RUTHFULLY YOURS

The pontiff’s visit gave the Castros what they wanted.

In 1960, Cuban bishops declared that “Catholicism and Communism respond to two totally different concepts of man and the world which it will never be possible to conciliate.” Pope Francis however contends that Communism is really Christianity. “The Communists have stolen our flag,” he said.

The Cuban bishops condemned Communism as “a system which brutally denies the most fundamental rights of the human being.” Pope Francis’ criticisms of the Castro regime were limited to oblique references, a plea for religious freedom for Catholics and general criticisms that could apply to Cuba or any one of a number of other places. He failed to even reiterate his old criticisms of the regime.

Cuban dissidents were kept from meeting Pope Francis and even the “passing greeting” that had been planned was shut down when the Communist authorities detained political dissidents. When the protesters risked their freedom to get near him, they were arrested without receiving any acknowledgement from the pope. The Castros got their meetings and their publicity.

The oppressed, whom Pope Francis claimed to speak for during his visit and during his international travels, were left out in the cold. They were treated to another oblique reference, as Pope Francis expressed his desire to “embrace especially all those who for various reasons I will not be able to meet.”

The wave of anti-Christian attacks will allegedly include Pakistan’s Christian churches, schools, and hospitals.

Few Pakistanis will shed a tear for people who do not, in their eyes, represent Pakistan’s Islamic values.

The Pakistani government and military have warned the nation’s tiny Christian minority that Islamic terrorist groups plan to target Christian religious institutions in the near future. The wave of anti-Christian attacks will allegedly include Pakistan’s Christian churches, schools, and hospitals.

The warning issued by Pakistan’s leading generals represents an extraordinary, positive development in the military’s relationship with minorities in general and with Christians in particular. Their warming relationship appears to be a calculated political move to complement the military leadership’s ongoing offensive against the terrorist havens in the northwestern corner of the country.

Some high-profile commentators think they smell a Marxist clothed in white papal robes, who dreams of redistributing the world’s wealth. Pope Francis insists that he has little interest in Marxism and that his political advocacy against materialism, capitalism, greed and idolatry are largely religious in nature. However, the flavor of some of his statements might suggest otherwise.

The Pope also knows that the UN is poised to strong-arm member nations to sign on to an impossible globalist agenda that will require a total shift of the world’s wealth, and a restructuring of international politics and economics with a one-world government and a universal religion at the steering wheel.

Even to the Pope’s admirers, that sounds a less like peace and love and more like a utopian totalitarian nightmare.

The world press is in high gear for Pope Francis’s visit to Cuba and the United States this week. Recently, the Pope has stirred up a stew mixing world poverty, the evils of capitalism and global warming into an elaborate narrative that is likely to keep journalists awake for weeks to come.

Our modern age, the one Malcolm Turnbull finds such an enticing topic for self-promoting homilies, is actually one of desperate mediocrity, cynicism, opportunism, and alienation in which all credible leadership is lacking. No wonder he finds it so very exciting
Malcolm Turnbull’s pretentious vacuity is nowhere better illustrated than in the rhetoric surrounding the cabinet he has installed to lead his new progressivist junta. This, he insists is required to form “a government for the 21st century” to ensure that “Australia seizes the opportunities of these, the most exciting times in human history.”

Is he serious, are these really the most exciting times in human history? By what measure can such a claim be made — apart from the fact that this era has been blessed with the advent of Malcolm Turnbull? In fact, by any objective historical criteria, the present period is one of decadence and decline, perhaps exemplified above all by Turnbull’s own ascendency.

In terms of politics the present era is not one of excitement. Instead it is characterised by desperate mediocrity, cynicism, opportunism, and alienation in which all credible leadership is lacking. In which countries of the world can be found politicians who could be ranked with the even the second-string figures of the past, much less the great leaders whose exploits have inspired their people and shifted history onto a different path? Turnbull? Merkel? Cameron? Obama?! Are these third-raters and frauds the agents of excitement that Malcolm is getting worked up about? Or perhaps he only sees the world through the cynical prism of Game of Thrones, or House of Cards, which has itself drawn the connection between its fantasy world and Malcolm’s.

In terms of economics the period is also hardly exciting. The USA, China, Europe and Australia are struggling while the world staggers along under a $200 trillion burden of debt. This is a crippling encumbrance that has increased by $57 trillion since the GFC in 2007, when governments and consumers were meant to have learnt their lesson about unsustainable borrowing. Is this mortgaging of the future a source of excitement for Malcolm? Perhaps it might be for an extremely wealthy merchant banker able to leverage profit even in a time of financial crisis. But for the rest of us? Is excitement the right word, or are “desperation” and “dread” better descriptions?

Bearing passports from fictional “countries,” the ummah continues its invasion of Europe.

The media wants you to believe that there’s a “refugee” crisis going on in central Europe, and constantly invokes the memory of the displaced persons at the end of World War II to make an appealing comparison. But the truth is far different: this is an invasion of Europe by non-Europeans, swarming over the productive nations of the First World:

Only one in every five migrants claiming asylum in Europe is from Syria. The EU logged 213,000 arrivals in April, May and June but only 44,000 of them were fleeing the Syrian civil war. Campaigners and left-wing MPs have suggested the vast majority of migrants are from the war-torn state, accusing the Government of doing too little to help them.

Um… why should England help Syrians by letting them resettle in the dar-al-Harb? Especially when they’re not all Syrians.

Great presidents need to be able to weather great trials and some out unbroken. Great presidents need resilience. Who among the Republican candidates has a life story that shows the sort of resilience? I think Carly Fiorina does. Consider her last ten years.

In 2005, she was fired as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Regardless of whether the board of directors fired her wisely or not, it surely must have been a tough blow to a woman who had worked her way up the corporate ladder from office secretary to CEO of a giant company. Her path to success was much more difficult than that of Trump, the son of a New York millionaire. Many people would have crawled into a comfortable burrow and stayed put, but Fiorina did not.

In 2009, Carly Fiorina was treated for breast cancer. She survived an illness terrifying for any woman, a disease that brings not only fear of death but the fear of living afterward. No one would have thought less of Carly had she chosen to fall back into a comfortable, safe, and sterile life of charitable work and popular philanthropies, but she chose a very different and much harder path. Fiorina, from this, too, grew stronger.

The serially dishonest administration, represented abysmally by Haute Moron Secretary of State, John Kerry, has haughtily announced that for FY 2016, starting October 1, the administration is raising the refugee cap from its previous 70,000 to 85,000, this year, and up to 100,000 next year, all to make room for Syrian “refugees.” Two weeks ago he told members of Congress the administration wanted to bring in 10,000 Syrians. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley responded with a letter asking Kerry to clarify.

The administration initially proposed raising the cap to 75,000, but Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, Ann Richard admitted they might add “more later.” The refugee resettlement industry, which makes about $1 billion/year placing refugees in our communities, is lobbying for 200,000, including 100,000 Syrians. Even Moveon.org has joined the campaign.

Additionally, Obama promised to use other avenues, like parole, asylum and temporary protected status to allow more Syrians. Grassley reminded them that they did not have independent authority to do this. Increasing the cap requires consultation with Congress by law. As it turns out, the law also requires hearings – which to this point Congress has never deemed necessary. Perhaps it’s time for a change.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on 18 August 2015 proposed regulations to reduce emissions of methane. These regulations would be the first to directly restrict methane emissions by the oil and gas industry; they build on a 2012 rule that sought to curb volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract natural gas. Combined, the two regulations could reduce the oil and gas sector’s methane emissions by up to 30% by 2025, compared with 2012 levels, EPA says.

The proposed EPA regs are part of a larger effort by the White House to reduce national methane emissions by 40–45% by 2025. [See go.nature.com/o6uzlj for more detail.] But methane has only negligible influence on climate — contrary to popular belief and contrary to the claims of the IPCC, the UN’s climate science panel. Basic physics does not support White House policies to control methane emissions.

The Science

Methane occurs naturally as a trace gas in the earth’s atmosphere. Its chemical formula is CH4, one atom of carbon surrounded by four atoms of hydrogen. It forms the most important constituent of natural gas, an excellent fuel for generating heat and electricity. When burnt (oxidized), its products are carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (WV). It is also a greenhouse (GH) gas, which by definition means it absorbs radiation at certain wavelengths in the infrared (IR) part of the electromagnetic spectrum. But contrary to UN-IPCC claims, basic physics reveals that its influence on climate is insignificant.

Top 9 Fun Facts About Carly Fiorina

Well, in truth, these are not so much “fun facts” as they are troubling evidence that Carly Fiorina is yet another establishment plant-cum-loser, one of a series employed by the Republican leadership team to diffuse grassroots support of an outside-the-system candidate like Ted Cruz (or, currently, Donald Trump).

With Carly’s rise in the polls, due to two solid debate performances, it’s worth examining her track record to determine whether: (a) could actually win a general election; and (b) she would offer good policy solutions as a commander-in-chief.

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2015/09/19/the-conservative-case-against-carly-fiorina-n2053948

The answer on both counts is an obvious “no”. Here’s why:

SHE SUPPORTS OPEN BORDERS AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

In June of this year, Fiorina stated she is open to legal status for adult illegal immigrants and full citizenship for their children. During her Senate run, she endorsed the California DREAM Act, which grants in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. Furthermore, she recently stated that border walls and fences are not effective at protecting U.S. national sovereignty.

How ironic that, with all the offensive things Donald Trump says, something he did not say is breaking the outrage bank.

Trump is under fire for failing, at one of his campaign events, to refute an overheated audience member who asserted that President Obama is a Muslim and was not born in the United States. Trump did not make these claims or concur in them. He simply decided it was not his job to defend Barack Obama from claims that Obama himself has played no small part in provoking. Trump, instead, ignored the allegations and went on with what he wanted to say: blather about how he was looking into the possibility that radical Muslims are training inside the United States to conduct terrorist attacks here (something that is not merely possible, but has been proved in terrorism prosecutions about a zillion times since I first did it 20 years ago).

As one would expect, our Islamophilic political establishment is in high dudgeon: demands for Trump to apologize have come from Trump competitors with troubling records of cuddling up to Islamists – e.g., Hillary Clinton, Chris Christie and Lindsey Graham – and from Obama’s slavish media, which has never judged worthy of examination either the president’s misrepresentations about his background or his extensive personal ties to Islam, notwithstanding his seven-year record of lies about policy objectives and extensive appeasement of Islamic supremacists.