AT HOME IN ROME: THE APOSTASY; THE BEREAN CALL; TBC~Pope Francis hosts members of local trans group at papal table for annual Vatican lunch; LifeSite

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Pope Francis with Salas (L, in gray) at the Vatican lunch.CNS/X screenshot
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VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis made headlines Sunday when he invited a group of transgender “women” to take part in a Vatican-hosted lunch for the poor and sat opposite a “transgender” former sex worker.

The following morning Mass, Pope Francis hosted the seventh annual World Day of the Poor at the Vatican, with over 1,200 people filling the Paul VI Audience Hall for a lunch with the Pontiff.

But, as revealed by the Associated Press, Pope Francis invited a group of men who present themselves as women as special guests to the event.

The guests were from a transgender group in Torvaianica – a seaside town south-west of Rome infamous for its sex workers and drug trade – and came with their local priest Father Andrea Conocchia.

READ: Pope Francis calls woman with sex-change operation a 'man' and calls partners ‘married’

The 50-strong group Conocchia brought with him to the lunch included three men living as women: “Carla” Segovia and “Claudia” Vittoria Salas from Argentina, along with “Andrea” Paola Torres Lopez from Colombia.

Salas was given a place directly opposite Pope Francis during Sunday’s lunch.

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Salas, in gray, sits opposite Pope Francis. Credit: Vatican News

Reuters reported that “Carla” Segovia stated of the Vatican invitation: “This is a fantastic opportunity for all of us transsexuals [sic]. I sent the pope a big kiss.”

Who’s Running the Country?

Biden’s decline exposes a much bigger national crisis.

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/whos-running-the-country/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

[Order Daniel Greenfield’s new book, Domestic Enemies: HERE.]

The 2016 presidential election was going to come down to two candidates, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, whose ‘turns’ had come. And then Donald J Trump rode down an escalator, took their own turn, and the establishment has never been the same since. Because it was their ‘turn’.

In 2020, it was the ‘turn’ of Joe Biden, a man whose only political credential was that he had stuck around long enough to stick to things, like the Senate and the Vice Presidency.

Now in 2024, it’s Joe Biden’s ‘turn’ again. No one in his party was under the impression that he was the best candidate, the best campaigner or the best president, but damn it, it was his ‘turn’.

And now the Democrats are panicking because the candidate taking his ‘turn’ is imploding.

Biden’s debate meltdown has frightened Democrats, but they still have no answer for how to stop the car accident that everyone else could see coming from miles away. And no good strategy beyond getting party leaders to confront their candidate and ask him to step down. But how do you take away Biden’s ‘turn’ when turns are the most sacred thing in politics.

It’s not an exclusively Democrat problem. The GOP put up a Bob Dole against Bill Clinton and John McCain against Barack Obama because it was their turn. They let Mitt Romney go up against Obama a second time because it was his turn. And after Republicans lost two straight presidential elections because they ran establishment candidates taking their turn, voters were so sick of it that they did what they would have never done before and picked Trump.

Because it wasn’t his ‘turn’.

‘Turn’ politics mostly still rules. Candidates past their prime go up to bat because they have the biggest networks of fellow politicians, donors and party activists. It’s as if Major League Baseball favored players on the basis of seniority and how well they networked, not based on how well they can pitch or hit.

But unlike sports, politics isn’t a meritocracy, it isn’t even a democracy, it’s an oligarchy.

Voters self-importantly think of elections as a big political competition, but that’s like judging companies based on the keynote addresses of their CEOs. Elections are the least important part of politics. All the really important parts of politics happen behind closed doors. What politicians do isn’t run for office, they network, they cut deals and they plan their careers.

That network, which we occasionally call by wholly inadequate names like the “establishment” or “D.C. insiders” is the reason Biden is up again in 2024. And why he can’t be gotten rid of.

People who naively think that Obama is secretly running the Biden administration don’t understand the network or how it works. Obama took on Hillary when it was her ‘turn’ in 2008. He won and brokered a deal that moved the Democrat network further leftward. He did the same thing again in 2020, bringing in Bernie and Elizabeth Warren’s people (and his own people) so that the Biden administration was even more radical and extreme than it was.

But where did Obama come from? He came out of that network of radical activists, donors and government personnel now running the country. Obama is not a brilliant genius or one-man dynamo, he was a lazy and unoriginal activist lawyer, one of tens of thousands of Ivy Leaguers who joined the political side of the network, who wanted to live out his egotistical ambitions.

The leftist network gave him the opportunity to do it in exchange for seeding it deeper across the Democrat Party, the government and the country. Then his time came.

Obama did not want Biden to succeed him. He pushed Biden out in favor of Hillary and then tried to bring in a surprise candidate to run against him in 2020. But some things are sacred and not even Obama, especially once out of the White House, could take away Biden’s ‘turn’ twice.

It’s not really Biden’s ‘turn’ though. It’s the turn of the strategists, lobbyists, staffers, donors,  allies and more nebulous figures known as ‘friends’ whom he accrued over the years. They’re invested in his success and they’re profiting from it. And they won’t easily give it up.

Trying to replace Biden with Newsom (aside from legal and logistical issues) would be a clash between the two networks that would require either careful negotiations or outright civil war. It’s done all the time with primary rivals who become vice presidents or cabinet members, but displacing a sitting president who also won the nomination and has raised and spent a massive fortune would require a level of delicate negotiations akin to bringing peace to an African civil war.

Especially if that president is unstable, prone to fits of anger, and is insulated by the same political allies whose wealth and power depend on Biden winning a second term in office.

It’s not just about Jill and Hunter: Joe Biden has tens of thousands of political mouths to feed. Money has been collected, favors promised, people have bought homes in D.C. bedroom communities, lobbyists have secured fat contracts and donors have opened up their wallets.

Replacing Biden with another candidate would upend much of D.C., put tens of billions of dollars in flux and create massive instability in this corrupt local economy. Much of D.C. would rather ride it out (especially since the campaign people will make just as much money if Biden loses) and preserve the integrity of the network and the illicit pinkie vows that allow special interests to buy influence without having to worry if their man will suddenly be swapped out.

That is what “it’s his turn” really means.

It’s not impossible for the Democrats to replace Biden, but despite all the ‘Orange Man Bad’ alarmism that is their only campaign slogan, none of them view him as enough of an existential threat to disrupt a political way of life which allowed a mediocre grifter like Biden to get this far.

People who didn't understand that were baffled that Biden would run and that he would get the nomination. After his disastrous debate showing, much of the party panicked and outsiders assumed that they would dump Biden. The truth is that the Democrats wish they could.

‘Turn’ corruption once again threatens the survival of the party and yet they can’t break away from it because parties are vehicles for careerism and cash. The networks around powerful politicians build careers and move money. And those networks are running the country.

When people ask “who’s been running the country” after Biden’s debate performance, the answer is that it’s the same people who run most of the government. And have it all along.

Politicians in a state of obvious mental decline, like Biden and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who go on introducing bills, signing legislation, tweeting and expressing strong opinions on issues in their press releases, are not aberrations, they’re symptoms of a much bigger problem.

Not just Biden, but many, if not most, elected officials are figureheads who exist to broker favorable arrangements between their personal networks of donors and staffers, and those of other elected officials, and those in the bureaucracy that make policy. The revolving door between staffers, personnel, appointees and lobbyists who move between administrations, offices, boards, corporations, think tanks and firms is the actual force that runs the country more than most elections. Politicians play their part, meeting, greeting and signing off on what they’re told will be good for their careers within the networks they’re part of.

And if they build up enough cachet, one day it will also be their turn to be at the top..

That’s why Democrats can’t solve their Biden problem. The issue isn’t one man’s decline but a systemic crisis. Biden embodies what the Democrats (and the two-party system and politics really are) and while getting him out may fix the immediate problem, it won’t fix the system.

Biden is a test of how much the system is willing to risk and how high a public implosion it’s willing to tolerate to protect the sacred right of the "turn." Will Democrats let their party go down to protect the system? Will they go on lying to their voters and their donors? Will the media, which briefly broke away from the lies after the debate, resume going along with the scam?

Other .Bidens, some elderly, confused and inept like Joe, others middle aged, confused and inept, like Kamala, and some even young, confused and inept like AOC, fill the system because they are how the system works. It’s not a meritocracy that elevates the best, a democracy chosen by the people, but an oligarchy that runs the system and is also the system.

The Debate: Biden’s Top 5 Big Lies

Liar-in-Chief

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-debate-bidens-top-5-big-lies/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

[Order a copy of Robert Spencer’s forthcoming book, Muhammad: A Critical Biographyby clicking here.]

Old Joe Biden may be a poor debater, but at least he tells the truth, unlike Bad Orange Man. As improbable as it is, that’s the line the left has decided upon to explain away Biden’s appalling performance in last Thursday’s debate. But this excuse appears even more appalling in light of the fact that Biden lied his way through that debate.

Old Joe himself said it at a Friday rally: “Well, folks, I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debah — debate as much as I used to. But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth.” His boss Barack Obama quickly followed suit:  “Bad debate nights happen." Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; someone who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit. Last night didn’t change that, and that's why so much is at stake in November.”

Yet Truthful Joe’s “bad debate night” was made worse by the fact that the garrulous old kleptocrat lied pretty much every time he opened his mouth. Here are five of his most outrageous whoppers:

  1. Biden repeated the old charge that Trump refused to visit the graves of fallen U.S. soldiers in France and called them “suckers and losers.” Trump once again denied having done so, whereupon Biden said: “You had a four-star general stand at your side, who was on your staff, who said you said it, period.” Old Joe was referring to Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, who said in Oct. 2023, three years after the claim was first made, that Trump “rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”

Trump accused Kelly of lying, so it’s a case of whom one chooses to believe — except that John Bolton, who has harshly criticized Trump, said in Sept. 2020: “I didn’t hear either of those comments or anything even resembling them. I was there at that point in time that morning when it was decided that he would not go Aisne-Marne cemetery. He decided not to do it because of John Kelly’s recommendation. It was entirely a weather-related decision, and I thought of the proper thing to do.”

Why would Bolton, who hates Trump, lie to cover for him? Bolton also inadvertently exposed Kelly as lying. According to Bolton, who would have had no reason to make up for such a thing, Kelly recommended that Trump not visit the cemetery. Then three years later, Kelly claimed that Trump “wouldn’t” visit the cemetery. That strongly suggests that it’s Kelly — and hence Biden — who is lying, not Trump.

  1. Biden claimed that Trump said that Hitler did some good things. Once again, the source for this is John Kelly, who has already been shown to be an unreliable witness. Trump’s spokesperson Liz Harrington said:  “This is totally false. President Trump never said this. It is made-up fake news, probably by a general who was incompetent and was fired.” Kelly claims that Trump praised Hitler during his Nov. 9-11, 2018 trip to Paris. Yet Kelly remained Trump’s chief of staff. Only nearly a month later, on Dec. 8, 2018, did Trump announce that he was replacing Kelly, who remained in the position until Jan. 2, 2019. Would you have kept working for a man who praised Hitler? I wouldn’t have.
  1. Old Joe also dragged out his oft-repeated claim that the National Socialists demonstrating in Charlottesville were “fine people.” This lie is particularly galling, for at the press conference where Trump supposedly made this statement, he said: “I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups, but not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.
  1. Biden claimed that Trump “wants to get rid of Social Security.” Yet this was after Trump had said of the alleged president: “This man is going to single-handedly destroy Social Security." The millions and millions of people coming in, they’re trying to put them on Social Security. He will wipe out Social Security.” Warning that Biden regime policies are endangering Social Security would be strange coming from a man who wanted to get rid of it.
  1. Biden said: “The pandemic are so badly handled, many people are dying. All he said was, it’s not that serious. Just inject a little bleach in your arm. It’d be all right.” As cartoonist-turned-pundit Scott Adams has explained in detail, Trump was referring to “the concept of killing Covid on external surfaces using sunlight and UV light. "Light as a .disinfectant' was collectively mentioned 21 times by the experts – Dr. Bryan and Dr. Birx – and by Trump.” Trump’s exact words bear this out.

Besides lying outright, Biden also demonstrates anew by repeating these claims that much of the opposition to Trump is based not on his policies, but on rude or unkind things he has supposedly said. Aside from the claim about Social Security, these charges would have no effect on public policy even if they were true. Old Joe and his handlers know that if the campaign comes down to Trump’s record as president versus Biden’s, Trump will win in a walk if the election isn’t rigged. And so all this dredging-up of ancient and discredited quotes will continue — anything to keep people from looking at Biden’s record.

The American Revolution Patriots Fought for Autonomy and We Must Do That Too~National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)

By Barbara Loe Fisher
Published June 30, 2024 in Rights & Ethics

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Republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

The American Revolution Patriots Fought for Autonomy and We Must Do That Too by Barbara Loe Fisher

The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 taking on the King of England had a vision. Many were well-educated and in their 30s and 40s, married and raising children in the 13 original colonies. Most were attorneys and jurists, while others were merchants, shippers, farmers, physicians, ministers and other professions. 1 They had a lot to lose if they failed in their quest to throw off the yoke of tyranny and create a new Republic.

They dreamed of a nation where all would be free to respect “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” They proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that: 2

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”  

That document marked the official beginning of the American Revolution declaring war on the British monarchy, a war that would last until 1783. Those who signed it made this solemn pledge: 3

“For the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

They knew the risk they were taking by following their conscience and summoning the courage to sign that pledge. The personal price almost all of them paid was steep. One-third fought in the militia and nine died from wounds or hardships suffered during the war, with several losing sons in it. Some were taken captive by the British and tortured as traitors. A dozen saw their homes burned down. Nearly all were poorer by the end of the war than when it began. 4 5

Resisting Tyranny and Defending Autonomy to Protect Natural Rights

Tyranny comes in many forms. Resisting tyranny that robs the people of their liberty is usually taken up by a minority, who will not comply and who lead the way for others longing for freedom, who either don’t know how to fight for it or are afraid of the price they will have to pay if they do.

The natural right to autonomy is the foundation for all other natural rights given to us by God and the foundation for human rights acknowledged by governments. 6 7 The Declaration of Independence, like the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution, acknowledges the existence of basic natural rights that belong to every human being. 8 9 10

Today the right to autonomy, protection of bodily integrity, 11 and other natural rights are under attack.12 13 Autonomy, which gives us the freedom to think rationally and follow our conscience and make voluntary decisions about exercising informed consent to medical risk taking, is being threatened by corporations and institutions, doctors and scientists, public health officials and academics, attorneys and judges, lawmakers and businessmen, who are facilitating iron-fisted operation of the powerful and very lucrative Public Health Empire. 14 15 16 17 18 19 They seek ownership of our bodies and the bodies of our children so we can be legally compelled to buy and use pharmaceutical products that they label “vaccines” 20 that not only can fail to prevent infection and transmission 21 22 but can injure and kill. 23 24 They believe that our bodies can be sacrificed in service to “the greater good” of society or, as utilitarians would put it, in order for government officials to be able to secure what they have judged to be “the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

A Weaponized Mandatory Vaccination System Is Threatening Autonomy

The political tool being used to achieve this end is weaponization of the mandatory vaccination system, which has been in place globally for the past two centuries. 33 It began with compulsory smallpox vaccination. 34 35 In the 21st century, compulsory vaccination laws have become the tip of the spear in the great culture war going on in this country and countries around the world as populations are being asked to answer these two questions and make a choice.

Does the individual have natural rights which limit the power of the state? Or does the state own the bodies of individuals and the legal right to use them for what those in power have judged to be “the greater good?”

These are profound questions. They strike at the heart of liberty and what it means to be free.

Those patriots who fought and died in the American Revolution to secure the freedoms we are trying so hard to protect knew how important freedom of thought and conscience were to preserving liberty. They had suffered persecution for their religious beliefs under oppressive hereditary monarchies. Trapped for centuries in inflexible class systems that kept them poor and powerless, they had fled from tyranny but still found themselves as residents of colonies being subjected to harsh taxation without representation and punished for speaking out against injustice.

The patriots who wrote the Declaration of Independence knew that without respect for autonomy and the right to exercise freedom of thought 36 and conscience, 37 individuals can be exploited 38 and become nothing more than slaves serving an authoritarian state.

The COVID-19 Pandemic Unleashed Sickness and Death and Abuse of Authority

For the past decade, I have talked about the Vaccine Culture War 39 because forced vaccination laws, which punish individuals for refusing to believe in the sanctity of vaccines and refusing to comply with vaccine mandates, have everything to do with the larger culture war being fought over what it means to be free. 40

Between 2020 and 2023, the whole world saw what can happen when governments fail to respect autonomy and freedom of thought and conscience. 41 This July 4, 2024, most of us know that scientists in biohazard labs conducting risky gain of function research created a mutated coronavirus that unleashed sickness and death on the world 42 43 44 45 with money from governments 46 47 doing the bidding of doctors and pharmaceutical companies in charge of the global Public Health Empire. We know that officials at the highest levels of the U.S. government 48 and in the United Nations World Health Organization lied to the people about what they did, 49 50 and they lied to the people about the risks and failures of the fast-tracked cell disrupter mRNA biological product 51 52 53 54 55 they called a “vaccine” but is unlike any “vaccine” ever injected into humans. 56 57 58 59

What we remember most from that betrayal of trust is that our autonomy, our freedom to think and speak and work and assemble freely, was taken away. In the digital public square, government officials brokered deals with Big Tech owners of social media companies to shut down all conversations about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the mRNA biology if those conversations did not conform to government and World Health Organization-approved narratives.60 61 62 That censorship continues today, with NVIC and others who tried to tell the people the truth during the COVID pandemic still being blocked from the right to speak on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and You Tube – even though the pandemic emergency declaration is over. 63 64 65

But beyond silencing all dissent, the Public Health Empire terrorized, injured and killed people in this country and all over the world by not only creating and then covering up the leak of the lab created SARS-CoV-2 virus, 66 but by forcing people to mask 67 68 and stay six feet away from each other 69 and buy and use a toxic, genetically engineered pharmaceutical product that not only injures and kills but doesn’t prevent infection and transmission of disease. 70 The societal sanctions used to punish people for refusing to comply with mandatory vaccination policies and laws included loss of the right to work and earn a living, 71 72 73 loss of the right to a college education, 74 loss of the right to work with or serve in the military, 75 loss of the right to get a lifesaving organ transplant, 76 and loss of the right to travel and enter public spaces. 77 78 79 80

What we witnessed was a stunning abuse of authority that struck at the very heart of the definition of liberty and what it means to be free. What we collectively suffered, we will never forget and should not forget.

Liberating Ourselves from the Public Health Empire

PHOTO-Woman-walking-on-path-with-trees-autonomy-copy.jpegOn July 4, 1776, the signers of the Declaration of Independence liberated themselves from abuse of authority by a monarchy ruled by a King. On July 4, 2024, the time has come to liberate ourselves from the systematic abuse being perpetrated by the Public Health Empire, whose leaders worship at the altar of scientism 81 82 83 84 and are forcing their hedonistic and Epicurean 85 86 87 utilitarian 88 89 90 and Marxist 91 values and beliefs on the rest of us to justify compromising the biological integrity of our bodies and the bodies of our children. 92 93

God gave us free will. With that free will, we can choose to do good or choose to do evil or choose to do nothing at all.

The journey we take on this earth is defined by the choices we make, and if we are not free to make choices, then the journey is not our own. The choices that involve risk of harm to our physical body, which houses our mind and spirit, are among the most profound choices we make and why we must be free to make them.

We give up the right to autonomy and voluntary informed consent to medical risk taking at our peril, no matter where or in what century we live.

Just like the patriots who signed the Declaration of Independence and pledged to put their lives, fortunes and sacred honors on the line to secure natural rights for themselves and future generations of Americans, we must do the same 248 years later.

It is time to stop forced vaccination policies and laws and affirm the natural right to autonomy in medical care and public health policy and law. We cannot wait any longer because: 

If the state can tag, track down and force individuals to be injected with biologicals of known and unknown toxicity today, then there will be no limit on which individual freedoms the state can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow.

Join NVIC at NVIC.org and NVICAdvocacy.org and fight for your natural rights. 94 95
Make a donation if you can.

Be the one who never has to say you did not do today what you could have done to change tomorrow.

It’s your health, your family, your choice.

Our mission continues: No forced vaccination. Not in America.