Legal Insurrection readers have been keeping up with the news about the swarm of covid infections hitting the vaccinated and boosted among Washington DC insiders. The infected include Kamala Harris,Merrick Garland, and Nancy Pelosi.
Now the media is slowly revealing what many of us have known for some time. The vaccines aren’t as effective at preventing covid as initially advertised.
To begin with, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal revealed that state health data indicate the vaccinated are contracting covid at about the same rates as the vaccinated. Interestingly, the disparity in health outcomes has also become less substantial.
The [Wisconsin department of Health Services] DHS found that in March, those not fully vaccinated were being diagnosed with COVID-19 at a similar rate as those who were fully vaccinated. To be exact, people not fully vaccinated were diagnosed with COVID-19 at a rate 1.1 times higher than people who were fully vaccinated. The state attributes this…
Republican Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley want the US attorney in Delaware to divulge whether a senior Justice Department official recused himself from the federal tax fraud investigation of Hunter Biden due to his links to the first son’s lawyer.
Nicholas McQuaid, who leads the Justice Department’s criminal division, formerly worked with Hunter Biden’s lawyer Chris Clark at the large multinational law firm Latham & Watkins.
Johnson (R-Wis.) and Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote to US Attorney David Weiss, saying that Attorney General Merrick Garland ignored three letters they sent last year regarding McQuaid’s possible recusal from the Weiss-led investigation.
“Dear Mr. Weiss: On Feb. 3, 2021, March 9, 2021, and Nov. 10, 2021, we wrote letters to Attorney General Garland with respect to Nicholas McQuaid…and his conflicts of interest in the Hunter Biden criminal case,” the senators wrote.
“Reminder,” Jean-Pierre wrote in response to an article about Governor Brian Kemp’s handling of Covid-19 in the early days of the pandemic, “Brian Kemp stole the gubernatorial election from Georgians and Stacey Abrams.”In 2018, Abrams refused to concede the election despite losing. Abrams is running again, against the man who won the first time, incumbent Governor Brian Kemp. Abrams has gone on to defend her unwillingness to concede.She lost by 1.4 points. Her refusal to concede was over allegations of voter suppression. She said that a concession would be to acknowledge that “an action is right, true or proper,” and that she couldn’t do it.
Airbnb’s billionaire cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky is making his biggest philanthropic donation so far: a $100 million pledge to former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s charitable foundation for an initiative that links education and travel. The funds will go toward scholarships for college students pursuing careers in public service, according to an announcement from the Obama Foundation on Monday. The program, called the Voyager Scholarship, is intended to relieve students of college debt, enable them to travel and expand their horizons—and provide them with mentors.
The two-year program will provide students with up to $25,000 in financial aid for their junior and senior years of college. Recipients will also be given $10,000 and free Airbnb housing to go on a “summer voyage” where students will design their own work-travel program to “gain exposure to new communities.”
Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), a graduate of GW Law, attacked Professor Jonathan Turley for defending President Donald Trump during his impeachment hearings, saying Turley had used his position for “wrongful ends.”
“You must be wary of those seeking to use their influence and their expertise to wrongful ends,” Wild told the graduates.
Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar and frequent pundit on legal matters and holds expertise in constitutional law. But despite his classical liberal leanings, he has become a fan favorite among conservatives for calling out the excesses of the progressive left.
“GW Law, for example, has a tenured professor who is without question well versed in constitutional law but has recently made a name for himself on cable news and social…
Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney reached a new milestone in her transition from a center-right lawmaker to a full-blown collaborator in the left’s cultural revolution within 18 months. On Monday, Cheney claimed, without evidence, members of GOP House leadership where she was expelled last May are enablers of white supremacy.
“The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and antisemitism,” Cheney wrote on Twitter. “History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse. [GOP] leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.”
The post was published Monday morning after an 18-year-old shooter allegedly killed 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday. Moments before the killing spree, in which the majority of victims were black, the white shooter published an online “manifesto” airing antisemitic grievances in 180 pages where he also showcased anxiety over “replacement.”…
As pro-abortion and pro-life activists continue to spar over the future of Roe as a Supreme Court ruling in another abortion case approaches, the radical left and its media allies are beginning to put the screws to companies to toe the line and come out in favor of abortion.
Some large companies have done so, seemingly of their own volition. Amazon, as well as Microsoft, Airbnb, Apple, and Citigroup are just some of the businesses that have announced they will pay out-of-state travel costs for employees to get abortions if the state they live in curtails the procedure.
But to leftists, nothing but complete and utter obedience and obeisance will suffice, so they’ve moved on to pressuring companies to support their policies even…
A Michigan Court of Claims judge has granted a preliminary injunction to Planned Parenthood of Michigan that would stall the enforcement of Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn the landmark 1973 Roe decision enshrining abortion as a constitutional right.
Court of Claims Judge Elizabeth Gleicher issued a preliminary victory to Planned Parenthood of Michigan that would stall the enforcement of Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn the landmark 1973 Roe decision enshrining abortion as a constitutional right.
Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel said she won’t appeal Gleicher’s order. Nessel, the named defendant in the case, said the ruling against her office is a “victory for the millions of Michigan women fighting for their rights.”
A Democratic state representative from Connecticut is criticizing her own party’s platform on abortion as “extreme,” saying pro-life Democrats like her are being shunned.
Connecticut state Rep. Trenee McGee, a Democrat who represents New Haven and West Haven and was elected last year, said on the latest episode of The Church Politics Podcast that “there are many pro-life Democrats” nationwide that have been “pushed out” by the party.
The Democratic Party platform, she said, “went from safe, legal and rare to extreme.” The party’s platforms in 1996, 2000 and 2004 said abortion should be “rare.” The 2008, 2012 and 2016 platforms removed that word yet still listed a goal to “reduce the need for abortions.” The 2020 platform did not include language about reducing abortions or making them rare.
Many people in the pro-choice movement, McGee said, have become radical.
“Right now, the pro-choice movement has taken a switch – from tweets that were once…
Katie Britt is defending her pro-life record following an attack ad by fellow U.S. Senate candidate Mike Durant.
“She let abortion pills be supplied to teenagers,” the Durant ad said, in reference to recent stories on the passage of a 2003 resolution by the student body association requesting that the Morning After pill be available at the University of Alabama’s health center while Britt was SGA president.
Britt did not veto the resolution, a fact that was drawn to light in a recent news article by 1819 News, and publicized further by Durant’s campaign.
“Alabama needs a pro-life conservative fighter in the Senate to ensure we overturn Roe v. Wade, not weak-kneed insider Katie Boyd Britt,” Scott Stone, a Durant spokesperson, said in a statement to AL.com
Finnish electricity companies are refusing to sign electricity contracts with Russian search engine Yandex, which has a data centre near Helsinki, due to suspicions it may be distributing war propaganda. Read more.
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EU INSTITUTIONS
MEPs ask that frozen Russian billions be used to rebuild and arm Ukraine. Seventy-three MEPs have called for $300 billion in seized Russian funds and assets to fund the Ukrainian military and the country’s reconstruction in a letter sent to EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell. Read more.
U.S. natural gas prices more than doubled since the start of the year, and this summer’s air-conditioning season could send them soaring by at least another 25%.
In the futures market, gas prices rose 4% Tuesday as hot spring weather in the Southern U.S. pressured a market that has already been concerned about tight supplies. The warmer weather is forecast to continue across the region.
“In the last month, there has not been a meaningful uptick in U.S. lower 48 states production,” said Matt Palmer, senior director North American natural gas at S&P Global Commodity Insights. “You’re seeing exports running full out on LNG; power burn from the power sector is really strong and layer in the heat we’re seeing and the expectation that the southern tier of the continent in May and June will see well above normal temperatures. That’s a recipe for higher…
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has started to take affirmative steps to include non-binary classifications on agency forms. In an announcement last month, individuals will be able to choose a non-binary gender markers when filling out intake and charge of discrimination forms used by workers for discrimination complaints levied against employers. On these forms, an individual will be able choose “X” for the voluntary self-identification questions and use the prefix “Mx.”
This announcement builds on a previous announcement in which the EEOC explained that it was exploring ways to collect non-binary data from employers on an EEO-1 form. At present, employers can voluntarily submit such information using the “comment” section on their EEO-1 forms, but there is currently no requirement for employers to submit this data to federal agencies like the EEOC or DOL. Any such requirement will require a vote of the Commission.
Eight months after El Salvador became the first country to make bitcoin an official currency, its president has invited 44 other countries to discuss bitcoin’s “rollout and benefits”. The meeting will take place in Guatemala on Monday, May 17, where officials from Africa, Asia, and Latin America will discuss financial inclusion and the digital economy.
President Nayib Bukele took to Twitter to announce the conference. “Tomorrow, 32 central banks and 12 financial authorities (44 countries) will meet in El Salvador to discuss financial inclusion, digital economy, banking the unbanked, the #Bitcoin rollout and its benefits in our country”, reads his tweet.
The omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 that has swept across the U.S. since late last year has taken a grimmer toll than earlier variants, including in people who were vaccinated and even had booster shots.
The data are based on the date of infection and limited to a sampling of cases in which vaccination status was known, the paper reported. The deaths were mostly in elderly people and people with compromised immune systems. Almost two-thirds of those people who died during omicron were aged 75 and older.
Pushing forward Chinese President Xi Jinping’s concept of a “Global Security Initiative”, an important Chinese official has said that the Indo-Pacific strategy of the United States, “if left unchecked”, would bring “horrible consequences and push the Asia-Pacific over the edge of an abyss”.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng, who is one of the top contenders to succeed Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also said, “Rather than learning the painful lessons of conflict and suffering in Europe, they seek to create a “second theatre” and bring the conflict to the Asia-Pacific.”
Beijing refers to the Indo-Pacific as Asia-Pacific, and Vice Foreign Minister Le has been one of the voices presenting the Chinese government’s view on developments in the region. Le, a former Chinese ambassador to Le spoke about a “global NATO”, and responded to concerns over China’s “no-limits” partnership with Russia, in the context of the invasion of Ukraine. Responding to a question about the US wanting to control Europe while letting the Europeans bear the losses, Le said: “There is a famous line in (the American web series) House of Cards: “Politics requires sacrifice. The sacrifice of others, of course.””
A Turkish academic and her team are working hard to create the technology of processing the solar cell, which they embroidered on fabric and successfully managed to turn led lamps on and charge a battery, into disposable bioplastics that can be dissolved in water, in a goal to charge mobile phones with wearable and organic solar cells.
Yıldız Technical University (YTÜ) Faculty of Arts and Sciences Faculty Member professor Serap Güneş, won the “Academy 2022” award within the scope of the “Turkey’s Energizing Women” awards organized by the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, thanks to the solar energy project she developed with a team of seven people at YTÜ Organic Electronics Laboratory.
Güneş told Anadolu Agency (AA) that they set out to explore the technology after thinking whether they could both produce energy and perform daily routines with a solar panel weaved onto a shirt.
Lithuania’s parliament has designated Russia a terrorist country and its actions in Ukraine as genocide.
The Lithuanian Seimas tweeted Tuesday that its members had passed the resolution unanimously.
This makes Lithuania the first country to declare Russia a perpetrator of terrorism, according to Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security. It’s not the first to formally accuse Russia of genocide: Canadian lawmakers unanimously adopted such a motion last month.
Lithuania’s resolution says that Russia’s armed forces and mercenaries have committed war crimes in Ukraine, citing the atrocities reported in places Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Borodyaka, Hostomel and other cities, according to public broadcaster Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT).
“The Russian Federation, whose military forces deliberately and systematically target civilian targets, is a state that supports and perpetrates terrorism,” the resolution reads.
A small town in Catalonia has declared itself “liberated” from Spanish control as activists say they are beginning a new strategy of confrontation with the state to gain independence for their region.
On Saturday in Bàscara, in the northeastern region, activists set up informal checkpoints at the entrances to the town, which has a population of 1,000, to mark its supposed border with Spain. The checkpoints were manned by locals who waved the Estelada secessionist flag and handed out home-made Catalan passports to those entering the town. They also gave out an invented new currency called the “cat” to locals. One painted slogan on a wall at the entrance to the town said: “You are entering liberated territory.”
Six years ago, army chiefs and senior members of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) initiated a mission to smear National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other NLD figures.
Their mission began after the NLD won a landslide victory in the 2015 general election. Now, following last year’s coup, the mission continues.
Ahead of the 2015 poll, military and USDP leaders deliberately inflamed religious and racial sentiments to prevent an outright NLD victory in the election. Often, the NLD was portrayed as a pro-Muslim party whose rise to power would mean the fall of…
The United States hopes India will reverse its ban on wheat exports, Washington’s top diplomat to the United Nations said Monday, warning the move would worsen global shortages of the commodity.
“We’re encouraging countries not to restrict exports because we think any restrictions on exports will exacerbate the food shortages,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield said during a ministerial gathering on food security ahead of a meeting of the UN Security Council.
The UN meeting — to be chaired by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken — will include Vellamvelly Muraleedharan, India’s minister of state for external affairs.
India holds a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
“We hope that (India) can, as they hear the concerns being raised by other countries, that they would reconsider that position,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.
This column will cover the preceding week of news.
To make it easier for readers to follow story source links: anytime you see a bracketed number marked in green – [1] – those are the source links relating to that story.
South America
Leading off, this week, a “tear gas grenade” was thrown into a student body election meeting at the Tomas Frías Autonomous University in the city of Potosí, Bolivia on the 9th. In the resulting panic-induced stampede, four young women were killed, and over 80 students were injured. Bolivian police have arrested four suspects: Manfred Flores, 25, Mauricio Quintanilla, 25, Milton Fuentes, 35 and Ariel Quispe, 40, on suspicion (currently) of homicide and possession of a gas grenade.
Bolivian authorities have not speculated on the reason for the attack, and are attempting to discover how the men obtained the grenade, which is normally very difficult to obtain in Bolivia.
The odd nature of the on-going wave of bomb threats against schools continued to develop in the United States this week, with four incidents of note: two handwritten notes making threats were found, resulting in one arrest [1] and police seeking a “person of interest” [4]; another, in which an 8th Grader apparently called in a threat [2], and another threat made via Instagram [3]. As usual, there were many other similar incidents, but those stories had too little information to reference. While these threats are widely dispersed, they do cluster, and this new tack in the course of the wave remains an object of interest, deviating from the previously reported robocall format.
In Mali, four soldiers were killed and one was wounded, when their patrol vehicle struck an IED near Djenné in the central part of the country. Two children were killed and four other people were wounded in Diondiori, also in central Mali, by what officials describe as “shellfire” from “Armed Terrorist Groups“, as authorities frequently do not know which of the many groups that have been fighting inside the beleaguered nation since 2012 are responsible. [1]
In neighboring Burkina Faso, meanwhile, army units reported that they successfully ambushed a group of terrorists in Mouhoun Province, killing 40, and capturing a large amount of weapons and equipment. In another incident, however, other terrorists attacked a prison in the town of Nouna, on the border with neighboring Mali, freed and escaped with all 60 prisoners, leaving one person dead. [2]
Burkina Faso has battled their insurgency since 2015, when fighting in Mali spilled over the border.
In what may be a disturbing expansion of the ongoing war in the north, the nation of Togo saw an attack on an army outpost in the Kpendjal prefecture on its northern frontier border with Burkina Faso. Officials report that some eight troops were killed and 13 wounded. Togo has remained largely free of violence in the last ten years, but that could be changing, as violence continues moving south. [3][4]
In related news, the West Africa Centre for Counter-Extremism (WACCE) released a report warning that the nation of Ghana, which has also escaped the violence to its north so far, was increasingly exposed to danger, pointing out that some 53% of ECOWAS (the “Economic Community of West African States”) nations are currently in the midst of mostly Islamist terrorist insurgencies, and that the contagion is spreading.
In Nigeria, the last few weeks of relative calm were shattered this week, as a combination of terror groups and simple bandits emerged on the attack, killing dozens (including civilians, soldiers and police), hijacking buses – crucial to Nigeria’s infrastructure – and kidnapping victims that ranged from a pair of nursing mothers to traditional monarchs and tribal chiefs.
Elsewhere on the continent, 14 people were reported killed in an attack on a “displaced persons” camp outside the town of Fataki, near the city of Bunia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the 10th. The CODECO terror group, accused of being loosely affiliated with IS-CAP, is believed to have been responsible, as they were responsible for an attack on a nearby mining camp on the 8th. The fighting is part of the Ituri Conflict, which has been continuing in fits and starts since 2003. [1][2]
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have reportedly begun to actively recruit child soldiers, although the Taliban leadership have said that they are forbidding the recruitment of “teenagers”…video footage under the link. [1]
In Pakistan, a spate of attacks this week killed at least eight people, including three children and three soldiers. This comes as the country’s government denied, yet again, that it was harboring terror groups that targeted its neighbors. [2]-[5]
In India, the long-running conflict in the northern Jammu & Kashmir region saw a burst of violence, as well, this week, with several operations – both jihadist and national – taking place during the week, leading to multiple arrests, but also to the death of a police officer by assassination. [1]-[7]
The week also saw the emergence of a little-known group, JKFF (‘Jammu Kashmir Freedom Fighters’), who hurled an explosive device at a bus loaded with Hindu religious pilgrims. Very little is known about the group, aside from them being ‘broadly‘ Muslim, and “jihadist” in nature. [8]
On Friday, at least 12 schools in the city of Bhopal received bomb threats via email, in a manner similar to a wave a month ago, that targeted schools in the southern city of Bangalore. In this case, some school received as many as 50 emails with bomb threats, coming from several email addresses. Police bomb squads cleared all of the targeted schools, and are continuing their investigation to attempt to trace the emails’ ISP addresses. [9]
India’s “Red Corridor” saw a sudden burst of activity this week, with multiple arrests and arson attacks throughout the troubled region. Small arms and explosives were recovered in several areas. As well, a Naxal couple surrendered to authorities in the Gadchiroli district, citing the constant threat from security forces and wild animals, forced sterilization and separation of couples and attractive surrender policy of the Maharashtra government. [10]-[15]
Finally, Sri Lanka‘s economic crisis – the worst since its independence in 1948 – came off the rails this week, as protests turned into riots, and violence has escalated to the point of the government in Colombo issuing orders to the armed forces to open fire on anyone vandalizing or looting public property. The violence has left over two hundred people injured and eight dead, including a member of Parliament and his bodyguard.
“Security forces have been ordered to shoot on sight anyone looting public property or causing harm to life,” the ministry said as reported by news agency AFP.
The protests that began on April 9th, are over the country’s downward economic spiral, brought on by a combination of the government’s response to the 2019 Easter Bombings, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, staggeringly bad economic and monetary policy decisions, and the continuing economic shock-waves of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia is a nation of mystics. Before Putin there was Rasputin.
Putin presents as nihilism reincarnated. Per the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Russian Nihilism is perhaps best regarded as the intellectual pool … out of which later radical movements emerged; it held the potential for both Jacobinism and anarchism.”
Defeating the Jacobinism which fomented the Reign of Terror, and its guillotines, and the Black Handed anarchism that fomented a century of guerre à outrance demands fighting not only by hero-warriors but by spiritual justice warriors.
Nihilism delenda est.
A world spiritual justice war has begun. Only by challenging Putin’s legitimacy can we defeat his propaganda-fueled popularity, ending his massacre of innocents.
The UK Guardian reveals the rising challenge to “Putin’s patriarch” of the Russian Orthodox Church.
“[Patriarch] Kirill, who had close links with the KGB in Soviet times, has described Mr Putin’s leadership as a religious miracle. As bombs have rained down on Ukrainian cities, he has asserted that it is “God’s truth” that the people of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus should be reunited as one spiritual people. During a sermon delivered in Moscow last month, he portrayed the invasion of Ukraine as part of a ‘metaphysical’ struggle against a decadent west …. As a result, amid a global Christian backlash, the ROC is fast becoming a pariah church within a pariah state.”
The heroism of the Ukrainian freedom fighters is a breath of fresh air in our fetid political world. So is the heroism of the priests and church officials denouncing Moscow.
That said, more is needed. War is about victory.
The Ukrainian resistance wins battle after battle. Yet the Kremlin’s forces keep administering ever more brutal blows.
Putin is brutally conducting mass murder, razing cities and laying mines that will maim for generations. As the New York Times reports, “The Russian general who has been put in charge of the invasion of Ukraine earned distinction in Moscow for his handling of his country’s intervention in the Syrian civil war, where he helped to oversee a brutal, scorched-earth campaign ….”
We must be at least as ferocious in stripping from Putin all pretence of legitimacy. Consider the magnitude of Putin’s evil.
The blackest, most damning, most plausible analysis is presented by David Goldman, writing as “Spengler” in Asia Times, headlined Cardinal Richelieu explains Vladimir Putin:
“Dilettantes like the Americans think of eliminating a regime. Real connoisseurs of power arrange to eliminate entire provinces.”
Goldman then recounts Russia’s brutal demolition of Chechnya. And goes on to today:
“There is only one way to govern Russia, and it does not involve lace doilies. … Ukraine was hollow before the war began. … Twelve million Ukrainians, fully half the able-bodied population of working age, left before the war started. Another five million have fled. As Russian artillery pounds Ukraine’s cities, more will flee. How many will return? Large parts of Ukraine will fall into ruin.”
Rule or ruin. Putin, having failed to impose his rule, now intends to ruin.
He does so under a false pretense of a moral crusade against the decadent Western infidels. We need valor and will need more than valor to win this war. We must win the hearts and minds of the Russian people.
Putin must be shown up as not a mere brutal thug but as illegitimate. A fraud.
Turning the people of Russia against Putin is the only way to end the invasion.
The Guardian continues:
“Initially reluctant to make the full force of his opposition to Mr Putin public, Pope Francis has begun to harden his language, telling the patriarch that the concept of a holy or just war cannot be reconciled with Christian teaching. The World Council of Churches, which represents 580 million Christians of various denominations around the world, has unsuccessfully urged Kirill to use his influence with Mr Putin to intercede for peace. An emerging lobby within it is now calling for the ROC to be expelled.”
It is time for all people of faith, from pulpits to pews, to confront Putin’s Hell-bent course and stand as spiritual justice warriors condemning Putin’s damnable course, blessing Ukraine’s resistance leaders.
As William Butler Yeats, in 1919, the year of my mother’s birth, prophesied in The Second Coming:
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Slouches now Vladimir Putin, neo-nihilist anti-Christian. Now is the time for us to stand with him who vexed the Father of Lies to a thousand years of stony sleep.
Nothing less. Ukraine is this world spiritual war’s first, but not final, theater. We must be sufficiently ferocious to win the spiritual war.
Pitting the U.S. military against Russian forces could trigger, and enmesh the United States and our European allies in, World War III. President Biden is right not to engage in direct combat with Russia, a nuclear power.
Possibly apocalyptic.
The valorous Ukrainian resistance forces are proving a ferocious match for the demoralized Russian troops. Ukraine, given the tools, can finish the job.
Yet there is more to be done.
Ukraine’s liberty and sovereignty is rightfully an American cause. There is a safer way to take a powerful stand for Ukraine, one alluded to in my previous column.
Let Americans, and people of faith worldwide, serve as Spiritual Justice Warriors. Let’s blunt Putin’s claws by denying him his spurious claim to legitimacy.
Attacking a sovereign’s legitimacy is powerful. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense triggered the American Revolutionary War by attacking the legitimacy of the British monarchy.
Welcome to the war of ideas.
As Jeanne Whalen reports in The Washington Post writing on the divisiveness of the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church’s collusion with Putin:
“’Any war has to have guns and ideas,’ said Cyril Hovorun, professor of ecclesiology, international relations and ecumenism at University College Stockholm. ‘In this war the Kremlin has provided the guns, and I believe the church is providing the ideas.’ In the process, Kirill has caused deep schisms in the global Orthodox Church, with priests in Ukraine, elsewhere in Europe and the United States condemning his support.”
“Any war has to have guns and ideas.”
How would this work? Pew reports that only 7% of the population of the Russian Federation were, at last count, regular churchgoers. However, the number identifying as Russian Orthodox more than doubled from 1991 to 2008 to over 70%, with the number of those reporting no religious affiliation plunged from 61% to 18%.
The Achilles heel in Putin’s popularity, and purchase on power, is a claim to moral legitimacy both false and falsifiable. That claim is ultimately rooted in the blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church whose patriarch has crossed over to the Dark Side.
Discredit his claims to legitimacy and Putin’s political house of cards collapses. Tom Paine’s stripping the British monarch of any claim to legitimacy legitimized, and thus brought about, the American Revolution.
And Independence.
It is hard to overestimate Paine’s slender pamphlet’s impact. Per History.com:
“As John Adams to his wife in April 1776: ‘Common Sense, like a ray of revelation, has come in seasonably to clear our doubts, and to fix our choice.’ As Thomas Jefferson biographer Joseph J. Ellis has written, Common Sense ‘swept through the colonies like a firestorm, destroying any final vestige of loyalty to the British crown.’”
Paine’s main critique was not England’s brutal misrule, nor the tyranny of taxation without representation, nor the virtue of independence. Paine indicted the legitimacy of monarchy in all ways, including spiritual:
“Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian World hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones.”
Yes, Paine went on to argue for the practicality and the benefits of America becoming its own, self-governing, continental entity. Yes, he argued for the excellent prospects for American victory.
That said, his kill shot was the illegitimacy of monarchy. Let America return to first principles.
The West is in enthusiastic solidarity with Ukraine, providing humanitarian aid and combat materiel. Necessary, but not sufficient.
It is imperative that we fight the fire of Putin’s fraudulent moral pretensions with the fire of spiritual and moral legitimacy, becoming Spiritual Justice Warriors.
Whatever Joe Biden’s several imperfections, we elected a president who attends church regularly. President Biden, thus, has exceptional standing to play Spiritual Justice Warrior against the nihilistic Vladimir Putin’s moral and spiritual swindle.
And liberate Ukraine.
To liberate Ukraine, and save our own souls, let orthodox faith leaders, in America and around the world, lead a spiritual crusade to anathematize a heresy-mongering patriarch and his phony political whelp.
For you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. The introduction to Tom Paine’s Common Sense concludes its introduction:
“The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind. … The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling… .”
The salad days of the alleged Biden family world grift tour included a secret trip to Moscow by Hunter Biden with Putin Oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov. The meeting happened back in 2012 at a time when Hunter and now-jailed business partner were seeking investment money from the oligarch.
Hunter Biden flew to Moscow for a meeting with a now-sanctioned Russian oligarch with reportedly close ties to Vladimir Putin, laptop files reveal.
Vladimir Yevtushenkov, 73, owns a company which reportedly supplied Putin’s forces with drones used for deadly bombing raids in Ukraine and until last year owned key Russian defense contractor RTI.
But while he was added to the UK and Australian sanctions lists this month but remains one of a handful of oligarchs unsanctioned by the Biden administration.
The Supreme Court has ruled that Boston’s efforts to block a Christian group from flying a Christian flag while allowing other private groups to raise their flags on a public community flagpole was a violation of that group’s first amendment rights.
The court said that the flag display amounted to a public forum, and because many other groups were allowed to raise their flags in celebration of the Boston community, the city could not discriminate on the basis of the religious group’s viewpoint without violating the Constitution.
“We conclude that, on balance, Boston did not make the raising and flying of private groups’ flags a form of government speech,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote.
The case was filed in 2018 after a Boston official denied the application by the group Camp Constitution to raise a flag — described as “Christian” in the application — on one of the three flagpoles outside Boston’s city hall. The group is an all-volunteer association that seeks to “enhance understanding of the country’s Judeo-Christian moral heritage.”
Central to the case was whether the flagpole is perceived as an example of government speech. If so, the city has a right to limit displays without violating free speech principles. The Free Speech Clause of the Constitution restricts government regulation of private speech, it does not regulate government speech. But if, on the other hand, the display amounts to private speech, in a government-created forum where others are invited to express their views, the government cannot discriminate based on the viewpoint of one of the speakers.
Having chosen the queen of disinformation, Nina Jankowicz, to be the Czar of determining exactly what disinformation is, the Biden-appointed head of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, wants to reassure you the American people that this whole disinformation board thing has NOTHING to do with American citizens, nothing whatsoever.
The queen of the Russia Hoax lie herself, Nina Jankowicz, is the head of the President-formed “Disinformation Governance Board,” but we the American people can be assured that the same party that illegally and unaccountably used secret FISA courts to wiretap a Presidential candidate, and later President-elect, will respect the ostensible boundaries of a department not intended to spy on Americans when it was formed.
If you remember, the DHS was formed shortly after 911, allegedly to facilitate communications between the various intelligence departments. Since then, it’s become increasingly focused on ‘domestic terrorism,’ and, no doubt, this ‘disinformation board’ will follow the same pattern the department itself set.
We can all be reassured that the department is working on our behalf to protect us from potential thoughts, ideas, information that might be outside the official party line. If we can control the narrative, we can make what it whatever we say it is.
This seems all too familiar, and usually leads to very dark places. Let us hope this experiment in anti-Americanism comes to an end peacefully sooner rather than later.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed Sunday that his department’s Orwellian “Disinformation Governance Board” will not monitor US citizens — and vouched for the “eminently qualified” agency czar who has been blasted by critics for being too partisan.
Mayorkas defended Nina Jankowicz amid questions from conservatives over her ability to ferret out disinformation when she doubted the credibility of The Post’s series of reports in October 2020 about Hunter Biden’s laptop — information that has since been confirmed by other newspapers and media outlets.
Jankowicz was also mocked when a wacky TikTok video surfaced of her singing a rendition of the Mary Poppins tune “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” to address the spread of disinformation.
Mayorkas praised Jankowicz on CNN as “eminently qualified” and a “renowned expert in the field of disinformation.”
In response to the rising trend of corporate financial institutions to utilize their platforms to target political opponents for market assassination, a new company, Coign, has come forward.
Coign is offering the political opposition to these corporations (anyone not openly, enthusiastically embracing their new woketarianism) a financial safe space where they can expect their credit card company not to cancel their account because they refused to not define what a woman is.
“Too many corporations are investing their customers’ money in political and social priorities that align with their executives, the media, and the left’s agenda,” said Coign founder Rob Collins.
A credit card company launching Tuesday will allow cardholders to funnel cash to conservative causes in an attempt to push back on a woke corporate culture that has seen banks funnel billions to causes like Black Lives Matter and the Clinton Foundation.
Coign, whose advisory team includes former Republican senator Cory Gardner (Colo.), is eschewing those politics, instead allowing cardholders to cast votes on which charities receive their merchant fees.
“Too many corporations are investing their customers’ money in political and social priorities that align with their executives, the media, and the left’s agenda,” Coign founder Rob Collins, a former GOP political operative, told the Washington Free Beacon. “Coign will let conservatives voice their priorities through charitable…
The new battle for the right to self defense might not involve guns at all, at least not directly. The new threat to central control is the rising efficiency of the drone. From battlefields across the Mideast and North Africa, to the recent battles over the skies of Ukraine, drones are becoming disruptors of organized power, as Russian columns in Ukraine can readily affirm.
Here in America, the current spokesperson of central control known as Joe Biden is recognizing that threat to the potential for tyranny to control the unwilling. The administration is looking to find out the current legal justifications to clamp down on drone use in the United States. Get ready, the battle for drone possession and manufacturing by private citizens is soon to come, if it’s not already here.
The Biden administration is calling on Congress to expand authority for federal and local governments to take action to counter the nefarious use in the U.S. of drones, which are becoming a growing security concern and nuisance.
What You Need To Know
The Biden administration is calling on Congress to expand authority for federal and local governments to take action to counter the nefarious use in the U.S. of drones
The White House on Monday released an action plan that calls for expanding the number of agencies that can track and monitor drones flying in their airspace
The federal-government-wide focus comes as the Federal Aviation Administration projects that more than 2 million drones will be in circulation in the U.S. by 2024
The White House says it also wants to work with Congress to enact a criminal statute that sets standards for legal and illegal uses of drones
Joe Biden used the pseudonym “Peter Henderson” in his email exchanges with Hunter Biden and the Chinese and other foreign interests that were part of the alleged Biden network of grift. The name is that of a Russian spy from a Tom Clancy Novel. The irony is not lost.
Joe Biden wrote to his son Hunter and others close to him using the pseudonym “Peter Henderson” – a fictional Soviet Union-era spy in several Tom Clancy novels who infiltrated the US government, emails show.
The messages contained on Hunter’s abandoned laptop appear to indicate the then-VP started using the fictitious mole’s moniker in October 2016 while forwarding a YouTube video to his son Hunter, brother Jim, daughter-in-law Hallie, as well as his sister and longtime political strategist Valerie Biden Owens.
Biden sent the message using an email address with a username of “67stingray” — a clear reference to his beloved 1967 Corvette Stingray.
The name attached to Biden’s “67stingray” account at the time was “Peter Henderson” – which matches the name of the KGB spy in Clancy’s popular Jack Ryan series, according to online fan pages.
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