“For the time will (has) come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away [their] ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
(2 Timothy 4:3-4)

For The Time Will (Has) Come

Dear Friends,

As we view the absolutely bizarre events taking place in the world today, we can truly say we have seen, and continue to see, the fullfilment of Bible prophecy as expressed in Paul's letter to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3-4.

When a newspaper with the mainstream influence of the Washington Post openly promotes the so-called philosphy of Satan you know the end of the this age can not be far off.

“Woe to them that deepen their counsel, and not by the Lord. Woe to them that take secret counsel, and whose works are in darkness, and they say, Who has seen us? and who shall know us, or what we do?” Isaiah 29:15

***

WND

WASH POST COLUMN CHEERS SATAN, JEERS CHRISTIANS

Sympathy for devil as champion of 'modern culture, science and secular values'

Garth Kant

August 24, 2017

WASHINGTON – The venerated journalistic institution the Washington Post, which recently adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” published a column Wednesday by a spokesman for the “Prince of Darkness” who blamed Christianity for slavery and white supremacism.

The op-ed by Lucien Greaves, both a defense of Satanism and an attack on Christianity, was headlined, “I’m a founder of the Satanic Temple. Don’t blame Satan for white supremacy.”

Although slavery was historically practiced by virtually every culture in world and only stopped by Christians, Greaves revives the argument that blames it on Christians.

In the op-ed, the self-described co-founder of the Satanic Temple:

• Objects to Christians blaming Satan for the death and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month

• Objects to condemnations of white supremacy as satanic

• Blames Christians for slavery

• Claims Satan is pro-science and pro-humanism

• Claims modern satanism embraces Enlightenment values

• Claims satanism is more modern than “theocratic superstitions”

• Claims satanism embraces secular values

• Blames all white supremacy in the U.S. on something called the Christian Identity movement

• Blames slavery on “Protestant radicalization”

• Claims Satan is a victim

• Claims there is a witch hunt against satanists

• Claims satanism is diverse and not racist

• Claims satanism is a victim of superstition

Greaves begins his piece by taking exception to what he terms a “consensus among Christian leaders was that Satan was at fault,” for the violence and death in the melee between far-right protesters and far-left counter protesters earlier this month in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Evangelist Franklin Graham had shamed politicians “trying to push blame on President Trump,” and remarked: “Really, this boils down to evil in people’s hearts. Satan is behind it all.”

Greaves said he was “naturally irritated by such comments” because “such language is not harmless. It lets mainstream religions off the hook for some of the darker periods of American history, despite the deep connections between slavery and Christian theology.”

However, while asserting that slavery in the U.S. was often “justified on scriptural grounds,” Greaves failed to mention it was Christians who were actually responsible for ending slavery.

“This is one of Satan’s oldest tricks,” asserted pastor Carl Gallups, bestselling author of WND Books’ “When the Lion Roars” and “The Magic Man in the Sky.”

“He still uses it so prolifically because it still works so well. It is the tactic of blaming others for that which you are actually, and so obviously, the guilty one,” the pastor told WND.

He continued: “While it is true that all manner of evil has been carried out ‘in the name of’ Christianity and the ‘Christian church,’ the fact of the matter remains – neither the teachings of Jesus, the contextual Word of God, or the conduct and practice of true born-again Christians support slavery, white supremacism, or acts of abject terrorism and violence. The exact opposite is the truth.”

Indeed, it was Christian activists who began and ran the pre-Civil War abolitionist movement in America, as well as the campaign across the Atlantic led by parliamentarian William Wilberforce that brought an end to the slave trade in Britain in 1807.

Also unmentioned by the Satanist was the Catholic Church’s long history of opposing slavery, including Pope Benedict XIV’s condemnation of it in 1741; Pope Pius’s demand for the end of the slave trade in 1815; Pope Gregory’s condemnation of the slave trade in 1839 and the same by Pope Leo in 1888.

Greaves painted Satanism as an enlightened and modern culture, as opposed to “the monarchical, feudalistic, theocratic superstitions of old.”

Calling modern Satanism “a metaphorical icon for Enlightenment values,” Greaves maintained it “actively fights for individual sovereignty and secular values” and “exalts scientific inquiry and promotes humanistic, pluralistic values.”

However, even though such Enlightenment philosophers as Montesquieu and Rousseau did attack slavery in principle, Greaves neglects to mention it was only Christian groups that did the organizing and work that actually ended slavery.

Although most Christians in the mid 1700s did accept slavery as a fact of life, that changed entirely on both sides of the Atlantic in just one generation, thanks solely to Christian activism.

The abolitionist movement began in America when Quakers officially renounced slavery in 1754. By the 1770s, they were joined by Evangelicals, Methodists and Presbyterians.

It became a mass movement in 1787 when the British Abolition Committee was established.

Abolitionists boycotted goods from slave plantations in the Caribbean, including up to 400,000 Britons who stopped buying rum and sugar.

According to a scholarly paper on the end of the slave trade by professor John Coffey of the University of Leicester, it was the Quakers and the Evangelicals who were primarily responsible for the formation of the abolitionist movement, by “building a broad coalition that included Whig and Tory politicians, Enlightenment rationalists, Romantic poets and sympathetic journalists.”

In addition to attempting to blame slavery on Christians, the satanist Greaves also blamed all modern-day white supremacy in America on something the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, calls the “Christian Identity movement.”

However, Greaves neglected to mention the ADL characterizes the group as a small, fringe cult of conspiratorial racists and anti-Semites “whose adherents believe that white people of European descent are the descendants of the ‘Lost Tribes’ of ancient Israel.”

From the information provided by the ADL, the “Christian Identity movement” is not supported by any mainstream or prominent Christian leaders, groups or denominations.

Nonetheless, Greaves blames slavery on “Protestant radicalization.”

He claims, “The Ku Klux Klan is as much a religious Protestant sect as the Taliban or al-Qaeda are Muslim.”

And that, “Allowing Christian leaders to merely disown Protestant radicalization by fiat absolves them of having to confront the problem” of slavery.

However, history shows slavery was actually abolished by those same Protestants the satanist blames, as outlined above by professor Coffey.

“What we are witnessing,” pastor Gallups told WND, “in this ridiculous rant by a co-founder of the Satanic Temple is the spirit of Satan himself – who is the father of all lies, deception, and wickedness – and is also called the ‘accuser of the brethren.'”

“There could not be a more poignant illustration of this fact than this particular Washington Post article,” the pastor observed.

History also refutes Greaves intimation that slavery was somehow a uniquely Christian institution and survived though the ages only because of its support.

As Fox News host Tucker Carlson pointed out on Aug. 15, following the violence in Charlottesville:

“Up until 150 years ago when a group of brave Americans fought and died to finally put an end to it, slavery was the rule, rather than the exception around the world. And had been for thousands of years, sadly. Plato owned slaves, so did Muhammad, peace be upon him. Many African tribes held slaves and sold them. The Aztecs did, too. Before he liberated Latin American, Simon Bolivar owned slaves.

Slave-holding was so common among the North American Indians that the Cherokee brought their slaves with them on the Trail of Tears. And it wasn’t something they learned from European settlers. Indians were holding and trading slaves when Christopher Columbus arrived. And, by the way, he owned slaves, too. None of this is a defense of the atrocity of human bondage. It is an atrocity. The point, however, is that if we are going to judge the past by the standards of the present, if we are going to reduce a person’s life to the single worst thing he ever participated in, we had better be prepared for the consequences of that. And here’s why: 41 of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence held slaves. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, had a plantation full of slaves. George Mason, the father of the Bill of Rights also owned slaves, unfortunately. But does that make what they wrote illegitimate?”

Gallups somberly reflected on the Washington Post column, telling WND, “The fact that a mainstream media publication has now aided the Satanic Temple’s distorted message to go worldwide is also an indication of the biblically prophesied demonic outpouring of the last days – just before the return of Jesus Christ.”

The pastor then shared in detail, just how and why he found the opinion piece so timely:

“This entire article, and the convoluted bluster that it aides in promoting, reminds me of the passage in Revelation that appears to speak of the times in which we are now living: ‘Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.’

“Two thousand years ago, these words were prophesied in the book of Revelation concerning the last days: ‘Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring – those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.’

“The context of that passage defines ‘the woman’ as a returned Israel. The ‘rest of her offspring’ are obviously those who are born again Christians. Now – ask yourself, who is it that Satan is most viciously attacking in these prophetic days?

“It is none other than the prophetically revenant nation of Israel as well as born again believers and the ‘true’ church of Jesus Christ, worldwide.

“The article by Lucien Greaves does not surprise me in the least. Indeed, Satan’s time is short and quickly closing in. But, I’ve read the end of ‘The Book.’ I know who wins; and it’s not Satan or his minions.”

(We do not necessarily agree with the Carl's interpretation of Revelation chapter 12.Ed)

SABOTEURS PART 6: After Helping Force Steve Bannon From The West Wing, Will Pope Francis Facilitate The Rise Of “The Grey Champion”?

August 24, 2017 by SkyWatch Editor

Before Steve Bannon was forced from the West Wing (I addressed part of the significance of this in PART 5 of this series and at WND), I had ended PART 4 saying, “it isn’t just conspiracy fruit-loops” concerned that Pope Francis may not only be the man from St. Malachy’s ancient “Prophecy of the Popes” but the one Malachi Martin feared would give rise to the Grey Champion (Antichrist), a concern that even the pope’s personal secretary, emeritus Pope Benedict, and maybe Francis himself secretly agrees with.

In a shocking 2014 interview titled Is Francis the last Pope? published by the two largest Catholic News agencies in the world (CAN and EWTN News), the personal secretary to Pope Benedict and Prefect of the Papal Household for Pope Francis, Archbishop George Gänswein was specifically asked about the “Prophesy of Malachy,” the retirement of Benedict, and whether Francis believes he is the last pontiff.

The interview began by making direct reference to questions I (Tom Horn) had raised in 2013 regarding the dual lightning strikes atop St. Peter’s Basilica on the same day of Benedict’s resignation. I followed that with commentary about the inauguration of Francis and how, “for a few adepts of history and secret orders,” this sign from Heaven was deliciously staged. The term “inaugurate” is from the Latin inauguratio, and refers to the archaic ceremony by which the Roman augurs (“soothsayers”) approved a king or ruler through lightning omens as being “sanctioned by the gods.” As for Pope Francis, his “inauguration” was sealed by the same omen the ancient augurs used in determining the will of the gods for a king in that part of Rome—thunder and lightning as the most important auspice and sign that Jupiter—the father of Apollo—was watching.

It turns out that I was not alone in my ponderings, as “many observers chose to interpret this as a divine reaction to the historical announcement of Pope Benedict’s resignation, made that very morning” the Catholic news agencies confirmed. “As his personal secretary, Archbishop Gänswein, reminisced about how both he and Benedict only found out about the lightning strike after the event. ‘The impression was one of a sign from above, a reaction,’ he told Badde [who conducted the interview]. When he showed Benedict images of the spectacular incident a few days later, the pope asked whether this was some kind of digital montage, Gänswein said, adding: “however, nature had spoken,’”[i] he said, echoing what I had published online in 2013.

The astonishing report continued:

During the interview, Paul Badde referenced… The “Prophecy of the Popes”—according to which, Pope Francis may be considered to be the last pope. “Indeed, when looking at the prophecy, and considering how there was always a sound reference to popes mentioned in its history—that gives me the shivers,” Archbishop Gänswein admitted… “speaking from historical experience, one has to say: Yes, it is a wake-up call.”[ii]

Given that both current popes and their closest advisors at the Vatican have considered whether Pope Francis is Petrus Romanus and that this reality “gives them the shivers” and further that it is perceived as “a wake-up call,” is it any wonder that conservative scholars within the Church have taken an increasingly careful view of the new pope? And is the subsequent question of whether Pope Francis is the “False Prophet” the reason Canon Lawyers and Theologians for the Vatican hosted a Conference in Paris this past March to discuss “how to depose a heretical pope”?[iii]

Before you doubt, consider how accusations of apostasy are stacking up against Francis elsewhere, too, with numerous church theologians and top Catholic websites, blogs, and discussion forums deliberating how he is leading the Church toward schism, ironically a fulfillment of the pope’s namesake, Francis of Assisi, who famously predicted about the final pope:

At the time of this tribulation a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavor to draw many into error and death.… Some preachers will keep silence about the truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it…for in those days Jesus Christ will send them not a true Pastor, but a destroyer.[iv]

Just this week a group of Catholic theologians (Tradition in Action) argued that Pope Francis not really Catholic and may even be the fulfillment of that part of the Secrets of Fatima that warned of a great end times apostasy starting “at the top” of the church by a fake Pope with a “devilish gaze”, The Independent reported [v].

But it’s not just extreme elements in Catholicism. Pope Francis’ has also “provoked the fury of more mainstream conservative circles – particularly in the Curia, the administrative wing of the Vatican.” [vi]

Indeed, a respected Italian monsignor and former consultor to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith has even gone on record saying that Pope Francis needs to stop the “confusion and apostasy” he is sowing among priests and bishops by “correcting” his “ambiguous and erroneous words and acts.”[vii]

But Francis has been quick to expunge those from leadership who oppose him and to replace them with allies including Jesuits like himself, another Malachi Martin warning.

As I was preparing to send the new Saboteurs investigative book to the editor, Reuters News Agency reported a “major shake-up of the Vatican’s administration” in which Pope Francis replaced Catholicism’s top theologian, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, who was the head of the department charged with defending Catholic doctrine—the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The position is the most important one that a pope fills in the Vatican hierarchy after the Secretary of State. Most incumbents keep it until they retire, which in Mueller’s case would have been in six years.[viii]

Mueller, 69, was appointed by emeritus Pope Benedict in 2012 and is replaced by Pope Francis’ confederate, Jesuit Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer.

A few weeks ago Francis ramped up his war on conservative Catholics and prophecy believers by placing the American Religious Right in the crosshairs including Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon who has since been successfully purged from the White House, [ix] a foreseeable trend that seems to have influenced Catholic television network director Jose Galat into publicly claiming Pope Francis is literally the biblical “false prophet” who, he says, is “paving the way for the Antichrist.” Galat also argues the “real pope” is Benedict XVI, who was somehow forced to resign in 2013. Francis “was elected by a mafia of cardinals,” he said, agreeing with other Catholics I’ve already mentioned who see a conspiracy behind this first ever Jesuit pope.[x]

And then there is emeritus pope Benedict himself who cryptically said recently that the Catholic Church is “on the verge of capsizing.”[xi]

Perhaps strangest of all is a current inquiry (still underway as I write this entry) in which the Vatican has launched an investigation into a Catholic group of exorcists (the Heralds) who, after having discussions with Satan, have determined that Pope Francis “is the Devil’s man.”[xii]

But what if Francis wasn’t ‘Canonically elected’ as his namesake predicted (and maybe why he chose Francis of Assisi to be named after) and therefore is not actually Petrus Romanus, the final pope of Malachy’s prophecy? What if that dark Superforce (Catholic Freemasons) that Malachi Martin warned about is using Francis and his left-leaning theology to play a complex end-times game aimed at manipulating and reconfiguring Rome into a Socialist-Marxist instrument for the real Final Pope’s arrival? What if the same George Soros-globalist one-worlders who have teamed up against Trump are working with Francis to lay the groundwork for Antichrist’s global order ala the book of Revelation?

Too crazy to believe?

Here is what popular Catholic website LIFE SITE recently said:

Most astonishingly, the Vatican itself seems involved as Pope Francis, the German bishops and others around him have openly developed close relationships with many leading One-Worlders, inviting them to the Vatican to give talks and advice. This has been a radical change from all past popes. Reports suggest George Soros favored Bergoglio [Pope Francis] during the Conclave that elected him pope. For the first time ever, the New World Order movement has gained powerful public backing for many of their agendas from the head of the Roman Catholic Church, who has aggressively insisted that climate change, open borders, anti-capitalism and more are now issues of moral and religious obligation for a new, worldly Catholic Church. It also appears that some in the Vatican may be laying the groundwork for a moral and religious case in favor of population control…. Many signs point to this.[xiii]

And what if I told you the rabbit hole of evidence to support this global conspiracy doesn’t stop there, and actually ties the resignation of Pope Benedict, the election of Pope Francis, George Soros, Obama, Hillary, John Podesta, the possible arrival of the False Prophet, Antichrist, Final Pope, discussions of a Messiah, and the years 2012 and 2016 to the Saboteurs now at work to overthrow the Trump administration’s agenda?

Are you aware that a group of respected Catholic leaders recently sent a letter to President Trump asking him to launch an official investigation into activities connected to the people mentioned above? It appears that Team Obama was involved in a different coup similar to the one currently focused on Trump, but this time against the Vatican and which the authors of the letter believe forced the aging Pope Benedict to step down for sinister reasons.

In a top-notch piece of investigative journalism, William F. Jasper at the New Americanasks:

Did billionaire speculator George Soros, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and Obama/Clinton adviser John Podesta conspire to overthrow the conservative Pope Benedict XVI and replace him with a radical, Pope Francis? Did they use America’s intelligence agencies, and our nation’s diplomatic machinery, political muscle, and financial power to coerce and blackmail “regime change” in the Roman Catholic Church?

Far from being some wild conspiracy theory, there is sound prima facie evidence to indicate that this is a serious effort to expose a political scandal of the highest order, involving flagrant, criminal abuse of power at the top levels of the U.S. government.[xiv]

Here is the letter that Jasper refers to in its entirety that was written and sent by Catholic leaders from The Remnant newspaper:

Dear President Trump:

The campaign slogan “Make America Great Again,” resonated with millions of common Americans and your tenacity in pushing back against many of the most harmful recent trends has been most inspiring. We all look forward to seeing a continued reversal of the collectivist trends of recent decades.

Reversing recent collectivist trends will, by necessity, require a reversal of many of the actions taken by the previous administration. Among those actions we believe that there is one that remains cloaked in secrecy. Specifically, we have reason to believe that a Vatican “regime change” was engineered by the Obama administration.

We were alarmed to discover that, during the third year of the first term of the Obama administration your previous opponent, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other government officials with whom she associated proposed a Catholic “revolution” in which the final demise of what was left of the Catholic Church in America would be realized. Approximately a year after this e-mail discussion, which was never intended to be made public, we find that Pope Benedict XVI abdicated under highly unusual circumstances and was replaced by a pope whose apparent mission is to provide a spiritual component to the radical ideological agenda of the international left. The Pontificate of Pope Francis has subsequently called into question its own legitimacy on a multitude of occasions.

During the 2016 presidential campaign we were astonished to witness Pope Francis actively campaigning against your proposed policies concerning the securing of our borders, and even going so far as to suggest that you are not a Christian. We appreciated your prompt and pointed response to this disgraceful accusation.

We remain puzzled by the behavior of this ideologically charged Pope, whose mission seems to be one of advancing secular agendas of the left rather than guiding the Catholic Church in Her sacred mission. It is simply not the proper role of a Pope to be involved in politics to the point that he is considered to be the leader of the international left.

While we share your stated goal for America, we believe that the path to “greatness” is for America to be “good” again, to paraphrase de Tocqueville. We understand that good character cannot be forced on people, but the opportunity to live our lives as good Catholics has been made increasingly difficult by what appears to be a collusion between a hostile United States government and a pope who seems to hold as much ill will towards followers of perennial Catholic teachings as he seems to hold toward yourself. 

With all of this in mind, and wishing the best for our country as well as for Catholics worldwide, we believe it to be the responsibility of loyal and informed United States Catholics to petition you to authorize an investigation into the following questions:

– To what end was the National Security Agency monitoring the conclave that elected Pope Francis?

– What other covert operations were carried out by US government operatives concerning the resignation of Pope Benedict or the conclave that elected Pope Francis?

– Did US government operatives have contact with the “Cardinal Danneels Mafia”?

– International monetary transactions with the Vatican were suspended during the last few days prior to the resignation of Pope Benedict. Were any U.S. Government agencies involved in this?

– Why were international monetary transactions resumed on February 12, 2013, the day after Benedict XVI announced his resignation? Was this pure coincidence?

– What actions, if any, were actually taken by John Podesta, Hillary Clinton, and others tied to the Obama administration who were involved in the discussion proposing the fomenting of a “Catholic Spring”?

– What was the purpose and nature of the secret meeting between Vice President Joseph Biden and Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on or about June 3, 2011?

–  What roles were played by George Soros and other international financiers who may be currently residing in United States territory?

We believe that the very existence of these unanswered questions provides sufficient evidence to warrant this request for an investigation.

Should such an investigation reveal that the U.S. government interfered inappropriately into the affairs of the Catholic Church, we further request the release of the results so that Catholics may request appropriate action from those elements of our hierarchy who remain loyal to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Please understand that we are not requesting an investigation into the Catholic Church; we are simply asking for an investigation into recent activities of the U.S. Government, of which you are now the chief executive.

Thank you again, and be assured of our most sincere prayers.

Respectfully,

David L. Sonnier, LTC US ARMY (Retired)

Michael J. Matt, Editor of The Remnant

Christopher A. Ferrara (President of The American Catholic Lawyers Association, Inc.)

Chris Jackson, Catholics4Trump.com

Elizabeth Yore, Esq., Founder of YoreChildren

At the end of the letter above on the Remnant’s official website,[xv] they provide links to documents and articles that support their charges, including some released by WikiLeaks, which caught Soros, Clinton, and Podesta conferring on how to bring the “middle ages dictatorship” at the Vatican to an end.

In another New American report from last October, the e-mails in question were investigated involving the Clinton campaign’s secret anti-Catholic agenda. They noted:

Podesta, a longtime Clinton adviser/confidante and hand-picked top activist for left-wing funder George Soros, revealed in a 2011 e-mail that he and other activists were working to effect a “Catholic Spring” revolution within the Catholic Church, an obvious reference to the disastrous “Arab Spring” coups organized that same year by the Obama-Clinton-Soros team that destabilized the Middle East and brought radical Islamist regimes and terrorist groups to power in the region. The Podesta e-mail is a response to another Soros-funded radical—Sandy Newman, founder of the “progressive” Voices for Progress. Newman had written to Podesta seeking advice on the best way to “plant the seeds of the revolution” in the Catholic Church, which he described as a “middle ages [sic] dictatorship.”[xvi]

Of special interest to me in the letter to Trump from the concerned Catholics is where they specifically note: “Approximately a year after this e-mail discussion, which was never intended to be made public, we find that Pope Benedict XVI abdicated under highly unusual circumstances and was replaced by a pope whose apparent mission is to provide a spiritual component to the radical ideological agenda of the international left” and that they “remain puzzled by the behavior of this ideologically charged Pope, whose mission seems to be one of advancing secular agendas of the left rather than guiding the Catholic Church in Her sacred mission.… It is simply not the proper role of a Pope to be involved in politics to the point that he is considered to be the leader of the international left.”

It’s not hard to read between the lines above to find the insinuation that Pope Francis is—or is paving the way for—the False Prophet who will guide the world’s religious faithful into supporting a political figure called Antichrist.

With all this in mind, and given mine and Cris Putnam’s personal exhaustive investigation into the Vatican, our extensive research into the Prophecy of the Popes, the correct predictions we made regarding the resignation of Benedict a year before the fact, and our follow-up probe into the conclave that elected Francis, I have a bombshell announcement to make. I am reaching out to those veiled friends in Rome that assisted me in the past to confirm my belief that Pope Francis will either retire soon or be taken out of the way, and that this really is tied to something strange that unfolded in bringing him temporarily to the pontificate. I believe, as they suggested, Francis was not “canonically elected,” as his namesake originally predicted. And the church members that helped me before and the ones already cited above are only the tip of the iceberg of those who will eventually voice how “illegitimate” activity went on behind closed doors during the last papal election,[xvii] and that, for reasons we do not yet understand, Francis was put in as a temporary “placeholder” until the real Pope #112 (Petrus Romanus) could be installed. The mysterious reasons surrounding this “placeholder” false pope may never fully be known, but was foreseen by such mystics as Father Herman Bernard Kramer in his 1955 work, The Book of Destiny. During an unusual interpretation he made of the twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation concerning “the great wonder” mentioned in verse 1, Father Kramer wrote:

The “sign” in heaven is that of a woman with child crying out in her travail and anguish of delivery. In that travail, she gives birth to some definite “person” who is to RULE the Church with a rod of iron (verse 5). It then points to a conflict waged within the Church to elect one who was to “rule all nations” in the manner clearly stated. In accord with the text this is unmistakably a PAPAL ELECTION, for only Christ and his Vicar have the divine right to rule ALL NATIONS.… But at this time the great powers may take a menacing attitude to hinder the election of the logical and expected candidate by threats of a general apostasy, assassination or imprisonment of this candidate if elected. (capitalized emphasis in original)[xviii]

Although I disagree with Kramer’s interpretation of the book of Revelation, his fear that “great powers may take a menacing attitude to hinder the election of the logical and expected candidate” echoes the sentiment of priests mentioned elsewhere in Petrus Romanus, who saw a crisis for the Church coming, and the False Prophet and Antichrist rising as a result.

This, too, was in the news recently when a report was published by Sébastien Maillard, Vatican correspondent for La Croix, in Rome. He noted how a large array of conservative bishops fear that Francis is bypassing critical Church doctrine and fear he has already gone too far. Even those cardinals who voted for Francis now want him to step down so that the Holy See’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, can be elected the real pope.[xix] And these electors understand something else, too. Parolin’s name is translated “Peter the Roman” from the final line of the Prophecy of the Popes.

Even then, some will hardly believe how deep this rabbit hole goes. We’ll continue down this path in the next entry.

[i] http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/is-francis-the-last-pope-a-rare-interview-with-archbishop-gnswein-46598/

[ii] Ibid

[iii] http://www.crossmap.com/news/canon-lawyers-and-theologians-to-hold-conference-on-deposing-the-pope-31709

[iv] http://www.catholictradition.org/francis-prophecies.htm

[v] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-real-catholic-question-conservative-theologians-tradition-action-fatima-vatican-a7904931.html

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/only-pope-francis-can-end-the-apostasy-his-ambiguous-and-erroneous-words-ha

[viii] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-mueller-idUSKBN19M3GH?il=0

[ix] http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a56834/pope-francis-american-conservative-catholics/

[x] https://colombiareports.com/pope-francis-paving-way-antichrist/

[xi] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-benedict-church-is-on-the-verge-of-capsizing

[xii] http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/7367/0/vatican-investigates-catholic-group-after-exorcism-claim-that-francis-is-devil-s-man

[xiii] https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/the-main-reason-for-the-hate-against-donald-trump

[xiv] https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/25256-catholics-ask-trump-to-probe-soros-obama-clinton-conspiracy-at-vatican

[xv] http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/3001-did-vatican-attempt-to-influence-u-s-election-catholics-ask-trump-administration-to-investigate

[xvi] https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/faith-and-morals/item/24289-clinton-campaign-s-anti-catholic-emails-will-catholic-voters-react

[xvii] http://catholictruthblog.com/2013/12/30/was-pope-francis-canonically-elected/

[xviii] Rev. Herman Bernard Kramer, The Book of Destiny (Belleville, IL: Buechler Publishing Company, 1955), 277.

[xix] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sebastien-maillard/pope-francis-remain-pope_b_9439638.html

CBNNEWS.com

California Proposes Jail Time for Using the Wrong Pronoun for Transgenders

Lorie Johnson

07-19-2017

Transgender logo

California is on its way to passing a new law that makes it illegal to call transgender senior citizens a pronoun they don't like. For example, if an elderly person who was born male and lives in a long-term care facility wishes to be called "her" or "she," the workers there had better do it or face the consequences. The proposed law would even apply to Christian facilities.

SB 219, titled the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Long-Term Care Facility Resident's Bill of Rights," states, "It shall be unlawful for a long-term care facility or facility staff to.... willfully and repeatedly fail to use a resident's preferred name or pronouns after being clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns." It imposes fines and jail time on any long-term care employee who refuses to use transgender pronouns. Fines for repeat offenders could be as high as $1,000 and a jail term of up to a year.

The bill will also mandate bathrooms and rooming situations be designated by gender identity and not biological sex. There are no exemptions for long term care facilities run by religious institutions who integrate their beliefs about gender into their policies and practices.

Critics of the law fought against it. California Family Council's Greg Burt testified before the California Assembly Judiciary Committee saying, "How can you believe in free speech, but think the government can compel people to use certain pronouns when talking to others?" He added, "Compelled speech is not free speech. Can the government compel a newspaper to use certain pronouns that aren't even in the dictionary? Of course not, or is that coming next?"

"Those proposing this bill are saying, 'If you disagree with me about my view of gender, you are discriminating against me,'" Burt continued. "This is not tolerance. This is not love. This is not mutual respect. True tolerance tolerates people with different views. We need to treat each other with respect, but respect is a two-way street. It is not respectful to threaten people with punishment for having sincerely held beliefs that differ from your own."

Despite Burt's objections, the measure, which is sponsored by the group Equality California and authored by San Francisco Senator Scott Wiener, sailed through committee without even one vote against it.

If this bill sounds familiar, perhaps it's because Canada's Senate overwhelmingly passed similar legislation last month. The Canadian transgender rights bill adds "gender expression" and "gender identity" to Canada's Human Rights Code and to the Criminal Code's hate crime section.

Critics argued the law is a threat to freedom of expression and legalizes false ideas about gender. They also worried that people who denied this gender theory could be charged with hate crimes, fined, jailed, and compelled to undergo anti-bias training.

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BREITBART

Pope Francis: Rights of Migrants Trump National Security Concerns

by BREITBART NEWS 21 Aug 2017
VATICAN CITY (AP) —

Pope Francis on Monday urged countries to greatly improve their welcome to migrants and stop collective expulsions, saying migrants’ dignity and right to protection trumps national security concerns.

Francis’ politically pointed message was made in view of the Catholic Church’s 2018 world refugee day, celebrated Jan. 14. It comes amid mounting anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe and beyond following waves of migrant arrivals and Islamic extremist attacks.

In the message, Francis demanded governments welcome, protect, promote and integrate migrants, saying Jesus’ message of love is rooted in welcoming the “rejected strangers of every age.”

He demanded a simplified process of granting humanitarian and temporary visas and rejected arbitrary and collective expulsions as “unsuitable.” He said the principle of ensuring each person’s dignity “obliges us to always prioritize personal safety over national security.”

Francis has made refugees a priority of his pontificate, making his first trip outside Rome in 2013 to the island of Lampedusa, ground zero in Europe’s migration crisis. He has repeatedly spoken out for migrants’ rights, demanded countries build “bridges not walls,” and personally brought a dozen Syrian refugees back to Rome with him when he visited a Greek refugee camp in 2016.

Ignoring critics who say his calls are unrealistic and naive, Francis insisted in the new message that border guards must be trained to protect migrants and that each new arrival, regardless of legal status, must be guaranteed access to basic services beyond health care.

That extends to guaranteeing access to consulates, the justice system and the ability to open a bank account and survive financially, he said.

Unaccompanied minors, he said, require even greater protection, including guaranteeing them citizenship and access to schooling, as well as foster programs rather than detention centers.

He called for policies that support family reunification, employment opportunities and accelerated citizenship procedures to improve migrants’ abilities to integrate.

His call was immediately rejected by the leader of Italy’s anti-immigrant Northern League party, which has opposed government proposals to change Italy’s law to accelerate citizenship for children born in Italy to non-Italians.

“If you want to do it in the Vatican, go ahead,” Matteo Salvini wrote on Facebook. “But as a Catholic, I don’t think Italy can welcome and support the whole world.”

WND

WAR ON STATUES SPREADS TO CATHOLIC SAINTS

Judge forced to resign after criticizing vandals

Leo Hohmann

August 22, 2017

St. Junipero Serra

The war on statues spread to Catholic saints this weekend while a judge in Georgia lost his job because he criticized the monument vandals.

Vandals spray-painted a statue of Junipero Serra at a Los Angeles park across the street from Mission San Fernando on Thursday. A photo of the vandalized statue has gone viral.

St. Serra’s face, chest, and hands are spray-painted red, and the word “murder” is written in white down his front, reports CatholicOnline.com. A Native American boy standing with him as part of the statue has red painted under his eyes and down his front as though he were crying blood. A swastika was also painted on the boy.

This prompted Catholic Online to pose the question, “Where does this movement stop?”

The statement is to suggest that St. Serra was somehow involved in the genocide of Native Americans by Europeans, the magazine hypothesized.

“While the public appears to be in a frenzy over controversial statues, St. Serra is a Catholic saint, and his statue is a religious icon. Of course, the non-religious do not appreciate this fact. Many locals condemned the act of vandalism, holding that the park is a public place for people to share, enjoy and take photos, an experience that is ruined by graffiti.”

As in Chicago with the Lincoln statue, there is debate now afoot as to whether the city should move the St. Serra statue to a museum where it will be safer.

Some are beginning to notice a parallel with the predictions made in George Orwell’s epic novel “1984” in which politically incorrect “facts” in both history and current events were swept down the “memory hole,” where they would be forgotten as if they never occurred.

“There is a growing movement afoot to sweep distasteful moments and people out of history,” states Catholic Online. “While objective history is static, it is often clouded by time and perception. History is constantly being revised as political and social attitudes change. The heroes of one time and place are often villains in another.

“The problem is not so much the removal of a statue to a museum, but rather the question of where does the revisionism end? After the statues, what next? The names of streets, buildings and cities? Should the money be reprinted to avoid any association with slavery? Should the Constitution be discarded or rewritten because its authors were slaveholders? And who will write the new one?

“History is filled with unpleasantness, just like the present. It is important to acknowledge the sins of the past, but it is also important to recognize that some of the same people also contributed great things to the world.”

Authorities on Monday said they arrested a man in Houston for attempting to place a bomb near a Confederate statue, the Associated Press reported.

A park ranger on Saturday found the man, Andrew Schneck, stooping down near the statue of a Confederate lieutenant in Hermann Park.

Schneck is charged with trying to maliciously damage or destroy property receiving federal financial assistance, the AP report said.

Schneck in 2014 was arrested for having explosive materials stored improperly.

Judge forced out for making Facebook posts critical of statue vandals

Meanwhile, a Gwinnett County, Georgia, magistrate judge has resigned after being suspended over politically incorrect posts he made on Facebook about the attacks on statues.

Jim Hinkle, a part-time judge who has served on the court for 14 years, resigned last week, Chief Magistrate Judge Kristina Hammer Blum said in a written statement.

“For 14 years, Judge Hinkle has dutifully served this court,” Blum said in her statement. “He is a lifelong public servant and former Marine. However, he has acknowledged that his statements on social media have disrupted the mission of this Court, which is to provide justice for all.”

Hinkle, who also was mayor of Grayson for two decades, made several posts over the weekend in which he called people protesting Civil War monuments “snowflakes” and “nut cases,” and he compared those who would tear down those monuments to radical Islamic group ISIS.

Hinkle’s critics then dug up some of his older posts to use against him. In January, the judge posted he was “proud to be a deplorable infidel.”

In other posts, Hinkle condemned Islam as a violent religion.

Later, he wrote “The nut cases tearing down monuments are equivalent to ISIS destroying history.”

• In another incident, the University of Texas removed four Confederate statues from its Austin campus early Monday morning, amid growing pressure to take down such monuments in the wake of racist violence in Charlottesville, the Washington Post reported.

University president Gregory L. Fenves announced the decision late Sunday night, saying the “horrific displays of hatred” in Virginia had made it clear that Confederate statues had become “symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism.”

• A bust of Abraham Lincoln was vandalized over the weekend for the second time in a week and a councilman who represents the Englewood area of the city is recommending it be moved to a safer venue.

• In West Palm Beach, Florida, a Confederate monument in a city-owned cemetery was found vandalized Sunday, covered in red spray paint with the words “Antifa” and various expletives directed at “Nazis” and “KKK.”

The mayor of West Palm Beach said the Confederate monument will be removed, reports WPTV.

The city said the monument, owned by United Daughters of the Confederacy, will be placed in storage until the UDC decides what to do with it.

“We are going to remove it for them. We will put it in storage and they can take it and do what they wish, but it will not be on public property,” said Mayor Jeri Muoio.

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Hungarian Born-Jew George Soros An ENEMY OF THE STATE…Will The U.S. Follow?

By 100% FED Up

July 15, 2017

Hillary would never have labeled one of her largest donors, longtime friend, and the financier of violent anti-American protesters around the world an “enemy of the state.” But fortunately for America, Hillary’s not our president. Fortunately for America, both the Senate and the House are controlled by Republicans who understand we have a lot to lose if they continue to sit back and let this radical billionaire throw hundreds of millions of dollars at these violent, anti-American groups. Soros’ goals are not consistent with those of our Founding Fathers. His agenda is counter to protecting our freedoms and defending our national security. It’s time our legislators consider taking the same steps as Israel and Hungary to send George Soros a message that we consider him an enemy of the state, and that we’re not going to just sit by and watch him force his radical agenda on America.

Israel’s foreign ministry has issued a statement denouncing U.S. billionaire George Soros, a move that appeared designed to align Israel more closely with Hungary ahead of a visit to Budapest next week by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew who has spent a large part of his fortune funding pro-democracy and human rights groups, has repeatedly been targeted by Hungary’s right-wing government, in particular over his support for more open immigration.

In the latest case, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has backed a campaign in which Soros is singled out as an enemy of the state. “Let’s not allow Soros to have the last laugh” say billboards next to a picture of the 86-year-old investor, a campaign that Jewish groups and others say foments anti-Semitism.

Soros, who rarely addresses personal attacks against him, has not commented on the billboards. But Hungarian Jewish groups and Human Rights Watch, an organization partly funded by Soros, have condemned the campaign, saying it “evokes memories of the Nazi posters during the Second World War”. –

There’s one big problem with the statement by Soros’ Human Rights Watch group, Soros admitted he was no friend to the Jews during the Holocaust in a 1990 interview with Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes”. The interview was suspiciously scrubbed from the internet for some time, but has just recently resurfaced.

Knowing there were problems ahead for the Jews, Soros’ father, who was a successful lawyer, bribed a government official to take 14 year old George Soros in and say he was his Christian godson. While hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were being shipped off to the death camps, George Soros accompanied his appointed “godfather” around confiscating property from Jews. George admitted it wasn’t difficult at all to take part in taking property from the Jews. Kroft asked Soros if it bothered him?

Soros: It created no problem at all.

Kroft: No feeling of guilt?

Soros: No.

Why should Israel tread lightly when it comes to this monster who had no feelings of guilt about taking property from fellow Jews during the Holocaust?

Soros was born in Hungary, they are interestingly, the second nation to consider George Soros to be an enemy of the state.

IWB

ANTIFA / COMMUNISTS meet tomorrow to plan NATIONWIDE RIOTS on NOV. 4TH to remove TRUMP/PENCE from office…(and so it begins)…

BY IWB

Sat, August 19, 2017
Organizing Conferences
This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
Who should attend this conference? Students and youth, the faith community, representatives of organizations and people who are unaffiliated, artists and professionals, long-time activists and folks who have never protested before – everyone who wants to see the nightmare of the Trump/Pence Regime end and is willing to act together to accomplish this. We will start organizing now for:NOVEMBER 4, 2017
Take To The Streets And Public Squares in cities and towns across the country continuing day after day and night after night—not stopping—until our DEMAND is met.

ON NOVEMBER 4, 2017:

We will gather in the streets and public squares of cities and towns across this country, at first many thousands declaring that this whole regime is illegitimate and that we will not stop until our single demand is met: This Nightmare Must End: the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

Our protest must grow day after day and night after night—thousands becoming hundreds of thousands, and then millions—determined to act to put a stop to the grave danger that the Trump/Pence Regime poses to the world by demanding that this whole regime be removed from power.

Isnt this open sedition?

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MPN.News

ExxonMobil, Kochs, Israel Pushing Washington To Partition Iraq And Syria

The currently stateless Kurds sit astride the Iraq-Syria border on land blessed/cursed with oil, other resources, and geopolitical significance. Is it any wonder that mega-corporations and their client states are looking to use the Kurds, stoke conflict, and exploit the situation?

By Whitney Webb

August 14, 2017

Iraqi Kurds unfurl a giant Kurdish flag during Nawruz celebrations in Dahuk, 260 miles (430 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Analysis) — Years before the U.S. illegally invaded and then occupied Iraq, plans were circulating within the Pentagon to partition the country along “sectarian” lines, with the express purpose of allowing the U.S. and its regional allies to better control oil resource production and movement within the Middle East.

In Syria, the same narrative of partition has more recently been circulated as the “only” solution to the nation’s sectarian divisions, divisions which did not emerge until they were artificially created in 2011 when the current conflict began and later fomented by hostile foreign actors.

While the Bush and Obama administrations pushed for the partition of Iraq on several occasions, it was largely corporate actors during that time that took the most active steps towards creating an independent state within the Iraqi region controlled by the U.S.-allied Kurds, an area with sizeable energy reserves and other strategic resources.

The area of Syria controlled by the U.S.-backed Kurds conveniently connects directly with the Kurdish “statelet” in Iraq, making the possibility of a larger independent Kurdistan more feasible. This area also boasts the largest concentration of many of Syria’s most critical resources.

While past administrations avoided openly recognizing the partition of Iraq, the administration of President Donald Trump is striking a different tone, largely due to the influence within the administration of some of the biggest players who actively sidestepped Iraq’s government in favor of the Kurds years ago.

Chief among such players was ExxonMobil — whose CEO at the time, Rex Tillerson, is now Trump’s Secretary of State — along with other corporations whose financial and political support for the Trump administration is well-documented.

The geopolitical and economic motives for a partitioned Iraq

The corporatist, neoconservative dream of partitioning Iraq has been around for well over a decade, first materializing a year before the U.S.’ ill-fated 2003 invasion of that nation. The plan, drafted by former Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, contemplated the division of Iraq into three autonomous, sectarian “statelets” for Iraqi Muslim Sunnis, Muslim Shi’as, and ethnic Kurds, who are also predominantly Muslim. This partition, it was believed, would allow the U.S. and its regional allies to more easily dominate Iraq and its important fossil fuel resources, along with conferring other “strategic advantages.”

As U.S.-based private intelligence firm Stratfor noted in 2002, the invasion and destruction of Iraq would pave the way for partition and thus greater U.S. control over Iraq and the entire Middle East:

“After eliminating Iraq as a sovereign state, there would be no fear that one day an anti-American government would come to power in Baghdad, as the capital would be in Amman [Jordan]. Current and potential U.S. geopolitical foes Iran […] and Syria would be isolated from each other, with big chunks of land between them under control of the pro-U.S. forces.

Equally important, Washington would be able to justify its long-term and heavy military presence in the region as necessary for the defense of a young new state asking for U.S. protection – and to secure the stability of oil markets and supplies. That, in turn, would help the United States gain direct control of Iraqi oil and replace Saudi oil in case of conflict with Riyadh.”

Creating the divisions needed to justify partition

The big problem for the partition plan, however, was the simple fact that these diverse groups had coexisted with minimal sectarian violence in Iraq for centuries. This meant, of course, that the sectarianism that was needed to justify partition had to be engineered. The U.S., in its invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, happily obliged, sponsoring sectarian violence through the military training – including torture techniques – it gave to Iraqi militias, police and military forces that divided along particular ethnoreligious lines.

Many of these organizations have been found to be repeat human rights offenders and have targeted particular ethnoreligious groups within Iraq. Despite their egregious track record, the U.S. continues to financially support these armed groups.

The U.S. has also worked to create and strengthen ethnoreligious divisions within the country by promoting Iraqi organizations founded on religion or ethnicity rather than along political lines.

Though some analysts believe that the biggest winners in the U.S.-created environment of Iraqi sectarianism were the Iraqi majority population of the Shi’a – which, after all, was given control of the post-invasion government – it was really the Kurds who gained the most as a result of the U.S.’ machinations to divide and conquer Iraq.

The Kurds are the largest group of nomadic people in the world and have long existed without their own state. As journalist Sarah Abed has noted, “This fact has allowed Western powers to use the ‘stateless’ plight of the Kurdish people as a tool to divide, destabilize and conquer Iraq and Syria, where colonial oil and gas interests run deep.” Although the most powerful Kurdish political parties in these countries do not see themselves as pawns, history shows that Western colonial powers have used them that way in the past and continue to do so, often with their willing cooperation.

In recent decades the U.S. government and military have openly supported Kurdish separatist elements, though they have stopped short of recognizing “Kurdistan” as a state completely independent of the Baghdad-based government. This role fell instead to U.S. corporations, such as ExxonMobil, a major force in the fossil fuel industry. In 2011, ExxonMobil unilaterally brokered an oil deal with the Kurdistan region, bypassing Iraq’s central government in the process.

According to ExxonMobil, the move was partly motivated by problems it was having contracting with Iraq’s central government regarding oilfields in southern Iraq. However, the promise of oil reserves in Kurdistan said to be “one of the world’s most promising regions for the future [of] hydrocarbon discovery,” was also a clear motivator. As a result, ExxonMobil sided with the Kurdish separatists over the central government, giving clout to Kurdish goals of greater regional autonomy – and thus furthering their shared goal of a divided Iraq.

Other oil corporations – including Chevron and Gazprom, among others – followed Exxon’s lead..

By 2014, more than 80 foreign energy corporations had struck deals with Kurdistan.Oilman Ray Hunt, whose Hunt Oil Co. signed its own unilateral agreement with Kurdistan in 2007, has consistently heaped praises upon Kurdistan and has also made clear his vision for the future of Iraq: “In the end, you’ll end up with a soft partition of Iraq.”

Corporate connection to Trump’s change of heart on Iraq partition

A photograph released by Russian intelligence depicting thousands of trucks laden with oil crossing from Syria into Turkey. December, 2015.

Over the years since these deals were struck, the Kurdish separatist parties in Iraq have benefited immensely, though more recently they have been hit hard by the global drop in oil prices. In 2014, they were exporting 280,000 barrels of oil every day. And, despite troubles with foreign companies brought on by falling oil prices and the rise of Daesh (ISIS), the Kurds – as of the end of 2016 – were exporting nearly 600,000 barrels a day.

Though Daesh was painted by the media as a scourge to the Kurds, they have in fact benefited from Daesh’s invasion of large swaths of Iraq. Indeed, the Kurds – trained, armed and provided with airstrike support by the U.S. and Israel – have taken control of many former Daesh territories and have thereby expanded the size of their own territory.

The U.S. and its regional allies have said that the Kurds’ ability to confront Daesh essentially entitles them to “have their way.” As Sadad Ibrahim al-Husseini, former head of exploration and development for the Saudi state oil company Aramco told The New York Times in 2014: “At the end of the day, the Kurds will have their way, because they are the only credible Sunni group that can confront ISIS.”

Not surprisingly, the Kurd’s oil riches have brought them into direct conflict with Iraq’s central government, which has since cut off national funding for the Kurdish region and threatened any country or company buying Kurdish oil with legal action for violating the nation’s constitution by not sharing its oil sale revenue equally among all Iraqis.

However, countries like Turkey and Israel continue to buy significant amounts of oil, as well as natural gas, from the Kurds. Turkey’s case is particularly interesting given Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s well-known hatred of the Kurds and opposition to Kurdish independence in Syria. However, when it comes to Iraqi Kurdistan at least, economic factors have won out, with Turkey’s ruling party having stated that Kurds in Iraq have the right to self-determination.

Kurdish control of Iraq’s oil-rich north is key to the partitioning plan. As Michael Makovsky, a former Pentagon official, told The New York Times: “I think Iraqi Kurdish independence is inevitable, at least eventually. They have natural allies in the United States because of the oil companies involved in drilling there. And the Turks and Europeans need their gas.”

Though candidate Trump had not voiced support for a partition of Iraq, spurred by his administration’s strong ties to the oil industry, Washington has become even more friendly to the Kurds – and to the idea of Kurdish secession – since Trump took office.

However, when the State Department was asked by journalist Nafeez Ahmed whether it still stood by the traditional position of supporting a unified Iraq, a department spokesperson answered: “With respect to the unity of Iraq, you’re right; that is something we make a point of saying. But ultimately, these are all internal political discussions that Iraq needs to have with all ethnic groups resident in the country.” As Ahmed notes, this is the first time that the State Department has officially announced the U.S.’ willingness to consider the partition of Iraq.

Why the sudden change of heart?

ExxonMobil once again emerges as a key player — not surprisingly, given that current Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was Exxon’s CEO when the unilateral contract with the Kurds was forged. Tillerson, however, is not the only former ExxonMobil employee with ties to the Trump administration. Ali Khedery — a former Pentagon official who served in the U.S. coalition authority in Iraq, and a former ExxonMobil executive — has repeatedly promoted the division of Iraq.

Khedery is also the founder of Dragoman Ventures, a firm connected to the Committee to Destroy ISIS, which has been instrumental in bringing about the Trump administration’s change of opinion regarding Iraq’s partition. The Committee’s executive director, Sam Patten, also shares deep connections to members of Trump’s campaign and transition teams, as well as to certain Iraqi oligarchs suspected of having ties to U.S. intelligence and insurgent elements in Iraq.

Nor is oil the only resource that has swayed the Trump administration and its corporate allies to view partition favorably. Iraq’s Anbar province was recently found to contain nearly a tenth of the world’s total deposits of phosphates, a key ingredient in the production of nitrogen fertilizer. Now — with control of more than 70 percent of the world’s phosphate supply, and with markets reaching a point where demand is beginning to outstrip supply — the world’s largest producer of nitrogen fertilizer is eager for access to Anbar province.

That company, Koch Fertilizer Inc., is owned by the infamous Koch Brothers. Fully one-third of Trump’s entire transition team had ties to Koch Industries.

The role of Israeli ties in pushing the partition plan

The Trump administration’s close ties to Israel may also be a factor in Trump’s willingness to consider Iraq’s partition. Though the U.S. is clearly driving partition in both Iraq and Syria, it is not alone. Israel stands to gain greatly from a partition of Iraq and has worked,

like the U.S., to engineer sectarianism there and strengthen the Kurds. The Kurds have received weapons, training, and more from Israel — well before the rise of Daesh, with ties dating back to the 1960s.

Israel has also directly supported the Kurds’ economy. In 2015, despite warnings from Baghdad, Israel was importing as much as 77 percent of its oil supply from Iraqi Kurdistan, funneling much-needed money to the cash-stripped Kurdish regional government.

Israel has long recognized the potential role of the Kurds in dividing countries it and its allies seek to weaken. It is hardly a coincidence that Israel’s Greater Israel project aligns almost perfectly with “Kurdistan.” In the Oded Yinon plan, or the plan for a “Greater Israel,” the use of the Kurds is considered imperative as a means for dividing neighboring countries in order to aid in Israeli plans for greater domination and territorial expansion.

In addition, Israel considers the Kurds an important part of its long-standing goal to destabilize Iran. For instance, WikiLeaks revealed in 2010 that Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad had expressed interest in using the Kurds and other ethnic minorities to topple the Iranian government by manufacturing the country’s division. Given that the partition of Iraq would isolate Iran from Syria, Israel – like the U.S. – views partition as serving multiple goals, ultimately enabling Israel to dominate the entire Middle East.

Syria partition plan follows the Iraqi partition playbook

Iraq is by no means the only Middle Eastern country that Western powers are seeking to partition. The partition of Syria has been repeatedly sold to the public as the “only” solution to Syria’s ongoing “sectarian” conflict, now well into its seventh year. However, this sectarianism was engineered and stoked by foreign powers to bring about the current conflict in Syria. WikiLeaks revealed that the CIA was involved in instigating anti-Assad and “sectarian” demonstrations as early as March 2011. Declassified CIA documents show the plan to engineer sectarianism in order to weaken the Syrian state dates back to at least the 1980s.

The partition idea was also repeatedly touted by the Obama administration, which stated that it “may be too late” to keep Syria whole.

In 2011, when the conflict was in its infancy, the U.S. and its allies – namely Israel, Qatar, Turkey, France, the U.K. and Saudi Arabia – began supplying tons upon tons of weapons to insurgent and sectarian elements within Syria, heavily arming the so-called “moderate” Wahhabi opposition like the Free Syrian Army and the Kurds. As the conflict raged on – and the “moderate” opposition was exposed time and again as sharing close ties with internationally recognized terror organizations like al-Qaeda – Washington’s support began to shift increasingly towards the Kurds.

As in Iraq, the spread of Daesh in the area became a pretext for the U.S. not only to arm the Kurds but also to allow them to take control of areas, such as Raqqa, once held by Daesh. Media and government sources repeatedly told the public that the Kurds must be armed, as they were the only group that had proven “effective” in countering Daesh. This past March, the Kurds declared the formation of a Kurdish federation under democratic self-rule. This declared federation has yet to obtain international recognition, but – given what has transpired in Iraq and in U.S.-Syrian relations – such an achievement doesn’t seem far off.

The Kurds and their U.S. allies currently have gained effective control of Syria’s north, which comprises about a quarter of the entire country but boasts over 90 percent of Syrian oil and gas potential. According to Yeni Şafak, the U.S. along with the Saudis, Egypt, and Kurdish officials have held meetings where decisions were made to extract, process and market the oil, with the Kurds being given a handsome share of the profits. As of 2015, they were said to be earning in excess of $10 million every month.

Syria’s Kurdistan exports its oil to Iraq’s Kurdistan, with which it conveniently shares a border. It is then refined and sold to Turkey. Though no corporations are explicitly involved, the deal between Syrian and Iraqi Kurds was brokered by unnamed “oil experts” and “oil investors.” The Kurds in Syria and Iraq did not even sign the agreement in person. They were subsequently “informed” and instructed to supervise the operation.

A source in Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) told NOW News that “with regard to southern Kurdistan, it was a company and not the KRG that signed the deal, and it is [the company] that directly hands over the sums in cash every month.” Given that over 80 foreign companies are involved in the KRG’s oil trade, most of them based in the U.S., we can safely assume that many of the same players have also been involved in developing the oil trade of Syria’s Kurdistan.

Non-oil assets of Syrian Kurdistan also tempt corporations and governments

In addition to oil, the “Kurdistan” of Syria also includes much of Syria’s freshwater, including its three largest reservoirs, as well as much of its electricity (hydropower via Tabqa) and its agricultural resources. The growth of Syria’s Kurdistan also has major implications for one of Syria’s other key assets: its location. In 2013, The New York Times noted that “Syria’s prime location and muscle make it the strategic center of the Middle East.”

Syria’s strategic location makes it crucial to the regional flow of hydrocarbons. Having the northern section of Syria — and potentially the eastern as well, if the U.S. gets its way — under the control of a U.S. ally could have a profound effect on future and existing pipelines. Notably, it would complicate the land route between Syria and Iran, Syria’s staunchest regional ally and long-time foe of the U.S. and Israel — a scenario highlighted by U.S.-based intelligence firm Stratfor back in 2002.

The words of late journalist and historian Patrick Seale – “Whoever would lead the Middle East must control Syria” – ring true for the U.S. government now more than ever. With internal reports warning of the U.S.’ waning position as the “world’s only superpower,” the division of Iraq and Syria is essential to Washington’s designs to maintain its influence, as well as the influence of the corporate powers it protects.

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RT

Civil war in Syria ‘de-facto over’ – Russian defense minister

24 August 2017

The Homs-Hama highway in the Homs forces placement area opened for civilian transport for the first time in five years after the Russian military police checkpoints started operating in Ar-Rastan. © Mikhail Alaeddin / Sputnik

The implementation of de-escalation zones in Syria and the separation of terrorists from opposition have allowed to intensify the fight against terrorism, effectively ending the civil war in the country, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said.

Shoigu made the remark while meeting his Lebanese counterpart, Yacoub Riad Sarraf, at the ongoing ARMY-2017 forum in Kubinka, just outside Moscow on Wednesday.

He praised the efforts of Lebanese army to eradicate Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and the Al-Nusra front terrorist group in areas they hold on the Lebanon-Syria border. On Tuesday, the Lebanese army launched the third phase of the ongoing operation, targeting IS-held areas alongside the border.

“Both we and you understand that the terrorist flow from one country to another cannot go on perpetually. We wish that our western partners understood that too, and separated the moderate opposition from terrorists at last, ceasing indiscriminate support to everyone,”Shoigu said.

Shoigu then brought up the example of the situation in Syria, arguing that the separation of the terrorists from opposition allowed to “de-facto end” the civil war there, allowing a focus on the fight against terrorism.

“Moreover, one of the de-escalation zones is immediately close to [Lebanon’s] border, and a part of your units, fighting terrorists in your country, also take part in fighting terrorism in Syria,” Shoigu added.

The four de-escalation zones – in Eastern Ghouta, in the Damascus governorate, Idlib in the north, Homs in the east, and in southern Syria – were agreed upon during Astana talks in May. The proposal to establish the zones was signed by Russia, Iran and Turkey, with the approval of the Syrian government. The UN has welcomed the initiative.

Russia and Turkey are working on finalizing the implementation of the Idlib de-escalation zone, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, following a meeting between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov with his Turkish counterpart Sedat Onal in Moscow on Wednesday.

The statement noted a “substantial decrease in the levels of violence observed after the implementation of the three de-escalation zones,” adding that the sides have agreed to step up efforts on setting up the fourth such zone in Idlib.

***

INDEPENDENT

Great recession fears as bankers warn next global crash could arrive 'with a vengeance'

Next major recession could be brewing in countries like China, a new report warns

Caroline Mortimer

25 June, 2017

A new financial crisis is brewing in the emerging economies and it could hit “with a vengeance”, an influential group of central bankers has warned.

Emerging markets such as China are showing the same signs that their economies are overheating as the US and the UK demonstrated before the financial crisis of 2007-08, according to the annual report of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Claudio Borio, the head of the BIS monetary and economic department, said a new recession could come “with a vengeance” and “the end may come to resemble more closely a financial boom gone wrong”.

The BIS, which is sometimes known as the central bank for central banks and counts Bank of England Governor Mark Carney among its members, warned of trouble ahead for the world economy.

It predicted that central banks would be forced to raise interest rates after years of record lows in order to combat inflation which will “smother” growth.

The group also warned about the threat poised by rising debt in countries like China and the rise in protectionism such as in the US under Donald Trump, City AM reported.

Chinese corporate debt has almost doubled since 2007, now reaching 166 per cent of GDP, while household debt rose to 44 per cent of GDP last year.

In May, Moody's cut China's credit rating for the first time since 1989 from A1 to Aa3 which could potentially raise the cost of borrowing for the Chinese government.

The BIS’s credit-to-GDP gap indicator also showed debt, which is seen as an “early warning indicator” for a country’s banking system, is rising far faster than growth in other Asian economies such as Thailand and Hong Kong.

The world economy is still recovering from the financial crisis and the euro crisis which followed it in 2010.

The UK is said to be experiencing a “lost decade” as productivity and wages have flatlined.

(The BIS, Bank of International Settlements, is considered the most important bank in the world. It is the capstone of the banking world.)

RUSSIA INSIDER

Oliver Stone: "1984 Is Here"

Hate hate hate!

RI Staff

Fri, Aug 18, 2017

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered...History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right" — George Orwell

We've been keeping an eye on the insanity oozing out of the States over the last week. Not surprisingly, Oliver Stone has produced one of the most succinct, on-point commentaries about Charlottesville and the resulting madness.

Sorry, but we just don't buy this idea that fighting (apparently to the death) over Confederate statues is a top priority for most Americans right now. No doubt it serves as a convenient and extremely lame ideological battle for weirdos on the far, far right and far, far left to salivate over. Meanwhile, the military-industrial security state is celebrating with hooker-and-champagne bubble baths as new excuses are created to gut the Bill of Rights and pit debt slaves who want to have a beer with Hillary Clinton against debt slaves who want to have a beer with Donald Trump.

"So it goes".

Via Hollywood Reporter:

"You are all trying to get to Trump every day, but there is a bigger problem," the filmmaker said when asked what he thought of President Trump's initial failure to call out white supremacists in his response to the Charlottesville events.

"There is a system [in America], and that system existed before Trump," Stone said. "Putin said this is the fourth [U.S.] president where nothing has changed. There is a deep state, a military industrial security state. ... It is the system that has to be challenged. [Trump] is part of that system."

He reiterated: "It is the system that has to be challenged. That takes work and is never as exciting as talking about some lunatic president."

Visibly more comfortable taking questions on Snowden, a dramatization of the story of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, than talking about current events, Stone added that the situation in the U.S. today was scarily close to the kind of world George Orwell wrote about in his futuristic novel 1984.

"1984 is here. We are there. The only thing they have not yet done is to erase history … there are still people who remember things," he said. "One week it is terrorism [that dominates the headlines], the next week Putin and the next Korea."

It was, Stone said, "just like Hate Week in1984, where the name of the country and the face of the leader changes halfway through a rally. They are doing it now and getting away with it."

[...]

Stone added that he had learned a lot from the Russian leader about how the "geopolitical balance" works in the world.

Until next week...keep on believing.
Almondtree Productions

“And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
(Revelation 12:15-17)

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