Some bishops think America's second Catholic president should be denied the Eucharist. Are Biden's faith and job title an unworkable mix?

On the matter of faith, President Joe Biden is not shy.

Each weekend that he is in town, he goes to Mass in Washington. A motorcade takes him on Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings to Holy Trinity, the church where President Kennedy, the only other Catholic US president, used to attend services. He makes the sign of the cross at public events, and his Catholicism is woven into his speeches and policies.

Yet Biden's stance on abortion, and his support for reproductive rights, clash with church teachings. He has seemed to be personally troubled by the idea of abortion. Years ago he wondered aloud whether Roe v Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the right in US law, went "too far". But today he supports a woman's right to choose whether or not to have a child, one of the core tenets of progressive politics.

Liberal Catholics applaud Biden for his position on abortion while conservative ones denounce him. And now some bishops say he should be denied the Eucharist because of his views about reproductive rights. As a result, the Eucharist, a wafer that is made sacred through a church ritual, is now at the centre of a battle between conservative bishops and progressive Catholics.
Six months after moving into the White House, Biden's effort to mesh progressive politics and Catholic faith has become a lightning rod for controversy.

Decades ago, when Kennedy was in the White House, the president's faith was hardly ever in the news. Kennedy downplayed his religion, and made clear during his campaign that it would not play a significant role in his presidency. Kennedy minimised his religion, in part because he knew it could hurt his chances at getting elected. Many viewed Catholicism in a negative way at the time. "I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic," he said in a campaign speech.

In contrast, Biden has highlighted his faith. "Kennedy was more a Catholic, in the background, whereas it's very much in the forefront of President Biden's life," says Drew Christiansen, a Jesuit priest and Georgetown University professor.

Partly as a result, Biden's relationship with the church has been scrutinised during his time in office. At the same time, conservative bishops have criticised him for his progressive views, and say that he should be denied communion.

In June, clergy members voted to draft a statement about the Eucharist during a meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, an association that was chartered by the Vatican. A group of bishops are now writing a statement that explores the theology behind Holy Communion, as the ritual of the Eucharist is known.

"When someone is formally co-operating with abortion, that's a great offence within the church," says Anna Lulis, a data strategist and activist, sitting in her Washington living room, surrounded by dried palm leaves and images of the Virgin Mary. Biden is "living in mortal sin", she says, because of his support for abortion rights, and should not receive communion.

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57825309

Americans! Don't worry! Our Australian Prime Minister is a loony evangelical and it shows! Not only that, he goes to MEGACHURCHES! Top That Mr Biden!

Gus is a rabid atheist for good reasons...

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Today the Washington Post published excerpts from a new book by reporters Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker describing how U.S. military leaders, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, worried President Trump might call on the armed forces to decide the outcome of the 2020 election. Judy Woodruff discusses the latest revelations with Nick Schiffrin and Yamiche Alcindor. 

• Judy Woodruff:

  Today, The Washington Post published excerpts of a new book by reporters Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker that contains astonishing details of how concerned the military and specifically Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley were about former President Trump's actions in the final days of his administration.

  To talk about that, I'm joined by Yamiche Alcindor and Nick Schifrin.

  Hello to both of you.

  Some blockbuster material in this book.

  But, Nick, let's start with what we were just discussing. And a lot of it has to do with the fears on the part of the Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley. What were they?

• Nick Schifrin:

• Yes.

  So, Milley and other military's fears about what President Trump was capable of, about the lack of confidence in his decision-making really accelerated when Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. That was in early November, when Trump was threatening to fire other senior officials, including CIA Director Gina Haspel, and when he installed loyalists to run the Pentagon.

  Current and former officials I talk to say those loyalists pursued policy changes, traveled the world without any deliberation with other U.S. officials, without sharing details of their conversations.

  And so Milley, along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others, really tried to hold the line on policy. They froze out Trump loyalists. They were feared — they feared that those policies would be made on the back of envelopes. They feared that some of those loyalists might start a war even.

  And they feared that Trump could do anything to stay in power, including perhaps creating a crisis in the U.S. that would require the deployment of the U.S. military in the U.S.

  And so, as first reported by Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker, Milley compared these days to 1933, when Hitler uses an attack on the German Parliament to establish a Nazi dictatorship. Milley said: "This is a Reichstag moment."

  His fear was existential. He thought they were capable of a coup. He said: "They're not going to F'ing succeed. You can't do this without the military. You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI. We're the guys with the guns."

  Perhaps it goes without saying, but the thought of the president's chief military adviser thinking that the president was capable of creating a coup is remarkable.

• Judy Woodruff:

  It leaves you — it leaves one speechless.

  But, Yamiche, you, of course, were covering the White House then. What is your reporting about what was going on at that time, about what President Trump was doing? And what is he saying about all this right now?

•  Yamiche Alcindor:

  Well, this reporting and these statements by General Mark Milley, they really underscore what we knew at the time about the Trump presidency late in its tenure, this real critical period between November 2020 and January 2021.

  And, really, what it shows — what my reporting shows is that White House aides, as well as military officials and those closest to President Trump, those who were working for him in his administration, they were increasingly seeing former President Trump as unhinged, as wanting to hold onto power at all costs, and as someone who was scaring them.

  And what you see here are military officials making this backup plan. Now, at the time, there were loyalists of President Trump who were pushing back on the reporting, saying, no, President Trump was just wanting to have a free and fair election and that he would eventually concede, of course, something that he has not done even to this day.

  But what we see here in this reporting is really what we saw in 2020 into 2021. And it was a president who was telling people that he had not won the election — that he had won the election, rather, telling people that he needed to stay in power, that he was not going to give up.

  That said, today, the president did put out a statement — the former president, I should say, put out a statement today. I want to read part of what he said. It's a sort of remarkable statement. I was about 400 words.

  It said in part: "I never threatened or spoke about to anyone a coup of our government. So ridiculous. Sorry to inform you, but an election is my form of a coup. And if I was going to do a coup" — wait for it, Judy — "one of the last people I would do it with is General Mark Milley."

  And I said "wait for it" because that last part is really remarkable. He's saying, if I did have want to have a coup d'etat, if I did want to take over the government unfairly and illegally, then Mark Milley wouldn't be who I would want to do it with.

  We have never in American history, of course, seen a president talking about a coup d'etat. So, today really is also underscoring that President Trump has not changed his position, and continues to really be someone that makes a lot of people around him very nervous.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Never, never heard of president hypothesizing about it.

  So, Nick, after January the 6th, what did the national security apparatus in this country do?

• Nick Schifrin:

  Yes, the former, current — former and current senior officials that I have been talking to say that those fears that they had before January the 6th about what Trump was capable of, about his decision-making only accelerated.

  And so they reiterated with each other that they wouldn't resign. They worked to avoid any crisis that would require the president to respond. And so they tried to not provoke around the world. They also tried to send a couple of extra messages of deterrence to adversaries, including Iran.

  And then the military deployed unprecedented numbers of service members to protect inauguration in Washington, D.C. And Milley and others breathe a sigh of relief on January 20 that it went off peacefully.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And, as you are reporting and as Yamiche has reported, the president continues to make these claims that he won the election.

  Yamiche Alcindor at the White House, Nick Schifrin, thank you very much.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Thank you.

   

   

  See more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxcWPG2E3qU

   

   

  So Trump was planning a "coup" — there is even a picture of the Reischtag on fire in the report to align Trump with Hitler... I am naive. I beg to differ with these experts, including Leon Panetta. Leon? Please ! He's a liar by excellence... But imagine Trump doing a "coup"! All he has in his bag is a few hundred people with pitchfork and cow horns praying to the almighty inside the Capitol... Loonies! Sure he told them to go there but not to be violent. So to the "coup". Trump was (is) hated by the armed forces, by the CIA, by the NSA, by the FBI, the police and judiciary, and two local cops in Washington DC, because he took their lollipops away... He sure was going to do a coup, with his loonies in pajamas...

   

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is the sixth-richest member of Congress, according to the most recent financial disclosure statements filed in 2019. As the California Democrat has risen through party ranks and obtained more and more political power, her personal wealth has risen right along with it. Pelosi “has seen her wealth increase to nearly $115 million from $41 million in 2004,” reports the transparency non-profit group Open Secrets. Even by the standards of wealth that define that legislative body — "more than half of those in Congress are millionaires” — the wealth and lifestyle of the long-time liberal politician and most powerful lawmaker in Washington are lavish. 

And ever since ascending to the top spot in the House, Pelosi and her husband, Paul, keep getting richer and richer. Much of their added wealth is due to extremely lucrative and "lucky” decisions about when to buy and sell stocks and options in the very industries and companies over which Pelosi, as House Speaker, exercises enormous and direct influence.

The sector in which the Pelosis most frequently buy and sell stocks is, by far, the Silicon Valley tech industry. Close to 75% of the Pelosis’ stock trading over the last two years has been in Big Tech: more than $33 million worth of trading. That has happened as major legislation is pending before the House, controlled by the Committees Pelosi oversees, which could radically reshape the industry and laws that govern the very companies in which she and her husband most aggressively trade.

To underscore the towering conflict of interest at the heart of Speaker Pelosi's self-enrichment, consider the company in which the Pelosis traded most often: Apple. Buying and selling in that one company accounted for 17.7% of the Pelosis’ overall trading volume. And yet, during this same period, Pelosi held at least one private conversation with Apple CEO Tim Cook about the state of Apple and possible effects on the company from various pending bills to reform Silicon Valley. 

On June 22, The New York Times reported on “a forceful and wide-ranging pushback by the tech industry since the [antitrust reform] proposals were announced this month.” In particular, “executives, lobbyists, and more than a dozen think tanks and advocacy groups paid by tech companies have swarmed Capitol offices, called and emailed lawmakers and their staff members, and written letters arguing there will be dire consequences for the industry and the country if the ideas become law.” But one of the most important steps taken against these bills was a personal call placed by Apple's CEO directly to Pelosi:

In the days after lawmakers introduced legislation that could break the dominance of tech companies, Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, called Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress to deliver a warning. . . . When Mr. Cook asked for a delay in the Judiciary Committee’s process of considering the bills, Ms. Pelosi pushed him to identify specific policy objections to the measures, said one of the people.

Sources who refused to be identified tried to convince the Times’ reporters that "Ms. Pelosi pushed back on Mr. Cook’s concerns about the bills.” But in doing so, they confirmed the rather crucial fact that Pelosi was having personal, private conversations with the CEO of a company in which she and her husband were heavily invested and off of which they were making millions of dollars in personal wealth. And Pelosi, according to the report, asked Cook what changes were needed to avoid harming Apple and other Silicon Valley giants. Can even the hardest-core Democratic partisan loyalist justify this blatant conflict of interest and self-dealing?

Indeed, all five of the Pelosis’ most-traded stocks over the last two years just so happen to be the five Silicon Valley giants that would be most affected by pending legislation. Four of them — Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google — were all of the companies identified by the House Antitrust Subcommittee as being classic monopolies, while the fifth — Microsoft — has sent executives to repeatedly testify before Democratic-led House committees to defend Democrats’ pending bills. In other words, the Pelosis are trading stock most heavily in the exact companies whose future can be most shaped by the bills Pelosi and her lieutenants are negotiating and shepherding through Congress:

(see chart)

Beyond that, Google — one of the companies in which the Pelosis’ stock trades have made millions — is one of the top five donors to the House Speaker. The wealthy couple buys and sells in Google stock, making millions. She works on bills that directly affect the future trajectory of Google. And they lavish her campaign coffers with cash, a key source of her entrenched power. 

Multiple times over the last several years, serious questions have been raised about stock positions taken by the Pelosis that turned out to be immensely profitable under suspicious circumstances. Perhaps the most disturbing was a report from Bloomberg News last Wednesday and another from days earlier by Fox Business that documented how Pelosi's husband purchased highly risky options in Google, Apple and other tech companies back in February, 2020, right before the market began plunging due to the COVID epidemic and right before the House, led by his wife, was set to introduce new legislation to regulate those same tech companies. 

Yet even as the prices in several of those companies plummeted, Paul Pelosi held onto them, only to sell them last June at a massive profit. His option sales on Google alone netted more than $5 million for the couple.

While the trades cannot be declared illegal unless it can be proven that either Pelosi acted on non-public information — in which case it would be the felony of insider trading — the ethical stench is obvious. Just as was true when numerous Senators from both parties sold stocks in COVID-related industries before the pandemic began — raising questions about whether they had advance knowledge of what was coming through classified briefings — watching Nancy Pelosi's wealth skyrocket by millions of dollars from trades in the very companies she is directly overseeing creates a sleazy appearance, to put that mildly.

All of this is even more disturbing because, as Fox Business put it, “this is not the first time that investments made by Paul Pelosi have been made in close proximity to happenings in Congress.” Two of the most disturbing incidents:

Paul Pelosi in March exercised $1.95 million worth of Microsoft call options less than two weeks before the tech stalwart secured a $22 billion contract to supply U.S. Army combat troops with augmented reality headsets. 

In January, he purchased up to $1 million of Tesla calls before the Biden administration delivered its plans to provide incentives to promote the shift away from traditional automobiles and toward electric vehicles. 

In response to media inquiries, Pelosi denied that she is involved in or even has knowledge of her husband's stock trading. There is, of course, no way to confirm or disprove that, but what is clear is that the vast wealth generated by those stock trades in companies Pelosi greatly affects — and about which she clearly has non-public information — directly enriches Pelosi herself.

In March of last year — following the controversy over the COVID stock trades — a group of legislators including Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Joe Neguse (D-CO) introduced a bill called the Ban Conflicted Trading Act which would “prohibit Members of Congress and senior congressional staff from abusing their positions for personal financial gain through trading individual stocks and investments while in office or serving on corporate boards.” 

While AOC called on then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) to resign for having dumped stocks after receiving secret COVID briefings — at the same time that Fox News host Tucker Carlson said the same about Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) — she has yet to comment on the repeated stock transactions in which the Pelosis have enriched themselves through companies directly within the purview of Speaker Pelosi's legislative power. She did, however, issue a blanket denunciation back in March of last year — when the focus was on those two Senate Republicans — about this practice:

(see post)

One would think that one of the richest people in America would be satisfied with that level of wealth — more than anyone could spend in a lifetime — and would decide that she and her husband simply refrain from trading stocks and trying to get richer while she occupies one of the most powerful political positions in the country. But at least when it comes to Nancy Pelosi, you would be wrong. She craves not only greater and greater public political power but also even greater and greater personal wealth, even if her pursuit of it further erodes faith and trust in the U.S. political system.

Read more:

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/nancy-and-paul-pelosi-making-millions

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The US came close to engaging in a full-fledged confrontation with Iran much earlier, in January 2020 after the US Air Force assassinated the Islamic Republic's top general, Qasem Soleimani, during a visit to Iraq.

General Mark Milley, who has been chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff since 1 October 2019, was fearful that Trump might use the American military to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, The New Yorker has reported citing "a variety of sources". According to the media outlet, the general had these fears since the summer of 2020, when the outcome of the election was still hard to predict.

Milley reportedly had two "nightmare scenarios". In one of them, Trump would use the military on US streets to "prevent the legitimate, peaceful transfer of power". Not only did this scenario not come to life, but Trump dismissed all allegations that he planned any form of a coup following his election loss. The former POTUS further mocked the idea that he would rely on Mark Milley in this endeavour, calling him the "world's most overrated general".

The second scenario Milley had, suggested that Trump would have a "Reichstag moment" of his own, The New Yorker reported.

In Trump's case, Iran would play the role of the "Reichstag", if the president ordered to attack the Islamic Republic following the November 2020 defeat, Milley reportedly feared. Then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with his hawkish advisers, reportedly encouraged Trump to attack Iran at the time, but Milley purportedly managed to push back:

In order to prevent either of these scenarios from occurring, Milley reportedly attended every morning briefing with the president and his staff. He referred to these video conferences as "land the plane" calls: "Both engines are out, the landing gear are stuck, we're in an emergency situation. Our job is to land this plane safely and to do a peaceful transfer of power the 20th of January".

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202107161083398889-his-reichstag-moment-mark-milley-reportedly-feared-trump-might-attack-iran-to-stay-in-power/

Gus:

There is no way to verify what the Woke General Milley is talking about... The point about all this is not about about what Trump did or did not. Trump tried to "sanitise the swamp". The establishment did not like it and THE ESTABLISHMENT DOES NOT WANT TRUMP TO COME BACK. So the establishment is going to soil the man as much as possible with innuendoes and versions of his madness, which was equivalent to their own, but in the opposite direction. 

Trump's enterprises are being investigated for whatever tax evasion thingy. This will take about five years to resolve. Should the "tax thingy" be resolved (which it could be 99 per cent chances in Trump's favour) before the elections of 2024, Trump would have the glory of a Caesar coming back to Rome. The establishment is going to do all it can to prevent this. At this stage, one can be 99 per cent sure that TRUMP DID NOT WANT TO START A NEW WAR WITH ANYONE. My belief, I have no clue on this, is that MILLEY IS TALKING CRAP to prevent Trump's return. THE ESTABLISHMENT BOFFINS KNOW THEY ESCAPED BY THE SEAT OF THEIR PANTS at the 2020 elections... They are actually worried that their little games (see Pelosi above) will be exposed. The media is doing their bit to prevent Trump's return as well... He did not like the media, did he?

For example: "the US Air Force assassinated the Islamic Republic's top general, Qasem Soleimani, during a visit to Iraq."

This could not have been organised by Trump (though he would have given his approval — most likely without knowing what this really meant — for the generals to sleep easy and Trump wore the beanie) without the Pentagon brass influencing Trump to do it. Trump would not have any clues about who Qasem Soleimani unless "briefed" about him. Trump could not have had any clues about how to do the assassination caper. ONLY THE PENTAGON HAD THE KNOWLEDGE OF DOING SOMETHING THAT COULD START A FU*KING WAR with IRAN... Think about it. 

At this stage one could only guess that the Woke General Mike Milley is covering his arse... and that of his colleagues... 'Reichstag Moment'?????? Please, get a life, people!!!!!!!!

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The September 11th attacks claimed the lives of some 3,000 people and caused permanent psychological trauma for millions of Americans, but according to US President Joe Biden, the Capitol storming on 6 January was "the worst attack" on American democracy since the Civil War.

The families of those who fell victim to the 9/11 disaster have been decrying recent attempts to compare the terrorist attack to the Capitol siege or even suggest that the events of 6 January were "worse" event than the 2001 tragedy.

His sentiment is echoed by Debra Burlingame, whose brother was a pilot on the ill-fated American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon. Burlingame penned an essay for The Wall Street Journal in May, where she said it was "deeply offensive" to link the Capitol siege to the 9/11 attack with a purpose of creating a further divide in the country by stigmatising Republicans: "that is the real threat to democracy", she wrote.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202107171083405164-families-of-911-victims-decry-outrageous-claims-that-capitol-riot-was-worse-than-the-attack-/

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