In the five years since I began writing the Twilight Patriot Substack, I’ve had occasion to mention only one pope — and that was the medieval Pope Innocent III, who appears briefly in my essay on the Magna Carta.

If you’re a Catholic and you believe that these men are chosen with the aid of the Holy Spirit, then the reason for refusing to put them in political boxes should be obvious.  If, like me, you’re merely an astute observer of events, then just remember how John Paul II annoyed the traditionalists by kissing the Quran as a gesture of friendship to Muslims, and how Francis annoyed the liberals by complaining about the frociaggine (i.e., “faggotry”) in the Vatican.  These “factions” in the Church, and their respective popes, are not as different from each other as the news industry tries to make us think!

This was also the reason that, when the American Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected last week and became Pope Leo XIV, I wasn’t at all surprised by the regnal name he chose.  After all, popes and cardinals and bishops are also annoyed by the attempts by outsiders to cast everything they do in a factional light, and every new pope naturally wants to emphasize unity and make it clear that he’s a pope for the whole Church.  But reusing the name of any recent pontiff — for instance, by becoming Pius XIII, John Paul III, Benedict XVII, or Francis II — would align oneself with a faction.

Francis tried to get around this problem by naming himself after a saint (Francis of Assisi) whose name had yet to be used by any popes.  But this was a radical enough move that if the next pope had done the same thing, he would have simply been saying, “I’m going to be a second Francis,” which is not the message Cardinal Prevost wanted to send.  And so he had to reach back a little more than a century into the past, for the name of the most recent pope who is admired by just about everyone in the Church — and that was Leo XIII, who reigned from 1878 to 1903.

Pope Leo XIII had a fascinating life.  He was born in 1810 as the sixth child of a Sienese count and a descendent of Cola di Rienzo, the great Roman populist of the early Renaissance.  He was a clever boy, writing poetry in Latin by age 11; at 18 he entered a pontifical academy, where he was soon impressing the cardinals with his knowledge of canon law.  He rose steadily through the ranks and at age 67 was elected pope, reigning until his death at 93, during which time he became the oldest pope ever, as well as the first pope to be filmed and the first to have his voice recorded.

A lot of progressive commentators are gushing over the new Pope Leo’s apparent admiration for Leo XIII, whom they describe as a “social justice” pope, who, by issuing the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, “defended workers’ rights” and “laid the foundation for Catholic social teaching.”

The expectation seems to be that the people who read these headlines will nod along with the progressive buzzwords without thinking too hard about what these things meant in 1891, much less actually reading Rerum Novarum for themselves.

I am of the opinion that everyone should read Rerum Novarum.  (Here is the Latin original; here is the official English translation.)  “But I am not Catholic,” some of you might say, “so why should I care what a long-dead pope had to say about the proper relationship between labor and capital?”

Well, I am not an Anglican, but I still wrote a positive review of C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy last November.  There is just something important about seeing a Christian thinker, of whatever denomination, predict what will happen if mankind keeps on pursuing some materialist vision of utopia — and then seeing that prediction fulfilled.  And for Leo XIII, writing way back in 1891, that utopian vision was the one peddled by the Socialistae — the followers of people like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (no one had yet heard of Lenin or Trotsky) who insisted that a happy and just society was about to come into being, if and only if socialist revolutionaries could abolish private property.

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Leo was not an apologist for laissez-faire capitalism.  He was frank about the hard condition of the working poor in most of Europe and the genuine evils that had stirred up class conflict and made the doctrine of the Socialistae seem appealing. He writes that

some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class: for the ancient workingmen’s guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organization took their place.  Public institutions and the laws set aside the ancient religion. Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.

null

Pope Leo XIII was unapologetically in favor of what were, at the time, called “social laws” — laws that regulated workplace safety conditions, established minimum wages, limited the hours and days of labor to ensure that workers had enough time for rest and worship, forbade women and children from being employed in work “unsuited to their sex and age,” and ensured that children had enough education that they could make the best use of their talents, even if they began life poor.

But with the would-be abolishers of private property, there could be no compromise.  It was against human nature.  Man, at his creation, had been given dominion over the earth and had been commanded to till the soil to earn his bread.  To forbid him from owning the soil he worked, the tools with which he worked it, or the fruits of his toil would be to deprive him of his humanity.

To the Marxist intellectuals, who gabbled about the difference between “private property” and “personal property” — who insisted that only the “means of production” would be owned by the state, and that workers would still receive wages for the labor they contributed — Leo’s response was simple.  Men of thrift and foresight, as soon as they had saved up a little money beyond their immediate needs, would want to buy land with it, or machinery, or something that would make supporting their families a little easier in the future than it had been in the past.  And if a working man couldn’t reinvest his own wages, then they were never his wages to begin with.

Would social inequality be the result?  Of course.  And Pope Leo (who is after all the son of a count!) isn’t much troubled by this.

It must be first of all recognized that the condition of things inherent in human affairs must be borne with, for it is impossible to reduce civil society to one dead level. Socialistae may in that intent do their utmost, but all striving against nature is in vain. There naturally exist among mankind manifold differences of the most important kind; people differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community. Social and public life can only be maintained by means of various kinds of capacity for business and the playing of many parts; and each man, as a rule, chooses the part which suits his own peculiar domestic condition.

Due to mankind’s fallen condition, inequality will produce benefits to the human race but also suffering and hardships that have to be endured.  But this doesn’t mean it can be done away with, and those who “pretend differently — who hold out to a hard-pressed people the boon of freedom from pain and trouble, an undisturbed repose, and constant enjoyment — they delude the people and impose upon them, and their lying promises will only one day bring forth evils worse than the present.”  Also,

just as the symmetry of the human frame is the result of the suitable arrangement of the different parts of the body, so in a State is it ordained by nature that these two classes should dwell in harmony and agreement, so as to maintain the balance of the body politic. Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labor, nor labor without capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good order, whereas perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and savage barbarity. Now, in preventing such strife as this, and in uprooting it, the efficacy of Christian institutions is marvelous and manifold. First of all, there is no intermediary more powerful than religion (whereof the Church is the interpreter and guardian) in drawing the rich and the working class together, by reminding each of its duties to the other, and especially of the obligations of justice.

Later in the encyclical, Leo talks about the especial duties governments have to protect the working poor, and the right the workers have to form trade unions and workingmen’s associations to collectively bargain for their rights, and to provide relief for widows, orphans, and the sick or injured.  He also argues that these organizations will succeed to the extent that they are motivated by Christian charity, and a realization that working for the material well-being of one’s fellow men is not an end in itself, but a preparation for the world to come.

But what does he hope will be achieved, in this world, by all this work on behalf of the poor?

If a workman’s wages be sufficient to enable him comfortably to support himself, his wife, and his children, he will find it easy, if he be a sensible man, to practice thrift, and he will not fail, by cutting down expenses, to put by some little savings and thus secure a modest source of income. … The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners.

Many excellent results will follow from this; and, first of all, property will certainly become more equitably divided. For, the result of civil change and revolution has been to divide cities into two classes separated by a wide chasm, [but] if working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought nearer to one another.

A further consequence will result in the great abundance of the fruits of the earth. Men always work harder and more readily when they work on that which belongs to them; nay, they learn to love the very soil that yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them. …

And a third advantage would spring from this: men would cling to the country in which they were born, for no one would exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the means of living a decent and happy life.

These three important benefits, however, can be reckoned on only provided that a man’s means be not drained and exhausted by excessive taxation. The right to possess private property is derived from nature, not from man; and the State has the right to control its use in the interests of the public good alone, but by no means to absorb it altogether. The State would therefore be unjust and cruel if under the name of taxation it were to deprive the private owner of more than is fair.

This, then, is the “social teaching” to which Pope Leo XIII committed the Catholic Church: that without property there is no liberty, and that church and state should work together to create a nation of property-owners — a nation that makes no pretense to bring about earthly equality but does its best to make sure every working man is rewarded for his toil, and that those with the greatest talents, and best work ethic, are able to rise to the stations where they can be of the most use to their fellow men.

On the whole, the moral sense of Rerum Novarum is closer to what one finds in the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute than it is to the platform of practically any present-day left-wing party.

And it’s worth remembering that Pope Leo’s predictions were borne out by events.  Just as Pope Paul VI, when he issued Humanae Vitae in 1968, had foreseen the bad results of the Sexual Revolution with far more clarity than its naïve promoters did, so too did Leo XIII, nearly eighty years earlier, foresee the bad results of the Bolshevik revolution.

The nations of Catholic Europe where Leo’s teachings were held in the highest regard — that is, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland, and pre-WWII Poland — all managed to put a lid on the class conflict and avoid the horrors of communism (though in Spain this was a near-run thing).  Protestant countries like England and the United States, who were led in a similar direction from their own pulpits, also prospered.  Meanwhile, it was Russia, where the Orthodox Church was subservient to the tsars and largely failed to call out corruption and greed among the upper classes, that fell to the horrors of communism.

Rerum Novarum means “of the New Things” in Latin, though it is often translated loosely as “Revolutionary Changes.”  Though the matters that Leo spoke of may not be as “new” as they were in 1891, they are still relevant.  We patriots would do well to remember that if we want men and women to “cling to the country in which they were born,” then we must make sure that government does not simply try to help corporations maximize profits.  It must also defend the domestic labor market, keep skilled industries in the country rather than offshoring them, and force people to respect borders.

In short, we must favor the “national conservatism” of statesmen like Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, and J.D. Vance over the worn out globalism of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, and Klaus Schwab.

This, then, is the “social teaching” that the author of Rerum Novarum left behind him.  And if you are as curious about the world as I am, then you will read Rerum Novarum for yourself, instead of blindly assuming that the left-wing press knows what it’s talking about when it says that Leo XIII was a “pope for the poor” or a “champion of the working classes!”

Twilight Patriot is the pen name for a young American who lives in South Carolina, where he is currently working toward a graduate degree.  He also has a Substack where you can read more of his writings, such as this recent essay about how medieval and renaissance Europe owe their progress in science and engineering to the Christian faith.

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Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted on July 9, 1962 as part of a group of tests collectively known as Operation Fishbowl. While Starfish Prime was not the first high-altitude test, it was the largest nuclear test ever conducted by the United States in space. The test led to the discovery and understanding of the nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effect and a mapping of seasonal mixing rates of tropical and polar air masses.

Key Takeaways: Starfish Prime Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States on July 9, 1962. It was part of Operation Fishbowl. It was the largest nuclear test conducted in outer space, with a yield of 1.4 megatons. Starfish Prime generated an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that damaged electrical systems in Hawaii, just under 900 miles away.

Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph. D.  Thought Company

The country that was just recently considered the heart and key player of Europe, wants to deal a crushing blow to democracy. This is the only way to explain the decision of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, to classify the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a “confirmed right-wing extremist party”. The establishment of the republic has long been looking for an opportunity to remove the undesirable AfD from the political field of the country. Many were not happy with the fact that Alice Weidel’s party was not shy about telling the truth, which contradicted the EU propaganda mainstream. There is no doubt that the next step of German legislators will be to ban the AfD from participating in the country’s political life, despite the party’s growing support among the population. This is the price for calling for peace, refusing to support Ukraine’s endless war, and disagreeing with the course of militarization of the EU.

The decision of the German authorities, although it became a high-profile political scandal, is not something surprising. Thus, at the end of the last year, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the result of the first round of voting in the presidential election after the victory of Calin Georgescu, who was inconvenient for Brussels. And just recently, in France, the main rival of Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen, has been banned from running for political office for five years after being convicted for embezzling European Union funds. All this is happening against the backdrop of growing censorship in the information field and is a part of the attempts of European hawks to establish their control on the territory of the EU. Some MEPs have become so carried away with totalitarianism that they even tried to dictate to heads of states where and how they should celebrate the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.

It is scary to imagine what outcome the killers of European democracy are aiming for, but one thing is clear — it is better to stay away from them. The course toward aggressive rearmament coupled with attempts by some states, in particular Poland and Lithuania, to snatch a share of the EU budget for the implementation of crazy militaristic ideas, such as mining their own borders and creating a “wall of drones”, is unlikely to lead to adequate economic development on the continent. In the current circumstances, Trump’s decision to distance himself from Europe gives a hope that the U.S. will not find itself drawn into another conflict based solely on the desire to shed more blood. The American president needs to either establish tighter control over errant European politicians or seriously consider leaving NATO before it is too late.

Jonathan Schiff is a conservative, engineer, his interests also include geopolitics and political analysis. He can be reached at jonathan.schiff@proton.me

For so many years now, the American intelligence community has been methodically hijacked by left-wing operatives working from the inside to sabotage political dissidents and cover up regime corruption. The left didn’t just politicize intelligence; they fully and totally weaponized it. And while the damage they’ve done to public trust and constitutional order could take decades to undo, someone has to start the cleanup… And Tulsi Gabbard just did.

As Trump’s acting Director of National Intelligence, Gabbard is taking a flamethrower to one of the worst corners of the intelligence swamp: the National Intelligence Council. And according to senior officials, the people she just fired weren’t just bureaucrats; they were anti-Trump, anti-America First radicals embedded deep inside one of the most sensitive parts of the US government.

The first Deep State operative to get canned was Mike Collins. This is the same guy who ran in circles with spooks who pushed the lie that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation.”

Michael Collins: “When you study intelligence, human lives are on the line…”

Here’s Michael speaking at SIPA:

VIDEOA T LINK…………….

Next to go was Collins’ right-hand lady, Maria Langan-Riekhof. Together, the two operated as an anti-Trump sabotage force inside the intelligence community.

Like Mike, Maria had that unmistakable Deep State air, the polished, out-of-touch elitism that’s become all too familiar among the ruling class.

Watch:

VIDEO AT LINK……………

According to an exclusive report from Fox News Digital, Gabbard made her move this week to restore order within the US intelligence community, gutting a deeply politicized network that’s been actively working to sabotage President Trump since 2016.

Fox News:

EXCLUSIVE: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has fired the top officials leading the National Intelligence Council – whom whistleblowers describe as “radically opposed to Trump” — and has moved the agency to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, to ensure she can block any “politicization of intelligence,” Fox News Digital has learned.

Gabbard fired Mike Collins, who was serving as the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, and his deputy, Maria Langan-Riekhof, Tuesday, senior intelligence officials told Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital reached out Langan-Riekhof for comment and did not immediately hear back, and couldn’t immediately find contact information for Collins.

Collins also has whistleblower complaints against him for political bias and “deliberately undermining the incoming Trump administration,” officials said.

They added that Collins was closely associated with Michael Morrell, the former deputy director of the CIA who worked to write a public letter in 2020 claiming that Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” and to get signatures from top ex-intelligence officials.

Tulsi is determined to clean up the NIA—and she knows that removing these radical operatives is the first step toward restoring integrity and accountability. Fox News goes on:

As for Langan-Reikhof, officials said she has been a “key advocate” for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and is someone who whistleblowers allege is “radically opposed to Trump.”

Meanwhile, Gabbard is moving the National Intelligence Council from the CIA to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to “directly hold accountable any improper action and politicization of intelligence,” Fox News Digital has learned.

Many intel community leakers are “career bureaucrats that are entrenched in Washington politics,” officials said.

“It takes time to weed them out and fire them,” one official told Fox News Digital, adding that “plans to eliminate non-essential offices within ODNI that we know are housing deep state leakers are underway.”

Tulsi’s takedown of Mike and Maria is a major step in the right direction, but don’t forget: this is just the tip of the iceberg. The weaponization of US intelligence is a titanic-sized glacier, and we’re only starting to see what’s lurking beneath the surface.

The good news is that when you’ve got bloated Deep Staters like John Brennan foaming at the mouth, you know you’re doing something right. The moment Brennan got wind of Collins and Langan-Riekhof getting canned, he practically blew a gasket.

Watch:

VIDEO AT LINK……………….

It took decades to build this corrupt machine. Dismantling it won’t happen overnight. But at least now, someone’s finally turning the wheel in the right direction. Let’s hope Tulsi keeps it up; we need a lot more of this.

Revolver News Staff

Fox News host Mark Levin is NOT pleased with President Donald Trump’s current diplomatic tour of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which, given his history of reflexive pro-Trump rhetoric, is notable.

Trump spoke to the Saudi Royal family and other very important global business leaders during a remarkably convivial economic investment confab on Tuesday that ended on the same note as most of his political rallies: with The Village People blaring the gay disco anthem YMCA. Trump later flew to Doha, Qatar, for more meetings aimed at securing Middle Eastern investment in the American economy, despite serious concerns about human rights abuses on the part of the would-be investors.

But, without mentioning President Trump by name, Levin was remarkably critical of the commander-in-chief, taking to social media to blast Saudi Arabia for playing a “significant role on the 9/11 slaughter of our people.” He also condemned Qatar for having “protected the leader of the 9/11 attack from the FBI, before he was able to launch his war on America that killed our people.”

Levin posted on X:

Saudi Arabia played a significant role on the 9/11 slaughter of our people. I didn’t hear their Crown Prince even apologize once yesterday for what they did to us. And I know the 9/11 families are reeling from this.

And Qatar protected the leader of the 9/11 attack from the FBI, before he was able to launch his war on America that killed our people. The debate about whether the plane is a legal gift is beside the point. Qatar is a terrorist regime that has murdered Americans.

I cannot let bygones be bygones and those Americans who suffered the consequences of what these monarchies did cannot either. I can’t stop thinking about all the innocent people who went to work that day, and were on those planes, and all the firefighters and police officers who died horrible deaths.

As for Iran, if they get a nuclear weapon that’s on our generation. And our country will suffer the horrible consequences. These are terrorists. They don’t think like us and they don’t love life like us. We must have the guts and wisdom to protect ourselves.

In a separate post, Levin praised Trump, but not without dinging him for using “lines used by the Soros-Koch isolationist crowd about neocons and interventionists” in his speech to the Saudis. Levin linked to a Jewish Insider article about the speech and noted via X:

Isolationism or globalism? Or both?

Actually, POTUS’s speech included some of the lines used by the Soros-Koch isolationist crowd about neocons and interventionists, but the irony is that it was given in the context of a globalist outreach effort to make economic and military deals with and between Middle East monarchies/dictatorships and the biggest of America’s globalists/internationalists/corporatists. We don’t know the details but if they’re great deals for we, the people, that’s wonderful. I truly believe the President is THE best at making GREAT deals. Nonetheless, this looks like globalism wrapped in isolationist language.

Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.

Have you ever just had a family dinner conversation over a group holiday or spoken with friends about going to Ibiza to party, and minutes later, relevant ads appear on Facebook or other applications or websites?

More than likely you answered yes, and that’s simply because all smart devices are permanently listening in on everything you say and keep track of everything you do. They are constantly gathering behavioural data, mostly for commercial and marketing purposes.

In the case of vehicles with built-in smart devices, including sensors, they build complete profiles of the drivers and their passengers. They map their routes and the frequency of visits to different locations. For example, they know if the driver is a frequent bar or restaurant patron, or a supermarket shopper, a casino habitué, or church goer.

Is your phone secretly listening to you? Truth is more disturbing

They also know what kind of music they prefer, and listen in on conversations to build complete profiles and bombard them with targeted ads, which are paid more handsomely by advertisers. Coca-Cola, for instance, will pay more for a list of loyal drinkers than for those who are not. It’s simple math.

Smart refrigerators learn their owners’ habits, and manufacturers of those devices or the applications linked to these domestic appliances make a profit by selling them to advertisers who then target you with ads relevant to you.

We could go on explaining how all smart devices, vehicles and appliances are keeping an eye and ear on everything you say and do. And even if you do not have smart devices yourself, remember your friend’s devices are listening to you too.

Your data is more valuable than oil

In 2017, The Economist pointed out that data was the most valuable commodity, beyond oil. The World Economic Forum released a report in 2019, saying data is the oil of the digital world. Also in 2019, Forbes said data is the new oil, and that’s a good thing, and it is when it’s being used for research and development for the good of humanity, and not to get richer as the tech giants are doing.

Eight years ago, CNN said, “Your car’s data (which is really data about you) may soon be more valuable than the car itself.” And eight years later, CNN wrote, “your car’s manufacturer has more of your data than you think.”

In 2018, Francois Fleutiaux, CEO at Btob Telco, said, “Modern vehicles generate around 25 gigabytes of data every hour! Autonomous cars will generate even more – up to 3,600 gigabytes of data per hour.”

That means vehicles collect data on how you drive, how hard you brake, how heavy your foot is on the gas pedal, how fast you turn corners, and even what you eat, drink, and more.

“Our smartphones, our Internet searches, and our social media accounts are giving away our secrets,” Gus Hosein, the executive director of Privacy International, told National Geographic, “If the police wanted to know what was in your head in the 1800s, they would have to torture you. Now they can just find it out from your devices.”

A 404 Media exclusive report exposed how Cox Media Group (CMG) has partnered with Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Bing to process the voice data they collect from smartphones, smart TVs, Alexa, and Google Home and other similar devices and use AI to identify “ready-to-buy” audiences, and hit them with ads that will vastly enhance their advertising ROI (Return on Investment).

Stop Devices and Apps from Listening: by Norton Security:

Disable Voice Assistants:

For Siri (iPhone): Go to Settings > Siri & Search. Toggle off “Listen for ‘Hey Siri’” and “Press Side Button for Siri.” Tap “Turn Off Siri” in the pop-up.

For Google Assistant:

iPhone: Go to Settings, search “Microphone,” and toggle off Assistant.

Android: Go to Settings > Google > All Services > Settings for Google Apps > Search, Assistant & Voice > Google Assistant > Hey Google & Voice Match. Toggle off “Hey Google.”

Revoke Microphone Permissions for Apps:

iPhone: Go to Settings, select the app (e.g., Snapchat), and toggle off “Microphone.”

Android: Go to Settings > Apps, select the app, tap Permissions, and disable “Microphone.” Note: Some apps (e.g., camera for video) need microphone access to function, so review carefully.

Physical Solutions:

Cover the microphone with tape or use a specialised phone case to block audio pickup. Remove the cover before recording or calling to avoid muffled sound. Additional Privacy Measures:

Use Security Software: Install tools like Norton 360 for Mobile to detect malware that might secretly record conversations.

Use a VPN: A VPN (e.g., Norton 360’s built-in VPN) encrypts internet traffic, reducing data tracking by advertisers.

Limit App Permissions: Only download apps from official stores (e.g., App Store, Google Play) and review permissions during installation. Avoid granting microphone access unless necessary.

Regular Updates: Keep your phone’s operating system updated to patch vulnerabilities that could allow unauthorised listening.

Key Advice for Sharing: Tell people their phones listen for convenience (e.g., voice assistants), but they can protect their privacy by turning off voice assistants, restricting app microphone access, and using physical covers. Always check app permissions and avoid shady downloads to prevent misuse of microphone data.

Olivier Acuna Barba, Euroweekly News

Four years ago, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association published an article by Dr. Donald Moss, a New York psychoanalyst, titled “On Having Whiteness.” There, in a flagship journal of a supposedly scientific discipline, Dr. Moss laid out his thesis in tones more suited to medieval demonology than modern psychology. “Whiteness is a condition one first acquires and then one has,” he wrote, describing it as a “malignant, parasitic-like condition” that induces in its hosts “voracious, insatiable, and perverse” appetites. The article, deeply disturbing on both moral and intellectual grounds, was not rejected as inflammatory pseudo-science, but rather published, cited, and praised. More disturbingly still, Dr. Moss teaches at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, meaning his beliefs are not confined to paper, but are actively imparted to students as if they were legitimate insight.

This is not an isolated incident, nor is it the work of a lone radical. It is a symptom of something much deeper: the deliberate institutionalization of anti-white ideology within American higher education. Over the past decade, our universities have moved beyond merely critiquing racial inequality, into the active demonization of whiteness as an essential, ontological evil. This is not the language of reform. It is the language of collective guilt, moral inversion, and revolutionary politics disguised as pedagogy.

Take, for instance, a course called “The Problem of Whiteness” taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The course explicitly treats white identity not as a demographic fact or cultural inheritance, but as a moral and political pathology. Students are asked to explore how white people “consciously and unconsciously perpetuate institutional racism,” and the university describes the course as part of a broader effort to dismantle white supremacy. The implication is not subtle: to be white is to be guilty, to participate in society is to oppress, and to recognize this guilt is to begin the long process of ideological reformation.

At Florida Gulf Coast University, Professor Ted Thornhill offered a course titled “White Racism,” wherein students are taught to confront “racist ideologies, laws, policies, and practices” that allegedly maintain white dominance. Professor Thornhill emphasized that the course was anti-white racism, not anti-white people, but the distinction grows faint when systemic guilt is uniformly attributed to a single race. That the university prepared police presence for the first day of class speaks volumes about how charged and radicalized these academic spaces have become.

More provocatively still was Hunter College’s course “Abolition of Whiteness,” which used the vocabulary of revolution to describe its aims. The phrase, lifted from critical race theorists, suggests that “whiteness” is not merely an identity but a structure to be dismantled, even annihilated. The parallels to earlier ideological campaigns against bourgeois identity, kulaks, or aristocrats should not be missed. When political radicals begin speaking in terms of abolishing classes of people, however abstractly defined, the trajectory that follows is never benign.

At the University of Kansas, students are invited to study the rise of the “Angry White Male,” as though white male frustration were a specimen under a microscope, to be analyzed for its pathologies and dismissed as reactionary angst. No such courses exist analyzing, say, the militant radicalism of the Weather Underground or the misandry inherent in segments of contemporary feminism. Only the white male is permitted to be studied with such unrelenting suspicion.

All of this might be waved away as merely academic if it remained confined to ivory towers. But the fevered theories of yesterday’s classrooms have become today’s policy positions. This week, we witnessed the grotesque spectacle of Democrats denouncing President Trump for offering asylum to white South African farmers, men and women whose land has been seized and whose families have been murdered. These victims of racial violence sought refuge in the United States, and Democrats objected. Why? Because they were white.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Democratic Party has absorbed, almost uncritically, the postmodern racial dogmas taught in our universities. They see all human interactions as power struggles, all history as oppression, and all moral virtue as a function of melanin. In this worldview, the darker you are, the more innocent you must be. Conversely, the lighter your skin, the more you are to be condemned, distrusted, and displaced.

This explains, in part, why so many on the left rushed to side with Palestine after the October 2023 attacks on Israel. Civilians were massacred. Women were raped. Americans were taken hostage. And yet, progressive activists draped themselves in keffiyehs and blamed the victims. Their logic was simple: Palestinians are darker, poorer, and less powerful than Israelis, therefore they are righteous, no matter what they do. Jews, though historically persecuted, are now recast as white oppressors in the latest ideological schema.

The extent of this ideological rot is no longer deniable. The Harvard Antisemitism Task Force Report (p. 150) revealed that, in a required course at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, professors displayed a “Pyramid of White Supremacy” that included references to the Anti-Defamation League and “Settler Colonialism.” Let that sink in: a Jewish civil rights organization was placed alongside concepts of white domination in a classroom not only sanctioned but required by America’s most prestigious university. The mask has slipped. What once wore the cloak of academic nuance now parades openly as ideological bigotry, and even Jewish Americans find themselves relabeled as white villains under this twisted taxonomy of power.

This moral inversion is not accidental. It is cultivated, curated, and credentialed. Courses like “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” taught at Colorado College, train students to see whiteness as a system of theft and deceit. Amherst College’s course on “Racial Capitalism” teaches that American prosperity itself is rooted in racial exploitation. At Duke Law School, students study Critical Race Theory as a lens through which to view all law as an instrument of white supremacy. These courses are not fringe. They are mainstream.

There was once a time when liberal education meant exposure to great works, rigorous thought, and a commitment to truth. But the modern university has traded Cicero for Coates, logic for intersectionality, and justice for grievance. It does not educate. It indoctrinates. And the result is a generation of Americans taught not to love their country or their neighbors, but to loathe them, especially if they happen to be white.

When hatred is given academic credentials, when anti-white ideology is marketed as moral enlightenment, when universities abandon universal principles in favor of racial tribalism, the effects are predictable and perilous. We see them now in the Democratic Party, which has become less a political organization and more a graduate seminar in critical theory. We see them in the media, which parrot activist slogans with the same incurious fidelity once reserved for war propaganda. And we see them in the streets, where mobs tear down statues, block ICE vehicles, and chant slogans against Western civilization itself.

If there is a remedy, it begins with clarity. The great replacement is real. If you had any doubt, this story about the South African refugees should clear it up for you. The Left wants unchecked third world migration because they want to make America less white. That’s it. It’s that simple. That’s why they oppose the white refugees. Because white refugees defeat the whole purpose of the program. We must be willing to name the ideology for what it is: race hatred. We must understand its origins, which are not in the hearts of the American people, but in the seminar rooms of credentialed radicals. And we must demand that our universities return to their true mission: the pursuit of truth, not the propagation of tribal resentment.

AMUSE @X

Predicting the midterms is easy …

If Republicans continue to do what they’re doing, which is going against Trump’s Cabinet picks, being worthless and lazy, and doing nothing to help Trump, they’ll lose in a landslide.

It’s almost like they want to lose.

…

That’s exactly what they want. It’s easier to blame the democrats when our country falls apart because they’ll say they don’t have the majority. They have no intention of passing Trumps agenda. Most of them are in on the take.

…

Makes sense, they lose, democrats get majority, impeach Trump and they get to continue their grift.

…

Who’s backing these RINO’s? Soros and the deep-state.

Who’s backing the Democrats? Soros and the deep-state.

Now, do you really think that these RINO’s don’t want to hand over the House back to the deep-state so they can get their gravy-train scheme going?

…

If we lose in the midterms, Trump will be impeached (probably for J-walking), Elon will get indicted for something, JD Vance will be indicted for something, and the borders will be reopened wide! I’m voting Republican regardless.

Catturd, X

Democratic strategist James Carville on Tuesday urged Democrats to stop using a slew of left-wing words and phrases he said are ineffective, confusing or alienating to voters.

Carville, on an April episode of his “Politics War Room” podcast, condemned the phrases “communities of color” and “people of color,” arguing they were “racist” because they suggest all minorities are identical rather than unique. In a Tuesday Politicon video, Carville did not mention these phrases, but rattled off several more terms he believes Democrats should avoid using in political messaging, explaining why they are problematic.

VIDEO AT LINK……………

“Don’t use ‘generational change,’ because there’s a lot of people that are older — me being one. Why do you want to limit the appeal of your message to younger people? … Don’t use words like ‘structural,’ okay? Because we’re not going to attack the structural issues in the world right now,” Carville said. “We’re trying to, like, stay alive to the next day. Don’t use the word ‘equity.’ Use ‘equality’ to your little heart’s desire. People basically don’t know what it means, and if they do know what it means, it looks like you tried to force an outcome.”

Then-vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris received backlash on Twitter after posting a Nov. 1, 2020, video making the case for “equity,” meaning equality of results, rather than ensuring that everyone has equality of opportunity. Twitter users suggested the video seemed to promote communism.

Carville also took aim at the term “oligarch,” which has risen to prominence since independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders launched his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour in February, often featuring Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“This is another really stupid word: ‘oligarch.’ Who in the fuck knows what an oligarch is, okay? As opposed to a very acceptable word I’ve talked about before is ‘fat cats,’” the Democratic strategist said. “[Everybody] knows what a fat cat is. Everybody talks about what a fat cat is.”

Moreover, Carville suggested not saying “community.”

“Nothing wrong with the word ‘community’ [and] nothing wrong with being in a community. But it’s just such a Democratic word. And really, the community we all live in is the community of humankind,” he said. “And it’s not a terrible word. I wouldn’t even use the ‘LBGQT+’ or whatever it is. I just call people gay, the lesbian or trans … Just use the word that is most commonly used among people as they talk to each other.”

Carville said people don’t understand the acronym and that the use of it indicates people are “trying to signal that there’s something wrong with the term or you’re just trying to show people how smart you are.”

“So don’t use words like that. Don’t use words like ‘intersectionality,’” he said.

Carville recounted listening to an NPR panel discuss the term during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I literally thought they would kind of go overboard in ecstasy on the radio … No one uses the term ‘intersectionality’ except for NPR,” he said.

“We’re going to have limited time to make our case. When we have whatever limited time we have, and we’re fighting back at all this, I think we should be very careful … So when you hear your elected representatives and you hear Democrats or you hear sane people using words that are not the right word, let them know that that kind of language is not helpful,” Carville added. “It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person — it’s just not helpful.”

Daily Caller Staff

When I write collapse, I’m not referring just to a financial meltdown. I’m referring to a broad-based social collapse that could call into question the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which some historians refer to as the Peasant Dynasty.

In order to understand the vulnerability of China, it helps to consider the counter-narrative that the China is a rising great power. We’ve heard for decades that Chinese GDP would soon exceed U.S. GDP to make China the largest economy in the world. China has also long been known as having the largest population in the world.

The latest addition to the super-China narrative is that China is passing the U.S. in technology and AI and that this technology applied to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would give China military superiority as well. From this position, it’s a short hop to a Chinese takeover of Taiwan and expulsion of the U.S. from its position in the Western Pacific. At that point, the Asian Century will have truly displaced the American Century (1914-2008).

I’ve said for years that Chinese GDP would never surpass U.S. GDP. The reason is that China is now stuck in the middle-income trap. It’s an accomplishment for an economy to move from low per capital annual income (about $5,000) to middle per capital annual income (about $15,000). China has accomplished that. But you cannot simply extrapolate from middle-income to high-income ($24,000 or higher) on a linear basis dependent only on the passage of time.

It takes an extraordinary effort to break out of the middle-income trap. Only a few countries (Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong) have ever accomplished it. The key is technology and high-value added production to replace low-value added assembly style production. China has not accomplished this. Most of China’s technology is stolen from the West. That’s not good enough, because the country you stole it from already has it and has already applied it efficiently. You have to invent your own technology and apply it before competitors are even aware. China has failed miserably at this.

Chinese GDP is often touted as a measure of success, but it is overstated by about 100%. Investment is roughly 45% of Chinese GDP compared to about 25% in most developed economies. Over half of Chinese investment is wasted.

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I’ve been to China many times and have seen the empty ghost cities and the monumental train stations that are mostly empty. If that wasted investment were written-off, Chinese GDP would drop from 5.0% to 3.6%.

With honest accounting for bad debt in the government-controlled banks, Chinese GDP would drop to 2.0% or lower. China’s government debt-to-GDP ratio of 250% makes it impossible for China to grow faster than the debt burden is growing. This dynamic makes future growth even more difficult.

The other impediment to growth in China is demographic. China’s population is shrinking at an alarming rate, partly as a result of the one-child policy (1980-2010). Now, China wants to encourage families to have two or three children. But the damage is done.

Chinese women today do not want families because of new opportunities presented by education, high-paying jobs and urbanization. China will lose over 300 million working age citizens in the next forty years. If output is understood as working age population multiplied by productivity, then economic growth in China is a near impossibility.

And China is no longer the highest population country in the world. They were recently surpassed by India. That population gap between India and China will only widen in the years ahead.

As for military superiority, China is not even close to U.S. capability despite the Biden administration’s cuts in spending on new weapons and combat readiness. China touts its lone aircraft carrier without mentioning that it was actually built by Russia. China is trying to build an aircraft carrier fleet, but that’s an immensely complex task that can take twenty years to fully implement.

China threatens U.S. aircraft carriers with an attack from a Chinese hypersonic missile. That’s possible, but the U.S. response would be to sink the entire Chinese fleet – something similar to what Japan did to Russia in 1905, and the U.S. did to Iran in 1988. An invasion of Taiwan is not in the cards despite continual threats.

Desperate Measures
All of these growth and geopolitical headwinds have been building for years. Now, Trump’s tariff and trade war have hammered the Chinese economy into what is likely to be their first recession since 2008.

Worse yet, the lost orders, factory closures, unpaid wages and lost jobs are causing social unrest that is even more threatening to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) than slow growth and recession. Here are some snapshots as reported by on-the-scene observers:

• There are numerous reports of factories failing to pay their workers. In some cases, the wage arrears go back six months.
  Arson attacks on railway stations and factories were widespread on February 10th. Many videos of these fires have been posted online.
  Youth unemployment hit 27% at one point in 2024. The government’s response was to cease reporting on youth unemployment. When youth are unemployed or idle, they are more likely to respond with violence in the streets.
  The CCP passed the “Anti-foreign Sanctions Law.” This law retaliates against any US owned company in China that complies with US sanctions against third parties. Russia and Iran are the main targets of such sanctions. The penalty for violating this law is confiscation of all corporate assets in China.
  The CCP government is showing fake stories about riots in U.S. retail stores due to higher prices because of tariffs. One story claims U.S. customers of Walmart and Target are rioting inside stores to buy Chinese goods before tariffs go into effect. Those stories are complete lies but they are propagated to boost morale in China by suggesting China will win the trade war.
  In the recent Thai earthquake only one high-rise building fell. It was a Chinese-built office building that claimed to have advanced anti-earthquake technology according to the CCP. Upon investigation, it was learned that the steel rebar was defective and concrete beams were not built to specifications. After the building collapsed, a group of Chinese nationals breached the police security perimeter to haul away a truck load of business records. Four were arrested. This illustrates how the Chinese do everything. They don’t innovate. They cut corners.
  The official Chinese central news agency aired a story about their plans to invade Taiwan. Those stories employed a string of vulgarities, such as “F*ck Taiwan,” “Taiwan can go f*ck itself,” and “Taiwan sucks,” accompanied by other vulgar quotes from CCP officials. This isn’t diplomacy and it isn’t even good propaganda. It’s a sign of weakness.
  Many Chinese exporters rely on exemption from duties and customs inspections on direct-to-customer shipments from China to end users in the United States where the value is less than $800 per item. Shein and Temu are the principal beneficiaries of this loophole but there are many others. This exemption has destroyed hundreds of thousands of small suppliers in the U.S.The exemption has now been eliminated. Temu’s sales have been crushed and a proposed IPO of Shein in London may be delayed or scaled down as a result.
  China’s economy relies on the exploitation of World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, low U.S. tariffs and Wall Street greed that supplies China with capital to go with their slave labor system. All of that is now coming to an end.
  Trump’s tariffs will demolish the role of the WTO. The SEC may revoke reporting exemptions currently available to Chinese companies listed in U.S. markets. Wall Street will be regulated in such a way that capital will flow to new investment in the U.S. and not to China. The result will be a body blow to China’s ambitions to grow economically and to finance its military ambitions.
• If China does not quickly agree to Trump’s agenda, the impact on China will be far worse than lost trade and layoffs. President Xi Jinping will lose what the Chinese call The Mandate of Heaven. This is the source of political legitimacy in China regardless of what formal type of government is in place.
  
• If Xi loses the Mandate of Heaven, China will descend into chaos, unrest and political decentralization as has happened repeatedly over 3,000 years of Chinese civilization. The result will be more profound than even the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). It will mean the end of the CCP and the current era of Chinese governance.
• James Rickards