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The Sham Rome Meeting A reader of this blog who is a Catholic parish priest e-mails: Have you seen this yet?http://www.pbc2019.org/meeting/programThis is a link to the actual program for the Rome meeting beginning Thursday. It is an illuminating document, both in what is and what isn’t there.Firstly, what isn’t there? Well, anything that would indicate that this meeting is actually intended to accomplish anything of substance.This big meeting is supposed to deal with the biggest scandal in the church in the last 200 years. And what do we see among the speakers? Where is the Prefect, or even the Secretary...

Congressional leaders finalized a sweeping $1.3 trillion budget bill Wednesday that substantially boosts military and domestic spending but leaves behind young immigrant “Dreamers,” deprives President Donald Trump some of his border wall money and takes only incremental steps to address gun violence. As negotiators stumbled toward an end-of-the-week deadline to fund the government or face a federal shutdown, House Speaker Paul Ryan dashed to the White House amid concerns Trump’s support was wavering. The White House later said the president backed the legislation, even as some conservative Republicans balked at the size of the spending increases and the rush...

More and more people are flying with pets they call necessary for emotional support. Sharon Giovinazzo goes so far as to call them something else: four-legged terrorists. That may seem harsh. But Giovinazzo, who is visually impaired and travels at least once a week in her job as president and CEO of World Services for the Blind, says she was recently walking through an airport with her service dog Watson when a small dog came running out of a gate waiting area and lunged at them, biting Watson under the chin. Luckily, the bite wasn’t serious. But Giovinazzo says she...

Prince Harry and Michelle Obama surprised approximately 20 students today at Hyde Park Academy, a high school on Chicago’s South Side, which is located across from the future site of the Obama Presidential Center. “The warm and wide-ranging conversation, lasting over an hour, covered how the Obama Presidential Center will showcase the South Side of Chicago for a global audience, the importance of young people staying inspired....

Well, the 2017 Academy award nominations were just released. According to a report, (I'm not wasting my time with it) 7

The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for mishandling classified information has roiled the FBI and Department of Justice, with one person closely involved in the year-long probe telling FoxNews.com that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged. The source, who spoke to FoxNews.com on the condition of anonymity, said FBI Director James Comey’s dramatic July 5 announcement that he would not recommend to the Attorney General’s office that the former secretary of state be charged left members of the investigative team dismayed and disgusted. More than 100...

From the moment the EmailGate scandal went public more than a year ago, it was obvious that the Federal Bureau of Investigation never had much enthusiasm for prosecuting Hillary Clinton or her friends. Under President Obama, the FBI grew so politicized that it became impossible for the Bureau to do its job – at least where high-ranking Democrats are concerned. As I observed in early July, when Director James Comey announced that the FBI would not be seeking prosecution of anyone on Team Clinton over EmailGate, the Bureau had turned its back on its own traditions of floating above partisan...

Trump U. Suit: Donald Can’t Identify His ‘Hand-Picked’ Faculty by Michael Isikoff Donald Trump acknowledged in two recent sworn depositions that he did not “hand-pick” any of the instructors at Trump University — one of whom was a convicted felon, according to new court filings in the case. On the campaign trail in recent days, Trump has been vigorously defending the operations of Trump University, describing the lawsuits against the now defunct school as a “minor civil case” that he will win and that were brought by a “sleazebag law firm.” But the new court filings in two of the...

Trump faced yet another MSM/D.C. orchestrated political debate ambush in Houston. Nearly every politician on the stage, the media, the audience, which was stacked with Bush's, lobbyist, influence peddlers, donors and media, were all gunning for Trump. And America once again saw this for what it was. The entire event was about getting rid of Trump and keeping everything in D.C. business as usual. But it's not going to happen for them. And the dozens of polls I've seen, very much support Trump overwhelmingly. I am slowly regaining hope for America. How must have Trump seen this when he entered...

On February 26, the ayatollahs have scheduled two "elections" in Iran: one for the parliament and one for the Assembly of Experts, a body that is supposed to monitor the supreme leader and choose a replacement when the time comes. Some in the West tout this as the potential start of a new era of moderation. After all it is the first election since the conclusion of nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers. But the nuclear deal cannot be the only criteria by which the West determines the prospects for moderation in Iran. Equally or more important is...

The Wounded Warrior Project, a charity organization dedicated to helping injured former military members, only spends about 60 percent of its donation funds helping veterans. An investigation by CBS News discovered that the Wounded Warrior Project has a dismal record when compared to other similar charities, though the group managed to pull in $300 million just in 2014. The organization apparently raised more than $1 billion since 2003. “Their mission is to honor and empower wounded warriors, but what the public doesn’t see is how they spend their money,” Army Staff Sgt. Erick Millette told CBS News. Millette worked with...

He's attending parties and posing for pictures with his fans. He's enjoying macaroni and cheese at the Discovery Channel's soiree. He's palling around with Laurie David of Curb Your Enthusiasm, who is the husband of Larry David, who drives the Prius and then flies the GV. Larry David says, "You know, Al is a funny guy, but he's also a very serious guy who believes humans may have only 10 years left to save the planet from turning into a total frying pan."

Due to really bad family dysfunction I'm staying at my apartment alone on Christmas. It's the most difficult thing one can do. You just never, ever adjust to it.

ISIS Fears This Story About ‘the Antichrist’ So Much They Never Mention It to Recruits By Justen Charters (9 hours ago) | Headlines, World One thing that you may be of unaware of when it comes to ISIS is that they’re obsessed with end times prophecy. In fact, the terrorists who have come from all over the globe believe their jihad in Syria will help reign in the Apocalypse. To bolster the group’s recruitment efforts, the jihadists promote the idea that a final battle between the armies of the Muslims and unbelievers will take place in Dabiq, an area located...

White people have been reaping the rewards of appropriating black culture for years. At least Rachel Dolezal was doing it to educate others.There’s been a lot of outrage directed at Rachel Dolezal, the civil rights activist recently outed for “passing” as a black woman. But some of us are scratching our heads trying to figure out why Dolezal’s particular case has evoked such anger when she’s simply doing what has been standard in American culture for years: hijacking aspects of black culture, and black beauty in particular, reaping the rewards while black women with the same attributes rarely do. According...

Washington (CNN)In a rare joint action with attorneys general for each of the 50 states, the Federal Trade Commission says four cancer charities run by extended members of the same family conned donors out of $187 million from 2008 through 2012 and spent almost nothing to help actual cancer patients. Federal Trade Commission: Four cancer charities a sham Federal Trade Commission: Four cancer charities a sham Each of the charities charged were the subject of extensive reporting by CNN in 2013. And in each instance, none of the four charities would comment. We were ordered out of the building at...

A hundred years from now, humans may remember 2014 as the year that we first learned that we may have irreversibly destabilized the great ice sheet of West Antarctica, and thus set in motion more than 10 feet of sea level rise. Meanwhile, 2015 could be the year of the double whammy — when we learned the same about one gigantic glacier of East Antarctica, which could set in motion roughly the same amount all over again. Northern hemisphere residents and Americans in particular should take note — when the bottom of the world loses vast amounts of ice, those...

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, one of the largest secular groups in America, announced it is erecting 11 different billboards across Chicago this week with various messages. Some of the ads ask people to "think for (themselves)," while others argue that kindness "comes from altruism" and not from "seeking divine reward." "Research shows that atheists and other nonbelievers remain at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to social acceptance. One reason for that is that even though at least 20% of the population today is nonreligious in the United States, many Americans have never knowingly met an...

House Republicans, coming up with every excuse under the sun to avoid stopping President Obama, are letting slip the real reason. Congressman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)69%69%, chairman of the House Rules Committee, is telling Democratic lawmakers he wants total amnesty. The Daily Caller reports Sessions met with Democratic lawmakers telling them how expansive his vision of immigration is before Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)N/AN/A announced the GOP would give up the fight on immigration. More details are here. It is more and more obvious the only way the GOP will stop Obama is if House conservatives hold the line and oppose...

President Obama will host Native American tribe leaders at the White House on Wednesday, as part of the annual White House Tribal Nations Conference. As McClatchy’s Anita Kumar points out, Obama is known to many Native Americans as “Barack Black Eagle Obama” after receiving an American Indian name in 2008 during his campaign for president.