from Newsweek on protests about preteens removed by immigration officials.
the neighbors are protesting, the Democrats are hysterical, they are even threatening the family of the man in charge of immigration deportation.
But notice what they didn't protest?
ICE agents conducted a raid at North Harbor Dairy in Sackets Harbor, targeting an individual charged with possession of child pornography. In addition to apprehending the primary suspect, seven others were detained at a local dairy farm last month, including a mother and her three children enrolled in the local public school.
well, first of all, ICE does not prosecute child pornography. So who did the raid?
Were these children being exploited for pornography?
Why did no one of these concerned local citizens who are pushing the protest notiee that these were teenagers at risk?
Second, when there is a question about underage illegal migrants being placed with people who were not checked out, and many are now in places unknown, how and why were these kids at the farm?
Who put this family at the farm? What social service organization was involved?
Where is the details of why the raid, which was about investigating child pornography? Did anyone check the local cops?
================
related item:
🚨 #BREAKING: Florida just busted an *MASSIVE* INTERNATIONAL child p*rnagraphy ring with over 1M videos involved... including babies.
"If you are a child predator, if you are one of these sick people, then I hope you NEVER SEE THE SUN AGAIN." - FLORIDA AG
When Musk took over Twitter, he got some honest leftie journalists to check what was going on, and it was found a lot of the censorship about covid was just that: not the truth but censorship.
This upset me as a doc, since honesty is needed to figure out what works to help our patients. And to make things worse modern docs are pressured to follow guidelines to get paid (in the olden days, we had discretion on how to treat).
Well, anyway: Fast forward to DOGE.
Hmm...
anyway, the story that money was being used to get Trumpieboy into jail was well known by anyone with a brain, but the extent of corruption where an independent (sic) US government agency was pushing one political party was a bit of an eye opener.
Yes, I know: A long rant. But I try to limit my writing to things I actually know about from personal observation.
You mean that the US was promoting revolutions in other countries (and yes, by the way, trying to do the same thing in the USA? )
Well, we here in the Philippines know this: The US via the Omidyar network funded Rappler to take down Duterte, and our lovely ex-president Gloria was got out of jail via human rights organizations led by George Clooney's wife and a trial where there was a lack of evidence against her. Just don't ask how her bank account improved, and just ignore the ZTE scandal where the backstory is that this was how China tried to legally get permission to steal the petroleum under the West Philippine sea... and of course just ignore Hello Garci and the Manguindanao scandals.
this conservative Catholic commentator lists how this has corrupted the Catholic church on many levels.
At ten minutes he mentions the Anti Catholic push in Ireland: I can confirm this: My friend who lives there told me thirty years ago the plan was to get rid of the church which they saw as being in the way of their modern agenda.
Well,
He goes into more aspects of how the bureaucracy funded the Catholic social outreach. Well, the Bishop's organization has long been infiltrated with extreme lefties: Back in the 1970s the Bishops proposed unilateral nuclear disarmament. WTF? And the release of a pro gay document got lots of publicity without anyone mentioning that it was never approved by the bishops, but only by their office workers.
Oh well: No one in the US respects the bishops, with a few exceptions. I mean, it took 30 years to figure out McCarrick was corrupt, and they replaced him with Wuerl, who was in charge of Pittsburgh when everyone knew about the gay infiltration of the seminaries in several western PA diocese: indeed, anyone with gay friends knew about how a lot of priests openly cruised the gay bar scene in Pittsburgh.
I see nothing... nothing.
He is now replaced, but still influences the church. Sigh.
as for USAID: the infiltration means that the money instead of helping people is pushing an agenda, including abortion, gay rights, mass migration, and looking the other way at the drug smugglers.
the good things done are still being done, but often they are infiltrated by the agenda:
fast forward to 20 minutes to how PREPFAR is being subverted to push gay rights and birth control instead of just treating those with HIV who can't afford the expensive medicine.
Canceling USAID might stop this program that is life saving for many, and there is a lot of worry in African countries that it will cancel the program causing HIV patients not to get treatment.
here is the program in Zimbabwe. notice the part about non judgemental approach? Don't use shame to limit behavior. And often this is combined with sex education that normalizes premarital sex in high school girls: not premarriage sex, but promiscuity.
4. Made significant gains toward tackling societal challenges that impede progress in achieving
the global 10-10-102
targets, including reducing the number of countries with punitive laws
that target key populations; reducing stigma and discrimination that undermine effective
responses; and fighting gender-based inequalities and gender-based violence that put
adolescent girls and young women at increased risk for HIV.
italics mine.
translation: don't use shame and negative feed back to those whose behavior threatens the family oriented culture of their country. In other words, impose the gay rights and gender agenda (e.g. in sex education in schools, or promoting birth control in high schools).
Notice they mix the good (decrease gender based inequalities) with this. But of course the details are left out.
5. Developed benchmarks supporting an HIV response that ensures enabling policies are
adopted and implemented, and that countries and communities can lead with the capacity to
deliver prevention and treatment services through domestic systems.
which policies? Hence the push for gay rights and promoting anti family policies, (billboards, social media. sex education in schools) that push the idea that children are a burden and marriage is bad.
when you read about the Gates programs, which push life saving vaccines and treatments, just remember that Melinda Gates decided to make birth control a priority for their money.
And this taints the life saving part of the Gates Foundation: Mixing evil with good allows it to continue since good people don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. But it also leads to locals distrusting the program: hence the distrust of vaccines, which are being seen as a way for evil westerners to stop you from having children, or as a way to kill your children.
So Trumpieboy has a problem: the good things done by USAID is being used to cover using USAID to push political agenda of the international elites (and their lackies who now run the Democratic party in the USA and who have infiltrated a lot of the churches, including the Catholic church)
quick note: I worked with a lot of this when I worked in Africa, including pushing the spacing of children so that the moms could continue breast feeding for two years. Child spacing is consistent with African traditions. Teaching teenage girls with sex education in high school to use birth control and that promiscuity is okay goes against African tradition.
But I should also note that I am retired and not involved with this here in the Philippines.
Cultural note: here, gays and trans are accepted as just part of the extended family. And like second wives, they are tolerated as long as they keep their indiscretions quiet. This by the way is not true of the aggressive gay community (where a lot of foreigners cruise) in Makati. You see, the culture there is the US pushed modern gay agenda: is to flaunt it, ignore the health effects of gross promiscuity, push it as normal and insist no one tell them that certain actions are sins. (and note this agenda is not just about gays but pushing promiscuous sex as normal, never mind that many poor girls are pushed into it out of need to feed their families).
The Catholic church and most people here in the Philippines tended to look the other way at sexual sin, since the sins of corruption are a lot worse than a quiet gay having a friend or a man with a second wife who quietly pays for the upkeep of his children or a girl working as a hooker in a bar for tourists who does it to support her family.., or even when our city has a "Miss Gay Gapan" contest every year.
But things are getting worse: There is now an epidemic of children being sexually abused, especially the epidemic of on line sexual abuse by foreigners, is getting publicity too.
But what is changing this easy going approach is not just a quiet revulsion against the US pushing their gender agenda, but the huge increase in people joining Protestant churches.
----------------
update: EdwardPentin post on Professor Fonana's essay on globalism and the present day Catholic church,
I vaguely had read about the Muslim grooming gangs in the north of England: but didn't realize it was that bad.
However, I was aware that some Muslim guys (even the docs I worked with) considered all Christian girls as sluts and thought it was okay to have sex with them, even aggressively. (a relative in Canada was raped by one at her college: No he never was charged, since he claimed she came on to him and was lying, and never was punished even after she got a restraining order on him for stalking and sexual harassment that others verified he was doing).
So anyway, suddenly the British scandal about the Pakistani and Asian grooming gangs who abused young poor white girls is in the news again, with Elon Musk putting his two cents (or should I say two billion) into the discussion.
It is the holiday so I wondered why all of a sudden this (?old) scandal exploded: Is it anti immigrant prejudice (I hope not: We have Filipino relatives there who are now proud UK citizens, but still are obviously not Anglo ethnics). Or is it about an aggressive Islam? The groomers were mainly Pakistani Muslims, yet one wonders why those from the same area and presumably the same culture who are Hindu or Sikh are not involved. Then you have the question: Are these guys immigrants, or second generation types who were inflamed by (Saudi fundamentalist) preachers at local mosques who teach hatred?
Don't ask me.
Presumably the resentment against Muslim immigrants came to a head was because of the attack on young girls at a dance class, where the UK government tried to cover it up and said the perpetrator was a Welshman Christian, when it turned out he was the child of African immigrants and had lots of jihadi stuff in his possession.
Then the government started arresting parents protesting, probably because the good old boys there who tend to be rowdy, were threatening to the innocent or something.
So anyway, after that, the party in power got booted out and another party took over.
Yeah. The Labour party loves the working class, right?
So why is the story of the grooming gangs blowing up again? Maybe new reports? Maybe because one extremist who had a film about it was jailed? Anyone? Anyone.
Canadian journalist David Warren (who also writes on culture on the Catholic Thing) mentions what was the problem:
...the British prime minister, Keir Starmer... rose to power as the prosecutor protecting Muslim “grooming gangs,” and now puts people in gaol who protest on behalf of their rape and murder victims.
The idea that Mr Starmer should have a rôle in the government of a civilized country, is as absurd as the idea that the 14-year-old narcissist who has ruled Canada, or the 82-year-old senescent who has ruled the United States...
Ms Oliver, who now runs a foundation supporting abuse victims, said that, while previous inquiries had led nowhere, she did believe it was now time for a fresh independent investigation into grooming.
She added that as a former DPP, Sir Keir had to bear some responsibility for the widespread failure to bring those responsible to justice.
Writing on X, she said: “Those leading these ‘enquiries’ have always wanted to cover up the truth, to hide it. And I’d say it’s become even worse in recent months with those who dare to speak out finding themselves in prison within a couple of days… when victims wait 6/7/8 years for a trial! Corrupt and just wrong....
so who in the USA is pushing the UK to investigate the story?
...Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman urged Mr Trump to “consider appropriate sanctions against the UK” over its handling of the grooming scandal. ....
He wrote on X: “Who was the head of the CPS when rape gangs were allowed to exploit young girls without facing justice? Keir Starmer, 2008–2013.
“Who is the boss of Jess Phillips right now? Keir Stamer
Here is a discussion by some well known podcasters (lotuseaters) of what is going on:
,
sigh.
update: From another popular podcast, triggernometry:
====================
this wouldn't be the first time the elites ignored injustice against normal people in the UK, and then tried to block inquiries.
It brings to mind the Post Office Scandal, where a computer software glitch caused many ordinary people running post offices to be accused of theft.
The Real Story chronicled sub-postmaster Alan Bates’s legal battle against the Post Office, which had falsely accused him and some 3,500 others of defrauding the UK’s postal service.
Following the airing of the four-part mini-series, the number of signatures on a long-running petition calling for an official honour to be stripped from former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells rocketed to more than one million.
what both these scandals have in common is that years later, it was the small people who stubbornly pushed for justice who finally got a smidgen of justice.
as the African proverb warns: Even a small snake has a fang.
Alas, so far the ones who should have stopped these things are still free and have never been punished.
--------------------
Hirsi Ali discusses the culture. In her biography she discusses the threats to women. It is not just in Islam, but universal in many primitive cultures that sees raping a woman from a different and inferior culture as okay.
What stops this in many cultures is not just keeping women in the homes and veiled, but the knowledge that if you harm a woman, her brothers will punish you. Vigilante justice.
But in Muslim majority cultures, often the court system looks the other way when Christian or Hindu girls are kidnapped, forced to convert and to marry her rapist.
But in the UK, this was not forced marriage but grooming for prostitution. And alas they often came from dysfunctional families and were vulnerable because of widespread use of drugs.
The problem in the UK is not just the culture of south Asian Muslims, but the culture of the liberals who didn't want to insult Islamic immigrants, so gave them a pass on their crimes.
a swift punishment of the perpetrators, plus an outreach to the local religious leaders, would have stopped it. But this was not done.
it is a worldwide problem: the background is the idea that women from an inferior group are fair game: in Europe, it explains upper class men raping rural women or seducing servant or shop women, in India, it means rape of women from lower castes, in the past in the Southern USA it meant black women, in today's USA it often preys on runaway girls or in more recent years, immigrant women, in some areas it means Native American women.
The Laken Riley Act would require the Department of Homeland Security to take into custody undocumented immigrants who have been charged with theft and other crimes.
Riley was raped and killed by an illegal immigrant while jogging.
In this painful moment of paying off the debt of sin, Catholics also have to forgive the Church. We let go of our anger for the evils committed. We pray for the repentance of the guilty. We pay our money to facilitate healing and reconciliation.
Perhaps financial reckoning can be a turning point for the Church in America. The lay faithful can decide to come forward not with clenched fists, but with open wallets so they can help the Church compensate victims and then move forward to live the Gospel with zeal.
translation: pay up sucker.
it wasn't just LA nor did the failure to investigate and demand accountability stop at the Diocese level: in San Francisco, Kamela Harris decided not to prosecute these cases when she was the DA.
I remain a Catholic because most of our priests and bishops and layfolk are good. I am angry about this because it is criminals/sociopaths/narcissitic manipulators who see good people and churches as an easy mark: so they steal, abuse kids, get cushy jobs, etc. and they don't care.
This is why the good and merciful Jesus recommended millstones for such people: yes forgive them if they repent, but often their repentence is a sham so they can go back to their exploitation of the good.
The singers insist the song is all about tolerance, so who dare to object unless one is a evil right wing bigot (or a parent who objects to the toxic sexual waste that is being pushed onto their children by the cultural elites).
those charming singers would never really harm your child. It's a satire, right? so don't be a bigot and object.
this is a song glorifying the fact that the American culture is busy normalizing any and all sexual activity, and is teaching indoctrinating children into sexuality at an early age.
First you remove the taboo in discussing it, then you hint it's okay, then you print propaganda stories making it sympathetic, then you decriminalize it as "consensual", then you stigmatize those who criticize it as bigots.
Got it.
Update Daily Wire via Tea At Trionon points out how the sex education trends are leading to children being sexualized and easily recruited, and suspects the porn epidemic is part of the reason.
Ballard noted that by exposing children to sexualized materials, government schools are employing the same tactics as traffickers.
“Candace and I talked about teachers who are now teaching children to masturbate and to learn terms like ‘clitoris’ and ‘erection.’ As I said to Candace, this is exactly what the traffickers are trying to do to children. If they can get access, they will try to desensitize them by showing them sexual things. Now they have teachers doing it for them… you’re just softening up these children and making them ripe for victimhood.”
“Or, you teach them that sexuality is so okay that a fourteen-year-old on Instagram is showing as much skin as they can,” he continued. “If you’re paying attention, there are traffickers commenting under the photos. ‘Hey, you’re so beautiful, why don’t you come to a photoshoot?’ That’s how they’re recruiting kids into trafficking.”
“Anyone that’s pushing that mentality — especially in public education — the reader can decide who’s doing that,” remarked Ballard. “Whoever’s doing that is on the wrong side of history.” (Read more.)
I am old enough to remember when Germany's green party attempted to legalize sex with children by lowering the age of consent.... and Johns Hopkins had a clinic where two prominent physicians insisted that folks having sex with children needed to be treated, not jailed (1992 article here).
The idea is if a type of sexual activity is being done by some folks, then hey, don't be judgemental.
And the dirty little secret is that there is something attractive about the pubescent innocent (of both sexes, but especially of pubescent boys in the gay community) that attracts some people, so some argue since this is a fact, we should tolerate such behavior.
And hey, the kids like it (so a Project Sigma report in 1993 said 35 percent of male gays had intercourse below age 15, including ten percent under age 10 but hey, that didn't mess them us psychologically so stop worrying.. and one suspects the numbers are much higher nowadays, since fatherless boys are now more common in society and fatherless boys are especially vulnerable to being groomed).
That was the story we were taught in medical school back in the early 1970s. Freudian theory and Kinsey affirmed it.
... until the victims grew up and blew the whistle.
italics mine.
Summary here does note that the statistics might be too low because most cases of sexual abuse are not reported. From shame, from denial, or because they are told that their reality isn't true.
When monsters roam free, we assume that people in positions of authority ought to be able to catch them if only they did their jobs. But that might be wishful thinking. A pedophile... is someone adept not just at preying on children but at confusing, deceiving, and charming the adults responsible for those children.
So am I a bigot to worry that this song is just another MSM and internet manipulation to desensitize you?
Too many examples out there, but mostly on right wing sites like the Washington Post editorial who says hey, letting kids see the perverts acting out sexually during a parade is okay, or the LATimes spins a story as transphobia in their report that Antifa is attacking women who object to a pervert exposing himself in a woman's spa by pretending to be a lady, or good morning America and other MSM outlets promoting gay child drag queens on stage.
you know, a lot of us opposed the sexualization of little girls on stage and screen, something the Ramsey murder brought to our attention. So how is this good for children?
the full court press to ridicule the traditional morals of the world (not just Christians, but Confucian ethics, Islamic ethics, and the ethics of many traditional religions oppose this type of behavior).
So we see stuff like the "football is gay" meme being lauded in the MSM as something to be celebrated, which made me think: Uh, Joe Paterno?
And I thought WTF, until I remembered how the local Altoona diocese in the 1990s and early 2000s promoted gay friendly policies: the psychologist who screened our seminarians told the State College school board that the gay agenda was not a problem, and we had lots of articles supporting the gay agenda in the diocesan newspaper .... LINK..., and fired priests who objected. Penn State is located within that diocese, and it's gay friendly outreach might have led to the failure of Catholics at Penn State to ignore the Sandusky incident in 2002.
Sigh.
As this column in the NYPost notes that minorities who are traditional Democratic voters are pushing back the agenda of the elites (who now run the Democratic party and who are fighting the Trumpieboy led populist takeover of that party).
and all of this might be the reason behind the uberreaction of the snowflakes about "micro aggression", which is often pushback after these folks have been gaslighted by authority figures. (and alas sometimes it is fantasy or attention getting behavior or suffering from low self esteem and adjustment issues so are exaggerating their experiences to fit into the latest social fad).
So we see kids, especially celebrity's kids go from proclaiming they are gay to proclaiming they are "pansexual" to proclaiming they are transgender... and now they claim they are "Demisexual".
Demisexual people only feel sexually attracted to someone when they have an emotional bond with the person. They can be gay, straight, bisexual, or pansexual, and may have any gender identity. ..
Demisexual people do not feel primary attraction — the attraction you feel to someone when you first meet them. They only feel secondary attraction — the type of attraction that happens after knowing someone for a while.
In other words, if you don't immediately see a person as a sexual object and feel you have to jump into bed with them, you now have your own psychiatric desription.
And I'm old enough to remember when that was normal.
Long but important for Catholics.
Watch before Youtube pulls it...
the timing of this is that the Catholic bishops are meeting again, and many want to compromise with the world's ideas: Can't we just all get along, fellas?
GetReligion blog discusses some of the issues which pertain to US politics. LINK
but it is interesting that it was McCarrick, now known to be a sexual predator, who promulgated the idea in the USA that it was okay to allow people promoting sin in politics to receive communion.
Unlike Protestants, Catholics believe that the Eucharist is Jesus. And Paul stresses that those unworthy should refrain from receiving.
This is about ignoring the reality that abortion destroys a child: by changing the language used in the discussion, it allows them to pretend abortion is about "choice" and freedom (something actually celebrated at the Democratic convention, even though most Americans see it as a form of taking life, albeit they would allow it in hard cases). And now the US is pushing abortion aggressively: Trying to force medical personnel and institutions to do abortions and surgery on transsexuals.
And the US (and the UN and NGOs funded by millionaires who want to limit population) have long been pressuring countries to promote sexual freedom, including homosexual rights, on conservative countries such as the Philippines, Muslim countries, and in Africa. This pressure is now getting stronger in the Biden administration.
And although I did read that the US Supreme court did just say that when Philadelphia ordered Catholic adoption organizations to let gays adopt that this was against the first amendment, one should note that the court cases still are coming against institutions that prohibit certain behaviors (not sexual orientation, but behaviors).and as GetReligion points out, you won't find an unbiased coverage of this in the MSM. LINK
as for the priest's discussion.
Father Z says he knows of such priests (many of whom support the Latin mass). Strict priests often cause liberal activists to complain to the bishop: but you know, when ordinary folk complain about twisting or ignoring dogma, nothing usually happens.
I lived in Altoona a few years before that horrible report about the diocese came out.
But we all knew what was going on. Many stopped going to church, others drifted over to the local Orthodox church.
Bishop Wuerl, who is now a bigshot in the church, was working then in Pittsburgh didn't notice any problems. (while promoting a "sex ed" class in Catholic schools that many parents objected to).
As for the story of the priest that he was molested as he slept: male rape is notoriously under reported. LINK
We had two employees abused this way at the farm, and the abuser claims it was okay because they were gay and probably wanted it.
Sigh.
as a female physician, I saw girls who were abused, and yes, it is much more common than male abuse. But most victims here were men, and that is the elephant in the room.
---------------
update: Father Z discusses the heart of the problem: 75 percent of self defined "catholics" don't believe that Jesus is in the Eucharist.
and 25 percent of the bishops don't think this is a problem.
For those of us who believe, we can only lament the problem and remember how Flannery O'Connor once sarcastically corrected a non believing cradle Catholic:
...she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, 'Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it.' That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable."
-----------------
update: GetReligion summarizes the press coverage of this, citing the history of what is happening, the history of bishops actually excommunicating those who oppose them and the (proud unrepentant) Democrats who say they will diss the bishops and defund the church for not receiving the sacraments.
Uh, what part of "Non Serviam" do you not understand.
I am old enough to remember that JFK went to mass but didn't receive the sacraments.
You can be a sinner and go to church, as do many divorced folks, gays struggling with SSA, drug abusers, or just plain grumpy people with a bad temper do...because they are seeking God but unable to overcome their sins... but here they want to tell the church how to run things, and this is wrongheaded.
Source, The Intercept, which is funded by Omidyar, the same guy who funded the anti Duterte site Rappler here and got their editor in trouble after she tried to coverup foreign funding, and whose manipulation of the press in the Ukraine got rid of their corrupt pro Russian president and replaced him with a corrupt pro American president. their first big story was about Snowden. I'm not sure if this makes him right or left wing, or just an all around troublemaker against those who abuse human rights. more at Breitbart
Zach Hiner, the executive director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), corroborated the bombshell details about Harris revealed by Breitbart News Senior Contributor Peter Schweizer in his book Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite.Linking to a video by The Intercept that profiles Harris’s conduct as San Francisco’s district attorney, Hiner said: Senator Kamala Harris, as the District Attorney of San Francisco, chose to ignore an opportunity in 2004 to continue the work of her predecessor, Terence Hallinan, who was compiling dossiers about abuse in the Archdiocese of San Francisco with the intention of investigating and cracking down on that archdiocese. Despite the work that Hallinan had done, when Harris assumed office she stopped cooperating with victims and chose not to prosecute a single abusive priest.
and follow the money:
The author detailed that while Harris’s predecessor, former San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, had launched an aggressive investigation into priests of the Archdiocese of San Francisco accused of sexual abuse, Harris’s campaign to unseat Hallinan showed an unusual influx of unparalleled donations from high-level officials of the Catholic Church. In addition to campaign donations from multiple law firms defending San Francisco priests against abuse claims, Schweizer observed that “board members of San Francisco Catholic archdiocese-related organizations and their family members donated another $50,950 to Harris’s campaign.” As Schweizer noted, Harris’s ties to those working to block exposure of the archdiocese’s secret documents containing information about priests accused of sexual abuse were extensive.
but never mind: Dilbert says she is essentially running for president and could win becase of her personality and of course demographic correctness. Don't ask me. I have stopped watching the news and only know about these rumors because I used to live in Altoona and keep an eye on the Catholic church abuser problem. Heck, sometimes I even hold my nose and watch Michael Voris to find out the latest rumors.
Sexual assault rate for women was at the highest level, 6%, since 2006. The rate ranged from 4% in the Air Force to 11% in the Marine Corps.
The odds of a woman experiencing a sexual assault were highest for the youngest women – from 17 to 20 years old. Those odds were 1 in 8.
In 96% of the cases the alleged offender was a man. The offender most often was one person (64%), a military member (89%) and a friend or acquaintance (62%).
Nearly 1 in 4 of all women experienced an “unhealthy climate” because of sexual harassment, which was up in the survey. About 16% of all women faced an "unhealthy climate" because of gender discrimination, also up.
so there is a #MeToo problem for women in the military. Is this being made worse by the integration of women into a unisex military? Or it is because the Victorian ideas that men must respect women are gone with the wind, thanks to the sexual revolution? I don't know. However, it's not just women. A few days ago, the NYTimes had a report about men who were sexually assaulted.
SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THE MILITARY is a problem widely recognized but poorly understood. Elected officials and Pentagon leaders have tended to focus on the thousands of women who have been preyed upon while in uniform. But over the years, more of the victims have been men.
On average, about 10,000 men are sexually assaulted in the American military each year, according to Pentagon statistics. Overwhelmingly, the victims are young and low-ranking.
Many struggle afterward, are kicked out of the military and have trouble finding their footing in civilian life.
For decades, the fallout from the vast majority of male sexual assaults in uniform was silence: Silence of victims too humiliated to report the crime, silence of authorities unequipped to pursue it, silence of commands that believed no problem existed, and silence of families too ashamed to protest.
When I was in medical school, the book Lolita was used to prove very young girls could seduce men and enjoy it. Never mind they were too young to understand the implications and dangers of underage sex. Never mind that often they were looking for attention or love they weren't getting at home and would fall for any sweet talker. It wasn't until I read "Reading Lolita in Tehran" that I realized that the book was written by a controlling manipulating pedophile trying to justify himself. One doesn't have to be a marxist SJW to recognize this is evil. And yes, I've treated such girls: Too often they end up messed up and promiscuous, often on drugs, having multiple abortions, and without serf respect. Sigh. One of the reasons people are leaving the Catholic church is the abuse crisis: But what if the real crisis is that of a collapse of morality in all institutions, not just the church, but schools (an overlooked problem) and those who are respected in politics and the media? So the Epstein scandal is probably going to be big: because it's not just Hollywood Babylon, but about people who are respected in the media and politics. Think "ME TOO" squared. Epstein endictment here. from the (right wing) Spectator: wondering why Epstein got a light sentence in his previous conviction, goes on to wonder why his behavior continued with so few upset about it:
The most obvious one about the 2019 case is ‘why the hell did it take so long?’ Wasn’t it common knowledge among Manhattan’s rich and famous that Epstein was constantly flying young women (some allegedly underage) to his mansion in Palm Beach and his island hideaway? Didn’t people call the Caribbean estate ‘orgy island‘? Wasn’t his private jet known as ‘The Lolita Express’?
I’m not saying these should have been hints, but…
As blogger David Burge put it, ‘It’s always the billionaire convicted pedo with private Lolita Express jets to his own orgy island that you least expect.’ Droll but accurate. How did the Department of Justice manage to miss this ongoing scandal for years?
In 2008, Epstein and the Miami US attorney’s office, which was led by Alexander Acosta, now US labor secretary, reached a non-prosecution deal that ended a federal sexual abuse investigation involving at least 40 teenage girls. ...
Acosta has defended his role in abandoning a more than 50-page federal indictment, saying at a House education and labor committee hearing in May: “This matter was appealed all the way up to the deputy attorney general’s office. And not because we weren’t doing enough, but because the contention was that we were too aggressive.”
yup. Back then giving a couple months in jail to a VIP who abused 40 girls was "too aggressive"... the present case seems to be about cases in the early 2000s. Yet much of the Lolita express is much, much more recent. so is this all about the stuff 13 year ago, or more recent stuff? And will someone actually be allowed to be aggressive this time?
Or is is about destroying Trumpieboy? And although the Guardian quotes Trump on Epstein liking younger girls, they aren't noticing that according to the NYPost in 2007 he banned Epstein from his resort for hitting on a young employee, (more at right wing blog here), even (left wing) Snopes says stories on Trumpieboy are distorted. but never mind. -------------- the Ebook of Reading Lolita in Tehran can be found at internet archives LINK
I lived in the Altoona diocese during the 1990s and know a lot of people who lost their faith when they found out boys were being abused. Two comments on this video: One: Note they said the problem with priests is better since the 2002 guidelines were passed: the problem now is the bishops and higherups.) I can't comment on this, since I moved to the Philippines in the early 2000s. Two: They discuss that the PA state report is exaggerated. This also is probably true. 30 year old cases before 1980 are hard to prove. Back then we docs were told by "experts" not to report sexual abuse to the authorities. Under Freudian theory, these were considered as fantasies. (and some were: The McMartin preschool case is one example on how you can induce false memories into vulnerable people) Another problem: Back in the 1980s, California decided they shouldn't jail non violent cases of sexual abuse. then things changed. I have examined quite a few girls and women who had been sexually abused back then, because before 1990 there were few women docs around in our rural area. So most of the cases I saw were referred to me by social service to be checked, and I found half were false alarms or minor things and probably never got referred...but I saw quite a few cases... at least one horrific case blamed the wrong man to protect a relative who was doing the abuse. Several cases were fathers or step fathers who "Groomed" them. These were "non violent sexual abuse", not rape (of which I saw quite a few cases too). But all of the victims told me that the court case, and being cross examined and having their words twisted in front of the jury, was worse than the actual abuse. so there was a reason that a lot of the bishops didn't report these cases to the cops. And of course back then, the psychiatrists often told the bishops that it was a "lapse" by a good priest (who had fallen in love with a special person), so don't ruin his life by shaming him: Treat him and place him in a different parish where he can go back to worse. this worked for true lapses: But what happened was the sociopaths took over, and those who might have remained pure under social pressure now lived in a society where the lapses were seen as okay or even good. (the same thing happened in the past to the church: St Peter Damian noticed the compassion led to complete breakdown here, and overreacted the other way). Sigh... I couldn't stop abuse of employees that happened in our business, so how can I point fingers at strangers? Sigh. In my prayers...
Austin Bay on the National Security impact of the Muller investigations. he notes how the president could compartmentalize the kerfuffle so it didn't harm national security:
...thanks to Trump's ability to focus, at the operational level I don't think American national security has suffered much. World leaders, whether friendly or adversarial, see Trump as an American president willing to act and use America's vast powers with savvy.
However, it did have national security implications against the civil rights of American citizens.
Hard evidence exists that a serious national security crime was committed during the election and early 2017. Trump and his campaign were spied upon, not by foreign adversaries but by America's security agencies. Moreover, criminals in these agencies colluded with media compadres to mislead the American people.
The security agency corruption and media collusion produced a cold, hard totalitarian horror committed in and against America, the world's paramount democracy.
Officials have warned for years that the electric grid is not safe from an EMP attack — either one from a solar flare or a nuclear attack from countries with EMP weapons, including Iran, North Korea, China and Russia.
A congressional report warned that an EMP attack on the East Coast would kill 90 percent of those in the area over a year due to the lack of food, money, fuel, electricity, and medical care.
and not just an act of war: Solar flares can damage the grid too: like the 1989 solar flare that took out Quebec's electric grid... ------------------------
Cardinal Daneels who just died was not just a force behind the "st gallens mafia" that conspired to elect Pope Francis, but he was also one of the big shots behind a plot trying to change church teachings by a slight of hand in the 2015 synod on the family. But has anyone noticed how he might have promoted pedophilia in many ways? GetReligion has the story and links. Caution: Strong stuff there in a "sex ed" manual that normalized child sex a la Kinsey. sigh. Ah, the good old 1970s and 1980s.....And I am old enough to remember this was also the position of the German "green" party, being pushed by certain experts in the UK, and we as medical students in the early 1970s were told it was normal and good, not to mention that California essentially decriminalized "non violent" sex offense by refusing to jail the perverts, which resulted in some very terrible crimes and a backlash... and the present day emphasis on keeping them in jail and watching them when released. 2007 article in the NYTimes discusses the problem. when you read about African or Islamic countries who put Homosexuals to death, in many cases you are overlooking that these laws are about pederasty and sexual exploitation of children of both sexes, not about quiet consensual adult relationships. ------------------------------ Herodatus was again proven correct: this time about boat construction techniques in ancient Egypt.
Michael Jackson is beloved here in the Philippines, where androgenous entertainers are no big deal and where music and dancing is king.
So the latest HBO special that claims he was a pedophile is big news here. since sexual abuse of all sorts, including sex tourism that preys on young boys and the suspicion of a lot of priests who have girlfriends or abused young men is commonly believed, one would expect many in the Philippines would believe, alas, that their idol was an evil man. I haven't seen the whole program, but from short takeouts, it seems he treated the boys and their families to trips, gifts, etc. and after befriending them, gradually increased the movement to full abuse. In normal people, this is called courting, and the aim is marriage. In abnormal people, this is called grooming of a victim, and it is of course worse if the victim is underaged or not recognizing that a line has been crossed. The problem is worse than rape per se: Stranger rape is terrible, but the guilt accompanying the episode can be worked with by a psychologist until they recognize they did not consent and nothing they did could have changed things. But when a person has been groomed, there is partial "consent" and often sexual enjoyment, both of which leads to ambivalent feelings and guilt and later, deep anger when the person grows up and realizes it was not a loving relationship but that they "fell" for the strategy of a sociopath who only wanted to use them. Often the sociopath is a "nice guy" (or sometimes a "nice girl") and so it is hard for outsiders to believe the accusations, and given the number of false accusations out there, especially when money can be easily gotten for a good acting job.
sigh. and one wonders how many more stories will come out of Hollywood, stories that will make the "catholic crisis" look minor in comparison. Will I watch the film? Maybe when it hits HBO here. But I've treated a lot of young girls who were sexually abused by relatives, including their fathers, so I might give the show a pass.
Father Z rants against the propaganda, and notes: it's not about clearing up abuse but to push an agenda, sigh. And he is critical about a book that just happened to be released in time for the summit that exaggerates the number of gays in the Vatican (a problem but not that bad), (and I have read elsewhere that the book deliberately tries to paint all the bishops trying to stop the Pope's minions push into heresy are all closet homosexuals.) As I pointed out in a previous post, Andrew Greeley, a trained sociologist, noted the huge numbers were pushed by those with an agenda.the number of gay priests is exaggerated by those with an agenda, and not only are the numbers lower than often claimed, but most priests keep their vows.
(i.e. 70 percent were heterosexual, and only 16percent were homosexuals) and that most of them keep their vows of celibacy. (72% of priests are celibate heterosexuals and 10 percent are celibate homosexuals, and 18 percent admit they don't keep their vows, but only 3% are actively pushing to get rid of celibacy).
presumably the NYTimes propaganda piece didn't bother to check with any of the priests that keep their vows; and it doesn't bode well that the up coming summit has Manila's Cardinal Tagle as one of the leaders: It's long been rumored he is running for Pope. Everyone here laughs when Duterte says he should stop putting his nose into politics and instead clean up the corruption in the church. my point: Corruption happens, and one is happy to clean it up, and if it takes the MSM, some aggressive D.A.'s. and the Catholic blogosphere, good. but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater: There are still a lot of good priests and bishops out there. And stop using the sins of the church as an excuse to "reform" or rather deform the church into Anglican lite, a church of mush and feel good social work that has little to do with Jesus Christ, traditional morality or how ordinary people serve God in the duties of their daily life ------------------------ Professor Leon Podles, who wrote a book about the abuse crisis, notes that the problem with Pope Francis is that he is inconsistant.
Because Francis is erratic, he has not established a clear policy to deal with sexual abuse; he has lessened the penalties that abusers received under Pope Benedict. Since there is not clear policy, one cannot even object to it. One day he lets an abuser function as a priest; the next day he defrocks McCarrick. It all depends the whim and mood of the day. I have little or no hope that any clear and consistent policy about sexual abuse will be established as long as Francis is pope.
When the gaslighting starts, you might even feel guilty for doubting a person you’ve come to trust. .... You get temporary reassurance, but you increasingly doubt your own senses, ignore your gut, and become more confused.
The person gaslighting you might act hurt and indignant or play the victim when challenged or questioned. Covert manipulation can easily turn into overt abuse, with accusations that you’re distrustful, ungrateful, unkind, overly sensitive, dishonest, stupid, insecure, crazy, or abusive. Abuse might escalate to anger and intimidation with punishment, threats, or bullying if you don’t accept the false version of reality.
PBS Frontline has an episode about a Pediatrician on an Indian reservation who got away with abusing young boys for years, and after he was under suspicion at one reservation hospital, merely transferred to another one without problem. LINK
I bring this up for several reasons. One is, of course, because of the headlines on clergy sexual abuse. Yes, it happens, but it also happens with physicians, social workers and (an unreported story) in public schools. And of course, most cases are by friends or family members. Second: Like the scandal about pedophile priests, the accused physician was transferred after vague accusations that couldn't be proven. Later, please note that one other employee who accused him ended up transferred. This also is why many hesitate to report suspicions. Third: the boys are at high risk: often they need personal attention which they don't get at home so are easy for predators to attract and groom children. Most of the Indian children now attended local schools thanks to buses and roads, but Indian children in the past were forced to attend boarding schools, and there were major abuse scandals in such schools. Author Michael O'Brien, who attended a residential school in Canada, describes how one predator groomed the young boys in his boarding school. LINK... (because he refused the invitations they harassed him.) One reason adults get away with such things is that children don't report it, and often the predator presents the appearance of a "good guy" who nobody wants to suspect of doing such thing (and often normal people just can't imagine such evil things are going on). Without physical evidence, how does one prove it, when the boys or girls won't complain and the perpetrator claims innocence? And remember: False claims do exist, for revenge, or to get money. so those who suspect but can't prove abuse often are helpless to stop a predator who claims innocence. Again, a good film that shows the dilemma of someone who suspects a pedophile but the evidence is ambiguous and is met with the claims of innocence by the perpetrator is the film "Doubt". Four: the IHS is often a hard place to work: land there is a chronic physician shortage. So some physicians who apply for work are substandard but hired anyway. My favorite story is from the 1980s, when one older physician who had good credentials and came to work for one hospital in our area after his wife left him. He settled in and got engaged and decided to sell his house in New Jersey. Bad decision: before the new tenants moved in, the cops asked the new tenants if they could dig up the new deck he had installed, and sure enough they found his wife's body. The locals commented (with wry humor): well, he was a good doctor. Overwork is common, not all treatments are available and transfer to a specialist takes time and paperwork, In 2000, we had to shut our hospital down for a week when the heating system caught fire; at that hospital, we had no lab at night, and for three months in the middle of winter, we had to send people 30 miles to a civilian hospital for a routine x ray because it takes so long to do the paperwork to hire someone and there was no money in the budget to hire temporary help. X rays were sent out and took a day or more for official reports, and sometimes longer. We had no Ultrasounds and CT scans, so again there were delays in non emergency cases to get them scheduled at our referral hospital. Specialist care outside the IHS system is often turned down for lack of funding if it is not "urgent", and even when you get an appointment, the patients end up not going to the appointment. Overturn of medical personnel at many of the hospitals is high: And one of the physicians who documented the problem was eased out of his job. Not all doctors are good at understanding different cultures and don't adjust. It takes awhile for patients to trust you. If you have young children, there are no decent schools for your children, and if you are a female doctor, no one is there to date or socialize with. For gay personnel, things are worse: In many tribes there is homophobia. In summary: the IHS has very real problems, but I think Frontline is overdoing it when they blame the IHS for overlooking a predator: because the real problem is that such sexual predators are hard to detect and prosecute. update: the full video is now on Youtube:
