Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Trump should be impeached.. 'he's violated the laws six ways from Sunday'
Nadler says Trump should be impeached because 'he's violated the laws six ways from Sunday'
By Paola Chavez, CNN
Posted at 11:12 AM ET, Sun July 28, 2019
Rep. Nadler clarifies his stance on impeachment 02:15
Washington (CNN) — House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said he personally believes President Donald Trump "richly deserves" to be impeached, arguing Trump has "violated the laws six ways from Sunday."
"My personal view is that (Trump) richly deserves impeachment," Nadler told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" Sunday. "He has done many impeachable offenses, he's violated the laws six ways from Sunday."
Nadler has before said former special counsel Robert Mueller's report presents "very substantial evidence" that Trump is "guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors" -- an impeachable offense, but the chairman on Sunday stopped short of committing to launching an impeachment inquiry into the President. The House Judiciary Committee, Nadler said, needs "more evidence" to determine whether or not the chamber should take the first step in a long impeachment process.
The House Judiciary Committee on Friday announced they were moving to obtain the secret grand jury materialfrom Mueller's report in federal court, arguing they need more information to investigate the President. The lawsuit comes on the heels of Mueller's testimony before Congress -- testimony that Democrats advocating for impeachment say clearly detailed the President's criminal conduct.
75 Years Ago The U.S. Dollar Became The World's Currency. Will That Last?
July 30, 20196:30 AM ET
GREG ROSALSKY
Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images
Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Planet Money's newsletter. You can sign up here.
In 1944, almost exactly 75 years ago, more than 700 representatives from 44 nations traveled to the Mount Washington Hotel, a secluded resort in the mountains of Bretton Woods, N.H. With World War II coming to an end, they arrived to hammer out a new financial system for the global economy.
Last week former U.S. Treasury secretaries, central bankers, economists and other nerds traveled to it for a conference that took stock of their legacy — the so-called "Bretton Woods" system — and debated its future. We went too.
The Mount Washington hotel is old school, with ornate chandeliers and a moose head hanging in the lobby. Classical music reminds you it's classy. There are awesome mountain views and a musty, sort of wet-carpet smell. It was grand and luxurious, but it also felt like it was straight out of The Shining.
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Vatican Hosts Conference Touching on Transhumanism
ChurchMilitant.com • July 29, 2019
Humanity 2.0 and the Vatican discuss the transHuman Code
VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - With the support of the Pontifical Lateran University (PLU), globalists met in Vatican City on Monday to discuss the best path forward with humanity and technology in harmony.
The meeting has been described as an "exclusive gathering of technology, corporate, finance, government, academic, ecclesiastic and media leaders … to catalyze awareness and establish the best path forward with humanity and technology in harmony."
Sponsored by OISTE Foundation, Humanity 2.0 held the meeting titled "Technology and Human Flourishing" with the support of the PLU at the Collegio Teutonico, which is adjacent to St. Peter's Square.
Humanity 2.0 developed in collaboration with the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (DPIHD).
Humanity 2.0 developed in collaboration with the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development(DPIHD) as "an agent of the common good and a believer in the need for a shared horizon to unite humankind," according to the organization's website.
Monday, July 29, 2019
Capital One says approximately 100 million people in US affected by data breach
Associated Press
Updated: 8:36 PM EDT Jul 29, 2019
National Desk Staff
A Capital One data breach obtained personal information of people, and the FBI has taken a person into custody, according to the company.
The breach involved approximately 100 million people in the U.S. and about 6 million in Canada, the financial company said.
The Washington Post reported that a Seattle-area woman, Paige A. Thompson, has been accused of computer fraud and abuse, based on court records. U.S. Attorney Brian T. Moran's office said Thompson was a former Seattle technology company software engineer.
Credit card account numbers and login credentials were not compromised, according to Capital One.
The breach affected personal information, such as addresses, phone numbers and birth dates from applications, as well as 140,000 Social Security numbers of credit card customers and 80,000 linked bank account numbers of secured credit card customers, according to the company.
Pelosi spox corrects Matt Gaetz: Elijah Cummings not one of the black Democrats on trip to Italy and Ghana
by John Gage
July 27, 2019 08:19 PM
A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi corrected Rep. Matt Gaetz after he claimed Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Maryland Democrat targeted by President Trump's tweets Saturday, was in the Democratic congressional delegation visiting Italy and Ghana.
"@RepCummings is not on the Pelosi CODEL marking the 400th Anniversary of the First Enslaved Africans Landing in America. US Army Africa HQ is in Italy," deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill said on Twitter after the Florida Republican said Cummings had gone on the trip.
Pelosi Leads Delegation to Ghana and U.S. Army Africa Headquarters
Drew Hammill
@Drew_Hammill
.
@RepCummings is not on the Pelosi CODEL marking the 400th Anniversary of the First Enslaved Africans Landing in America. US Army Africa HQ is in Italy. (link: https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/72619-2/) speaker.gov/newsroom/72619…
A Penchant for saying "Six Ways from Sunday"
On Sun July 28, 2019 @ 0:22 Mins., Congressman Jerry Nadler from New York:
In December 2017 (@ 0:38), New York Congressman Chuck Schumer:
What is strange about these two instances where these Congressmen from New York mention (on these videos) the phrase "Six Ways From Sunday"; Since they are both Jewish.
My question is:
Why would they be fixated with this cliche about * SUNDAYS* ?
Wait, 40 percent of white evangelicals support the Green New Deal?
By Kate Yoder on Jul 29, 2019 at 5:59 am
In the 2016 presidential election, 81 percent of white evangelical Christians voted to elect President Trump. But this core base of the Republican Party, despite Fox News’ efforts, is more receptive to large-scale action to combat climate change than you might expect.
In fact, Christians from a wide range of denominations are calling for action. Catholics are building solar farms and talking to farmers about global warming. Progressive denominations have officially endorsed the Green New Deal. If this keeps up, the 70 percent of Americans who call themselves Christians could prove to be a catalyst for getting the country to take long-awaited climate action.
But it’s the openness to action among white evangelicals that might be the most surprising. Some 40 percent of white evangelicals support the progressive climate-justice-jobs resolution introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City and Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, according to a recent poll conducted by NPR, PBS Newshour, and Marist.
Many Christians are still skeptical of the climate movement, which has earned a reputation as secular (given that it’s based on, you know, science, like evolution) and of particular concern to Democrats (thanks, Al Gore). Their support for the Green New Deal is weak compared to that of most Americans, 63 percent of whom say they support it — on par with legalizing weed.
And about 28 percent of white evangelicals accept the scientific consensus that the Earth is warming because of human activity — the lowest among the major religious groups in the United States, according to a report from Pew Research in 2015. By contrast, 77 percent of Hispanic Catholics are on board with the scientific consensus.
So what’s behind this budding momentum? Christians might just be getting swept along with the rest of the American public, who are increasingly grasping the idea that humans are warming the climate. “Americans believe climate change is real, and that number goes up every single month,” GOP pollster Frank Luntz told the Senate climate committee during testimony on Thursday.
“Politics is the biggest predictor of attitude toward climate change, and religion crosscuts in interesting ways,” said Robin Globus Veldman, author of the forthcoming book The Gospel of Climate Skepticism: Why American Evangelical Christians Oppose Action on Climate Change. Evangelicals as a whole are more likely to be Republicans than Democrats (though nonwhite evangelicals lean Democrat).
Many of the environmental movement’s early heroes have Presbyterian roots. There’s Rachel Carson, the author of the 1962 book Silent Spring warning us of the dangers of DDT, and Theodore Roosevelt, the president who created numerous national parks, national forests, and wildlife sanctuaries.
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Op-Ed: Are scooters a transit solution or a Trojan Horse for big tech to colonize our public spaces?
(Los Angeles Times)
By John Tinnell
July 19, 2019
3:15 AM
Summer is here and the electronic hum of scooters is filling city sidewalks all over the world. From L.A. to D.C., many American downtowns have hit their one-year anniversary with scooters, and European capitals have begun to allow them.
The benefit is obvious: Scooters provide on-demand, affordable mobility to any able-bodied smartphone user. As the vehicle’s fan base grows, however, so do the frustrations that provoke other urbanites to detest them — abandoned scooters left on walkways and even scooter-pedestrian collisions. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo says escalating tensions are leading to “anarchy” on her city’s boulevards and footpaths. And an even bigger issue looms over arguments for and against this revamped child’s toy. Scooters may well be the Trojan Horse with which big tech colonizes the world’s public space.
Scooters (and dockless e-bikes) inhabit cities like few other consumer products ever have. Through location-tracking and app-based transactions, scooter barons oversee their business from a distance while storing their entire inventories on our streets and sidewalks for next to nothing. When in use, scooters generate revenue for Bird, Lime or some other “micro-mobility” company. When not in use, they just sit there, wherever there happens to be: a bike lane, a doorway, a neighbor’s front yard. Citizens have no lawful recourse, leading some to resort to micro-vandalism.
Scooters’ success in spite of the persistent backlash is a warning about whether tech can succeed in leveraging public space. A playbook seems to be taking shape. First, identify a point of friction in urban life (such as “the last-mile problem” in public transportation). Next, develop a profitable solution and deploy it in cities and ask for permission later. When people howl, let your early adopters fight the battle for you — use them as a shield whenever critics speak ill of your business model. Finally, push aggressive expansion while voicing support for sensible regulations that are essentially unenforceable.
Like Uber and Airbnb before them, scooter companies aim to satisfy their customers with little regard for how their businesses affect our cities’ ecosystems. All three services tamper with neighborhood norms in ways that are annoying at first and deeply disturbing upon further inspection. Via Airbnb, for instance, a quaint bungalow surrounded by family homes suddenly becomes a bachelor party pad replete with fresh groups of drunken idiots each weekend. Annoying. But what’s far more worrisome is recent data indicating that Airbnb is worsening the housing crisis in cities like Los Angeles and New Orleans. Landlords love Airbnb: Why lease a place to lower-income tenants for $900 a month when you can earn double by renting it out here and there to well-off tourists? When residential units are converted into the equivalent of chic motels, the pool of long-term housing decreases and rental prices rise.
As for Uber and other ride-sharing apps, originally framed as a solution to urban congestion, they are instead putting more cars on the road, making traffic worse. A San Francisco study found that bumper-to-bumper delays soared 62% from 2010 to 2016, and roughly half of this increase was caused by ride-sharing vehicles. Very few riders are choosing to share trips with other passengers and rates of car ownership in the city remain steady. The big loser has been public transit, particularly buses, whose ridership has decreased nearly 13% — a drop that presents grave challenges to a service that is both more affordable and energy efficient than Uber’s fleet of vehicles.
Now, as big tech monetizes curbs and doorways and sidewalks, we’re seeing the marginalization of non-motorists who, by choice or necessity, traverse the city on their own power. Scooters at rest and in motion create barriers for parents with strollers, frail elderly pedestrians and especially the disabled. It is perturbing for a jogger or cyclist to come upon an abandoned scooter blocking their path. That this happens regularly to wheelchair users and the visually impaired is unconscionable. Decades of activism and legal battles to secure ADA accommodations in the built environment are being causally brushed aside in the name of enhancing mobility for those who can easily walk.
Granted, it’s early days for scooters; perhaps a solution will emerge. But soon it won’t just be scooters anymore. In Amazon’s office parks and Google’s test towns, drone services are being readied to pick up and drop off items at a slab of concrete near you. Even Georgia Tech’s library is using drones to fly books around campus to students too busy to swing by the stacks. Eight states have recently passed legislation that will allow delivery robots to roam the sidewalks. Meanwhile, wannabe Zuckerbergs that no one yet knows about are learning from scooters and dreaming up the next big thing they can plop all over the place.
The scooter experiment proves how difficult it is to establish a retroactive ban after some residents have already fallen in love with a new disruptive gadget. Absent better laws anticipating the takeover, the next battles, too, are likely to be lost on Day 1.
John Tinnell is author of “Actionable Media: Digital Communication beyond the Desktop” and director of digital studies at the University of Colorado, Denver.
Spare Me the Purity Racket
By Maureen Dowd
Opinion Columnist
July 27, 2019
Nancy Pelosi, at lectern, with other House Democrats at the Capitol Thursday to talk about the first 200 days of the 116th Congress.CreditCreditErin Schaff/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — After I interviewed Nancy Pelosi a few weeks ago, The HuffPost huffed that we were Dreaded Elites because we were eating chocolates and — horror of horrors — the speaker had on some good pumps.
Then this week, lefty Twitter erected a digital guillotine because I had a book party for my friend Carl Hulse, The Times’s authority on Capitol Hill for decades, attended by family, journalists, Hill denizens and a smattering of lawmakers, including Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Susan Collins.
I, the daughter of a D.C. cop, and Carl, the son of an Illinois plumber, were hilariously painted as decadent aristocrats reveling like Marie Antoinette when we should have been knitting like Madame Defarge.
Yo, proletariat: If the Democratic Party is going to be against chocolate, high heels, parties and fun, you’ve lost me. And I’ve got some bad news for you about 2020.
The progressives are the modern Puritans. The Massachusetts Bay Colony is alive and well on the Potomac and Twitter.
They eviscerate their natural allies for not being pure enough while placing all their hopes in a color-inside-the-lines lifelong Republican prosecutor appointed by Ronald Reagan.
The politics of purism makes people stupid. And nasty.
My father stayed up all night the night Truman was elected because he was so excited. I would like to stay up ’til dawn the night a Democrat wins next year because I’m so excited to see the moment when the despicable Donald Trump lumbers into a Marine helicopter and flies away for good.
Kidney Bean and Plantain Chili
Kidney Bean and Plantain Chili
Ingredients
2 lbs. Kidney Beans, dry
5-6 Plantains, ripe
1 - 28-oz. can Crushed Tomatoes
2 Onions, medium size
5-6 Garlic, cloves
1-2 Chipotle Peppers
1/4 cup Molasses, mild, unsulphured
2 tbsp. Chili Powder
2 tbsp. Cumin, ground
2 tbsp. Paprika
1 tsp. Cinnamon, ground
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Minnesota churches move to bring ‘Laudato Si” into parish life
Posted on July 24, 2019 by Administrator1
A moose calf walks along a paved road near the entrance of Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska, June 29, 2019. Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home” was widely lauded for its scope on the moral and ethical response to protecting Earth’s environment for future generations. (CNS photo/Sam Lucero, The Compass)
By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Living in rural central Minnesota, JoAnn Braegelman and her neighbors in the Diocese of St. Cloud know that disrespecting the natural resources “right outside our window” would quickly make life very difficult.
It’s imperative, they realize, that the soil be kept healthy so it can continue to produce corn, soy beans and other important crops that have supported farm families for generations.
“Caring for God’s creation has been a part of who I am for really all of my life,” Braegelman, rural life coordinator under the diocesan Catholic Charities system, told Catholic News Service.
While the church has long supported the work of farmers and agricultural workers across the diocese, Braegelman is adopting a new tool in her ministry: Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.”
The four-year-old document stresses the integral nature of individual practices, protecting creation and the importance of building relationships with other people, particularly the poor and vulnerable, in order to protect the planet.
Braegelman said she believes the encyclical can be indispensable in her work by giving people the opportunity for study, prayer and discussion so that parishioners can accept the pope’s call to be better stewards of Earth.
“Praying for God’s creation is the greatest pro-life movement there is,” said the member of St. Francis de Sales Parish in Belgrade, Minnesota.
The Catholic Case for Communism
Dean Dettloff
July 23, 2019
“It is when the Communists are good that they are dangerous.”
That is how Dorothy Day begins an article in America, published just before the launch of the Catholic Worker on May Day in 1933. In contrast to the reactions of many Catholics of the time, Day painted a sympathetic, if critical view of the communists she encountered in Depression-era New York City. Her deep personalism allowed her to see the human stories through the ideological struggle; and yet she concluded that Catholicism and communism were not only incompatible, but mutual threats. A whole Cold War has passed since her reflection, and a few clarifying notes are now worthwhile.
Communists are attracted to communism by their goodness, Day argued, that unerasable quality of the good that can be found within and outside the church alike, woven into our very nature. It might have been an easier thing to say back in 1933, when American communists were well known to the general public for putting their lives on the line to support striking workers, but it was also the kind of thing that could land you in a lot of trouble, not least in the Catholic Church.
By affirming the goodness that drives so many communists then and now, Day aimed to soften the perceptions of Catholics who were more comfortable with villainous caricatures of the communists of their era than with more challenging depictions of them as laborers for peace and economic justice. Most people who join communist parties and movements, Day rightly noted, are motivated not by some deep hatred toward God or frothing anti-theism, but by an aspiration for a world liberated from a political economy that demands vast exploitation of the many for the comfort of a few.
[Matt Malone, S.J.: Why we published an essay sympathetic to communism]
But in her attempt to create sympathy for the people attracted to communism and to overcome a knee-jerk prejudice against them, Day needlessly perpetuated two other prejudices against communism. First, she said that under all the goodness that draws people to communism, the movement is, in the final analysis, a program “with the distinct view of tearing down the church.”
Then, talking about a young communist in her neighborhood who was killed after being struck by a brick thrown by a Trotskyite, she concluded that young people who follow the goodness in their hearts that may lead them to communism are not fully aware of what it is they are participating in—even at the risk of their lives. In other words, we should hate the communism but love the communist.
Though Day’s sympathetic criticism of communism is in many ways commendable, nearly a century of history shows there is much more to the story than these two judgments suggest. Communist political movements the world over have been full of unexpected characters, strange developments and more complicated motivations than a desire to undo the church; and even through the challenges of the 20th century, Catholics and communists have found natural reasons to offer one another a sign of peace.
Pastoral Migratoria trains other dioceses how to accompany new immigrants
Social Issues
July 26, 2019
Georgina Vides from Los Angeles and Leyden Rovelo Krull from Kansas City, Mo., both delegates at the Instituto Pastoral Migratoria workshop, visit in the chapel at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago during a break July 12, 2019. (CNS photo/Karen Callaway, Chicago Catholic)
More than two dozen representatives from 13 dioceses around the United States joined regulars from the Archdiocese of Chicago outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Broadview to pray the rosary on a recent Friday.
The group was from Instituto Pastoral Migratoria, the second annual workshop to train diocesan, pastoral and lay leaders to start their own ministries based on the archdiocese's immigrant-to-immigrant ministry, which started in 2008.
The parish-based Pastoral Migratoria uses Catholic social teaching to train immigrants to support people in their own parishes.
Delegates to the July 10-14 workshop came from Atlanta; Baltimore; Chicago; Fresno, California; Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri; Los Angeles; New York; Richmond, Virginia; Salt Lake City; St. Cloud, Minnesota; St. Petersburg, Florida; Stockton, California; and Washington, D.C. A representative from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops attended the institute, which was mostly conducted in Spanish.
"In the Old Testament, God clearly and consistently urges hospitality and generosity toward the stranger and the Catholic Church welcomes migrants and stands in solidarity with them," Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich told the attendees.
"Instituto Pastoral Migratoria answers the call for us all to return to our baptismal and ancestral heritages to support the human rights of all people and provide them pastoral care, human dignity and social support, no matter what the circumstances of entry into this country, especially for those who find themselves in desperate circumstances," he said.
He called it "an honor the USCCB recognizes Pastoral Migratoria as a best practice for immigrant leadership development and missionary discipleship."
Most of the July 12 prayer vigil at the ICE facility was conducted in English, by immigration attorney Royal Berg, who was at the first such vigil in December 2006. Recalling that first event, Berg said there was a snowstorm that day and he called everyone he knew who planned to come to tell them not to; road conditions were too dangerous.
Ellen G. White (Lt 66, 1894) Letter to William Warren Prescott
Prescott, W. W.
Granville, New South Wales, Australia
April 10, 1894
Dear Brother Prescott,
I received your letter, and was much interested in its contents. I have had little time to write. It is about two weeks since we came to this place, and through various circumstances we are not yet fully settled, but we are placed where we can live.
In regard to education, I cannot discern that your ideas are incorrect. When we consider that history is being made so fast, we can but be convinced that perils are fast crowding upon us, and we cannot deliver even ourselves from that which we must meet. All we can do is to seek heavenly wisdom from our only source of help. If by constant contemplation of the Author and Finisher of our faith, we grow into the similitude of Christ in character, we shall have our life hid with Christ in God. We are not to fold our hands in idle expectancy of the Lord’s soon coming, but we are to keep looking unto Jesus, hanging our helpless souls upon his merits, opening our hearts to the Holy Spirit’s moving, our petitions ascending to God for his fashioning hand to be upon us.
Unholy ambition will seek to secure a place in all our devising, but O, as never before, there is now the greatest necessity that in humility we sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn lessons from the greatest Teacher the world ever knew. One day at a time we must be working and praying, waiting and watching, calling upon God for wisdom at every step. We cannot walk in our own strength. If this has been perilous in the past, as we know it has been, it is doubly so now. It is no time to be off guard, for even one moment. Eternal interests are involved, and our faith needs strengthening; it must be growing in the place of decreasing and becoming dwarfed. We have not a moment’s time to serve or glorify self. Lift Him up, the Man of Calvary, and let every influence, every voice, point to Jesus, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” [John 1:29.] It is none of self and all of Jesus that will give the right mold to our experience.
I feel deeply for the students of the school. My heart is drawn out for the youth. I see so large a work which they can do if they consecrate their life to Jesus. The Lord will give the youth power of influence as they lift their voice in the invitation, “Come, for all things are ready.” [Luke 14:17.] Every evil practice must be hated and overcome. Christ is to be formed within, the hope of glory. Then He will shine forth in the character.
I am rejoiced that some are working up, to give themselves unreservedly to the service of Christ. The opposing influences are at work; men, women, and youth, standing under the black banner of the power of darkness, moving under the inspiration of the power from beneath, are at work to seduce souls into forbidden paths. And God is waiting to inspire the youth with power from above, that all who stand under the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ may work to call, to warn, and to lead souls into safe paths, and to plant the feet of many upon the Rock of Ages.
The Lord will reveal Himself to all who seek Him with the whole heart. “Ye are laborers together with God.” [1 Corinthians 3:9.] All who will be learners in the school of Christ will be accepted as workers. There will be the deep movings of the Spirit of God upon human hearts now and onward, as never before in our experience. But our brethren must be guarded now as never before. They need the eyes anointed with heavenly eyesalve, that they may discern all things clearly, and not accept and bring to the front that which will, in its tendencies, switch some poor souls off the track. Test everything before it shall be presented to the flock of God, for when persons see that they have been accepting as a “Thus saith the Lord,” words that were not from God, their faith will be unsettled; and they will be ready to doubt the words that come from God to them; some will no longer be reached by the warnings, invitations, and messages from heaven.
For this reason our brethren and sisters need to keep sharp, clear discernment. In messages that profess to be from heaven, expressions will be made that are misleading, and if the influence of these things be accepted, it will lead to exaggerated movements, plans, and devisings that will bring in the very things Satan would have current—a strange spirit, an unclean spirit, under the garments of sanctity, a strong spirit to overbear everything. Fanaticism will come in, and will so mingle and interweave itself with the workings of the Spirit of God that many will accept it all as from God, and will be deceived and misled thereby.
The Teacher Sent From God
Chapter 8: The Teacher Sent From God
He who had stood in the councils of the Most High,.
who had dwelt in the innermost sanctuary of the Eternal,
was the One chosen to reveal in person to humanity the knowledge of God
"His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6.
In the Teacher sent from God, heaven gave to men its best and greatest. He who had stood in the councils of the Most High, who had dwelt in the innermost sanctuary of the Eternal, was the One chosen to reveal in person to humanity the knowledge of God.
Through Christ had been communicated every ray of divine light that had ever reached our fallen world. It was He who had spoken through everyone that throughout the ages had declared God's word to man. Of Him all the excellences manifest in the earth's greatest and noblest souls were reflections. The purity and beneficence of Joseph, the faith and meekness and long-suffering of Moses, the steadfastness of Elisha, the noble integrity and firmness of Daniel, the ardor and self-sacrifice of Paul, the mental and spiritual power manifest in all these men, and in all others who had ever dwelt on the earth, were but gleams from the shining of His glory. In Him was found the perfect ideal.
To reveal this ideal as the only true standard for attainment; [74] to show what every human being might become; what, through the indwelling of humanity by divinity, all who received Him would become—for this, Christ came to the world. He came to show how men are to be trained as befits the sons of God; how on earth they are to practice the principles and to live the life of heaven.
God's greatest gift was bestowed to meet man's greatest need. The Light appeared when the world's darkness was deepest. Through false teaching the minds of men had long been turned away from God. In the prevailing systems of education, human philosophy had taken the place of divine revelation. Instead of the heaven-given standard of truth, men had accepted a standard of their own devising. From the Light of life they had turned aside to walk in the sparks of the fire which they had kindled.
Having separated from God, their only dependence being the power of humanity, their strength was but weakness. Even the standard set up by themselves they were incapable of reaching. The want of true excellence was supplied by appearance and profession. Semblance took the place of reality.
From time to time, teachers arose who pointed men to the Source of truth. Right principles were enunciated, and human lives witnessed to their power. But these efforts made no lasting impression. There was a brief check in the current of evil, but its downward course was not stayed. The reformers were as lights that shone in the darkness; but they could not dispel it. The world "loved darkness rather than light." John 3:19.
In the Teacher sent from God, heaven gave to men its best and greatest. He who had stood in the councils of the Most High, who had dwelt in the innermost sanctuary of the Eternal, was the One chosen to reveal in person to humanity the knowledge of God.
Through Christ had been communicated every ray of divine light that had ever reached our fallen world. It was He who had spoken through everyone that throughout the ages had declared God's word to man. Of Him all the excellences manifest in the earth's greatest and noblest souls were reflections. The purity and beneficence of Joseph, the faith and meekness and long-suffering of Moses, the steadfastness of Elisha, the noble integrity and firmness of Daniel, the ardor and self-sacrifice of Paul, the mental and spiritual power manifest in all these men, and in all others who had ever dwelt on the earth, were but gleams from the shining of His glory. In Him was found the perfect ideal.
To reveal this ideal as the only true standard for attainment; [74] to show what every human being might become; what, through the indwelling of humanity by divinity, all who received Him would become—for this, Christ came to the world. He came to show how men are to be trained as befits the sons of God; how on earth they are to practice the principles and to live the life of heaven.
God's greatest gift was bestowed to meet man's greatest need. The Light appeared when the world's darkness was deepest. Through false teaching the minds of men had long been turned away from God. In the prevailing systems of education, human philosophy had taken the place of divine revelation. Instead of the heaven-given standard of truth, men had accepted a standard of their own devising. From the Light of life they had turned aside to walk in the sparks of the fire which they had kindled.
Having separated from God, their only dependence being the power of humanity, their strength was but weakness. Even the standard set up by themselves they were incapable of reaching. The want of true excellence was supplied by appearance and profession. Semblance took the place of reality.
From time to time, teachers arose who pointed men to the Source of truth. Right principles were enunciated, and human lives witnessed to their power. But these efforts made no lasting impression. There was a brief check in the current of evil, but its downward course was not stayed. The reformers were as lights that shone in the darkness; but they could not dispel it. The world "loved darkness rather than light." John 3:19.
Border bishops address different kind of crisis involving children
Jun 15, 2019
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, poses for a photo June 13, 2019, during the spring general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. (Credit: CNS photo/Bob Roller.)
BALTIMORE - While the sex abuse crisis consumed the June meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, prelates who work on the border, such as Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, have been facing a different crisis also involving children.
In less than a year, at least six children are believed to have died while in the custody of immigration officials along the border. While immigration along the U.S. southern border once involved almost exclusively men looking for work, women with children or entire families are now the ones regularly making the dangerous trek, fleeing poverty and violence.
“I know this gathering has been dominated by the question of abuse and we have to deal with (it),” Flores said in an interview with Catholic News Service June 12. “It has to be clear that this is something that will not be tolerated.”
However, he said, the Church also must “express” itself more strongly about its teachings when it comes to migrants, and the situation along the border is one affecting the most vulnerable in society, including many children.
“I feel that as a (bishops’) conference, we must express ourselves more strongly when it comes to the dignity of immigrants, to say that they are not criminals, that they are vulnerable families and we need to invite all the governments involved, not just the U.S., to defend the migrant as a human being, to not cast the person aside as someone who doesn’t matter and is a problem,” Flores said.
Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, poses for a photo June 13, 2019, during the spring general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. (Credit: CNS photo/Bob Roller.)
BALTIMORE - While the sex abuse crisis consumed the June meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, prelates who work on the border, such as Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, have been facing a different crisis also involving children.
In less than a year, at least six children are believed to have died while in the custody of immigration officials along the border. While immigration along the U.S. southern border once involved almost exclusively men looking for work, women with children or entire families are now the ones regularly making the dangerous trek, fleeing poverty and violence.
“I know this gathering has been dominated by the question of abuse and we have to deal with (it),” Flores said in an interview with Catholic News Service June 12. “It has to be clear that this is something that will not be tolerated.”
However, he said, the Church also must “express” itself more strongly about its teachings when it comes to migrants, and the situation along the border is one affecting the most vulnerable in society, including many children.
“I feel that as a (bishops’) conference, we must express ourselves more strongly when it comes to the dignity of immigrants, to say that they are not criminals, that they are vulnerable families and we need to invite all the governments involved, not just the U.S., to defend the migrant as a human being, to not cast the person aside as someone who doesn’t matter and is a problem,” Flores said.
To defend immigrants, it's time for US bishops to break the law
Jun 21, 2019
by Michael Sean Winters
A group of Central American migrants is questioned about their children's health after surrendering to U.S. Border Patrol agents south of the U.S.-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, March 6. (CNS/Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)
The president's threat was unmistakably clear: "Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in," he tweeted Monday night. The tweet served to rev up his base ahead of his official campaign announcement on Tuesday night, at which his anti-immigrant comments received the longest and loudest applause.
The response by the Catholic Church in this country must also be unmistakably clear: It is time for civil disobedience. The words "mass deportation" should send shockwaves through the conscience of anyone who knows anything about the brutalities of the 20th century. The fact that this planned mass deportation is targeting people who did no more than enter the country without proper documentation, a misdemeanor akin to jaywalking, at a time the president's lackeys and former counselors are convicted of felonies and still receive favors from the Justice Department, only aggravates the injustice.
The new threat comes on top of his administration's inhumane policies at the border, where the administration is detaining asylum seekers, that is, people who have committed no crime at all. According to a report from the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, the overcrowding in these camps is obscene, with 76 people in a cell designed to hold 12 people and 900 people in an El Paso processing center designed to hold 125 people. As NCR editorialized earlier this week, "It's time to stop looking away and to start calling these 'centers' or 'facilities' what they really are: concentration camps."
And the overcrowding on this side of the border is permitted at the same time the administration is implementing a "Remain in Mexico" policy that seeks to keep refugees from entering the U.S. in the first place. Again, these refugees have committed no crime whatsoever. Our friends at the Hope Border Institute have compiled some more horrifying data about the cruel effects of this policy: Only one judge has been assigned to hear these cases, which stood at 3,000 in May; 80% of the families have expressed fear about returning to Mexico; and advocates are given insufficient time to meet with the detainees before they are sent back.
Cling to the oppressed as we cling to the cross: The embrace is one and the same.
Last week in Baltimore at the U.S. bishops' conference meeting, there was much discussion about what the bishops must do to reclaim the moral authority without which their claim to leadership of the Christian community is fatally flawed. The first, and necessary, part of that effort must entail a full-throttled implementation of Pope Francis' new laws against sexual abuse of minors and the covering up of such abuse. That cover-up was, as we know, the result of a hierarchic and clerical culture that prevented many bishops from confronting the evil in their midst.
In the 1990s, those bishops who did try to confront the evil often faced obstacles from the authorities in Rome who were not keen on laicizing anyone, and few bishops had the courage to stand up to Rome. N.B., one of the more notable exceptions was Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who refused Rome's order to reinstate a known pedophile and appealed the decision to do so until his removal of the priest was confirmed.
Now, the bishops have an opportunity to reclaim some of their moral authority in another way. In normal times, bishops should not break the law. I understand, also, that some bishops along the border have to maintain very delicate relations with Border Patrol and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents. Their ability to protect migrants might be jeopardized if they were to take such a bold step as committing an act of civil disobedience.
But most bishops can and should, at first notice of an ICE raid, go to the site with a team of lawyers, surrender their passport and ask ICE to apprehend them too. Or if they have a detention center in their diocese, they could lead a group of Catholics in blocking the entrance. Of course, the police will remove the protesters and return a bishop to his office, but the point will have been made: These are not normal times, what is being done to these desperate people is the real crime, and the Catholic Church stands with them in their hour of need.
The bishops should also consider identifying certain parishes as sanctuaries, parishes with the capacity to keep people housed and fed for a considerable period of time. The bishop could place himself in front of the entrance. If there is an ICE raid, demand a warrant. If there is a warrant, block the entrance and make them arrest the clergy before they get to the migrants. Retreat houses and seminaries would make excellent sanctuaries, already possessing the capacity to provide shelter and food. Take a special collection at all parishes to provide for these basic necessities. Cling to the oppressed as we cling to the cross: The embrace is one and the same.
In California, the prospect of the state passing a law requiring priests to violate the secret of the confessional when a fellow cleric confesses sexual abuse of a minor will also demand disobedience of the law. That, too, is an abnormal situation that demands the bishops do things they would not normally do. We are right to defend our faith and we are right to defend the faithful. Confession is a central part of our faith, and our Latino brothers and sisters are a central part of our faithful. To the barricades.
The future of the Catholic Church in this country rests with our Latino brothers and sisters. If the bishops are not going to bestir themselves to defend these refugees and migrants, just pull the plug on the whole thing and go home. We worship a God who sacrificed himself on the cross for our redemption. The apostles followed him to similar, gruesome deaths.
Will their successors not risk an arrest to defend these poor people, our people? Will they not get creative in stating, unequivocally, that the Catholic Church will not be a bystander to this moral stain on our country? Will they exercise moral leadership?
[Michael Sean Winters covers the nexus of religion and politics for NCR.]
Friday, July 26, 2019
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Mueller Refuses To Settle Mystery Surrounding Maltese Professor Accused Of Lying To FBI
July 24th, 2019
Joseph Mifsud (L) and Ivan Timofeev (R) are pictured at a Valdai Discussion Club event, May 2016. (Photo: Screenshot/Valdai Club/YouTube)
Former special counsel Robert Mueller refused to answer questions in a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday about Joseph Mifsud, a mysterious Maltese professor accused of lying to the FBI in the special counsel’s report.
Mueller’s report characterized Mifsud as having ties to Russian nationals, and said that he lied in FBI interviews in February 2017 about his interactions in 2016 with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.
But while Papadopoulos pleaded guilty on Oct. 5, 2017 to lying to the FBI about his own interactions with Mifsud, the professor somehow escaped charges of his own. (RELATED: Mueller Claimed Joseph Mifsud Lied About Papadopoulos Contacts, But He Wasn’t Charged)
Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan pressed Mueller for information on Mifsud, but the former FBI director repeatedly declined to discuss the issue.
“Why didn’t you charge him with a crime?” Jordan asked Mueller of Mifsud.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Pope visits Jesuit headquarters
The General Curia of the Jesuits in Rome.
POPE
The Vatican Press Office has said that Pope Francis paid a private visit to the General Curia of the Jesuits in Rome on Sunday.
Pope Francis paid a private visit to the worldwide headquarters of the Jesuits in Rome on Sunday, July 7.
Responding to questions from journalists, the “ad interim” Director of the Holy See Press Office, Alessandro Gisotti, released a statement on Monday, confirming the visit.
“I can confirm that yesterday the Holy Father went for a private visit to the General Curia of the Jesuits where he dined with the Superior General, Father Arturo Sosa, and with his brothers of the Society of Jesus.”
He explained that the Jesuit Pontiff has already privately visited the General Curia and his brother Jesuits in past years in the run-up to the July 31 Feast of St Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Society of Jesus along with six companions in the 16th century.
08 July 2019, 16:56
Pope Francis paid a private visit to the worldwide headquarters of the Jesuits in Rome on Sunday, July 7.
Responding to questions from journalists, the “ad interim” Director of the Holy See Press Office, Alessandro Gisotti, released a statement on Monday, confirming the visit.
“I can confirm that yesterday the Holy Father went for a private visit to the General Curia of the Jesuits where he dined with the Superior General, Father Arturo Sosa, and with his brothers of the Society of Jesus.”
He explained that the Jesuit Pontiff has already privately visited the General Curia and his brother Jesuits in past years in the run-up to the July 31 Feast of St Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Society of Jesus along with six companions in the 16th century.
08 July 2019, 16:56
Monday, July 22, 2019
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Laws banning gay sex under challenge in tiny Caribbean nation
by Oscar Lopez | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Friday, 19 July 2019 20:31 GMT
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Gay sex is punishable in Dominica, a nation of about 70,000 residents, under laws enacted 1873
By Oscar Lopez
MEXICO CITY, July 19 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A gay man in the tiny Caribbean nation of Dominica filed a legal claim challenging its laws that ban gay sex and punish same-sex relations with prison terms and psychiatric confinement, a Canada-based rights group said on Friday.
Dominica is one of nine Caribbean countries that outlaw gay sex, and taking down its ban could build momentum to address the anti-gay laws throughout the region, supporters said.
The challenge seeks to prove the law violates Dominica's constitution that guarantees rights to freedom of expression, privacy and freedom from inhumane or degrading punishment.
The person filing the case was a gay man who has faced frequent violence because of his sexuality, but authorities refused to step in and protect him, said Maurice Tomlinson, senior policy analyst at the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.
"He has suffered extreme abuses ... including being attacked in his own home, and the police did nothing about it," Tomlinson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Under Dominican law, gay people are considered criminals, "so they refused to help him," he said.
Gay sex is punishable in Dominica, a nation of about 70,000 residents, under laws enacted 1873.
Punishments include prison terms as long as 12 years, and Dominican courts also can order offenders to be sent to psychiatric institutions.
"The existence of these laws prevents a culture and a legal environment being developed that would support LGBT people," said Tomlinson.
"Once these laws are gone, we are legitimate members of society."
Other countries in the region recently decriminalized same sex relations, Trinidad and Tobago last year and Belize in 2016.
Last month, Botswana's top court voted to decriminalize homosexuality, while Bhutan's lower house voted to repeal a similar law that needs upper chamber approval.
This would leave 68 nations where same-sex relations are illegal.
The advances in June coincided with Pride month, which marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City that were widely regarded as the start of the gay rights movement.
"While people are rightfully celebrating, I implore us all to remember that LGBT people are still harshly criminalized in many parts of the world," said Darryl Philip, founder and head of Minority Rights Dominica, a local rights group, in a statement.
Working on the lawsuit, filed in Dominica's High Court of Justice, are the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Minority Rights Dominica, the University of Toronto's International Human Rights Program and Lawyers Without Borders, a not-for-profit group of lawyers who volunteer on cases around the world.
(Reporting by Oscar Lopez, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst
Green New Deal reframes climate issues
Brian Fraga
May 1, 2019
Smoke rises from two smokestacks at the American Electric Power Co.’s Mountaineer plant in New Haven, West Virginia, in this October 2009 file photo. CNS photo by Ayesha Rascoe, Reuters
The so-called Green New Deal, particularly because of its lead congressional sponsor, is controversial and polarizing, but the broad vision it articulates for environmental justice appears to be compatible with the Catholic social teaching principle of caring for God’s creation.
Without commenting on specific policy proposals or the politics of the document’s progressive Democratic sponsors, Catholic theologians, environmentalists and ecologists told Our Sunday Visitor that the Green New Deal is a welcome “reframing” of the issues pertaining to climate change.
“It is at least a step in the right direction for politicians to place before American citizens a reflection on the way that human beings, Americans in particular, have lived, and the way the consequences have impacted the environment,” said Joseph Capizzi, a professor of moral theology and ethics at The Catholic University of America.
Four years since ‘Laudato Si‘
Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si (“On Care for Our Common Home”) was released in June 2015. The encyclical “calls on all people to consider the deep and intertwined relationship with God, our brothers and sisters, and the gifts that our Creator has provided for our stewardship,” said Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, then-president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a 2015 news release. Pope Francis wrote that care for all things of the earth is bound with the care of one another.
With Petition to Congress, 100,000+ People Demand Green New Deal...
With Petition to Congress, 100,000+ People Demand Green New Deal 'That Fixes Our Food System'
"We can't solve the climate crisis without taking food & ag into account!"
A coalition of groups delivered to Congress a petition signed by 100,000+ demanding a #GreenNewFoodDeal. (Photo: TumblingRun/Flickr/cc)
A coalition of environmental, farmworker, public health, and food safety advocacy groups on Thursday delivered to Congress a petition signed by more than 100,000 people which calls for a Green New Deal "that fixes our food system" to combat the climate crisis.
The petition echoes a letter that more than 300 organizations sent to federal lawmakers in April on behalf of their millions of members. The letter came about two months after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced the historic Green New Deal resolution supported by a growing grassroots movement and dozens of Democrats in Congress.
"Supporting family farms, achieving universal access to healthy foods, and investing in sustainable farming and land-use practices that increase soil health are critical components of any comprehensive Green New Deal," declares the new petition, which notes that in addition to being a top generator of jobs, the U.S. food and farming sector is also a top generator of planet-heating emissions.
Saturday, July 20, 2019
West Virginia attorney general calls on diocese to 'come clean' on remarkable allegations against former bishop
USA TODAY Published 12:41 p.m. ET July 20, 2019 | Updated 1:02 p.m. ET July 20, 2019
This Feb. 21, 2005, file photo, shows incoming bishop of the Wheeling-Charleston diocese, W.Va, Michael Bransfield in his new office, in Wheeling, W.Va. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia says Pope Francis has issued disciplinary action against its former bishop. (Photo: Dale Sparks, AP)
Despite new disciplinary action by Pope Francis, West Virginia's attorney general called on a Catholic diocese to "come clean" with what it knows about alleged allegations of sexual harassment and financial improprieties by a former bishop.
The pope on Friday banned former bishop Michael Bransfield from the public ministry or even living in the Wheeling-Charleston diocese based on the findings of a church investigation of “allegations of sexual harassment of adults and of financial improprieties."
The pope's declaration, which stopped short of defrocking Bransfield, was posted on the website of the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston/ It also requires Bransfield, who resigned in December, to make amends "for some of the harm he caused."
That probe had earlier found Bransfield guilty of sexual harassment of adults and misuse of church funds, spending them on dining, liquor, gifts, personal travel and luxury items.
The Washington Post, which obtained a copy of drafts of the investigation, reported in June that the church found that Bransfield spent $2.4 million in church money on travel, much of it personal, which included flying in chartered jets and staying in luxury hotels. Bransfield and several subordinates spent an average of nearly $1,000 a month on alcohol, the Post said, citing the confidential report.
West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrisey on Friday called the pope's decision "only one step" toward resolving the Bransfield case. He called on the diocese to comply with subpoenas issued as part of state probe of the church's handling of the case..
"After decades of covering up and concealing the behavior of priests as it relates to sexual abuse, it is time for the Diocese to come clean with what it knows and release the Bransfield report and any other relevant materials," Morrisey said. "None of the allegations of financial improprieties and sexual abuse may have been revealed if not for our investigation – the public shouldn’t have to wait any longer for transparency."
Morrisey filed suit against the diocese and Bransfield in March alleging it knowingly employed pedophiles and failed to conduct adequate background checks for those working at the diocese’s schools and camps
An amended complaint added allegations that the Diocese chose not to publicly disclose a report of child sexual abuse by a teacher in 2006.
A statement from the diocese after the state's suit was filed dismissed the allegations, saying it does not "fairly portray its overall contributions to the education of children in West Virginia nor fairly portray the efforts of its hundreds of employees and clergy who work every day to deliver quality education in West Virginia."
On Friday, the diocese announced that an independent auditor had been chosen to audit its accounts.
On Friday, the diocese announced that an independent auditor had been chosen to audit its accounts.
Therezinha Barbalho Ordained into the Gospel Ministry
June 27, 2019 By Communication
Pastor Therezinha Barbalho stands with her husband, Zeli Leite, and President Bill Miller.
Potomac administration recently had the privilege of ordaining Therezinha Barbalho, pastor of the Silver Spring SDA Church (Md.), into the gospel ministry.
“The call to ministry isn’t when someone says we couldn’t have done that without you,” said President Bill Miller, during the service. “It’s not when committees recommended you for ordination, a degree, interviews or endorsements. The call to ministry is when we hear His voice and we walk with Him into the human mess. The call to ministry is learning our limits and learning to trust in the God that is there with us.”
Barbalho says she felt called to pastoral ministry at the age of 18 and went on to graduate with a degree in theology. She worked as a Bible worker in Belém, São Paulo and later pursued a law degree. Even while practicing as a licensed lawyer in Brazil for 13 years, she continued to serve as a volunteer minister. After moving to the United States, Barbalho served as an associate pastor for the New Jersey Conference and later came to Potomac to pastor the Richmond Brazilian church (Va.)—where she held her first baptismal ceremony—and the Silver Spring church (Md.), where she works to date.
“I receive this moment, so needed for 32 years, understanding that God is making me, and promises to make me, more and more dependent on him,” shared Barbalho, during the service. “That is how I receive this blessing. I thank the Seventh-day Adventist Church for trusting that I can become fully dependent on Him.”
Border agents assaulted by migrants
Border agents use tear gas to stop nearly 50 undocumented migrants who stormed Rio Grande bridge
Violence erupts at the southern border
Border Patrol agents assaulted by immigrants attempting to rush a Texas port of entry.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents had to use tear gas and pepper spray early Saturday to stop nearly 50 “undocumented individuals” from illegally entering the U.S. after they stormed a port of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, officials said.
The incident at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge took place at around 4 a.m. The bridge is closed between midnight at 6 a.m., but CBP has had to construct temporary barriers in the middle of the span due to the large influx of migrants using the bridge at night.
They're All Symptoms of the Same Dollar Disease
By Jeffrey Snider
July 19, 2019
What everyone most feared was a relapse. It would have been one more tragedy piled up on top of the biggest tragedy in human history. In designing the Bretton Woods system seventy-five years ago, many were very much afraid that it hadn’t gone far enough. Once the war ended, World War II, the US in particular might fall back into depression.
Then what?
It may sound absurd today, at the time the possibility was taken very seriously. More outside of the US than inside, quite a few economists and politicians warned that when war spending stopped just as America’s victorious legions came back home the economy waiting for them would be too much like the depression they had left behind when they first went off to fight.
There was, some very influential policymakers believed, more than a small risk of it tearing the new monetary system apart and therefore redoing 1929 all over again. The entire purpose of Bretton Woods had been to avoid just that fate.
In the final agreement, in the form of the Joint Statement of Experts on the Establishment of an International Monetary Fund, a clause was inserted in case the world might run short of dollars. A US depression could, in theory, starve the rest of the world of needed currency. As Edward Bernstein recalled four decades later:
“This would allow other countries to impose discriminatory restrictions against the United States if the dollar holdings of the Fund became scarce because of a large and persistent US surplus as a result of a depression in the United States.”
Edward M. Bernstein had received his PhD in Economics from Harvard in 1931 just as the Great Depression was at its worst. Spending the rest of the decade teaching, in 1940 he was given a job as the Treasury Department’s principal economist. Working closely with Harry Dexter White during the early war years, when it came time for Bretton Woods, Bernstein was made the US delegation’s chief technical advisor.
In that position, Dr. Bernstein had a large hand in designing the IMF. He said that the novelty of the fund which came out of Bretton Woods, one that didn’t include John Maynard Keynes’ supranational currency bancor, was that it was like a gold standard but not so rigid as the classical system had been.
There had to be some flexibility built into it somewhere. Recalling one of the chief elements of failure and monetary contagion following the 1929 crash, “the deflationary effects of gold settlements could be avoided if surplus countries acquired foreign currencies rather than gold.” No less than international currency elasticity.
The cashless society is a con – and big finance is behind it
Brett Scott
Banks are closing ATMs and branches in an attempt to ‘nudge’ users towards digital services – and it’s all for their own benefit
Thu 19 Jul 2018 01.00 EDT
Last modified on Thu 19 Jul 2018 05.08 EDT
‘Banks are shutting down ATMs and branches.’ An ATM in west London.
Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters
Another aim is to cut costs in order to boost profits. Branches require staff. Replacing them with standardised self-service apps allows the senior managers of financial institutions to directly control and monitor interactions with customers.
Banks, of course, tell us a different story about why they do this. I recently got a letter from my bank telling me that they are shutting down local branches because “customers are turning to digital”, and they are thus “responding to changing customer preferences”. I am one of the customers they are referring to, but I never asked them to shut down the branches.
There is a feedback loop going on here. In closing down their branches, or withdrawing their cash machines, they make it harder for me to use those services. I am much more likely to “choose” a digital option if the banks deliberately make it harder for me to choose a non-digital option.
In behavioural economics this is referred to as “nudging”. If a powerful institution wants to make people choose a certain thing, the best strategy is to make it difficult to choose the alternative.
Pandering to Christian Zionism: Trump Outreach on Display in Washington
© Photo: Flickr / israel-mfa
July 18, 2019
Christian Zionism is not a religion per se, but rather a set of beliefs based on interpretations of specific parts of the Bible – notably the book of Revelations and parts of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah – that has made the return of the Jews to the Holy Land a precondition for the Second Coming of Christ. The belief that Israel is essential to the process has led to the fusion of Christianity with Zionism, hence the name of the movement. The political significance of this viewpoint is enormous, meaning that a large block of Christians promotes and votes for a non-reality based foreign policy based on a controversial interpretation of the Bible that it embraces with considerable passion.
It would be a mistake to dismiss CUFI as just another group of bible-thumpers whose brains have long since ceased to function when the subject is Israel. It claims to have seven million members and it serves as a mechanism for uniting evangelicals around the issue of Israel. Given its numbers alone and concentration is certain states, it therefore constitutes a formidable voting bloc that can be counted on to cast its ballots nearly 100% Republican, as long as the Republican in question is reliably pro-Israel. Beyond that, there are an estimated 60 million evangelical voters throughout the country and they will likely follow the lead of groups like CUFI and vote reflecting their religious beliefs, to include Trump’s highly visible support for the Jewish state.
Trump’s reelection campaign is reported to be already “…developing an aggressive, state-by-state plan to mobilize even more evangelical voters than supported him last time.” This will include, “voter registration drives at churches in battleground states such as Ohio, Nevada and Florida.” Without overwhelming evangelical support, Trump reelection in 2020 is unlikely, hence the dispatch of all available White House heavyweights to CUFI’s annual summit at the Washington Convention Center.
Though it is an organization that defines itself as Christian, CUFI makes no effort to support surviving Christian communities in the Middle East as most of them are hostile to Israel. The group also supports war against Iran as a precursor to total global conflict. Hagee has explained that “The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West… a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.”
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