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So, Who Was Really Behind Kim Davis Meeting The Pope?

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Now that the Vatican has distanced itself from Kim Davis, saying it feels a “sense of regret” over the Pope’s meeting with her, who’s to blame for arranging it in the first place? 

This week, after days of obfuscation, the Vatican finally confirmed that Pope Francis did indeed meet with Kim Davis, the Rowan County Clerk who spent six days in jail for refusing to comply with a court order directing her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Today, the Vatican went even further, distancing itself by labeling it a “brief greeting,” and stating the meeting “should not be considered a form of support of her position” by the Pope.

Davis and her current husband, Joe, met with the Pope in secret when they were in Washington, D.C., where Kim received the Cost of Discipleship award from the Family Research Council for denying gay couples their constitutional right to marry. According to Mathew Staver, Kim Davis’s attorney, the invitation to meet with Davis came from the Vatican a week or so before the Pope’s six-day visit to the United States, and not from American Catholic institutions.

Staver’s reliability on this point is questionable. The same day, Tuesday, that he announced Kim Davis met with the Pope, he also falsely claimed that 100,000 Peruvians had come together to pray for Kim Davis. It was later revealed that the picture he posted of the alleged event was actually a photo of a gathering from May 2014.

The New Civil Rights Movement has learned through a source within the Apostolic Nunciature, the Vatican embassy, that Kim Davis’ meeting with the Pope was arranged – contrary to theories espoused in the media – by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The USCCB is led by President Joseph E. Kurtz, the Archbishop of Louisville, in Davis’ home state of Kentucky, and by the Archdiocese of Washington led by Cardinal Donald Wuerl. Both institutions have actively opposed same-sex marriage. In 2009, Cardinal Wuerl signed the Manhattan Declaration, an ecumenical statement calling on Evangelical, Orthodox, and Catholic Christians to defy laws permitting same-sex marriage and other issues they claim challenge their religious freedom.

The USCCB has ties to organizations designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, including the Family Research Council and the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM). FRC President Tony Perkins has said about gay people, “They are intolerant. They are hateful. They are vile. They are spiteful.” Perkins also says gay people are “pawns” of the “enemy.” FRC’s Senior Fellow of Legal Studies, Cathy Ruse, was the USCCB chief spokesperson for human life issues for several years. (Full disclosure: Cathy Ruse is a personal friend.) 

Cathy Ruse’s husband, Austin Ruse, is the president and director of C-FAM, and a blogger at the far right website Breitbart. In his most recent constituent email dated October 1, Ruse calls same-sex marriage, “a definition of marriage cooked up in the pits of hell,” and he supports Russian anti-LGBT laws that have led to an increase in violence against gay people in Russia.

Pope Francis’s messages while in the United States were mainly pastoral in nature, caring for the needs of the downtrodden and the less fortunate. Although he was said to be authoritarian and “kind of a jerk” in his first leadership role as the head of the Jesuits in Argentina, Pope Francis evolved into a humble man concerned about those living in poverty, immigrants, and those struggling to find a place in the world. Meeting with a controversial figure such as Kim Davis was out of character for a man who spent the entirety of his trip to the United States avoiding strong statements about American politics, especially on hot-button social issues like same-sex marriage.

Knowing that conservative American Catholic institutions arranged this meeting, and knowing that now the Vatican feels a “sense of regret” over it, arouses suspicion that the reasons behind it were political.

Kim Davis said she felt her meeting with the Pope “kind of validated everything,” but in today’s official statement by the Vatican’s spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi said the Pope’s meeting with Kim Davis “should not be considered a form of support of her position.” 

Davis’ statement is exactly what the anti-LGBT forces in the American Catholic church and other conservative Christians wanted her, and, more importantly, other Christians to feel. The Vatican today refuted that claim. But by showing apparent solidarity between the Pope and Kim Davis, conservative groups are hoping it will push more people to defy the constitutional rights of LGBT people, while these groups strive in the future for the Supreme Court to overturn its marriage ruling. 

The battle for human rights did not end with the Supreme Court decision that marriage is a fundamental right guaranteed under the Constitution. It is raging between those who demand human rights and those who will stop at nothing less than religious totalitarianism. And the end is nowhere in sight.

 

Image by Jeffrey Bruno/US Papal Visit via Flickr and a CC license

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White House Mum After Classified Info Reportedly Appears on Musk’s DOGE Website

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The White House has yet to comment after classified information reportedly appeared on Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency website — information related to one of the federal government intelligence agencies his SpaceX company does business with.

“Elon Musk’s team at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has posted classified information about the size and staff of a U.S. intelligence agency on its new website, raising bigger concerns about where Musk’s programmers got this information and what they are doing with it,” HuffPost reported Friday afternoon.

“DOGE’s database provides details on the National Reconnaissance Office, the federal agency that designs, builds and maintains U.S. intelligence satellites. Not only are NRO’s budgets and head counts classified, but the prospect of Musk’s tech team meddling in sensitive personnel information is setting off alarms for some in the intelligence community,” HuffPost explained. “Musk can’t claim he wasn’t aware that the National Reconnaissance Office is one of the nation’s intelligence agencies. His company, SpaceX, has a $1.8 billion contract with NRO to build hundreds of spy satellites.”

READ MORE: ‘United States of Extortion’: New Trump Ukraine ‘Shakedown’ Called ‘Cheap Mafia’ Move

A Senate staffer who works on intelligence matters told HuffPost that DOGE sharing this information “is absolutely a problem under the current intelligence standards.”

“These 25-year-old programmers, I don’t think they have enough experience to know what they don’t know,” the aide said. “Really, the question is: Where did they get this information and what are they doing with it?”

HuffPost also reported that a White House spokesperson “did not respond to a request for comment on where DOGE workers got this information, why they are sharing it publicly and if the president is concerned about DOGE workers accessing sensitive data.”

National security and civil liberties journalist Marcy Wheeler directed her ire at U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

“I’m curious if you’re at all alarmed that one of USG’s Satellite Contractors, Elon Musk, just leaked details about satellite intelligence agency NRO on his DOGE site?” she asked in a social media post.

READ MORE: ‘Disgust’: Vance’s ‘Disturbing’ Speech Alarms Europe, Sparks Foreign Policy Fears

 

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‘United States of Extortion’: New Trump Ukraine ‘Shakedown’ Called ‘Cheap Mafia’ Move

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Just weeks into his second term, President Donald Trump’s administration is not only grappling with a growing colossus of self-inflicted crises, but is now igniting international tensions as well. The administration is pressuring Ukraine to relinquish rights to half of its valuable precious metals—just as Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin prepare to begin negotiations to end Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine.

“Multiple lawmakers here in Munich told me the U.S. Congressional delegation presented Zelensky with a piece of paper they wanted him to sign which would grant the U.S. rights to 50% of Ukraine’s future mineral reserves,” Washington Post foreign policy and national security columnist Josh Rogin reported Friday afternoon from the Munich Security Conference.

“Zelensky politely declined to sign it,” he added.

Trump has made it clear he expects Ukraine to hand over the rights to its rare earth minerals, which are extremely valuable.

READ MORE: ‘Disgust’: Vance’s ‘Disturbing’ Speech Alarms Europe, Sparks Foreign Policy Fears

“Rare earths are a group of 17 metals used to make magnets that turn power into motion for electric vehicles, cell phones, missile systems, and other electronics. There are no viable substitutes,” Reuters reported. The news outlet also noted that Trump “said on Monday he wants Ukraine to supply the United States with rare earth minerals as a form of payment for financially supporting the country’s war efforts against Russia.”

“We’re telling Ukraine they have very valuable rare earths,” Trump said. “We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things.”

Trump’s expected haul: “close to $300 billion,” or more.

“We are going to have all this money in there, and I say I want it back. And I told them that I want the equivalent, like $500 billion worth of rare earth,” Trump said Monday, CBS News reported. “They have essentially agreed to do that, so at least we don’t feel stupid.”

The New York Times on Wednesday suggested Kyiv may be willing to play ball with the billionaire businessman.

“President Trump says he wants to make a deal for minerals from Ukraine in exchange for aid. That followed a long effort by Ukrainian officials to appeal to Mr. Trump’s transactional nature.”

Earlier this week Bloomberg reported on Trump’s call with Putin, saying, “European leaders, who were broadly aligned with Washington under Biden, were stunned to learn of the call and some said it appeared to signal that Trump was selling out Ukraine.”

“Trump is skeptical of providing more aid,” Bloomberg continued, “and if he does then he wants the US to be compensated – perhaps in the form of access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was in Kyiv today to work on that part of the deal.”

READ MORE: ‘Brazen Criminality’: Allegations of ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Fly After Border Czar’s Admission

Garry Kasparov, the internationally famous Russian chess grandmaster and now vice president of the World Liberty Congress, likened Trump’s demand to that of a Mafia don.

“Trump wants to give Russia something for nothing and expects Ukraine to give America something for nothing. Cheap mafia behavior,” he charged.

Olga Lautman, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and researcher of organized crime and intelligence operations in Russia and Ukraine, deemed the move “extortion.”

“This extortion by the [Trump] regime is outrageous. Europe needs to step up asap and help Ukraine,” she urged.

Professor Roland Paris, director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, doubly mocked the administration: “The United States of Extortion. (Can Google update its maps with this new name?)”

The Atlantic’s David Frum, a Bush 43 speechwriter, declared it, “Gangsterism.”

Jay Nordlinger, a senior editor for the right wing National Review, blasted the administration:

“The United States ought to back Ukraine because it is the right thing to do, morally, and, above all, because it is in the hard U.S. interest to do so. To shake down a country that is struggling for its very existence is, to my sense, repulsive.”

The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser called it simply, “A shakedown.”

READ MORE: Trump Admin Orders Immediate Mass Firing of Some Federal Workers — 200,000 Possibly at Risk

 

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‘Disgust’: Vance’s ‘Disturbing’ Speech Alarms Europe, Sparks Foreign Policy Fears

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JD Vance’s speech on Friday at the Munich Security Conference deeply offended European leaders, drawing widespread criticism and fueling serious concerns about President Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

“Hard to convey the level of disgust with and rejection of Vance remarks,” explained veteran foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen, “which included lecturing Europe to be more open to Musk promoting the German far right party and which ignored Russia.”

Vance’s speech, Rozen continued, “was not about Europe doing more to protect European security. It was telling them how to be internally—more open to right wing/ hate speech/techno oligarchd/Russian election interference.”

“Truly disturbing,” she concluded.

READ MORE: ‘Brazen Criminality’: Allegations of ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Fly After Border Czar’s Admission

The New York Times did not hold back. Its headline reads: “Vance Tells Europeans to Stop Shunning Parties Deemed Extreme.”

A member of France’s armed services committee “could not believe [Vance] did not mention Ukraine/Russia,” Rozen noted, while adding that “the German defense minister was the most forceful in expressing his rejection.”

Indeed, Tom Nutall, the Berlin Bureau Chief for The Economist wrote: Blistering response by Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defence minister, to JD Vance’s speech.”

Nutall quoted the minister as saying: “Democracy does not mean that a vociferous minority can decide what truth is…democracy must be able to defend itself against extremists.” 

Pistorius continued, describing himself as “a staunch believer in the Transatlantic Alliance,” and “a staunch ally and friend of America,” Real Clear Politics reported.

“The American dream is something that has always fascinated me and influenced me, and this is why I cannot just ignore what we heard before, I cannot not comment on the speech we heard by the U.S. Vice President.”

“This democracy … was just called into question by the U.S. vice president. And not just the German democracy, but Europe as a whole, he spoke of the annulment of democracy and if I understood him correctly, he compares the condition of Europe with the condition that prevails in some authoritarian regimes.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is not acceptable. That’s it. This is not acceptable,” Pistorius declared.

Damian Boeselager, a member of the European Parliament, wrote: “JD Vance speech at the MSC was a disgrace. Telling Europe how to run a democracy and free speech while centralizing all power in the hands of a couple of power hungry people is a horrible cynicism.”

READ MORE: Trump Admin Orders Immediate Mass Firing of Some Federal Workers — 200,000 Possibly at Risk

The Guardian reported that the European Union’s “foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, reacting to US vice president JD Vance’s speech, said it felt like Washington was ‘trying to pick a fight’ with Europe.”

Other experts also agreed with Rozen’s remarks.

“This is definitely how most foreign policy elites in Europe interpreted US Vice President Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference,” wrote Dr. Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and Americas program at the London-based think tank Chatham House, and a professor of international relations at the University of London.

“Exactly this. Another disturbing glimpse into MAGA thinking,” added David Hartwell, a former UK Ministry of Defense intelligence analyst.

“Shocking hypocrisy from Vance – lecturing Europe on democracy when he serves as vice president to a man who attempted a coup in the US,” wrote Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator for the Financial Times.

“It does not appear,” noted former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, who has a Master of Arts in international and global security studies from Johns Hopkins University, “that Vance, Hegseth or Trump on the same page when it comes to Europe, Ukraine, Russia. No coherent message. The world has no idea what American foreign policy is right now. I don’t think [the Trump] team knows either.”

Watch a portion of Vance’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Corruption’ Claims Fly Over Musk’s Modi Meeting as Trump Shrugs: ‘I Don’t Know’

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