Osmium, the rarest metal on Earth, is drawing increasing attention not only for its unique properties but also for its staggering value. Currently priced at $1,350 per gram, it is already 15 times more valuable than gold. This extraordinary price reflects osmium’s scarcity and the specialized uses it serves, particularly in high-end jewelry, watchmaking, and scientific applications. However, a recent report has sent shockwaves through the market: osmium is set to be completely depleted by 2026. According to a study published in Nature Chemistry, osmium’s scarcity has always made it a coveted resource, but this new depletion forecast has escalated its value to unprecedented heights, triggering an impending market crisis. The announcement of this “Osmium Crisis” is reshaping the future of precious metals. As a result, industry leaders are bracing for what could be the most significant market upheaval in years.

The Osmium Institute and Its Role in the Crisis

According to The Farmingdale Observer (2025), the Osmium Institute in Murnau, Germany, is strategically positioning itself as the central authority to manage osmium resources as they near depletion. The institute’s state-of-the-art facility is tasked with the delicate job of overseeing the distribution of remaining osmium stocks while maintaining market stability. As reported by the Osmium Institute, the global shortage could cause osmium prices to surge by 120% before 2026, further pushing the cost to previously unimaginable levels. The Murnau headquarters, which opened in May 2025, will also serve as a hub for educating the public and investors on the metal’s dwindling availability, ensuring that no one is caught off guard. With 40 partner institutions around the globe, the institute’s reach is extensive, facilitating the final years of osmium extraction and distribution.

Osmium’s Unique Properties and Demand

Osmium’s extraordinary properties have contributed to its ever-increasing demand in luxury markets and specialized industries. The metal is incredibly dense, and its high melting point and resistance to corrosion make it ideal for niche applications like high-end watches and luxury jewelry. Despite its extreme scarcity, osmium has managed to remain somewhat unaffected by geopolitical tensions in the way that other rare earth elements, like neodymium and lanthanum, have been. Unlike these elements, which are largely controlled by industrial giants such as China, osmium’s limited availability means that its market is not subject to the same political forces. As reported by The Farmingdale Observer, this has helped osmium retain its appeal in markets that value its purity and rarity.

The Impact on Luxury Industries

The impending depletion of osmium will send shockwaves through industries that rely on its unique characteristics. The high-end watchmaking and luxury jewelry sectors are at the forefront of this crisis, as these industries use osmium for its distinctive blue hue and unparalleled durability. Manufacturers are now faced with a crucial decision: buy up remaining supplies at current prices or risk paying astronomical sums for the metal in the near future. According to The Farmingdale Observer, some luxury brands have already started to adjust their strategies, marketing their products as “exclusively using a metal on the verge of extinction.” This strategy is intended to drive demand even higher, capitalizing on the scarcity and pushing up the price of any available osmium.

Innovations and Adaptations in Resource Management

With osmium becoming increasingly rare, industries and researchers are quickly turning to alternatives. In the same vein that solar energy innovations have rapidly advanced to tackle global challenges, the search for substitute materials is gaining momentum. Experts are exploring synthetic alternatives that could replicate osmium’s unique qualities. This shift mirrors broader trends in sustainability, where synthetic and recycled materials are being prioritized over natural resources. The Osmium Institute has been instrumental in this effort, working with scientists and material engineers to develop new techniques for recycling osmium and reducing reliance on virgin supplies. Additionally, some researchers are even looking beyond Earth. There have been explorations into the possibility of obtaining osmium from Mars or meteorites, as reported by The Farmingdale Observer, hoping to discover new reserves that could extend the availability of this precious metal.

Jessica Bennett, Daily Galaxy

You may have missed the news, but last week an Army colonel – nice to see an Army colonel doing something besides sharing xis pronouns – at Fort Bragg, which communists now call “Fort Liberty,” caught a Chechen illegal alien lurking in his backyard taking pictures of his kids and smoked him like a fatty at a Cypress Hill concert. This colonel might have been from Delta Force, but he is definitely part of the special operations community, and you might well be wondering what some Chechen illegal alien was doing in his backyard. In fact, there were two of them – the other one got away, but he got caught, and then the FBI let him go because it’s the FBI and the illegal alien wasn’t in a church somewhere worshiping God or talking bad about abortion. This is not the only such incident. There’s been a lot of this sort of stuff going on. This just goes to tell you something very important. What is that?

My latest book, The Attack, is not just a novel about a terrorist attack on America. It’s a chilling preview of the future.

Here’s the deal – we have a wide-open border and a bunch of enemies, and the enemies, not being anywhere near as stupid as the Biden administration is, are taking full advantage of it. If you deny that thousands upon thousands of enemy operatives have infiltrated the United States among the hordes of military-age males who are streaming across the wide-open border, you are either stupid or you think we are stupid.

These Chechens were allegedly working for a utility company. The utility company is not answering its phone. It’s also owned by a Moldovan. Moldova was, of course, part of the Soviet Union. So was what’s left of Chechnya. It’s reasonable to believe that the Russian government is infiltrating operatives into the United States to observe and potentially assault our special operations community. This isn’t the first time we’ve had something like this happen. Recently, a Russian was caught taking photographs of sensitive stuff. It’s unclear what happened to him. We know that just the other week, a bunch of Muslim illegal aliens tried to sneak into the Quantico Marine Corps br. I’m sure these people were just trying to help out their newly adopted country. I also have a unicorn whose name is Chet.

The Attack talks about this phenomenon in novel form. Thousands of enemy operatives infiltrate the country and launch a devastating attack that kills tens of thousands of Americans. The idea that this can’t happen is nonsense. To think that is a failure of imagination. It’s just like we failed imagine what our enemies would do on 9/11. Except for a few novels, no one thought that a bunch of bad guys would hijack a bunch of airliners and fly them into giant buildings. But they did. And there, the FBI also knew the dad guys were in country and utterly failed to protect us.

…

The enemy is serious, unlike this administration. The enemy will do things whether we think of and anticipate them or not. That’s what’s exactly what is happening now. We are being observed and tested, and our enemies are preparing attacks. The strikes will come at the most vulnerable time for us, no doubt while this desiccated pervert is still in the White House pretending that our big threat is “white nationalism.”

It wasn’t “white nationalism” that flew planes into the Pentagon and World Trade Center. It was not “white nationalists” who went on a butcher spree in Israel. It is not what is threatening our people today. It is not what is going to invade Taiwan – yes, China is going to invade Taiwan. Why? Because it can. Our weakness is an engraved invitation to out enemies.

But it’s worse than just weakness. Joe Biden and his puppet-masters are so deeply anti-American and so deeply incompetent that they create a perfect storm of failure so remarkable that Jimmy Carter is holding off dying to remain alive just long enough to see himself lose his ranking as the worst president of the last century.

It’s not just jihadis. The Russians have been infiltrating us for the last century, first as the Soviet Union and now as the Russian Russians. How many Chinese agents are here? One, two, 100, 1000, 10,000? It’s probably more than 10,000. They’re all here, and they’re preparing, and our failed government is pretending that there’s nothing going on, that everything is fine. What are the chances that Joe Biden is going to order the FBI to stop hassling people for praying in church and opposing abortion or wandering through the People’s House, which apparently doesn’t belong to the People anymore, and focus on the enemy aliens who the administration let into the country? He’s never going to do that. He doesn’t want to admit the failure of his border policy – actually, it’s a success since he wants to import millions of Third World peasants to vote Democrat and replace normal Americans as voters. He doesn’t want to admit that he’s made us vulnerable and that he is setting us up for a failure that makes his disasters in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel, and Niger look like tiny Stelters – I mean small potatoes.

And at some level, the Biden crew sides with our enemies. He and his clique hate America and Americans. There’s no other explanation for this conduct – if they hated America and Americans, what would they do differently?

It’s remarkable that, after this colonel shot this guy for attacking him in his yard, they caught the other one and just let him go. He should’ve disappeared into the bowels of a proper deep state and been “encouraged” to spill his guts about exactly what’s going on. But no, they let him go. Remember, he’s an illegal alien. He shouldn’t be here in the first place, much less wandering around after scouting out our special forces guys for kidnapping, assassination, or whatever else the enemy has in mind. But he’s free. He’s walking our streets. He’s not afraid, and why should he be? It’s not like he got caught praying outside an abortion mill.

Joe Biden is going to get tens of thousands of Americans killed. You may think that’s a crazy thing to say. You would have once thought someone telling you that we’d watch human beings falling off of C-17s as America fled from Afghanistan and the primitive tribesmen who drove our broken military out was crazy. No, it’s coming. It’s going to happen. There are no two ways about it. And you better be ready.

Buy guns and ammunition. Carry legally. Have a bag in the back of your car with a tourniquet, bandages, and blood clotting stuff, and know how to use them. It will go down, just like I wrote about in The Attack. I don’t want it to be true. I don’t want it to happen. I don’t want to be right. But I am. You better be ready, or you and your family may die.

Get out there and vote to elect Donald Trump and the Republicans in 2024. Just pray it isn’t too late.

Kurt Schlichter, Townhall

Good Monday morning, everyone! The title of this missive is not some signal of defeat, hardly so. However, it is a realization of a ground truth that Texans must accept, or run the risk of being a Colorado or other former red states.

It was not too long ago, in November 2024, that we celebrated a resounding political victory here in Texas. Donald Trump increased his margin of victory from 2020 from 6 percent to 15 percent. We also saw 12 of 14 border counties in Texas go for Trump. In the so-called “hotly contested” Texas Senate race, Ted Cruz cruised to victory by nearly 10 percent. Texas had a solid red majority in the State Senate and State House. All seemed well. It was such a drastic defeat for Democrats in Texas that their State Party Chairman resigned.

Then something happened.

With a clear 88-62 majority in the Texas State House, 36 Republicans broke camp and joined with 49 Democrats to select the Texas Speaker of the House. Somehow, there are so-called Republicans who prance around boasting how many Texas generations they are and wearing cowboy hats saying those elected Republicans who broke their own caucus rules should not be held accountable. Well, if there was any evidence of a Pavlovian experiment, that is a prime example. We all know that if you reward bad behavior — or worse, excuse it — you will get more bad behavior. So now we have a Texas State House, with a majority of 88 Republicans passing unconscionable legislation, such as HB 366, criminalizing political memes. Here we are just days before the calendar deadline that will kill most bills, and our Republican Party of Texas legislative priorities are at risk of dying.

But, a school choice bill was passed and signed which will provide regulated vouchers for 100,000 Texas kids. That is not exactly “universal.”

Recently we had our municipal elections, and the results were quite telling. Once again, the turnout for these races was abysmal, and we wonder why we have failing municipal governance. The Democrats in Dallas realized that the local elections were a priority for the Dallas County Republican Party, a rarity. They went all out, including having the local useful idiot — Vladimir Lenin’s characterization — Rep. Jasmine Crockett come out to fire up the mindless lemmings to vote against their own safety and security. Where were our local Republican elected officials? Some were probably too busy conjuring up their next endeavor to support the Texas Democrats.

What was even more disconcerting were articles published in local media outlets detailing how some wealthy Republicans actually donated to incumbent Democrats on the Dallas City Council . . . the same folks who host out-of-state Republican elected officials and candidates. Talk about burning down your own house while helping others to build theirs.

The results across North Texas were telling. Plano, Mansfield, Dallas, and elsewhere saw Democrat victories as Republicans seemed to, once again, be bitten by the poisonous snake called apathy.

It is that apathy that could result in the flipping of Texas.

Leftists have a grand strategic plan when it comes to invading red states. They overtake the major population centers, where the abject failure of their governance is visible. Then that cancer metastasizes into the surrounding municipalities and counties, the suburbs. This is what is happening in Texas. Sadly, even with Republican legislative majorities and elected officials, leftists are enjoying success. Funny, one could almost say that Republicans are aiding and abetting the demise of Texas right before our eyes. I find it perplexing that instead of governing as a red state, Texas finds itself struggling and seeking an unholy alliance with progressive socialists.

Texas should not have illegal immigration sanctuary housing developments. Texas should not have Islamic enclaves seeking to implement Sharia law. Texas should not have pockets of blue where law enforcement refuses to work with ICE to deport criminal illegal immigrants. Texas should not have leftist election administrators who undermine the integrity of our electoral system. Texas should not have Democrat elected officials who feel so emboldened that they are accused of physically and verbally assaulting Republican election officials.

These are just examples, and there are many others, as to why the leftists feel that they can slowly, like boiling a frog, flip Texas. As long as Republicans are apathetic and continue to elect those who want to pet socialist rattlesnakes, we are on this road. Next year we have the crucial midterm elections. The left in America — in Texas — are depending upon Republican apathy in not showing up, and enabling them to reclaim legislative majorities. There are some Republicans who are hoping constitutional conservatives resign themselves to, once again, believing their distortions of reality like “it was the most conservative legislative session ever,” to keep them in positions of managing the decline of the Lone Star State.

The skilled combat leader recognizes the battlefield before the battle is even fought. That is what Sun Tzu teaches in The Art of War. The question is, how many of you have that prescient vision and are willing to make a stand and fight here in Texas? Hold Texas, hold the nation.

Steadfast and Loyal.

Dallas County GOP, Chairman’s Monday Message

Trump has been in office for only a few months and has already managed to cut national debt growth by 92 percent. This is definitely one of the things that would cause people to say, ‘I voted for this.’

While the left rants and raves over cuts to various government programs, Trump is securing the nation’s financial future by getting spending under control.

And remember, while Trump and Republicans are taking care of this serious business, Democrats are obsessing over and defending illegal immigrant criminals.

The contrast could not be sharper.

The Washington Examiner reports:

Trump has slowed national debt growth by 92%

For all the negative headlines hating on President Donald Trump‘s Department of Government Efficiency, daily data from the Treasury Department have vindicated the president’s crusade against our obese federal budget. Even without the trillions of dollars expected to come with Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill,” the White House has slowed the growth of federal debt held by the public so dramatically that the total national debt has actually shrunk since Inauguration Day.

Mike LaChance

Washington Examiner

Pope Leo XIV is the first pope who belongs to the Order of Saint Augustine, whose principles, priests say, offer a window into what type of pontiff Leo may be.

Augustinians follow spiritual ideals aimed at bringing people together, guided by the ethos of the fourth- and fifth-century theologian saint. The order — a religious community that dedicates itself to a specific family of thought — focuses on unity, harmony, friendship, charity and service.

Those who know Leo — formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost — say he embodies those ideals. With the cardinals’ selection, Leo becomes the second successive pope who belongs to a religious order; Pope Francis, Leo’s predecessor, was a Jesuit.

“The main focus for Augustinians is on getting a community together and sharing our lives, our goods, our work,” said the Rev. Allan Fitzgerald, an Augustinian priest, Villanova University professor and the editor of an encyclopedia of Saint Augustine.

The most important part of what Pope Leo is talking about is bridging gaps — getting people back together and away from all the anger, the infighting,” Fitzgerald said, and “the nonsense that goes on around minor details when our humanity is something we hold in common.”

The Augustinians’ principles make Leo a natural successor to Francis, some experts said. While the two pontiffs’ religiousorders are different, both men were steeped in a strongly religious family and way of prayer, said the Rev. Peter Folan, a Jesuit priest and an assistant professor in theology and religious studies at Georgetown University.

As a young adult, Leo attended Villanova, an Augustinian Catholic institution outside Philadelphia, graduating in 1977. He was ordained in 1982. He later led the Augustinian community in Chicago and was twice elected to be the Augustinian order’s top leader.

He evoked Augustine’s teachings in his first public address after being named to the papacy Thursday. “I am a son of Saint Augustine, an Augustinian,” the pontiff said from a balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square. “He said, ‘With you I am a Christian, for you a bishop.’ So may we all walk together toward that homeland that God has prepared for us.”

Leo’s citation of Augustine’s well-known line indicated his ethos of unity, said the Rev. Joseph McCormick, a Chicago area Augustinian priest who has known Leo for decades and said he is “steeped in the teachings of Augustine.”

“He’s not above the community or anything like that, he’s one of us,” McCormick said. “He will be listening not just to the higher-ups, but he will be listening to the individuals and also the different threads in all the different societies in the world.”

There is one ordained priesthood in the Catholic Church, but priests can belong either to religious orders — working in schools, parishes, as missionaries — or to dioceses, where they serve a particular church, Folan said. The religious orders — Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans and so on — all follow various figures’ teachings.

For Jesuits, the order to which Francis belonged, the focus is “to be out there in the world and fighting the good fight,” Fitzgerald said. “For Augustinians, it’s helping people come together to see the benefits of others and work toward at least acceptance if not friendship.”

Augustinian spirituality is based on the teachings of Saint Augustine of Hippo, who lived in North Africa is perhaps best known for chronicling his conversion to Christianity after a libertine youth in his autobiographical work “Confessions.” The Order of Saint Augustine was established in 1244.

Saint Augustine is remembered as a thoughtful and empathetic theologian and bishop who valued community and was welcoming to others, according to the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova, one of three organized U.S. centers for Augustinians.

Over the centuries, “we have been hermits and monks and friars,” McCormick said, “and in more recent times, we’ve been teachers, missionaries — as Pope Leo, [formerly] our Father Bob, has been — and parish priests and serving in hospitals.”

Augustinians serve all over the world, according to geographical provinces. Besides Villanova, U.S. provinces are in Chicago and in Southern California. Philadelphia was the first area where Augustinians established activity in the United States, founding the Villanova province in 1796.

The Chicago-based Augustinian province said in a statement that Leo would bring the “heart of an Augustinian” to the papacy, with “a love for community, a thirst for truth, and a shepherd’s care for the people of God.”

“We see him as a bridge-builder, rooted in the spirit of Saint Augustine, walking forward with the whole Church as a companion on the journey,” said the provincial leader, the Rev. Anthony B. Pizzo. “We are honored that he is one of our own.”

The cardinals’ selection of a second successive pope who belongs to a religious order is likely significant, Folan said.

“In the Augustinians, their particular charisms — those gifts that the community has and Cardinal Prevost embodied — could be something the cardinals saw and said, ‘I think the time is right right now in the church for this set of gifts,’” Folan said.

Sammy Westfall contributed to this report.

General Flynn’s Perspective of the American Battlefield

Millions of Americans rose up and voted for accountability within our government. We are demanding a restoration of trust, because we are a moral society that requires justice. <

There are powerful patriots, dedicated servants working with President Trump, but they must be cautious of the bureaucrats that surround them with all the glamour and accoutrements of the office. Our leaders need to stay focused on accountability and the President’s agenda.

We must go after the people that put our country into a declining state. America is in the midst of a coup that started back in 2015. The progressive left went after President Trump and anybody who got in their way, and these people still have a foot in the door. They continue to influence the military and security state complexes.

It’s time to get to work.

I want to see our leaders living in their offices or out in the field, as opposed to on the news or at sporting events. For President Trump, it’s about being presidential and getting out amongst the people, but for everyone else, they should be living what it is that they were brought in to do, because we don’t have much time left.

Every day, I hear from thousands of people, asking when accountability will come.

We now know when Russiagate began, the details of how it was run, why they did it, and who was actually behind it. Clearly, John Brennan was at the tip of the spear, but there were others. Yet, Special Counsel Durham failed to issue indictments, even when arrests were requested from his team – he refused.

Just last week, Senator Ron Johnson announced falsehoods surrounding 9-11. Former Congressman Kurt Weldon was on recently with Tucker Carlson expressing similar concerns. These are passionate, honest leaders trying to open discussions on 9-11, but will anything actually come of this, will anyone be held to account!?

Let’s go back to the Epstein files. Attorney General Pam Bondi declared that she’d seen it all, and then…nothing. They called a few podcasters and cast them with binders, for nothing. Bondi responded later, explaining that the head of the New York field office had lied to her. Okay, well, then he should be arrested. Remove his security clearance and place him under house arrest. Start an investigation not only into his lying, but also other possible nefarious activities.

The assistant director in charge of the New York field office is one of the top 10 FBI leaders in the country. He should have been detained and held, but instead he was fired and walked out of his office behind a parade of bagpipers…this is what pisses Americans off.

Stop with the firing and start detaining criminals.

If Epstein files have been destroyed – go and get the handcuffs!

Don’t forget, that under the Biden administration approximately 300K children went missing. Our government either lost them, or allowed them to be trafficked…so where is the accountability there?

People within our government are sitting, planning and waiting out this administration to then continue business as usual, and we cannot allow that. If Democrats regain a majority, we’re done.

President Trump has less than two years to drain the swamp. Once we enter 2026 the focus will move toward candidates and elections.

Judges continue to hold up President Trump, another threat to our country. Americans have lost trust in our justice system as well as the weakening of our rule of law. We watched what the DOJ did to Trump when he was the 45th President. We saw those who attended the J6 rally locked up, Christians were arrested for standing outside of Planned Parenthood clinics, parents were classified as domestic terrorists, and public officials were thrown in prison for exposing corruption in the election system.

The American people simply don’t trust our justice system and are begging for the rule of law to be applied fairly, equally and effectively.

Is there a secret grand jury in Washington DC? Are indictments coming? It’s possible, but if that is the case, arrests better commence asap.

What I’m saying is that one of the most important things that we must do domestically right now is get organized, and somebody has got to be in charge below President Trump.

For example, if Trump tells Kristi Noem to start deporting, then she needs to take control. Do we send people to Panama? President Bukele of El Salvador, is going to run out of room, so do we send people across the border of Mexico and let them figure it out since they let them cross the border in the first place?

Operationally, we need to be removing roughly 400k people per month. Is there a command center in place with the number of illegals in each state, planning locations for them to be moved to? A leader has to be living and breathing this agenda item. I know that Tom Homan is the answer, but he doesn’t own resources. The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Services own the resources…are they responsive to Tom’s needs?

If we haven’t put at least 5 million out by next January, I don’t know if we’ll be able to get back on track. 20 million humans entered our country illegally over the last four years. This is a very real and a very serious and dangerous situation.

There is an undercurrent of MAGA unrest that want accountability, not just of the things that are happening now, but of things that happened in the past.

Innocent people were put in prison, never seeing the light of day, never seeing a judge, never having an attorney. I mean, just incredible things that happened to our country because of the very progressive, very dangerous, leftist, communist, socialist movement in our country. Yet many responsible continue to sit in Congress and spotlight on propagandist media networks.

Once steps toward accountability are taken, and the enemy grows uncertain, then things can turn around. Until then, it is worth reminding ourselves that many empires have fallen from the absence of justice. Let’s not go there yet. We still have time.

Michael T. Flynn LTG USA (RET)

Make no mistake: a Pope from Chicago terrifies me. But I have cause for some hope, which I will share.

Pope Francis was, in the surprisingly well-chosen words of the New York Times, “ostentatiously humble.” Fully recognizing the irony of a Catholic critiquing the Pope for lacking humility, I also mean to acknowledge that from that humility it took me a long time to give up on Pope Francis. For the longest while, I tried to learn what I could from him, becoming frustrated only after he made it stunningly care that his flock was not the billion and a half Catholics who he supposedly was Papa to, and instead the various God-haters, Marxists, queers and elitists he preferred to ingratiate himself upon. Rather than a teacher, he seemed more like a bully who attacks a nerd to impress the big kids.

Pope Leo XIV couldn’t’ve looked more different. He left behind the simple white cassock of Francis for splendid garments. See, it’s humble to prefer simple dress over truly grand amounts of bling, but this isn’t bling: it’s the official attire of the man who fills the office of the papacy. Ironically, by eschewing tradition in favor of his own personal style, Francis made it all about him. “I’m so humble, I’m unilaterally throwing out centuries of tradition!”

I was also slightly irked by how happy Pope Leo was. Although he pretended otherwise, it was plain that Francis coveted power, having pretended to be a conservative while in Argentina during the time it was led by a right-winger. I trusted the retincence of Pope Benedict XVI, who, truly humble man that he was, feared the overwhelming responsibility of the papacy, and the suffering such a grand task would inflict on an old man. I even had as my Freeper tag, “The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops,” which I routinely explained wasn’t the statement of a cynic, but a warning that a pastor takes on the responsibility for the sin of those of his flock that he fails to guide away from sin.

Almost as if in response to me, in this morning’s mass, Pope Leo described how holy responsibility and its concordant suffering can transform a person, helping them to grow like Christ. Taken sincerely, this was a man who, like Peter before him, was happy to accept such a huge burden as a cross he could bear in imitation of Christ.

The name, “Leo” is a good sign, as well. Some liberal news outlets have claimed that this is a sign he will be a liberal, since the prior popes Leo were “reformers.” Maybe, but they were hardly liberals in the American sense. Pope Leo XIII wrote “Rerum Novarum.” Hardly a libertarian treatise, any claim about it that it calls for a balance between socialism and capitalism is so intellectually dishonest that I’m tempted to flat-out call it a Big Lie.

Rerum Novarum held that socialism is anathema to Christianity. Preaching socialism is a great way to go straight to Hell. And no, this wasn’t a response to Soviet Socialism, which did not exist yet, nor the millions of murders inspired by communism. This was a flat-out assertion that the ability of the state to take people’s money away from them in the notion that they knew better what to do with it was a fundamental assault on the dignity of mankind. Socialism is not something to be compromised with, or one end of continuum that one must find the middle of, but rather a fundamental evil which must be opposed.

The “balance” in Rerum Novarum, to the extent it exists (and no such word exists within it), is that once freed of the soul-destroying effects of socialism and given freedom instead, people must use that freedom for the universal good of all men. There is an obligation to create a just society, even if attempts to do so through government necessarily result in soul-destroying oppression. So you cannot use the government to rob from the rich to give to the poor, but you also cannot use government to break unions, to import cheap labor, or to subsidize immoral behavior (like giving public benefits to mothers, but only if they’re not married to their children’s fathers, but that’s a dystopia Leo never imagined).

Nor is Rerum Novarum libertarian: it does not hold that government can proscribe socially harmful behavior, such as abortion, adultery, drug addiction, gambling or pornography. The moral is not that democracy cannot promote justice or morality, but that taking from certain people to give to others, even if from the wealthy to the needy, will not work to create justice.

Given that Pope Leo is American, he may better understand than Francis that Americans who seek economic freedom are not the same as the right-wing dictatorship that he ingratiated himself upon before having the taken opportunity to ingratiate himself upon the left-wing, would-be totalitarians of the global elite. It doesn’t matter so much if he agrees in liberty-based economic theory, just that he respects that it isn’t inherently opposed to charity. Frankly, while Pope Benedict was seen as such the conservative, the reality is he shared socialism’s notion that the cure for greed was government, blind to the reality that government, once empowered, itself becomes greedy and power-hungry. Where he seemed so much more well, Catholic than Francis is that he didn’t make this squishy socialism the focus of his papacy. He was concerned with saving souls, not acheiving the worldly dominance of his economic opinions. And he understood that the papacy did not give any special insight or authority to the pope on economic matters. You can have a moral reason or an immoral reason for so many political beliefs, and Pope Benedict recognized 

having the taken opportunity to ingratiate himself upon the left-wing, would-be totalitarians of the global elite. It doesn’t matter so much if he agrees in liberty-based economic theory, just that he respects that it isn’t inherently opposed to charity. Frankly, while Pope Benedict was seen as such the conservative, the reality is he shared socialism’s notion that the cure for greed was government, blind to the reality that government, once empowered, itself becomes greedy and power-hungry. Where he seemed so much more well, Catholic than Francis is that he didn’t make this squishy socialism the focus of his papacy. He was concerned with saving souls, not acheiving the worldly dominance of his economic opinions. And he understood that the papacy did not give any special insight or authority to the pope on economic matters. You can have a moral reason or an immoral reason for so many political beliefs, and Pope Benedict recognized that.

Yes, Pope Leo corrected Vice President Vance, but I would offer that even this represents a profound change from Pope Francis. Even though from the American persective, you could say that he came at Vance from the Left, he did so by a theological instruction. What frustrated me with Pope Francis is that I never felt instructed by him, merely politically attacked with name-calling and slanderous presumption. I’d’ve liked to see him call out far more evil left-wingers who call themselves Catholic, like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi or former President Joe Biden, but I’m OK with it if he doesn’t use corrections to make examples out of the wicked, but rather to correct people, and if he sees that there’s no chance to morally correct Biden or Pelosi, I can’t argue.

Lastly, go ahead and offer any refutations you want — I come here for such exchange of ideas — but at least give me the credit that I’m being optimistic, not confident.

Dangus

Henri Astier

European leaders have urged Russia to agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine starting on Monday.

The call was issued at a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” in Kyiv. The leaders of France, Germany, the UK and Poland were hosted by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, while others joined remotely.

They made the announcement after discussing the plan by phone with US President Donald Trump – who initially mooted an unconditional ceasefire. The leaders threatened Russia with “massive” sanctions if it does not comply.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the aim of the coalition of the willing was to show “that aggression will never prevail on our continent.

“Once a ceasefire is achieved, it will take time, but this will be a huge moment in reconnecting Ukraine’s economy, boosting investor confidence, and helping to reunite families separated by this war,” Starmer told reporters.

He was speaking alongside Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron, Polish PM Donald Tusk and the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Zelensky said: “Thank you all for standing with us. Today we will focus on how to build and guarantee real and lasting security.”

Russia has so far insisted that before considering a ceasefire, the West must first halt its military aid to Ukraine.

However, Zelenksy said that the ceasefire should be unconditional.

“Attempts to put forward any conditions would be evidence of an intention to prolong the war and undermine diplomacy,” he added.

Macron said the planned truce would be monitored mainly by the US, with help from European countries. He said in the event of violation, “massive sanctions would be prepared and co-ordinated between Europeans and Americans”.

Merz said the war – which began with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – was “solely a war of aggression by Russia, in violation of international law”.

The Kyiv meeting was a symbolic response to the more than 20 leaders who joined Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow a day earlier.

Other leaders who joined the Kyiv meeting remotely included Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian PM Mark Carney, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of Nato.

A 30-hour ceasefire, called on Friday by Putin to mark Russia’s Victory Day, is due to end later on Saturday. It has seen a decrease in fighting but both sides have accused the other of breaches.

The coalition of the willing was formed to reinforce any eventual peace agreement with security guarantees, including the possibility of placing troops in Ukraine.

Trump earlier reiterated the call for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire after a phone call with Zelensky.

“If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions,” he wrote on social media.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the Europeans of making contradictory statements that “are generally confrontational in nature rather than aimed at trying to revive our relations”.

Russian state media later quoted Peskov as saying: “We have to think this through. But trying to pressure us is quite useless.”

Reports of Russian attacks across Ukraine continue, despite Russia’s claims of a temporary ceasefire.

In the northern Sumy region, an 85-year-old woman was killed, three others were injured, 19 residential homes and 10 other buildings were destroyed or damaged, Ukrainian police said.

In Kostyantynivka, eastern Donetsk region, one person was injured and two apartment blocks caught fire after Russian attacks, Ukrainian state emergency service DSNS said.

And in the southern city of Kherson, a 58-year-old local resident sought medical help after being attacked by a Russian drone carrying explosives, the regional administration said.

Henri Astier

Well, it’s that time again! Every year for the past 20 years that I’ve had the pleasure of writing for the Gannett Papers, I receive multiple emails and texts asking me to reprint this article. So May 2025 seems like the perfect opportunity to remind everybody to try and act civilized as we share (or pretend to share) the local highways.

It all begins with: “I’m on vacation! I’m gonna have fun and do what I want to do!” For many of us, that’s music to our ears. But there’s a recurring pattern that happens at vacation destinations: Frequent car crashes and driving-related incidents. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, July, August and September stand out in the number of careless accidents resulting in severe injuries or worse. These months statistically produce the highest death rate per mile.

Here at the beach, I observe more red lights ignored, more tailgating, more aggressive lane changes and more speeding than I ever see in metropolitan areas. Do these people behave like that at home? Maybe so, maybe not.

There’s a mindset that takes over when we go on vacation. People who are married, or otherwise coupled, have told me about affairs they’ve had while on vacation. They excuse the severity of these lapses by rationalizing, “Well, I was on vacation, so I could do what I wanted,” as if there would be no consequences when they returned home. I suspect that it’s this attitude that fuels the occasionally reckless behavior here in the summer.

So many people work in jobs they dislike, and my experience has shown that anger generated in the workplace doesn’t go away. It may be suppressed, but when vacation time comes around, the resentment is set free. With no boss or co-workers to take it out on, the anger is directed at other drivers (“co-workers”), and traffic laws (“the boss”).

Yes, it’s a rebellion against authority, but it’s misplaced. People who feel that they have too little control over their lives certainly need to address the issue — but not on the roads of resort towns. They’re not liberating themselves by thinking, “To heck with this red light” or “I’m texting while driving, but I’m on vacation, so who cares!”

These feelings may not be entirely conscious, but they do characterize the psychology of vacationing. Don’t get me wrong: A break from the everyday routine is vital for good mental health. But none of us, including vacationers, benefit from this irrational approach to letting loose. People can, and do, die from it.

This attitude is sometimes referred to as “Vacation Syndrome”; when an individual tries to take a vacation from ALL responsibilities, instead of just some. For example, there’s nothing irresponsible about leaving business voice mail and email at home. But shedding all responsibility, including the need to drive while sober, to stop at stop signs, and to act with civility and good sense, is where the problem begins. Do you ever wonder what’s going on in the Spandex-clad minds of those who subject their fragile babies to a treacherous “stroller run” on the rocky, narrow shoulders of a busy road? Is that thin white line an impenetrable force field? And what about those who ignore the designated lanes and merrily ride their bikes or roller blade in the middle of the street – stone deaf to the world thanks to their iPod earplugs?

Just because they’re at the beach doesn’t make these activities any less risky than they would be at home. Perhaps those who show signs of Vacation Syndrome take too little care of themselves during the rest of the year. If they allowed themselves a little more fun in their day-to-day activities, they might not depend so much on their vacation to provide it all. Whatever the causes of their stress, it doesn’t make sense to play it out by endangering themselves and others on the roads of this otherwise peaceful summer playground.

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