Religious leaders to start pressure campaign around criminal justice reform

Politico   11/22/2018

Religious leaders buoyed by a successful alliance with the Trump administration are readying a pressure campaign with a new target: Senate conservatives who are blocking criminal justice reform.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, backed by Republicans with evangelical ties such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, is blocking a Trump-approved plan to revamp the criminal justice system, the latest priority of religious groups after they focused much of their earlier efforts on stocking the courts with conservative judges.

McConnell so far has resisted efforts to bring to the floor the bipartisan bill that would reduce maximum penalties for repeat offenders and give judges more discretion in handing down prison sentences, knowing it has already created deep divisions within the GOP caucus.

But religious leaders — who have the weight of President Donald Trump behind them — are preparing to pressure McConnell and other senators, such as Cruz and David Perdue (R-Ga.), to change their minds.

Starting next week, the Faith and Freedom Coalition will ask its 2 million members to flood Congress with letters and phone calls, said coalition Chairman Ralph Reed. Religious groups hope they can put enough pressure on Republicans with large evangelical constituencies to get a rare piece of major bipartisan legislation passed in a bitterly divided Congress.

Militarizing Space

Counter Punch  August 10, 2018

This week Vice President Pence announced that the Department of Defense is beginning a planning process to establish a sixth military branch, known as the Space Force.  Pence’s statement was a public reassurance that Trump’s sudden announcement of the Space Force was not just another of the president’s frequent sudden announcements that have no connection to reality.  Pence claimed that this new Space Force military division will be in place by 2020, and while many in the media are reacting as if the militarization of space were a sudden departure from American policy, as with much of the Trump presidency, this policy shift is only a minor, more grotesque version of what our government has long routinely undertaken.

America’s Drive for World Domination

Global Reasearch June 08, 2018

The world is riven with class conflicts in Latin America, political conflicts between the Anglo-Americans and Russians, and economic conflicts between Washington against Europe and Asia.

The conflicts have called into question the capacity of ruling elites to promote growth, to secure international stability and to foster global as co-operation.

To understand the underlying source of conflicts it is essential to identify and unmask the underlying political and economic interests which spread and deepen class, regional and global confrontations.

US Demands All Other Nations Bow to Its Will

Stephenlendman 

Post-WW II, a permanent US war economy was established to pursue unchallenged global dominance, wanting all sovereign independent governments eliminated – replaced by puppet regimes bowing to Washington’s will, a prescription for endless wars of aggression, risking eventual catastrophic nuclear war.

Permanent war shapes geopolitical policymaking in Washington – business allied with the warrior state for maximum profit-making.

Enterprise in America is built on a foundation of endless war-making, imperialism on an unprecedented scale – nothing like it before in world history.

Nothing earlier matched the recklessness and ruthlessness of US pursuit of absolute global rule – supported by major media, most people none the wiser or indifferent about what’s going on.

In his 9/11 1990 address to a joint congressional session, GW Bush announced a “New World Order,” a scheme for pursuing unchallenged US global dominance.

The address came months before launching naked aggression in Iraq, continuing intermittently in the country to today, followed the Balkan wars, culminating in the 1999 rape of Yugoslavia, and endless new millennium wars of aggression against nations threatening no one.

Trump and Pope set aside rude comments

By Jonathan Lemire, Nicole Winfield and Julie Pace | AP May 24

VATICAN CITY — Handshakes, gifts, friendly small talk and big hopes for peace. Setting aside past differences and rude comments aside, President Donald Trump and Pope Francis put a determinedly positive face on their first meeting Wednesday at the Vatican.

The two global leaders, vastly different in temperament and views of the world, talked seriously and extensively in a 30-minute private meeting about terrorism, the radicalization of young people, immigration and climate change, officials said. Details were not revealed.

But all was upbeat in public, peace the overarching theme.

Francis gave Trump a medal featuring an olive branch.

“We can use peace,” said the president, acknowledging the symbolism.

He gave the pope a custom-bound, first-edition set of Martin Luther King Jr.’s works, an engraved stone from the King Memorial in Washington and a bronze sculpture of a flowering lotus titled “Rising Above.”

“I think you’ll enjoy them. I hope you do,” Trump said.

The pope’s other gifts could be taken as offering a more pointed message, though Francis is known to give them to other visitors, too.

He gave Trump three bound papal documents that he has written that to some degree define his papacy and priorities. One focuses on the environment, demanding an end to a “structurally perverse” economic system that has turned Earth into an “immense pile of filth.” He frames climate change as an urgent moral crisis and blames global warming on an unfair, fossil fuel-based industrial model that harms the poor the most.

Trump has expressed skepticism about global warming and possible causes, and he has promised changes to spur more coal and oil production in the U.S.

The president is midway through a grueling nine-day, maiden international journey which has included Middle East stops in the cradles of Islam and Judaism. In Saudi Arabia, he addressed dozens of Arab leaders and urged them to fight extremists at home and isolate Iran, which he depicted as a menace to the region. In Israel, Trump reaffirmed his commitment to strong ties with the longtime U.S. ally and urged Israelis and the Palestinians to work harder toward peace.   Washington Post

USA in prophesy - The beast coming out of the earth

¹¹ And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
¹² And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
¹³ And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
¹⁴ And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
¹⁵ And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
¹⁶ And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
¹⁷ And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
¹⁸ Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Revelation 13:11-18

Bible Gateway 

USA: the world's only superpower.

Alltime Conspiracies

The USA is the world's only superpower. Armed with weapons of mass destruction and a history of committing some of the worst crimes to humanity, how far will the USA go to maintain economic, political and military dominance? 

In 2014, the United States of America was officially named the country that posed the greatest threat to world peace. A poll by research association Gallop International questioned 66,000 people across 65 countries and found that more people voted the USA as a bigger danger to world peace than Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and Pakistan combined. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the USA has been the world’s sole superpower. Today it possesses weapons of mass destruction including over 5000 nuclear warheads, and chemical and biological weapons. In 2011, the U.S. spent $700 Billion on their military resources. This amount equals the total of the next 14 largest military expenditures.

With the USA’s position as the world’s leading economic and military power set to be unchallenged, perhaps we should all ask ourselves: “How dangerous is the USA?”

Despite the fact that congress last officially declared war in 1941, since World War II, America has been engaged in more wars than any other country. War is fundamental part of the USA’s political strategy for world domination. Since the country was founded in 1776, it has been in war for more than 93% of its existence. America’s extensive military resources mean that it’s able to invade smaller countries for unlimited access to their resources. In 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq under the assertion that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction, but in 2007, the former head of US military operations in Iraq, General John Abizaid admitted that the US’ real motive for the invasion was to access Iraq’s massive oil reserves, so that America could remain a self-sufficient nation. The USA’s justified use of militarized force has erupted since the infamous terrorist attack on New York’s Twin Towers. Just days after the 9/11 attack, congress passed an authorization for use of military force on global terrorism. Because of this authorization, the U.S. is currently engaged in secret wars across 134 countries. Details of these international special operations are classified, it is known that they involve combat, missions and training foreign forces. So far America is the only country to have deployed nuclear weapons during warfare.

In 1945, the USA destroyed Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing an estimated quarter a million people, not just to force Japan into surrendering, but to strategically gain political and diplomatic advantage over the Soviet Union in the postwar settlement in both Asia and Europe. America’s reputation for testing out new weapons on civilian populations was also highlighted during the last decade of the Vietnam war, when America attacked civilians with newly developed toxic weapons including napalm and Agent Orange throughout the 60s and early 70s. More than 4 million Vietnamese people were exposed to the deadly herbicide. The chemical caused serious illnesses, which are still evident generations later. At least 150,000 newborns suffered from deformities caused by the chemical. A total of 50% of the death during the Vietnam war were civilian due to the extensive bombing and firepower directed towards heavily populated areas. As well as over warfare, the USA have a ruthless history of puppeteering world politics to their own advantage by supporting and engaging in plots to overthrow foreign leaders. In 1961, the CIA were involved in supporting the assassination of a democratically elected leader, prime minister of Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Meanwhile, Cuba’s counterintelligence agency estimated that the CIA plotted 638 assassination attempts against their communist Prime Minister Fidel Castro.

Most recently, the USA’s involvement in the Middle East has led to the rise of terrorist group ISIS, which is intent on violently installing a global Islamic state. According to Guardian columnist, Seumas Milne, the rise of the terrorist group came as the direct result of the war in Iraq.

With a rising threatening ISIS and America’s fight in the war against terrorism, the dangers of the USA’s ruthless pursuit to maintaining its position as a global superpower can not be ignored.