WEEKLY BRIEF
Senators Run for President:Abandoning their Post while the Nation Veers Toward War
The United States has no reason to go to war with Iran(see arguments below). Both Israel and Saudi Arabia for their different reasons desire lethal hostilities between the US and Iran. The US Senate is the constitutional institution which declares war for our republic. It might even be called a "constitutional crisis" that our Senators are not asserting their deliberative role in debating this pending war. The media and partisan hatred toward President Trump is preventing serious criticism of his alliance with the venomous hatred of the Wahhabi Saudis for all things Shiite.
We need a foreign policy debate about the US and Iran and Israel far more than an examination of the Byzantine world of the President's past taxes. Senators who distinguish themselves in a real foreign policy debate might offer themselves as candidates for the Presidency arguing a counter strategy. But for too many of our public officials, the purpose of being a Senator or a Secretary of State is to add a bullet point to a resume in order to run for a higher office. The next career step is a far stronger magnet than the present duties of office. Careerism and partisanship has replaced the noble profession of politics. In fact politics which means acting as a CITIZEN( a man of the city or body politic) has become the dirty word which we should reserve for the infighting and backbiting of "factions" or careerists. Our federal government is populated at every level by power couple careerists. Washington DC and New York City however have social networks of much more accomplished men than the Marco Rubios and Chuck Schumers of nightly news soundbites. The global megacities are the hunting grounds of aggressive men of other countries like Britain, Israel and Saudi Arabia who are functioning with national interests in mind. These nation men like leading corporate executives who work in the same stratosphere are very good at manipulating the narrow concerns of partisans and careerists for the bigger goals of their own institutions. Our pygmies are no match.
An experienced British patriot spy like Christopher Steele played our agency heads (Brennan, Comey and Clapper) like Kim Philby played our CIA after WWII. It is true that Philby helped the USSR while Steele opposed Russia but in both cases British intelligence officers sabotaged our country's interests while promoting their own. British foreign policy supports an Anglo alliance of the white countries of the British Empire (The Five Eyes consortium). As a national policy they are against a revitalized Russian-US alliance. There are more agents than Christopher Steele who wanted to bring down Donald Trump. Remember they are acting in concert not as careerists or because they got money from the DNC. They are acting as British patriots trying to stop an American Scotch frontiersman from going rogue.
Saudi Arabia wants the US to fight Iran and the Shiite Houthis of Yemen. Israel wants weak and divided neighbor states. President Trump wants a nationalist foreign policy with strong nations keeping order in their respective territories. He is opposed by globalist careerists who don't think like nationalists and he is staffed by neoconservatives who are bellicose for "Western Judaeo-Christian values". That is actually another form of globalism with the US military fighting and Israeli intelligence directing the project of saving "the West". The Saudi royal family supplies money and a Muslim cover. This is not American nationalism.
50 years ago the Democratic Senator from Minnesota was Eugene McCarthy. He ran for president to debate the war in Vietnam and the approach of the US to the post colonial wars of national independence. He first used his Senate seat with other Senators to debate the policy of the war. Debating the role of America among the nations was even more important to him than constituent services. In this era the Democratic Senator from Minnesota is Amy Klobuchar. She too is running for President. Her office is remarkably adept at constituent services even if she must tyrannize her staff to keep her friendly, available, next door neighbor image intact. Like a lot of feminist careerists, who are already in an office that dwarfs them, she sees moving one more rung up the career ladder as her next logical step. She has taken the path of Hillary Clinton when Minnesotans needed another Eugene McCarthy. America needs a public discussion of war and peace. Journalists and citizens can all help focus this serious conversation but in the end it is our Senators who must do their duty.
I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
POPE ISSUES MOTU PROPRIO ON ABUSE: This short clear reform mandates a reporting and investigative mechanism in every diocese as well as the use of metropolitans (the archbishop of an ecclesiastical province which includes adjacent dioceses) in the reporting chain for complaints against bishops of that province. This is a stunning and necessary decentralization of governance for abusive clerics. We have advocated establishing a "promoter of justice" in every diocese as the basic mechanism of reform. This initiative describes what is needed in many less words than we used. All Clergy are obligated to report offenders (mandated reporters in civil law - this is a huge expansion of eyes and ears). Laymen have a new and ready instrument where we can send our own investigations and reports. Clerics are mandated reporters; laymen are invited reporters. This is a sea change from the old clerical culture that argued that since only a pope could depose a bishop only the Vatican could initiate investigations of bishops and cardinals. Abuse of sisters and seminarians is included as reportable in the same category as crimes against minors - that will offer an important path for reform against the McCarricks, Nienstedts and Maradiagas of the Church.
The Pope's first emphasis is, "I desire that this commitment be implemented in a fully ecclesial manner..." His emphasis is like the American military officers who refused the advances of feminist Senators who tried to establish a civilian commission to judge military officers in cases of sexual harassment. The generals argued this would destroy the military chain of command. The Pope has saved us from American hysteria about "lay reform" that would have compromised the priestly character of the Church. The Pope has left open wide use of lay staff members and lay initiative in reporting clerics, but the policing is with the consecrated priesthood and flows from the diocesan bishop. This is in the true spirit of Vatican II which was very much about an ecclesiology centered on the Eucharistic office of the local bishop. The Eucharistic office includes Christ washing out Judas on the night before He died. His insistence on the personal authoritative duty of local bishops to rule is a major part of his approach to annulments as well.
Putting 60 and 30 day time limits on responses from Vatican dicasteries is also revolutionary. The definition of minors is reestablished at 18 after the craven maneuvering of Pope Benedict's man at CDF - Cardinal Levada. Levada, part of the San Francisco contingent of the American bishops' lavender mafia, reversed the Pope John Paul II definition of minors as younger than 18. He inserted "younger than 14" in the definition of child pornography on computers. This brazen act has been unnoticed and unreported by the mobs so busily filing their briefs against Pope Francis and the many very bad men at his side. ( Scroll down this link and read: The Levada Loophole)
These new mandated local reporting and investigative agencies can easily become diocesan offices of "promoters of justice" which at a later date could add clerical consensual homosexuality as a reportable punishable offense. The Pope has acted. Now let bishops, metropolitans, and national conferences respond. Let a thousand investigative offices arise! We should not let our knowledge that there are so many corrupt bishops misdirect our efforts to abolish the apostolic priestly character of Church governance. The Catholic Church is "a holy nation, a royal priesthood". The pastor of Rome has resisted the mob and reinforced the ruling functions of the Shepherd Bishops. His battle against the shroud of clericalism is not a war against priestly identity. The sacred fraternity in every diocese finds their identity as shepherds when they act out their protective and punitive duties of spiritual fatherhood. The Pope has has given every diocese a new book of matches. We will see who responds by burning off the old wood of clericalism to cleanse the stone altars where priests celebrate the Holy Mass.
FR. HESBURGH - AMERICAN PRIEST: A great interview with Fr William Miscamble, the Holy Cross priest author of the new biography of the Notre Dame legend. Fr. Hesburgh was a prototypical American - "Let us get enough of the right people in a room together and there is no problem we cannot solve". This fascinating profile by an astute historian reminds us that Fr. Hesburgh always was a priest first in his own mind. Did he interrupt his jet setting for daily Mass? "Everyday of his life but Good Fridays." Try to listen to this interview in the critical but fraternal spirit of the author. There is lots to learn about this man with a spine(especially during the student protests of the late sixties). He sought the recognition of the Rockefeller class in elevating Notre Dame as a Catholic institution of the highest academic order. He made a deep fundamental error in where he sought social recognition. But Fr Hesburgh did something very difficult and very noble for his Protestant country and his Catholic Church. What a gentleman scholar priest is Fr. Miscamble! Something very holy and strong will come from the Notre Dame which housed both other Hesburgh and Fr Miscamble.
POPE ON FEMALE DEACONS: They are not part of the sacramental ordained priesthood. But let the study continue for there is not full agreement. There are female roles in history and the present where women have a special charism. The service of women did not lead to the altar. He closes the discussion with his praise and thanks for the religious sisters he encounters as the living motherhood of the Church. {The obsession of the "Westerners" with an ordained role for women downplays the beautiful multifaceted feminine love found in religious orders throughout the world as they live out every spiritual and corporal work of mercy in their distinctive communities.}
SALVATION OUTSIDE THE CHURCH: A messy debate not totally clarified here.
II. PRESIDENT TRUMP AND AMERICA
III. THE NATIONS
WHO WANTS WAR WITH IRAN? Pat Buchanan agrees with Iranian security advisors that there is a B-Team: Bolton (John of US national Security) Benjamin (Netanyahu of Israel) and Bin Salman (the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia with his father's blessings) who want war. The fact that the US sent a carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf as a warning to Iran because of a tip from the Israelis should not give US citizens much comfort. Every target listed in this article as a potential place where the US considers Iranians to be threatening our interests consists of armed Shiites who wish to defend and govern their own lands. Religiously, Shiite rule is anathema to the Salafist Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. Iran and Hezbollah are strategic problems for Israel. American nationalists will not be harmed if Iran and Lebanon are strong nations with allies in Iraq and Syria. These are the best nationalist defenses against the radical jihadist form of Sunni Islam now ruling the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. Islam has been warped by the Salafists of Mecca and Medina in league with the Saudis. Idi Amin found refuge in the Kingdom but they are not true friends of Christianity, the American nation, or most Muslims. US policy at the highest most dangerous level is being swayed by foreign interests - they aren't Russians. Americans are blinded by partisan hatreds that are preventing us from seeing our national interests. Hatred of President Obama by conservatives has prevented us from understanding the strategic breakthrough of his Iran initiative. Hatred of President Trump has prevented his initiative with Russia that would help us withdraw from Afghanistan and Syria as well as see the international landscape with new eyes.
(AOA on bandwagoning with the big powers vs the "three encirclements").
IRAN AND IRAQ: Iran moves missles into Iraq. The US moves a battle group into the Gulf. War with Iran could involve the US or Israel in bombing Iraq. A US War with Iran is the hope of Israel and Saudi Arabia. Persia is 90 million strong. They are making a new alliance with Pakistan, the one Sunni power with serious nuclear weapons. Pakistan's greatest ally is China. Iran's ally has been Russia. John Bolton has to understand he is no longer at a think tank making tough statements to the blondes at Fox News showing how conservative men are much tougher than Barack Obama.
CHINA-INDIA-PAKISTAN & NUCLEAR WEAPONS: The pro Pakistan-Chinese strategy is an old one. India labels a terrorist in Pakistan. China doesn't veto.
SOUTH AFRICA: New players in elections.
RUSSIA AND CHINA: Civilizational states.
IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION
DRESSED TO MODEL: Halima Aden is a beautiful Minnesota woman ethnically Somalian born in a Kenyan refugee camp. Her breaking boundaries by wearing clothes for Sports Illustrated is something beautiful. William Kilpatrick is the go-to writer on all things Muslim for Catholic neocon sites Crisis and Catholic Thing. Here is his embarrassing take on the Hijab. We reviewed Mr. Kilpatrick's very interesting, very worthwhile, very flawed book on Islam, Atheism, and Christianity.
THE MEDAL OF FREEDOM: A short history of Presidents and their recipients. One interesting cultural observation is that President Eisenhower elevated honor to God on our currency and in our pledge while JFK found a way to elevate "freedom" in the status code.
HOMOSEXUAL BULLY GOES AFTER PRO-LIFE WOMEN: Brian Sims is an elected official - he sees praying pro-life protesters as scum. He is a man of action. Do Christian men really owe "respect" to the death cult of sodomy and abortion? It seems respect is the last thing we owe them. This is where the culture war begins and ends - Who shall we honor? Who shall we shame?
THE COMMON GOOD AND SEXUAL MORALITY BY ANTHONY ESOLEN: The Dean of American Catholic letters is Professor Anthony Esolen. Here is more proof. An excerpt:
"It is a contradiction in terms to suggest that one can have a private sexual morality, because sex by its very nature is social, as is morality. You can no more have your privilege in that regard than you can have a private language or a private culture. Sexual morality is biologically for the begetting and raising of children, and the protection of families and groups of families. That protection is enabled in large part by the teamwork of male groups, undistracted and unconfused by the eros of buggery, formed to get difficult and dangerous things done; and with all our sophisticated tools, we still depend ultimately upon construction workers, road crews, truckers, fishermen, farmers, miners, quarrymen, linemen, soldiers, lumberjacks, longshoremen, masons, and so forth, and this is true even of the well-paid feminist professor driving her man-made automobile powered by man-drilled petroleum products and shaped by man-mined metals over man-laid roads to teach in man-raised buildings about the wickedness of men who make her job possible."
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