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Pope Francis celebrates five openly Marxist organizations: ‘You are…a veritable invisible army’'You are, as I said in the letter I sent you last year, a veritable invisible army; you are a fundamental part of that humanity that fights for life against a system of death,' Pope Francis told a number of openly professed Marxist groups in a video published on the Vatican News YouTube Channel. The text below is the script for the video report.(Lepanto Institute) A few weeks ago, the Lepanto Institute produced a report showing the direct connections the Vatican has with an international Communist organization called the...

Our Ever-Ready Bunny President is at it again. Tonight at Mesa, AZ. Is he the hardest working President of all time? No, he's the hardest working Federal Employee...period. Tonight's Rally is to shore up support for Martha McSally's campaign for Senate. Here's a chap on his way last night to get in line for tonight's Rally. I kid you not!

By The Editors In connection with recent congressional hearings on the problem of sexual assault in the military, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) proposed a radical restructuring of the armed forces’ judicial process. Currently, military commanders have “disposition authority” to convene courts ad hoc to dispose of criminal matters, on the theory that a commander’s duty is to maintain good order and discipline in his unit and adjudicating criminal infractions committed by his men and women falls under this aegis. Military lawyers in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAGs) serve as legal advisers to commanders; they investigate accusations of wrongdoing...

Manos: The Hands of Fate doesn't deserve to be called the worst movie ever made. It may not deserve to be called a movie at all. Manos is a weird blip in film culture, the closest thing that the B-movie world's ever had to its own butterfly effect. It was made on a bet by an El Paso insurance salesman with no filmmaking experience named Harold P. Warren, screened in a few West Texas theaters in 1966, and promptly forgotten for the better part of three decades. Then, in 1992, a couple of yahoos with a show on Comedy Central...

Even before the two hundred bullet-pierced corpses had time to stiffen, a whole crowd of “experts” showed up in all major newspapers and TV channels of three continents to tell a gullible audience that the recent murders in São Paulo and Santos, Brazil, were caused by poverty. Yes, extreme poverty bought thousands of Uzis and AK-47s and tons of ammunition, bribed hundreds of police officers and politicians, paid for the services of terrorist trainers from Spain, Cuba, Venezuela and Iran. The very leader of the rebellion, Marcos “Marcola” Camacho, admitted that the operation was prepared in close association to the...

BOGOTA - A series of recent arrests around Latin America have revealed that the FARC, Colombia's oldest and largest leftist guerrilla group, is involved in everything from political lobbying to kidnappings and drug and weapons trafficking. The discovery of links that allegedly are focused in Venezuela but extend from Argentina to Mexico has created new worries in Colombia, its immediate neighbors and other parts of Latin America. FARC leader Raúl Reyes suggested earlier this year that the rebels would try to create ''refuges of coexistence'' inside their neighbors' territories. ''The FARC hopes to build on the borders . . ....

For the past three years, an annual conference called the World Social Forum has been the biggest international gathering of radicals on earth, attended by all the leaders of the world left. Labor unions, Communist parties, non-governmental organizations, anti-globalization activists, anti-American 'peace' groups, multiple heads of state, and the representatives of armed guerilla insurgencies all gather yearly at Porto Alegre, Brazil, to make new connections and plan for the future. While the organizers of the World Social Forum claim the event is a "open meeting place" for those interested in building "a planetary society centered on the human person,"...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proclaimed to activists at the World Social Forum Sunday in Brazil, that "socialism is not dead" and announced an "agrarian revolution" in his country with the seizure of 20 million hectares (49.3 million acres). Mr. Chavez visited Lagoa dos Juncos, a ranch belonging to the MST Brazilian Landless Movement in Tapes, some 110 miles from Porto Alegre where the World Social Forum is being held. Lagoa dos Juncos is a farm which is considered a model cooperative by the MST. "For those who say that socialism is dead, here we have people proving that it did...

While the Lula government cautiously maintains a relative stability, particularly in economic matters, they are conniving with and even favoring movements and initiatives that threaten that very stability. A case in point is the complacent attitude toward the invasions of farms and the reckless disrespect for the law by the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) and the Pastoral Commission on Land (CPT). Prof. Denis Lerrer Rosenfield of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul notes that many government agencies are in cahoots with a movement trying to destroy democratic institutions. He concludes: "In fact, the present government destroys with...

<p>PARANAPOEMA, Brazil — Members of Brazil's most controversial political movement last month occupied 135 private farms — their largest action since 1998. Their leaders promise more land grabs unless the government transfers expropriated farmland to 400,000 poor families by 2006.</p>

MANGARATIBA, Brazil -- At dawn on March 20, more than 200 rural workers gathered outside a banana plantation near this verdant, oceanside village. Machetes and hoes in hand, they cut the lock on the gate, stormed the plantation driveway, and cleared the brambly undergrowth to make way for makeshift bamboo cabins. Five weeks later they are still there. Their goal: to persuade the government to take the land from its owners and give it to them instead. ''We have no other choice," said Simon Silva Vargas, 70, a day laborer who participated in the raid 62 miles south of Rio...

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Riot police used tear gas Monday to eject hundreds of squatters who had seized a vacant building in Brazil's largest city to demand the government speed up redistribution of land to the poor. Brazil's first elected leftist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, came to office 15 months ago with promises to redistribute property. But leaders of urban and rural squatter groups say his administration's efforts have fallen short. Police arrested eight people and said three suffered minor injuries after police used tear gas to flush out the squatters who broke into a vacant building...

<p>MANGARATIBA, Brazil (AP) -- Leaders of Brazil's landless movement are vowing not to give up any of the hundreds of farms seized by thousands of peasants this year.</p> <p>They also will keep pressing for sweeping reform that, if carried out, would radically change the land ownership map in Latin America's biggest country.</p>

There has been a sharp increase in the number of illegal farm seizures by landless peasants in Brazil. Across the country, more than 50 properties have been invaded since mid-March by rural people who want the government to speed up land reform. The governing Workers Party has traditionally been seen as an ally of the agrarian Movement, or MST. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has vowed to help the landless, now finds himself in an awkward position. He has announced plans to resettle more than 100,000 landless families this year - but the MST says the pace...

Landless movements throughout Brazil have launched a wave of protests and illegal property invasions to pressure the left-leaning government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president, to accelerate land reform. During the past fortnight, the MST or Landless Workers' Movement, the largest of the landless movements, invaded more than 40 rural properties, including the Veracel tree plantation in southern Bahia state, which is half-owned by Stora-Enso, the Swedish-Finnish paper company. Thousands of protesters there converted 25 hectares of tree saplings into vegetable gardens. "It's a very bad sign for investors. The government can't lose control like this," Vitor Costa,...

Brazilian students are getting restless. Classes have barely started for the year and they are already on the streets protesting against the government's economic policy. Two thousand college and high-school students went on a four-hour demonstration throughout downtown Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, this March 30. They marched through several central streets of Minas's capital city, stopping for a while in front of the Central Bank building. The protesters used the occasion to recall and lambast the 1964 military coup that started a dictatorship that lasted until 1985. This March 31, is the 40th anniversary of that coup d'état....

Brazil’s March to Socialism Gains Impetus with the Decisive Support of the “Catholic Left”A “smoke screen” of confusion in present-day Brazil masks revolutionary agitation and especially the destabilizing action of the “Catholic left” “Perhaps the greatest challenge facing our government over the next few years is getting Brazil to occupy her place in the world. However, for Brazil to take her place in the world, our people must occupy their place in Brazil. This can only happen through a great social transformation, a true social revolution. I am not afraid to say this word. We owe our people a true...

For nearly five decades the left has been trying to impose a socialist and confiscatory land reform on Brazil. From the beginning, the so-called Catholic left, and particularly the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB), has been the leading proponents and the most important driving force of that policy. With strong links to this Catholic left, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made land reform one of its main goals. For this purpose it designated Miguel Rossetto from the Workers Party's most radical wing as the Minister of Land Reform. The party also gave the government posts...

Over the last month and a half, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has suffered from declining credibility. Polls show its public approval rating down by nearly 20%. This is especially due to the government’s unequivocal association with “social movements” like the Pastoral Commission on the Land (CPT) and the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) which have openly disregarded the right of private property by invading and occupying rural and urban properties. Accompanying this considerable drop in approval is a feeling of insecurity and instability in the business community, particularly among investors. The government’s strong neo-statist...

Private property rights are under siege in Brazil. Since leftist President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva took office in January, farmland has been invaded by radical Marxist movements almost every 24 hours. Lula has turned a blind eye to farm invasions, Robert Mugabe style. Mugabe, a notorious African strongman who encouraged land invasions in Zimbabwe while declaring the “economy is the land” made good on his promise to redistribute his country’s farms. As a result, Zimbabwe’s economy, once among Africa’s strongest, is in freefall. Could this really happen in a democracy like Brazil? Occupations have spread to Brazil’s cities. On...