forma di schiavitù, soprattutto quando sono coinvolte aziende e intermediari delle ONG. Solo la ridondanza delle risorse e il localismo promuovono veri mercati liberi e libertà individuale. I dazi possono contribuire a stimolare la produzione e il commercio locali e a rendere le comunità più autosufficienti. Detto questo, ci sarà un costo.

I paragoni tra Donald Trump e Herbert Hoover sono dilaganti e risalgono al 2016. Durante il primo mandato di Trump, avevo lanciato l'allarme: l'accelerazione del declino fiscale e la crescente stagflazione avrebbero potuto essere scaricati sulle sue spalle e attribuiti alle linee di politica dei conservatori. In altre parole, l'anti-globalizzazione sarebbe stata ritenuta responsabile della distruzione finanziaria causata dai globalisti. Continuo a credere che questo programma sia ancora in atto.

Hoover fu accusato di aver aggravato la Grande Depressione con i suoi dazi Smoot-Hawley. In realtà, la Grande Depressione si diffuse a causa di una serie di decisioni politiche delle principali banche e di aumenti dei tassi da parte della Federal Reserve (l'ex-presidente della FED, Ben Bernanke, lo ammise apertamente nel 2002). All'epoca non importava chi ne fosse la causa: Hoover era presidente e quindi era il capro espiatorio.

La stessa situazione potrebbe verificarsi per Trump se non sta attento, e tutti i conservatori ne saranno incolpati per estensione. È importante ricordare che la produzione statunitense è stata indebolita da decenni di interferenze statali a sostegno della globalizzazione, insieme a un potere aziendale incontrastato. Limitare le aziende con i dazi non sarà sufficiente: devono anche esserci incentivi per invertire i danni causati da decenni di corruzione statale.

Non riesco a pensare ad altro modo per ricostruire la base produttiva americana abbastanza rapidamente da contrastare gli inevitabili aumenti di prezzo che deriveranno dai dazi. Sconfiggere l'inflazione richiederebbe uno sforzo nazionale senza precedenti per rilanciare la produzione manifatturiera, specificatamente per i beni di prima necessità. I dazi da soli non basteranno a farlo.

Abbiamo bisogno di beni di consumo, energia e immobili ORA, non tra diversi anni. Altrimenti, a lungo termine, i dazi non faranno che peggiorare la situazione. I libertari hanno ragione a mettere in guardia dagli effetti negativi sui consumatori americani, ma la soluzione non è lasciare che le aziende facciano ciò che vogliono e che il globalismo continui incontrastato. La soluzione è spezzare il globalismo e tornare a un modello di indipendenza nazionale.

Infine c'è la questione del dollaro e del suo status di valuta di riserva mondiale. Dopo Bretton Woods, il tacito accordo prevedeva che l'America avrebbe agito come pilastro militare del mondo occidentale (e a quanto pare come la vacca da mungere da parte dei consumatori del mondo). In cambio gli Stati Uniti avrebbero goduto dei vantaggi derivanti dal possedere la valuta di riserva mondiale.

Quali vantaggi? In particolare il dollaro avrebbe potuto essere stampato ben oltre qualsiasi altra valuta per decenni senza subire gli effetti immediati dell'iperinflazione, poiché la maggior parte di quei dollari sarebbe stata detenuta all'estero. Lo scioglimento della NATO e una guerra commerciale potrebbero innescare la fine di questo accordo. Ciò significa che tutti quei dollari detenuti in banche estere potrebbero riversarsi negli Stati Uniti e causare un'inflazione.

Lo status di riserva è stato a lungo il tallone d'Achille degli Stati Uniti e prima o poi dovrà finire. Basti pensare che i globalisti si stanno preparando a questo cambiamento almeno dal 2008 con i DSP e le CBDC. La scorsa settimana l'UE ha annunciato che distribuirà CBDC al dettaglio entro la fine dell'anno. Sanno cosa sta per succedere. Una guerra commerciale richiederà non solo all'amministrazione Trump di agevolare l'aumento della produzione interna, ma anche di promuovere un nuovo sistema monetario basato sulle materie prime per proteggersi dalla caduta del dollaro.

Nel frattempo i singoli cittadini e comunità dovranno prepararsi al crollo della globalizzazione. Ciò significa produzione locale di beni, commercianti al dettaglio che cercano fornitori locali, persone che scambiano beni e servizi attraverso reti di baratto, ecc. I leader politici dovrebbero valutare l'introduzione di titoli garantiti da materie prime per compensare qualsiasi potenziale danno al dollaro. Dovrebbero anche sfruttare maggiori risorse naturali per migliorare l'industria locale.

C'è molto da fare e poco tempo per farlo.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

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UKanistan Is Erasing Christianity

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 08:03

Gail Appel wrote:

Cancelling Easter and imprisoning Christian preachers, people who silently pray for others or hand out Christian leaflets.

Islamists who block the streets en masse 5x daily, wish death upon Christians, Jews , UK and the west and hand out Hamas recruiting propaganda get elected as Mayors, members of Parliament and collect welfare.

See here.

The post UKanistan Is Erasing Christianity appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ayaan Hirsi Al on Sweden’s Rejection of Christianity- Hasn’t worked out as imagined

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 08:02

Thanks, Gail Appel.

See here.

The post Ayaan Hirsi Al on Sweden’s Rejection of Christianity- Hasn’t worked out as imagined appeared first on LewRockwell.

When Palestine was a backward arid desert

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 08:01

Joseph Salerno wrote:

The post When Palestine was a backward arid desert appeared first on LewRockwell.

1993 Warning of the NWO

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 07:59

Writes Gail Appel:

They even use the term “Useless Eaters”!

See here.

The post 1993 Warning of the NWO appeared first on LewRockwell.

Archdiocese of Detroit: Parishes must cease Traditional Latin Mass celebrations by July 1

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 07:57

Thanks, Karen DeCoster.

Catholic News

The post Archdiocese of Detroit: Parishes must cease Traditional Latin Mass celebrations by July 1 appeared first on LewRockwell.

Trump vs. Harvard in a Political Wrestling Match

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 05:01

Back when I was a young child my grandfather enjoyed watching professional wrestling on his old black-and-white television, so I occasionally did the same.

In those distant days, television wrestling possessed almost no money nor prestige and was barely even considered a real sport, probably tied with roller derby as occupying the bottommost-tier of audience viewership. Wrestling matches were only carried on one of the lowest-rated local television stations, unaffiliated with any network, whose managers desperately sought out anything they could find to fill their available broadcast hours.

The notion that wrestling might someday become a multi-billion-dollar national business enterprise would have seemed totally outlandish and ridiculous. Although a 1975 Hollywood science fiction film called Rollerball envisioned a future America in which a lethal version of roller derby had become the #1 sport, no one ever suggested anything similar for wrestling.

Although I’ve never watched a single wrestling match since the black-and-white shows of my childhood and those memories have faded, I think that they may have often featured tag-team contests, in which pairs of wrestlers faced off against each other.

If so, then our national headlines are now proclaiming a heavyweight wrestling match to determine the future of American higher education and perhaps our entire society as well. President Donald Trump is facing off against Harvard University in the greatest political bout of this young century, with each of those primary contenders backed by their chosen seconds.

Trump is a noted author, with more than twenty published volumes to his name, many of them high-profile bestsellers on business strategy, politics, and negotiation. But I’m not entirely convinced that he’s ever actually read a single book cover-to-cover in his entire life, even including any of his own, and if he did, I suspect that the last one may have been decades ago, perhaps filled with many colorful pictures.

Meanwhile, his main opponent in that match is America’s oldest university, now approaching its 390th year of existence, long ranked as the world’s wealthiest and most prestigious institution of higher education.

Trump’s loyal team-mate is his Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, the billionaire wrestling-lady, while Harvard is backed by Columbia University, still smarting from the brutal beat-down it recently received at the hands of the Trump-McMahon team before Harvard had entered the lists.

Although wealthy and very prestigious, Columbia still probably ranks a bit below the longstanding Harvard-Yale-Princeton triumvirate. Therefore the threatened loss of $400 million in annual federal funding a few weeks ago brought the university to its knees, forcing its administration to surrender on all the main points demanded.

Teams of federal agents were allowed to raid student housing and drag off any non-citizens suspected of criticizing Israel, the administration agreed to create a special unit of 30 campus security officers tasked with suppressing any public displays of anti-Zionism, and its prestigious Middle Eastern Studies program was placed in “academic receivership,” presumably intended to ensure that it became entirely pro-Israel in its teachings.

All these concessions were made by Acting President Katrina Armstrong, who afterwards resigned due to that horrific pressure she had endured, becoming the second president of Columbia to do so in just the last eight months.

So based upon this painful recent history, we are clearly seeing the sort of grudge match that has become wildly popular in pro-wrestling, with Columbia eager for its share of revenge now that it has mighty Harvard on its side.

In pro-wrestling as in other spectator sports, the onlookers can side with one of the champions or the other, or else merely enjoy the battle without taking sides.

Given Trump’s ignorance and the stupidity of his policies, most recently demonstrated by his Looney Tunes tariff proposals, I certainly couldn’t see myself cheering for him. But instead of remaining neutral, I’ve found myself entirely in Harvard’s corner.

My position might seem a bit strange given the harsh criticism that I’ve leveled at my alma mater over the years, even on some of the very matters that the Trump Administration is fiercely attacking.

For example, as far back as late 2012, I’d published a short piece arguing that Harvard had gradually transformed itself from a great academic center of learning into an enormous hedge fund with some sort of small school or something attached off to one side.

Paying Tuition to a Giant Hedge Fund
Ron Unz • The American Conservative • December 4, 2012 • 1,300 Words

As I noted in a follow-up column a few days later, my criticism had deeply resonated in liberal journalistic circles, and during the years since then denouncing our elite universities as disguised hedge-funds has become widespread:

Late Friday afternoon, the piece was prominently featured on the Business Insider and CNBC websites, and soon redistributed on twitter by a large throng of individuals, some of them prominent journalists. MSNBC‘s Chris Hayes tweeted “very jealous I did not write this article” to his 175,000 followers, Pulitzer Prize winner Bart Gellman described it as “eye opening,” and New York Times economic policy reporter Annie Lowrey used the phrase “Harvard as a giant hedge fund plus a wee research university.”

Moreover, that particular piece had actually been published as a side-bar to my extremely long analysis of the admissions practices at Harvard and our other most elite universities, which together served as a direct funnel to the commanding heights of American academics, law, business, media, and finance. My statistics demonstrated that their admissions process had become hopelessly corrupt, and I summarized these conclusions.

In recent decades, elite college admissions policy has frequently become an ideological battlefield between liberals and conservatives, but I would argue that both these warring camps have been missing the actual reality of the situation.

Conservatives have denounced “affirmative action” policies which emphasize race over academic merit, and thereby lead to the enrollment of lesser qualified blacks and Hispanics over their more qualified white and Asian competitors; they argue that our elite institutions should be color-blind and race-neutral. Meanwhile, liberals have countered that the student body of these institutions should “look like America,” at least approximately, and that ethnic and racial diversity intrinsically provide important educational benefits, at least if all admitted students are reasonably qualified and able to do the work.

My own position has always been strongly in the former camp, supporting meritocracy over diversity in elite admissions. But based on the detailed evidence I have discussed above, it appears that both these ideological values have gradually been overwhelmed and replaced by the influence of corruption and ethnic favoritism, thereby selecting future American elites which are not meritocratic nor diverse, neither being drawn from our most able students nor reasonably reflecting the general American population.

The overwhelming evidence is that the system currently employed by most of our leading universities admits applicants whose ability may be unremarkable but who are beneficiaries of underhanded manipulation and favoritism. Nations which put their future national leadership in the hands of such individuals are likely to encounter enormous economic and social problems, exactly the sort of problems which our own country seems to have increasingly experienced over the last couple of decades. And unless the absurdly skewed enrollments of our elite academic institutions are corrected, the composition of these feeder institutions will ensure that such national problems only continue to grow worse as time passes.

The Myth of American Meritocracy
Ron Unz • The American Conservative • November 28, 2012 • 26,200 Words

New York Times columnist David Brooks soon ranked my piece as perhaps the best American magazine article of the year, a verdict strongly seconded by a top editor at The Economist. The Yale Political Union and the Yale Law School invited me to give a couple of public lectures on that controversial conclusion and the rest of my Meritocracy analysis. A very long list of other writers and public intellectuals commented on my article, an overwhelming majority of them quite favorably, with their discussions appearing in Forbes, The Atlantic, The Washington Monthly, Business Insider, and various other publications. These included such prominent public figures as Harvard Prof. Niall Ferguson and Fareed Zakaria.

One of my central findings had been the existence of very strong quantitative evidence that Harvard and the other Ivy League schools were practicing racial discrimination by surreptitiously maintaining Asian Quotas in their admissions policies, and this soon prompted the New York Times to organize an important symposium on that explosive topic in which I eagerly participated. My graph demonstrating the extremely suspicious convergence of Asian enrollment throughout the Ivies was very widely distributed across the Internet, including being republished by the Times, and seemed to constitute “smoking gun” proof of what had long been a widely held suspicion.

As I explained in my Times piece:

After the Justice Department closed an investigation in the early 1990s into charges that Harvard University discriminated against Asian-American applicants, Harvard’s reported enrollment of Asian-Americans began gradually declining, falling from 20.6 percent in 1993 to about 16.5 percent over most of the last decade.

This decline might seem small. But these same years brought a huge increase in America’s college-age Asian population, which roughly doubled between 1992 and 2011, while non-Hispanic white numbers remained almost unchanged. Thus, according to official statistics, the percentage of Asian-Americans enrolled at Harvard fell by more than 50 percent over the last two decades, while the percentage of whites changed little. This decline in relative Asian-American enrollment was actually larger than the impact of Harvard’s 1925 Jewish quota, which reduced Jewish freshmen from 27.6 percent to 15 percent.

Conservative circles took considerable interest, with Charles Murray highlighting my analysis, and a few weeks later I published a piece in National Review arguing that my findings might provide legal grounds for the Supreme Court to overturn its 1978 Bakke decision that laid the basis for decades of Affirmative Action policies:

Racial Quotas, Harvard, and the Legacy of Bakke
Have three decades of Supreme Court support for affirmative action been based on fraud?
Ron Unz • National Review • February 18, 2013 • 800 Words

Indeed, the following year a group of Asian-American plaintiffs filed their lawsuit challenging Harvard’s admissions system as discriminatory. Their case spent the next decade wending its way through federal court, then on June 29, 2023 their effort culminated in a decisive 6-to-3 Supreme Court ruling overturning Bakke after 45 years. That judicial thunderbolt largely eliminated the legal basis for affirmative action in college admissions and many other areas of American society.

Read the Whole Article

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The Suppression of Christianity in Its Birthplace

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 05:01

My rewrite of the famous quote by Lord Palmerston regarding “interests” to have it reflect the reality of Israel and its powerful friends would go something like this: “I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that Israel is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual friend of the United States and of enlightened western values. By design, Israel has no eternal allies. Its interests are indeed perpetual but center on its own success at aggressively portraying itself always as the victim while also advancing its own tribal interests.” I admittedly tend to think often about the enemy we of the western Christian tradition have been nurturing at our breast for decades in a spirit of tolerance, a viper that is only setting out to corrupt and then destroy us, manifest particularly at this time of year, when the life and death of Jesus Christ ought to be rightly celebrated. Alas, in today’s Israel what is truly remarkable is the government’s open suppression of Christian identity and worship without any complaint coming from Washington or from the other nominally Christian nations of Europe.

Indeed, Christianity in the Middle East is generally dying due the pressure exerted by Israel to make Palestinian life and religious practice as difficult as possible as well as broader regional issues including Israeli and US punishment and replacement of regimes in places like Syria and Lebanon which up until recently harbored substantial Christian minorities. Christians, generally speaking, find it easier to emigrate to friendlier countries worldwide than local Muslims as they often have established family overseas to help in the process.

The marginalization of Christians in Israel, recently driven by apartheid legislation and parliamentary declaration of Israel to be a Jewish state, has been around for a long time but it is particularly bad this year for both Christmas and Easter with refusal by the Israeli authorities to permit gatherings for church services and other celebrations. Only 6,000 security “passes” were issued by the Israelis to West Bank Palestinian Christians to celebrate Palm Sunday and Easter in Jerusalem this year unlike in the past when there would be 50,000 attendees. As a result, many celebrations and the usual parades have been canceled.

Father Ibrahim Faltas OFM, the Vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, described how “Despite several high-level meetings, we haven’t been able to obtain more permits,” recalling that West Bank Christians face many restrictions on their freedom of movement during the year and wait for the Easter season to travel to Jerusalem to pray at the Holy Sites. Also, ancient churches in Gaza have been bombed and destroyed over the past year, probably deliberately, creating a sense of depression among the worshippers who are also very aware of their fellow Palestinians, many of whom are Christian, being slaughtered by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). On April 13, Palm Sunday, an early morning air strike destroyed the outpatient and laboratory wards in the Anglican church run Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. The debris from the airstrike reached the neighboring St Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church which was preparing for the Palm Sunday celebration along with the homeless remnants of the local community residing in the church compound. The incident heightened the despair of the entire Christian community. The head of a Catholic aid agency described how “Christians are suffocating and are trapped in their own governorates (provinces) and towns unable to travel freely without harassment because they need special permits…” That is in spite of the fact that there has never been any violence or political unrest associated with the movement of the pilgrims, so it is widely regarded as little more than pure harassment by the Israeli authorities.

To be sure, Christian community and religious leaders have been aware of what exactly is going on and have protested to what would appear to be the appropriate Israeli government authorities, but generally to no avail. Their cause would be helped if majority Christian nations like the US and in Europe would speak up and put pressure on Israel for fair treatment for Christians, but they are generally silent due to their having been corrupted and intimidated by the various manifestations of the Israel Lobby active in their countries. Likewise, the media in those countries is very careful about what it prints or says about Israel or Jews as such criticism is a crime in many jurisdictions, something which is becoming increasingly the case in the United States and tied to evidence free deportations of those who object to what is occurring in Gaza.

The annual report by the Rossing Center, a Jerusalem-based organization dedicated to interfaith coexistence, documented 111 cases of harassment and violence against the Christian community in Israel and East Jerusalem in 2024. The report revealed a climate of hostility that, according to one of the study’s authors, Federica Sasso, only represents “the tip of the iceberg of a much larger phenomenon.” Of the 111 reported cases of assault, 47 were physical assaults primarily through “spitting,” a behavior that has evolved from subtle acts to openly aggressive displays. In several areas, especially in the Old City of Jerusalem, priests, nuns, friars, and monks “being easily identified are exposed to these attacks on a daily basis” with only rare intervention by the Israeli authorities.

Several years ago, the head of the Roman Catholic church in Israel, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, said that Christians have faced difficult challenges most particularly since the formation of Netanyahu’s latest far right-wing government in December 2022. According to Pizzaballa, his government has emboldened ultra-nationalist religious activists, many of whom are armed settlers, and some of whom have harassed male and female members of the clergy and vandalized religious property. Pizzaballa observed how “The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new. These people feel they are protected …the cultural and political atmosphere can now justify, or tolerate, actions against Christians.”

A colleague, Francesco Patton, the Custodian of the Holy Land, elaborated how “We are horrified and hurt in the wake of the many incidents of violence and hatred that have taken place recently against the Catholic community in Israel.” He described the desecration of a Lutheran cemetery, the vandalizing of a Maronite prayer room, urination on holy sites, destruction of sacred images and the spraying of “death to Christians” on church property, all taking place shortly after the new Netanyahu government was installed. He also noted “the responsibility of the leaders, of those who have power,” adding that the Israeli police routinely failed to investigate such incidents after the churches reported them.

To determine if the claims of increased violence and hate crimes directed against Christians were true, on June 26th the liberal leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz sent one of its journalists dressed as a priest into downtown Jerusalem. Within five minutes, the journalist Yossi Eli “was derided and spat at, including by a child and a soldier… A bit later a man mocked [him] in Hebrew, saying, ‘Forgive me father for I have sinned.’ Then an 8-year-old spat at [him], as did [another] soldier when a group of troops passed by later.”

Given what is going on on-the-ground, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has called for an investigation into the role that Israeli-US dual national settlers are currently playing in the recent wave of violence directed against both Christian and Muslim Palestinian towns and villages. ADC Executive Director Abed Ayoub has said that “We have strong reason to believe that American citizens are among the key perpetrators of the most recent brutal and violent attacks.” Since June 21st, armed Israeli settler mobs have been terrorizing Palestinian villages in the West Bank on a nearly daily basis. They have destroyed homes, burned vehicles, and killed at least one Palestinian. For decades US Citizens have moved to Israeli settlements, which they use as bases for regularly engaging in violence against Palestinians, all with impunity, as the Israeli police and army provide the Arabs with no protection and instead often protect the settlers. Many of these US Citizens also take advantage of American charitable and non-profit tax laws to fund illegal settlements and initiate violence against Palestinians.

In another major incident, dozens of Israeli extremists, primarily Orthodox Jews, disrupted a Christian prayer event for pilgrims near the Western Wall. The deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Aryeh King and leading Rabbi Avi Thau led the protesters. Denouncing the Christians as “missionaries” trying to convert Jews, the extremists spat at and cursed the pilgrims, many of whom were ironically normally strongly pro-Israel evangelical Christians from the US. Deputy Mayor King said that Christians should enjoy freedom of worship “only inside their churches.”

According to Protecting Holy Land Christians, an organization established by Christian groups to raise awareness of threats their religion, there have been other accounts of how Christians have been subjected to increasing persecution. A recent report details how Palestinians have been targeted by what it calls settler-colonialism, which is a series of measures intended to destroy their communities and drive them from their land. It identifies seven policies that Israel uses against Palestinians throughout the whole of Mandatory Palestine (1948 Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank including East Jerusalem) and also to punish those in exile: “denial of residency; land confiscation and denial of use; discriminatory planning; denial of access to natural resources and services; imposition of a permit regime; fragmentation, segregation and isolation; denial of reparations; and suppression of resistance.” The report concludes “Whether these policies are considered separately or taken together, they amount to forced population transfer, a grave breach of international humanitarian law (IHL).”

Recently, these essentially genocidal measures have included the outright theft of their historic buildings and land by the government, and denial of other rights, including the increasing refusal to permit gatherings of the faithful at the existing churches on major holidays like Christmas and Easter. There have also been many physical attacks on individual Christians carried out by extremist Jews as well as desecration of Christian religious sites and destruction or defacement of Christian relics and statuary. A June 2023 conference held in Jerusalem to address the issue of increased violence against Christians attracted a number of diplomats, scholars and representatives of religious groups, but it was boycotted by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The US Embassy also did not send a representative or observer, indicating clearly that it was not interested in the plight of Christians in Israel, or rather that it did not even want to admit that there was a problem.

Interestingly enough, Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, a right wing extremist and a leader of the settler movement, is about to arrive in Washington and will be receiving red carpet treatment from the usual suspects. He has been open about his desire to remove all Palestinians, Christian and Muslim alike, from historic Palestine and was behind legislation making it perfectly legal and without consequence for any soldier or policeman, or armed settler, to kill a Palestinian. The trip will include stops in Florida and Washington, DC, where he’s slated to meet with US officials, conservative influencers, and Jewish community leaders. The most high-profile meeting on his schedule is with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Ben Gvir, who runs Israel’s prison system, has advocated a straightforward solution for dealing with his country’s unwanted detainees. “It is unfortunate that I have had to deal in recent days with whether Palestinian prisoners should receive fruit baskets,” he said last year. “They should be killed with a shot to the head.” Self described Zionist Joe Biden had actually blocked his entry into the US as “too extremist” but as we have seen Donald Trump is not so fastidious.

So there you have it. The Netanyahu Israeli government is not very interested in human rights for anyone who is not a Conservative or Orthodox Jew. It is, in fact, essentially hostile to all Palestinians and foreigners, be they Muslim, Christian or even irreligious. They regularly denigrate such people as what Germans in the 1930s would have referred to as “untermenschen” meaning subhumans, a word then used to describe Jews, ironically enough. That the United States ignores all of Israel’s war crimes and human rights violations is disgraceful, but par for the course as American Jews who are advocates for Israel have corrupted and taken firm control of the political process. And do not think for a second that Israel’s leaders give one damn about the United States and its people, a majority of whom are at least nominally Christian. Recall for a moment how former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon referred to Americans in a discussion with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres: “Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” And more recently Netanyahu said “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.” That is what they really think of us.

Reprinted with permission from The Unz Review.

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The Deportation Issue Is: Do You Prefer White Liberal States to Hispanic States?

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 05:01

Like Trump’s on-off-on tariffs, the US Supreme Courts rulings are off-on-maybe-we will see.

Last week the Court overruled Boasberg and said that Trump had the authority to deport illegal aliens. But by the time last Saturday arrived, the Court had changed its mind and “paused” the deportation of illegal entrants. The Court now has decided that those who had entered the US illegally, thus committing a crime, had the right to challenge their deportation in US courts.

Here is the Supreme Court’s ruling: “The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court.” Note the Court’s use of the word “putative.” The Court is saying that it is uncertain that the illegals are illegals. Once you have walked in, you are an American, right? That seems to be the Democrats’ position. What will the Court’s position be?

Amazing, isn’t it. Millions of immigrant-invaders can enter America illegally, but they cannot be deported until they have had their day in court. To be clear, what the US Supreme Court has ruled is that there will be no further deportations. The 16 or 30 million, or whatever the figure, illegal entrants are here to stay.

The deportation hearings, which will be shopped to Democrat district and appeal courts, will take years and will not be resolved until Trump’s term is over.

For decades American conservatives have thought that the most important reason to have a Republican president is Supreme Court Appointments, but now we see it matters not to have a Republican majority on the Supreme Court. The Court, whether Republican or Democrat, has no comprehension of American survival. The courts are preoccupied with grabbing power from the executive.

Just as the US took Texas, Colorado, California and the SouthWest from Mexico, the hispanics are taking it back with the aid of the Democrat Party and the US Supreme Court. And, of course, with the acquiesce of Republicans who are incapable of fighting.

The question is: how much do we really care? Would you prefer to have white liberal Colorado, California, Arizona or Hispanic Colorado, California, and Arizona. I would prefer the Hispanics. They are more decent people than white liberals, and, unlike white liberals, they do not hate America.

Perhaps the ignorant insouciance of the American courts will have the unintended result of replacing anti-American blue states with Hispanic states. It would be a huge improvement in the quality of America.

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The Great Consternation

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 05:01

A great consternation boils and bubbles across the land as the sinister forces of Jacobin lawfare keep up their legalistic battery against the nation. You better believe that the country will not stand for much more of this lunatic judicial coup aimed at wrecking the authority of law itself, and with that, any chance for sane management of our affairs.

On Saturday, the activist org Indivisible, sponsored by Linked-In billionaire Reid Hoffman and dark money “pass through” funder the Tides Foundation (Bill Gates and others), sent its “protest” troops into the streets to pretend that there is public support for national suicide. It was a pitiful showing, after all. There are only so many mind-fucked Boomers out there who can be marshaled to militate for the psychopathocracy behind these monied actors.

Easter weekend looked like a turning point in this struggle for sanity over the public interest. On Saturday night, the SCOTUS shot its wad staying the deportation of Venezuelan gang-bangers rounded-up by ICE in Texas. Do you suppose that means the executive branch is powerless now to remove anyone who entered the USA illegally? It’s alleged that the illegal aliens have a right to some due process beyond their deportation orders — which themselves entail sufficient due process to execute their removal, since entering the country illegally is an actionable violation.

Of course, millions of illegal immigrants ditched their own identity documents before crossing into the USA, so there is no way of even establishing who they actually are, were they to appear in an American court for any proposed due process sorting-out. The identity erasure was carried out deliberately to confound the law, and was part of the concerted efforts of NGOs working with the “Joe Biden” regime to stuff illegals into the country as fast as possible with no vetting whatsoever.

It was, you understand, an elaborately engineered operation, down to the CPB One cell phone app created by the US Department of Homeland Security itself under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to mass produce phony asylum cases that streamlined illegal entry for millions. This was complemented by the DHS program of “humanitarian parole and travel authorization” to enter the US on commercial flights directly from foreign countries, bypassing customs interviews.

The motivation for all that was understood by anyone with a functional brain: to assemble a new voter cohort, using motor-voter procedures and mail-in ballots to guarantee Democratic Party election victories in key districts for all time to come. It couldn’t have been more cynically corrupt, as is the new campaign to prevent these millions of new fake voters from being deported back to where they came from.

All of this points to the question: what can be done about such an arrant insult to the citizens of our country? The consternation arises from the failure of federal appeals courts, and now even the SCOTUS, to end the coup. What’s needed is a raft of major DOJ prosecutions for the serious crimes around the vast panoply of lawfare operations going back to 2016. I believe they are coming and that the reason you hear nothing lately out of the DOJ and the FBI is because the cases are under construction and details about them have not been leaked.

A good place to start would be a case for mass murder, battery, obstruction of justice, and lying to Congress against the people responsible for the Covid-19 caper.

You might have noticed last week — though The New York Times and the cable news networks didn’t report it — that the White House issued a major document titled Lab Leak; the True Origins of Covid 19. The doc succinctly outlines the case that Anthony Fauci of NIAID and Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina presided over the design of the Covid-19 virus and outsourced its production, with the help of Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance, to the Wuhan Virology Institute lab. Include the CEOs or Pfizer and Moderna, Francis Collins, Rochelle Walensky, and their chief deputies at CDC, and Stephen Hahn, Janet Woodcock, and Robert Califf all serially chiefs of the FDA from 2020 to 2024, for enabling the phony and harmful Covid Vaccine program. Indict them all. Let a jury decide if Dr. Fauci’s preemptive pardon was legitimate. The others enjoy no pardon protection.

Bring cases against, John Brennan, James Comey, and a long list of DOJ / FBI officials for the crimes around RussiaGate. Include Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg for his activities running the FISA court during the period. Indict them under federal statute 18 USC 371, Conspiracy to Defraud the United States. Throw in sedition and possibly treason, since the UK’s MI6 agency was a party to the seditious frauds involved.

Indict Alejandro Mayorkas and his deputies, and the White House aides manipulating “Joe Biden,” for engineering the mass entry of illegal immigrants between January 2021 and 2025.

Bring cases against Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership for instigating the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol building, as well as the DNC / RNC pipe bomb hoax.

Investigate the previously ignored incidents of voter fraud in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia in the 2020 election.

Indict Joe Biden and his family for bribery and treason for their money laundering activities in Ukraine, China, Kazakhstan and elsewhere during Biden’s years as vice-president and the period when he was out-of-office, 2017 to 2021 (and enjoyed no immunity).

Indict Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Andrew Weissmann, and Lisa Monaco for organizing the malicious prosecutions of Donald Trump in 2024 in Georgia, Florida, the District of Columbia, and New York City. And bring a case against Eisen and his assistants for orchestrating the current judicial coup outlined above.

Start making this happen, Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, and you will begin to shatter the giant glass cloche of cognitive dissonance that holds the minds of half the country hostage to a long-running Jacobin conspiracy aimed at wrecking the country. You will at least witness a startling shift in what the people pay attention to. Call it retribution if you like. It represents payback for a host of crimes committed against the American people by government officials who warred against them. It is well-deserved.

Reprinted with permission from Kunstler.com.

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Pope Francis Has Died Aged 88

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 05:01

VATICAN CITY –– Pope Francis has died today, aged 88.

The Holy See Press Office announced the news, writing:

A short while ago, His Eminence Cardinal Farrell announced with sorrow the death of Pope Francis with these words:

“Dear brothers and sisters, it is with deep sorrow that I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis.

At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the Father’s house. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and His Church.

He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially toward the poorest and most marginalized.

With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the Triune God.”

Pope Francis’s health had been steadily declining in recent months. He had suffered persistent breathing problems through the winter and was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on February 14 for bronchitis but was then diagnosed with double pneumonia in what was first described as a “complex” then a “critical” medical scenario. He suffered a number of respiratory crises and failures and presented with symptoms of “mild” kidney failure during his hospitalization. Discharged back to the Vatican after 38-days, Francis began a 2-month convalescence as his doctors revealed he nearly lost his life twice in the spring hospitalization.

He was last in public on Easter Sunday to give the Urbi et Orbi blessing, but looked notably weak, being barely able to raise his arms and with a particularly strained voice.

The Argentinian prelate had led the Catholic Church as Pope since March 13, 2013. He emerged to the world as a surprise successor to Benedict XVI, following the German Pope’s shock resignation in February 2013.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was ordained on December 13, 1969 and was raised to become Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in May 1992, before assuming control of the see in 1998. Created cardinal by Pope John Paul II in February 2001, he served as the vice-president and then president of the episcopal conference of Argentina from 2002 – 2011.

In the papal conclave following Benedict XVI’s resignation, Cardinal Bergoglio was elected to the Papal throne on March 13, 2013, at the age of 76.

Styled as the “pope of confusion” by commentators, his reign was marked by a rapid diversion from Catholic teaching on numerous issues, with his pronouncements and writings leading to widespread confusion amongst Catholics on topics such as LGBT issues, divorce and “re-marriage,” nature of the priesthood, role of the laity in ecclesial governance, adherence to Tradition, and the permissibility of the traditional Latin Mass.

Pope Francis: A bishop from ‘the ends of the earth’

Announced as the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church on March 13, 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected on just the second day of the conclave. Many have argued that his election was a result of a longstanding and coordinated plan by the secretive St. Gallen group or mafia. (More details on his election are provided further below in this obituary).

Citing concern for the poor as his reason, Bergoglio chose the new papal name of Francis in imitation of St. Francis of Assisi. Addressing the crowds in St. Peter’s Square on the evening of his ascent to the throne, Francis avoided using the term “Pope,” presenting himself instead as “bishop” of Rome. “You know that it was the duty of the Conclave to give Rome a Bishop. It seems that my brother Cardinals have gone to the ends of the earth to get one… but here we are… I thank you for your welcome. The diocesan community of Rome now has its Bishop.”

His appearance on the balcony of St. Peter’s was notable for its departure from tradition: gone were the Pope’s red shoes which symbolized martyrdom; gone were the Papal pectoral cross and ring, with Bergoglio choosing his own instead; gone also was the traditional red mozzetta.

He also dispensed with the usual order of a papal blessing, asking the assembled crowd to pray for him, before imparting a blessing.

The evening was a revelatory one, with many commentators already remarking on the new Pope’s disregard for customs.

He created over 140 cardinals in nine consistories through his reign, and issued well over 3,500 documents, texts or speeches. Among this number were 4 Encyclicals: Lumen Fidei, largely written by Pope Benedict and finished by Francis; Fratelli Tutti, which expounded a form of irreligious fraternity dubbed as “blasphemous”; Laudato Si’, which advocated for “climate change” measures and formed the basis for his future ecological writings and interventions; Dilexit Nos, on the Sacred Heart.

Pope Francis also penned 74 Motu Proprios, 92 Apostolic Letters, 7 Apostolic Exhortations, 20 Apostolic Constitutions, and one Papal Bull. Francis made over 40 official papal trips outside of Italy and visited 65 countries as of September 12, 2024.

Traditional Latin Mass

One of the most notable and impactful aspects of Francis’ tumultuous pontificate is his attack on the Church’s traditional Mass, which was affected over a number of years. His July 16, 2021, motu proprio Traditionis Custodes abrogated Pope Benedict’s 2007 Summorum Pontificum, declaring that the liturgy of Pope Paul VI, or the Novus Ordo, is the “unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.”

The immediate fallout of the text saw closure of traditional Masses in various locations around the world. It was supposedly born out of a survey by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which claimed devotees of the traditional Mass fostered “disagreements,” ruptures in the Church, and the “peril of division.”

However, the implementation of the restrictions was not swift or widespread enough, prompting Francis’ perfect of the Congregation for Divine Worship (Cardinal Arthur Roche) to issues increased restrictions in December 2021, followed by yet more restrictions in February 2023. The results of the CDF’s survey were never published, and are believed never to have been seen by Roche’s dicastery implementing the restrictions.

Canonists have argued that Traditionis Custodes itself was not canonically legal, and prelates such as Cardinals Raymond Burke, Robert Sarah and Bishop Athanasius Schneider repeatedly spoke out against the papal moves. Schneider has stated that to comply with the restrictions would be a “false obedience,” Sarah decried them as “diabolical,” and Burke styled them as being a “persecution.”

By virtue of these various documents against the traditional Mass, Francis thus ordered traditional Masses out of parish churches, forbade newly ordained priests from automatically being able to say the traditional Mass, limited the number of priests already with that permission, restricted the use of the traditional sacraments, and removed diocesan bishops’ powers to exempt their priests from the papal restrictions.

In addition to this, the Pontiff repeatedly took aim at devotees of Tradition, describing them as “rigid” and highlighting this as a problem related to “clericalism.” In one such characteristic discussion, Francis argued that devotion to the traditional Mass was a “nostalgic disease” resulting in “indietrism.”

In a quasi-autobiographical book published in January 2025, Francis also accused Catholics who attend the traditional liturgy of having a “mental imbalance, emotional deviation, behavioral difficulties, a personal problem that may be exploited.”

Indeed, further restrictions on the traditional Mass had been rumored to be enacted over the summer of 2024, with Francis reportedly having the document on his desk ready to sign. But following an outpouring of public support from groups and individuals, the rumored text never emerged.

Read the Whole Article

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Real ID: Phony Security, Real Authoritarianism

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 22/04/2025 - 05:01

Those who hoped the second Trump Administration would reject big spending, war, and restrictions on liberty continue to be disappointed. A new disappointment came when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced her department would in May begin enforcing the REAL ID law.

Passed in 2005, the REAL ID Act created federal standards for driver’s licenses. The law requires everyone applying for a driver’s license to provide the DMV with his social security number, proof of legal residence, and two proofs of his home address. The REAL ID Act allows the Homeland Security Department to mandate, as it sees fit, the including of addition items in the related government database, including “biometric” identifiers. Biometric identifiers include personal data such as retina scans, fingerprints, and DNA.

People who doubt that this database will be used to violate the rights of US citizens should ask what a present-day J. Edgar Hoover — a former FBI director who was notorious for collecting private information on politicians and other prominent individuals — would do with a database containing personal and even biometric information on American citizens. They should also consider the IRS’s history of targeting presidents’ political opponents. Americans also have the threat of violations of their rights by hackers. The government has a poor track record of protecting data of US citizens.

REAL ID’s supporters deny the law turns state driver’s licenses into national ID cards because states have no mandate to implement REAL ID. However, citizens of any state that refuses to adopt REAL ID will be unable to use their state-issued IDs for boarding an airplane or riding on a train.

Once the initial uses of REAL ID are established, the government will then require REAL ID for other activities. For instance, local transportation authorities may be offered federal funds to implement REAL ID requirements for public transportation. Several pro-Second Amendment organizations oppose REAL ID because it could be used to monitor gun owners. There is nothing in the law prohibiting a future progressive Homeland Security secretary from requiring REAL ID for a firearms purchase. Imposing a REAL ID mandate on gun ownership would further the authoritarian objective of having a database containing the name and address of, and how many and what type of firearms are owned by, every law-abiding gun owner in the country.

REAL ID also menaces health freedom. One of the few victories for liberty during the covid hysteria was the failure of “vaccine passport” schemes to be more widely imposed. These schemes attempted to forbid people from returning to their normal lives unless they proved they were “fully vaccinated” against covid.

REAL ID was marketed as a weapon in the “war on terror.” However, Thomas Massie, the most consistent and courageous defender of liberty in the House of Representatives, pointed out that 9-11 hijackers used passports from their own countries. Rep. Massie wrote, “As long as the pilot’s door is locked and no one has weapons, why do you care that someone who flies has government permission?”

Like most post-9-11 security bills, REAL ID does nothing to protect the American people’s safety. It does, though, do much to endanger their liberty. REAL ID could even be the final piece of the transformation of America into a total surveillance society where government monitors, and thus controls, our actions. Americans who understand the danger must work to get the Trump administration to reverse its position.

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