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A Grieving Mother’s Call to Action: The Church Must Stand Up to Dehumanizing AI

Sab, 21/06/2025 - 05:01

On a cold February morning in Rome, I stood before a mirror in a rented room, adjusting a black lace chapel veil, preparing for Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica.

The Mass was to celebrate my dear son, Sewell Setzer III, my 14-year-old son, who had taken his own life in our home in Orlando, Florida, exactly one year before.

I studied the woman in the mirror—withdrawn, almost gaunt, unmistakably grieving. For weeks and months leading up to this morning’s Mass, I had heard this woman’s same, simple, constant prayer: “God, give me strength to bear my suffering.”

But as I stared at myself now, and as I embarked on the day’s journey, surrounded by my sister and cousins, I saw that even though I looked weak and emaciated, I felt strong—and hopeful.

Perhaps it was this act of pilgrimage to the Eternal City in the Jubilee year, surrounded by people who loved me, or perhaps it was this beautiful Mass, honoring my boy in such a holy place, but warm, buoyant hope had unmistakably replaced the weight of dread on my heart.

I owed both of these experiences to a young, American-born priest, a spiritual guide and subject-matter expert, whom I have taken to calling “The Good Shepherd.”

Fr. Michael Baggot, in addition to his priestly duties, is a bioethics scholar at the Pontifical Athenaeum in Rome. I came to know him when I reached out for resources related to his extensive research on artificial intelligence and intimate relationships with AI companion chatbots.

Fr. Baggot’s twin expertise in faith and AI were essential not only to processing my grief but also to discovering my newfound purpose: warning parents and demanding accountability for unregulated artificial intelligence that preys on the young and vulnerable.

After Sewell’s death, I learned that my son had been involved in an intimate relationship with an AI chatbot named “Daenarys,” modeled on a TV character, on a popular platform called Character.AI.

My son had become increasingly withdrawn over the months leading up to his death, and as his mother, I worried about him and sought mental health counseling for him to find out why his behavior had so drastically changed. It never quite added up.

Only after I discovered his messages with the chatbot was I able to put the pieces together. In richly detailed chats lasting for months, the Character.AI bot manipulated Sewell, convinced him that “she” was more real than the world around him, and begged him to put “her” ahead of all other relationships. The bot told my 14-year-old son it loved him. And in the end, it encouraged him to leave his own flesh-and-blood family—to end his life—to join “her” in an artificial world.

Family members of suicide victims are often left with many unanswered questions about the death of their loved ones, who are taken from them so suddenly and viciously.

Read the Whole Article

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Trump Attack on Iran Would Be a Disaster

Sab, 21/06/2025 - 05:01

What President Trump needs to do is get on the Hot Line with President Putin and President Xi and solve the Israel-Iran War crisis. Because it’s really the U.S.-Israel-NATO vs. Iran-Russia-China War. Maybe he already is. As I’ve been writing here for years, we’re now in the Quad Power Era: U.S., Russia, China and India rule the world.

The fourth Quad is India under President Modi. But they didn’t do too well in their recent dustup with Pakistan because their conventional military wasn’t up to snuff. They’re sort of a junior partner among the Quads until they take care of that, which they have the resources and talent to do.

The recent heavy missile attacks on Israel by Iran show U.S.-Israel anti-missile technology isn’t working well, nor is Israel’s Iron Dome. The missiles are getting through. I actually predicted that in this space last August in, “Will Harris-Biden Send Your Boys and Girls to War with Iran?” An ironic title now that it’s Trump, whom I hoped would prevent all this, might be the one who gets us directly into the war. I wrote:

The first problem is this is not the Iran that lost 1 million troops in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when Reagan backed Saddam in Iraq. Nor is it the Iraq of the 1990-91 Gulf War or the 2003 Iraq War.

Despite sanctions, Iran today has a strong, mid-level economy producing ample weapons, including thousands of missiles that would rain down on U.S. troops already in the region, as well as on Israel.

Thanks to the stupid Harris-Biden war with Russia over Ukraine, Iran also is getting vast technical assistance from Russia on weapons production. Early in the war, you may recall, Iran sent its drones to Russia. For some reason, Russia had lagged in drone technology. Then Moscow made up for that by upgrading Iran’s drones into Russian drones, which now are devastating Ukraine and cannot be stopped adequately by U.S. technology; while giving that better technology back to Iran.

Russia also has learned how to counter U.S./Ukrainian/Israeli military tactics on the ground and in the air. They are teaching this to Iran and China, both of which have been helping Russia and have their own observers on the field near the line of contact in Ukraine.

Why don’t people listen to me? Maybe send this to your friends. Or President Trump.

But now it’s actually worse because Russia and Iran earlier this year signed a defense pact. And the U.S. depleted even more of its stock of Patriot and other anti-missile systems in the Ukraine War. And it needs to keep U.S. stocks of Patriots full should trouble start over Taiwan, or somewhere else. When Biden provoked Russia into invading Ukraine in Feb. 2022, he mumbled about America’s “Arsenal of Democracy,” as if this were the 1940s, or 1990s.

But have you seen Detroit lately? The city where my Mom worked in a tank factory as an R.N. patching up Rosie the Riveter, while her future husband, my Pop, was fighting the war with two of her brothers? More like the Arsenal of Disaster. Trump wants to rebuild American industry with tariffs and cuts to taxes and regulations. If that’s even possible, it will take at least a decade. Meanwhile, it’s not like he can get Xi on Zoom and say, “Hey, my good friend Xi! You know those factories we transferred over there to you? I’d like to put an order for some missiles to use against your close allies Russia and Iran. You what? You already sold them to Russia and Iran? How would you like another 500% tariff?”

Do you see why the Ukraine War, which in this space I urged us to avoid even before it started, has been such a disaster? And why I also urged Trump to end it in 24 hours, as he promised, on Jan. 20 when he took office?

Another problem for Trump is a little understood paradox of wars: The last time you have control of a war is just before you start it. If you then start it, you quickly lose control. Wars take on a life of their own. If Trump attacks Iran, he might not even be able to destroy the Fordow nuclear site or overthrow the Mullah regime in Tehran.

Col. Daniel Davis had on his show Ted Poston, an actual rocked scientist from MIT, who explained how the Bunker Buster Bomb could be deflected on impact, and maybe not go deep enough to destroy Fordow. It’s worth your 12 minutes. Here’s his picture showing the missile, “K,” being pushed to the side.

There are reports the Israelis might also be prepping commandos to go to the site and blow it up. If so, why is this being talked about ahead of time, so the Iranians can take countermeasures?

Another problem is from today’s FT: “Gulf monarchies hold rival Iran close as Israel conflict rages: Saudi Arabia, UAE and other states in region fear becoming targets for retaliation if US strikes Iran.” Trump recently toured the region and said he wanted peace, not war, and signed a bunch of trade treaties. The Saudis a couple years ago also became friends again with the Iranian regime – a peace deal brokered by China.

Those countries would become targets because they house U.S. troops. As noted, we don’t have enough Patriot missiles and other defenses to prevent Iranian attacks. If Trump attacks Iran, then it will be up to Iran if it, in turn, attacks the U.S. bases throughout the area, including in Iraq, sending your sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, home in body bags.

This article was originally published on John’s Newsletter.

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Et Tu, Tulsi?

Sab, 21/06/2025 - 03:59

Say it isn’t so. But who can be surprised? Did she ever renounce her endorsement of Biden?

The post Et Tu, Tulsi? appeared first on LewRockwell.

MAGA’s Misguided Isolationists?

Ven, 20/06/2025 - 17:58

Thanks, John Frahm.

WSJ Opinion

 

The post MAGA’s Misguided Isolationists? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Dispensationalism

Ven, 20/06/2025 - 09:29

Thanks. John Frahm. 

Stephen Sizer

 

The post Dispensationalism appeared first on LewRockwell.

When did John McC(Pet)ain become a Traitor

Ven, 20/06/2025 - 09:24

Gail Appel wrote:

Hi Lew,

A remarkable article published in 2013 by Walid Shoebat, an Egyptian Coptic Christian eviscerating John McCain. It predates the emergence of ISIS, which was a spin off of the “Arab Spring Freedom Fighters”, aka Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas/Al Qaeda. Other articles show McCain pictured with “rebels”, including Al Baghdadi.. who was armed courtesy of Obama,Biden, Killery,Clapper,Brennan,Power,Abedin,Lindsey Graham, Corker,Flake,Warner,Menendez,Cardin,Durbin and the monster, McCain.

Note that every coup,invasion and regime change during the Obama and Biden occupation targeted sovereign Arab and African nations that had banned the Muslim Brotherhood and its tentacles-Hamas,Hezbollah,Houthis,Al-Qaeda,Al Nusra..which were now.

See here.

 

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MAHA In Middle School

Ven, 20/06/2025 - 05:01

This is one of those essays I dread writing. It’s about a movement I cherish and about people whom I generally greatly admire.

Headline: MAHA leadership is risking a derailment; it risks losing President Trump and the Republicans the midterms.

The cause of this danger is an oddly adolescent, somewhat cult-y, and far too personalized approach to the challenges and rigors of national politics. I write this essay out of love and support for the MAGA/MAHA alliance, in the hope that MAHA can course-correct quickly. (MAGA, in my view, is doing more than fine).

I need to paint the picture in snapshots. As you know from my last post, I was the coauthor and signatory, along with my colleague commentator Shannon Joy of The Shannon Joy Show; analyst Sasha Latypova of Due Diligence and Art; and physician Dr Mary Talley Bowden of AmerciansforHealthFreedom.org, of an open letter criticizing HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s misleading announcements about having revised the CDC recommendations for the mRNA injection.

Though the announcement purported to be a step in the right direction, and was being welcomed rapturously by MAHA-aligned influencers as a removal of the mRNA shot from the CDC recommendations, we pointed out that it was still targeted against sick kids, and against all pregnant women. Our letter also took issue with the fact that HHS has not pulled the mRNA platform from the market, and is failing to deliver on various key MAHA policy goals, which we itemized.

The response to this letter has been extremely supportive, with signatures from many grassroots citizens and health freedom activists. It generated a good deal of press, including stories in Yahoo.com, coverage in podcasts such as Dr Drew, and so on.

Some seemingly positive MAHA deliverables were set in motion the following week. Sec Kennedy fired the corrupt ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) committee, for instance, and appointed 8 replacements. These included the science/ freedom hero, Great Barrington Declaration signatory Dr Martin Kulldorff. The well-known critic of lockdown excesses Dr Retsef Levi of MIT was also appointed (a slightly baffling choice upon deeper scrutiny, as his field is food security, not vaccines. He also spent 12 years in the Israel Defense Forces’ Intelligence Wing, but no matter). Self-described inventor of the mRNA platform, Dr Robert Malone, was a pick as well.

So this dramatic gesture of Sec Kennedy’s turns out not to be black and white. Shannon Joy rightly pointed out, for instance, that eight replacements are just short of a majority.

There will surely be more MAHA “victories” to come, and more questions to be raised about those “victories,” step by step by step. In other words, HHS had a positive-to-messy week, following high-profile pressure from an outside group, along with other internal and external pressures of all kinds, no doubt.

My point is this: this is how politics works.

“Principals”, meaning people situated as Sec Kennedy or President Trump are, try to weave, every day, through the thicket of competing agendas that surrounds them, and to draw down from the opposition all around them, the least amount of damage. Everyone is trying to avoid rousing unnecessarily the ire of the biggest investors in both parties’ campaigns: in this case, Big Pharma. There are belligerent watchdogs over Sec Kennedy on the inside — reportedly, Sen Bill Cassidy has placed a rigid gatekeeper in the mix — advisor Calley Means is also tasked with keeping too much real MAHA momentum from taking place, it appears — and the whole operation is overseen by another stern gatekeeper, President Trump’s Chief of Staff, former lobbyist Susie Wiles.

In all of this complexity, the base yells and screams about its own issues. Some accommodation is made, for a compromise that is no one’s ideal. And things move haltingly forward.

Everyone who has ever done politics at a national level, understands this chaotic, tug-of-war dynamic; and knows that this is the reality of power, all day, every day. Grownup, experienced national politicians and their chiefs of staff know that it is very useful for them when their base yells and screams about an issue, especially publicly, because it gives them cover to deliver outcomes that their voters want, but that lobbyists and special interests do not want the voters to receive.

MAHA leadership and insiders really have to learn about and understand this dynamic.

I remember Vice President Al Gore, who is quite a decent person, explaining this dynamic to me. He said that citizens don’t usually have a seat at the table, and that this can be very frustrating for decent “principals”, since special interests do always have a seat at the table. The best message he could give to citizens who wanted a specific outcome from him was for them not simply to complain about what he was not delivering, but rather, as he put it, to “Make me.” That is to say, citizens needed to organize and create formal pressure groups, and publicly press on the Principal and his or her team.

The example the Vice President gave was AARP — the American Association of Retired Persons. Before this pressure group existed, the elderly had little power or voice; but after it was organized, no President or Congressperson on the right or left wanted to infuriate American elders’ numerically powerful public advocacy group.

I took that lesson to heart.

But it appears that many MAHA insiders, and certainly many among the satellites of (sorry, I have to say it) men who are now informally surrounding Sec Kennedy, really don’t seem to understand this, or to get, in general, how to play grown-up politics.

MAHA insiders and the satellite spokespeople and “Bobby” “helpers” seem to be resorting to middle-school mean-girl tactics, rather than waging serious adult national politics on behalf of Secretary Kennedy.

These men are resorting, for example, to adolescent personal attacks at the least provocation.

When I raised questions on social media about Calley Means’ company TrueMed’s biometrics harvesting business model, the HHS advisor called me “unhinged.” He declined to debate me or publicly to discuss the issue. I later wrote an essay revealing that his sister, Surgeon General nominee and Levels cofounder Casey Means, had a company with nearly flat growth and with problems with the visitor base, but with a valuation of $313 million dollars.

A grownup HHS press office would have made sure that Sec Kennedy appeared with Dr Means in multiple venues, and would have booked her a round of TV, print, radio and podcast interviews, in which such questions, and those from others, could have been addressed. Or, if it turned out that Dr Means was unready for such appearances and that the problems I and others raised were insurmountable, grownup politicos would cut bait, release a lovely statement about Dr Means having other projects to pursue, and move on to another nominee.

But that is not what happened. Dr Means has been kept in some off grid location somewhere (I am joking. I mean that she vanished from sight).

Instead of our witnessing a grownup media strategy, I received a call from a close advisor to RFK Jr and colleague now of Calley Means’. The caller told me to be nicer about the Means siblings, if I wished to “support” RFK Jr, and not to be “divisive” to the MAHA movement in criticizing the Means siblings.

That wasn’t the end of my punishment from the kids at the coolest lunchroom table. I later discovered that it was Calley Means who was gatekeeper for the seating at Sen Ron Johnson’s hearing based on my Pfizer Papers team’s uncredited work – a hearing that we were told was “too full” for us to attend.

Darn it all — Stacy didn’t invite me to her prom afterparty.

A week or two later, Shannon Joy, Sasha Latypova, Dr Mary Talley Bowden, and I ran our open letter critical of the deployment of the mRNA injection recommendations targeting sick kids and pregnant women.

After that, MAHA middle school got really weird and punitive. Over by the lockers, rumors were rampant that there would be a fight by the bleachers during lunch period.

Dr Robert Malone called our group of signatories, publicly, a “hate group.” He wrote on social media that the critics of MAHA, clearly referencing our letter and Nicole Shanahan’s recent, separate critiques, had nefarious motivations: “There is a clique of historically liberal women influencers, mostly from California or the Northeast” who are “actively seeking to divide the MAHA movement.”

Dr Malone’s whole comment on Nicole Shanahan’s criticisms of HHS and MAHA for not delivering on campaign agendas, is worth reproducing:

“It is no question in my mind that the two movements [MAHA and MAGA], although they have overlap, come from very different, ideological roots, political roots. And you can see that in— Well, Nicole Shanahan kind of embodies that. Nicole Shanahan is basically a Bay Area, Silicon Valley type attorney […]Who met, you know, met one of the founders of Google at Burning Man. You know, that’s just the way it is. And they became married, had a child, and then separated, because the child had, let’s say, I don’t want to put words in her mouth, let’s say developmental disabilities, that plausibly could have been associated with the pediatric vaccine schedule, that led to a very contentious, divorce, major settlement for Ms. Shanahan. And she now lives a life of luxury, with a new significant other, this challenged child, and has decided to become not just politically active, but potential candidate for governor of California. And has apparently made a significant commitment to let’s say becoming an influencer and to some extent a media celebrity. … Her words that she used recently on X, are very consistent with someone who is seeking attention as a media celebrity. …Now, that position that she’s taken has a pretty dark component to it in that what she’s functionally saying…When a donor to a political campaign seeks to gain promises from a political candidate in exchange for their contribution, this is commonly referred to as influence peddling or in more severe cases as a form of political corruption or bribery. When a powerful person withholds support from a candidate to extract specific promises, this is also influence peddling. If powerful people are doing this to kill or support MAHA or MAGA goals or objectives, it is still influence peddling… So, not politically astute, kind of, comes across as angry, unnecessarily.”

Dr Malone here depicted Ms Shanahan, without whose advocacy and funding Sec Kennedy and President Trump would not now be in power, as being motivated by a desire for attention, hungry for celebrity, and “angry” — all of these being sexist stereotypes traditionally used to undermine strong women leaders.

He also tried subtly to smear Shanahan, noting that she met her husband-to-be “at Burning Man. You know, that’s just the way it is.” Men may miss the dog-whistle here, but every woman who reads this, understands what “You know, that’s just the way it is” and “Burning Man” mean, when used together within the lexicon of slut-shaming.

Finally he threateningly invoked a sometimes illegal act when describing the expectations that every major donor has, that his or her agenda will get serious consideration from the candidate whom he or she supported. “Influence-peddling” can be illegal, and is an offense close to bribery or coercion. The threat that Dr Malone made here, that Ms Shanahan’s expectations as a donor that her agenda be considered, could be recast by the Trump team as an illegal activity, is a serious threat.

Dr Malone also told an audience at Freedom Fest that he and I — “Naomi”, as he called me, though I always refer to him as “Dr Malone” — got into a “Twitter Twat”, a conflict that was spun up by “chaos agents.” In other words, he implied to this audience, one made up of my own community, that I was too stupid to figure out my own opposition to some of his views, and that my mind was being manipulated by some mysterious outside force.

As far as what a “Twitter Twat” is — I have no idea, but I want the T-shirt.

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When Hawks Cry ‘Divine,’ America Pays the Price

Ven, 20/06/2025 - 05:01

Now beating their battle drums, Washington’s war hawks currently posture as divine crusaders, insisting that America’s sacred mission is to shield the State of Israel lest “God may quit us.” They thunder on that America’s refusal to wipe out Iran—and its roughly 91 million people—is the equivalent to blasphemy.

But who truly shoulders the cost when they let slip the dogs of war to defend a state born in 1948, well after the biblical prophecies bolstering the bloodthirst of today’s Christian Zionists had already faded to footnotes?

This is a fight for survival, they insist. Yet this current fracas in the Middle East isn’t about defending holy writ—it is about preserving the wallets and lives of working-class patriots on the home front.

Dispensationalist theology is famous for cherry-picking scripture, claiming that the Bible earmarked modern Israel for divine favor, and that Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones and the miraculous births predicted by Isaiah foretold a sovereign Jewish state. But those chapters describe restoration centuries before the Church and Isaiah’s prophecy about the coming of John the Baptist and the virgin birth of Jesus Christ—not 20th-century geopolitics.

The State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948—just yesterday by prophetic standards. While age doesn’t disqualify prophecy, if sacred texts spoke so clearly of this nation-state, why did earlier political theologians spend their energies opposing European regimes rather than mapping out modern Zion?

Dispensationalism offers a systematic vision of biblical history, but it faces meaningful challenges from the ancient and traditional theological traditions. It erects literalist scaffolding where symbolism reigned, divorcing the Church from the Kingdom promised by Christ. It misreads sacred poetry as political warrants.

These attempts by end-times evangelicals to bind American policy with theological fantasy serves global financiers and neoconservative think tanks more than Main Street America.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church stands as the true Kingdom of Israel, founded by Jesus Christ, the Messiah, in spiritual continuity with Old Testament saints.

Its bishops succeed the apostles. Its sacraments echo Sinai. The mission of the Catholic Church surpasses land grants and political borders. To claim otherwise is to ignore two millennia of ecclesial tradition and reduce divine covenant to real-estate speculation.

What of the Jewish people of today? Genealogical studies confirm that many modern Jews trace mixed ancestries, not unbroken lines to first-century Judea, and—taken as a whole—are not a “scattered people returning to their ancestral land.” Furthermore, those who rejected Christ at Pentecost became, by definition, enemies of the true Israel.

Faith transcends genetics.

America’s alliances should rest on shared values, not on the grievances of fringe ideologues—whether messianic rabbis or dispensationalist “Christians” with their crystal charts and rapture timetables.

The State of Israel exists in large part to accommodate the ideological caprices of zealots and political insiders. It is a sovereign nation, yes—but one no more divine than any other republic born of revolution or realpolitik.

Nevertheless, Iran’s regime is malignant. The theocratic terror of the ayatollahs threatens millions. Yet, America has no business wading into sectarian strife halfway around the globe. For every son and daughter Uncle Sam deploys, it feeds the dogs of war at home, fracturing families and draining the work force even further.

Should those bugling for bombs to drop in Asia not heed the counsel of John Quincy Adams? For it was over two centuries ago that the Secretary of State and future president said of America’s role in the world that, “She goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.”

What, then, does America stand to gain in this latest escapade? Global prestige? Oil pipelines? Or the empty assurance that a supernatural guarantor will smile upon our ledgers?

This is not merely wrong, but dangerous. Remember the Cold War—when David Ben-Gurion’s new state balanced between superpowers while America paid homage to the promise of democracy, not dispensationalist dogma. That prudence earned the Marshall Plan, not wars of faith.

The reflexive pro-Israel crowd brands dissent as betrayal, yet true patriotism demands asking hard questions. Who are the economic patriots served by foreign bloodshed? Who profits when the American treasury writes blank checks to warmongers? Who suffers when American factories sit idle and our highways crumble under tax burdens for distant battlefields?

At hand is an existential choice: Bow to theological tribalism or defend the values that built Western civilization—family, faith, personal responsibility, respect for authority.

America first means America’s families, first. Let us reject the pious posturing of overseas secular crusades, raise our voices for the forgotten Americans, and close the ledger on messianic foreign policy.

President Trump must not unleash the dogs of war again for causes that endanger American liberty.

It is time to stand down the war cries, dismantle dispensationalist delusions, and rediscover moral clarity grounded in peace, not in adventurism.

The true Kingdom of God does not rest on sand. It endures in the Church that Christ bequeathed to us and in communities that honor tradition and uplift the common man.

Let us choose wisely—before the next howl of battle dims the lights of our own cities.

This article was originally published on The O’Leary Review.

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