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Beijing’s latest missive on trade issues struck a newly measured tone, despite accusing Washington of scuttling negotiations. After weeks of escalating trade tensions with the U.S., China modulated its rhetoric, suggesting negotiations remain a priority and laying out conditions for doing so. A government policy paper on trade issues with the U.S. released Sunday accused Washington of scuttling the negotiations, which broke down in all but name last month. It said the Trump administration’s “America First” program and use of tariffs are harming the global economy and that China wouldn’t shy away from a trade war if need be.

“When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee” (Proverbs 2:12).

POSTED ON JUNE 1, 2019 BY MSGR. CHARLES POPE What Does the Ascension Accomplish for Us? A Homily for the Feast of the Ascension This marvelous feast is not merely about something that took place two thousand years ago, for although Christ our Head has ascended, we the members of His body are ascending with Him. Because He ascended, we too have ascended. In my own life as a Christian, I am brought higher every year by the Lord, who is drawing me up with Him. This is not some mere slogan; it is something I am actually experiencing. An...

Pope Francis said he has always been a doctrinal conservative and takes accusations of being a heretic with a grain of salt. “I have always defended doctrine,” the pope told Mexican reporter Valentina Alazraki in a lengthy interview released Tuesday by Vatican News. “I am a conservative.” Asked how he reacts to being called a heretic, the pope said he takes it “with a sense of humor.” Just weeks ago, a group of 19 Catholics, including clergy and scholars, questioned the pope’s theological orthodoxy, accusing him of “heresy” in an open letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church. “I...

Popular admin tool shifts to .Net Core 3.0 amid talk of future features Microsoft on Thursday released a preview version of PowerShell 7, its command-line shell and scripting language for administrators. The software was once was limited to Windows but opened up to Linux (including arm64) and macOS three years ago.Steve Lee, principal software engineering manager, announced the software's availability in conjunction with a roadmap of future features. He said the next preview release will follow in accordance with the established monthly release cadence; preview 2 is expected mid-July.The full list of changes has been posted on GitHub, a recently...

t cannot be emphasized too often: Russiagate—allegations that the American president has been compromised by the Kremlin, which may even have helped to put him in the White House—is the worst and (considering the lack of actual evidence) most fraudulent political scandal in American history. We have yet to calculate the damage Russsiagate has inflicted on America’s democratic institutions, including the presidency and the electoral process, and on domestic and foreign perceptions of American democracy, or on US-Russian relations at a critical moment when both sides, having “modernized” their nuclear weapons, are embarking on a new, more dangerous, and largely...

All your interests are belong to us…. There was previous discussion of how Beijing would respond if/when their economic interests were challenged. In essence, the prediction was that China would drop the panda mask and revert back to their oppressive totalitarian tendencies.It is an interesting dynamic because the more the communist state moves to punish and control western business interests, the less likely any western investment flows into China. It’s a simple question: Why would anyone want to engage a business relationship inside a totalitarian system that could move at any moment to control your business? (South China Post) China...

President Trump Sunday derided Mexico's effort to negotiate away his threat to impose 5% tariffs, calling the nation an "abuser" of the United States and declaring, "America has had enough." “People have been saying for years that we should talk to Mexico. The problem is that Mexico is an 'abuser' of the United States, taking but never giving. It has been this way for decades," Trump said on Twitter. "Either they stop the invasion of our Country, "[W]hich they can do very easily, or our many companies and jobs that have been foolishly allowed to move South of the Border,...

In common parlance, a made man is someone whose path to success was greased by circumstances. It also refers to someone formally inducted as a full member of a criminal outfit -- the Mafia. In the political atmosphere in which Robert Mueller was born, he, like John Kerry, was virtually assured of a prestigious place in society: He was a tall white man with a hatchet jaw who (like his classmate Kerry) went to an expensive private school – St. Paul’s -- and came from a well-connected and well-off family. His wife, Ann Cabell Standish Mueller, is related to Charles...

I never called Meghan Markle “nasty.” Made up by the Fake News Media, and they got caught cold! Will @CNN, @nytimes and others apologize? Doubt it!

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Old Testament) 1 Kings 8 The Ark Brought to the Temple 8 Then King Solomon summoned into his presence at Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Zion, the City of David. 2 All the Israelites came together to King Solomon at the time of the festival in the month of Ethanim, the seventh month. 3 When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark, 4 and they brought up the...

DRAPER — A driver told authorities he intentionally struck an 11-year-old girl on a scooter "because she was white," according to report released Saturday by the Draper Police Department.The report said the driver, Steven Becky, was described by officers on the scene as "engaging in erratic behavior. The behavior was described as uncooperative, aggressive, and non-sympathetic toward the child victim."

Elizabeth Warren, the fake Indian, has an annoying yet revealing verbal tic –whenever she’s about to tell a lie, she prefaces her whopper with the word “So.” I think it’s safe to say Lieawatha had at best a so-so performance Friday morning on The Breakfast Club, a syndicated black radio show out of New York. The Breakfast Club is one of those media outlets where Democrat candidates go to grovel. In 2016, Hillary Clinton used the popular program to spin her own preposterously tall tale about carrying a bottle of “hot sauce” in her purse. Friday, the fake Indian figured...

Three major developments happened over the weekend. All bode well for President Donald Trump and that dirty word "nationalism." You know what "nationalism" really means? It's pretty simple. You're a patriot. You love your country and your family. You want to keep your children safe at night. And you don't want your country or culture to commit mass suicide. I call that common sense. Recently, I reported Trump-like candidates were winning all over the world. Don't look now, but it happened again. Nationalism routed globalism all over Europe this past weekend. Trump-like nationalist candidates swept to victories in the United...

Insensitive, hard-nosed male legislators, in a score of state legislatures, are involved in passing bans with draconian punishment of doctors on the abortion of fetuses with a heartbeat. They hope that these extreme laws will impel the Supreme Court to take up and possibly overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision. I am a 93-year-old retired Catholic priest with terminal cancer. I believe that I must speak the truth in love to the above male leaders and their followers. ... I have been very angry at both the extreme pro-choice advocates who say that, until birth, the fetus is...

One of the great pleasures of writing for The Spectator (the oldest continuously-published magazine in the English language) is that one never knew by whom one would be upbraided - usually via handwritten notecards forwarded from the Doughty Street office. I think I've mentioned before Sir Alec Guinness' correction of my review of Jane Austen, and John Cleese's likewise about an arcane point concerning the American rights to Fawlty Towers. Still, they're both in showbusiness. It was somewhat stranger to find that among those reading my film reviews was Claus von Bülow, whose only connection to the entertainment world was...

Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz — both Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee — are calling on President Trump to withdraw the nomination of a lawyer for a lifetime federal court appointment, accusing the nominee of opposing religious freedom and expressing anti-Catholic views. The nomination of Michael S. Bogren, a Michigan lawyer who was nominated to be a district judge for the District Court for the Western District of Michigan, has been met with fierce conservative resistance for the candidate’s likening of religious beliefs to the racist views of the Ku Klux Klan. Hawley, a Missouri Republican and...

Amish & Mennonite do not pay 15.3% Self employment tax, workman's comp and unemployment insurance. They form partnerships including all employees as partners and claim 4029 exemption from Social Security under religious grounds. In construction, workman's comp insurance often exceeds 30% of wages paid in some specialties such as roofing. Unemployment comp insurance is often 10% of the first $7K to $8K if wages. Add the 15.3% SE tax and other contractors who are non-Amish can't compete. Amish have left the farms and have entered into many business ventures with an unfair advantage. In addition, they normally have many children...

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Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis might have torpedoed his own 2020 re-election bid in February, when he penned an op-ed for The Washington Post in opposition to President Donald Trump’s emergency border declaration. Time will tell. Tillis’ high-profile defiance of the White House on an issue central to Trump’s election — and extraordinarily important among the Republican Party’s base — instantly spawned discussion of a primary challenge from the junior North Carolina senator’s right. Reaction from fellow Republicans was swift and severe. Congressman Mark Walker, whose 6th District includes parts of Greensboro and Guilford County, said, “Voting with the Democrats...