The Obama FBI / DOJ Tried Unsuccessfully to Collude with Russia, Progressives Try to Bribe Senator Collins, and a Message of Community from a Little South Carolina Church

CATCHING UP ON THE REAL NEWS. This week has seen Rosh Ha'Shanah and Hurricane Florence, amother news items worthy of time and consideration. But, the anti-Trump cabal rolls on, ignoring Jewish High Holidays and killer hurricanes alike. • • • TRUMP AND BOLTON STAKE OUT A TRADITIONAL US POSITION ON THE ICC. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is recognized by 123 member-states. The US, Russia, China, and many others do not submit to its authority. The ICC was formed in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. But it has been controversial from the start. Not even Obama recognized the ICC, although he cooperated with the organization in prosecuting genocide in Darfur. • Rick Moran of Ammerican Thinker asked on Tuesday : "Why didn't we hear any criticism of American resistance to recognizing the jurisdiction of the ICC when Obama was in office....Every American administration since the court was created has refused to cooperate in any investigation involving the US or our allies. This proposed investigation by the ICC is in response to heavy criticism and the withdrawal of several African nations, who say the ICC's concentration on mostly African nations is 'racist' and unfair when other countries are as guilty as they are. The ICC's proposed investigation of US soldiers in Afghanistan is politically motivated. But that's just fine with so-called 'human rights' groups who are trying to destroy the very concept of national sovereignty in the first place. If crimes in Afghanistan or Iraq have been committed, the US courts are perfectly capable of prosecuting the offenders. And if they are members of the armed forces, they will be prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with constitutional protections every American is entitled to. John Bolton and the Trump administration have taken a strong stand against the ICC that is both necessary and morally correct." • John Bolton, President Trump's national security advisor and a long-time for of the ICC, gave a speech tothe Federalist Society on Monday in which he threatened to impose sanctions on ICC personnel if it continues with an investigation into alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan. Bolton's statement, certainly okay'd by President Trump, could raise questions about the future of the court. Bolton said : "The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court." Bolton argued that the ICC poses a threat to US sovereignty, is ineffective in prosecuting war crimes and too often targets American allies, such as Israel. • At the same time, the State Department announced it is shuttering the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Washington office over concerns that it is attempting to trigger an ICC investigation of the Jewish state. Bolton said : "The United States will always stand with our friend and ally, Israel. We will not allow the ICC, or any other organization, to constrain Israel’s right to self-defense." • Palestinian officials said the decision would not affect its plans to pursue an ICC investigation and accused the US of unfairly favoring Israel in stalled efforts to restart Middle East peace talks. PLO diplomat Saeb Ereket said : "We reiterate that the rights of thePalestinian people are not for sale, that we will not succumb to US threats and bullying. Accordingly, we continue to call upon the International Criminal Court to open its immediate investigation into Israeli crimes." • John Bolton led former President George W. Bush's campaign against the ICC in the early 2000s. On Monday, he said America's refusal to sign the treaty creating it "remains one of my proudest achievements." Bolton said the renewed push against the court also fits into Trump's goal of putting the interests of Americans "above all else" : "This administration will fight back to protect American constitutionalism, our sovereignty, and our citizens. No committee of foreign nations will tell us how to govern ourselves and defend our freedom." • Bolton said if the ICC Afghanistan investigation moves forward, the US would ban ICC judges and prosecutors from entering the US, sanction any funds they have in the US financial system and even weigh criminal probes against them. Bolton added that the Trump administration will also pursue more "binding, bilateral agreements" to prevent other countries from handing over Americans to the ICC. Roughly 100 agreements already exist, according to Bolton. The US could also reconsider foreign aid to countries that participate in the ICC, a group that includes some NATO allies. Bolton told reporters such a review is "entirely appropriate" but stopped short of directly threatening aid payments. Bolton told the Federalist Society : "We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. And we certainly will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us." • THE OBAMA FBI / DOJ ILLEGAL CONSPIRACY AGAINST TRUMP -- MORE FACTS. First, consider this. The Gateway Pundit last week asked an interesting question in its September 3 headline : "If Obama AG Lynch Pushed Through Original FISA Warrant to Spy on Candidate Trump – Did AG Sessions or Rosenstein Renew it? Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit reported that : "It appears the reason there was no FISA Court hearing on the Carter Page FISA warrant was because Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch forced through the application per an obscure loophole in the law. If this is correct, then did AG Sessions or Rosenstein push through any extensions after President Trump took office?" WOW. We remember that Representative Mark Meadows revealed that congressional investigators have learned the FBI and DOJ previously leaked information to the press then used those same press stories as a separate source to justify seeking FISA warrants on Trump advisor Carter Page. They knew all along the story was bogus and planted the evidence in the liberal media. Judicial Watch dropped the bombshell that the Justice Department admitted in a court filing that the FISA Court never held hearings on the FISA applications for former Trump advisor Carter Page. AND, now it appears and is likely that the Obama administration in reality bypassed the FISA Court to spy on the Trump campaign based on a story they knew to be false. ImperatorRex on Twitter explained how the Obama administration went around the FISA Court to spy on the opposition party based on lies they helped push in the liberal fake news media. Gateway Pundit says : "If the above is true, then who authorized the renewals for the above mentioned request? This is the largest political scandal in US history without a doubt -- there’s no comparison!" • This could well explain why President Trump is so negative about AG Sessions -- imagine how you would feel as President if your Attorney General were signing FISA surveillance requests to spy on your administration -- the administration the AG is supposed to represent as its chief lawyer. Here is what the President tweeted : "@realDonaldTrump. Report: There were no FISA hearings held over Spy documents. It is astonishing that the FISA courts couldn’t hold hearings on Spy Warrants targeting Donald Trump. It isn’t about Carter Page, it’s about the Trump Campaign. You’ve got corruption at the DOJ & FBI. The leadership....of the DOJ & FBI are completely out to lunch in terms of exposing and holding those accountable who are responsible for that corruption.” • • • DID THE FBI TRY TO RECURUIT RUSSIAN MOLES? InfoWars wrote on September 2 that the FBI "Tried, Failed To Recruit Russian Oligarchs For Collusion Narrative." • InfoWars says that FBI agents tried to turn Russia’s billionaire Oleg Deripaska into a US mole, quoting a New York Times report that claims Oleg Deripaska was one of six oligarchs targeted for information in a Russiagate-related intelligence flop. According to reports by the NYT, the US government pushed oligarchs with perceived links to President Vladimir Putin for information. Deripaska was allegedly nudged to give up information on Russian organized crime and “possible Russian aid to President Trump’s 2016 campaign.” Infowars quotes the NYT, stating that the FBI was determined to get something on the Kremlin’s unproven involvement in the 2016 election, so FBI agents reportedly turned up unannounced at Deripaska’s New York home to quiz him about his ex-business partner Paul Manafort -- who went on to lead Trump’s election campaign -- and Manafort’s links to Russia. BUT, despite the US government’s repeated attempts to gather intelligence from him, Deripaska told the US Department of Justice that he had no information to provide. Sources told the NYT that Deripaska disagreed with the FBI agents’ opinion that Russia had colluded with the US in Trump’s election campaign. He also slammed theories about Manafort’s alleged role as “preposterous,” even though the two men were involved in a “bitter business dispute.” He is also said to have notified the Kremlin about the US government’s failed efforts to recruit him. The NYT report said that Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and former British spy Christopher Steele -- who was responsible for the infamous Trump-Russia Dossier -- were involved in the attempt to turn Russian oligarchs into US informants. The report said the US government tried to entice Deripaska with promises to relieve him of previous visa issues stemming from past legal problems, but their attempts to win over the aluminum magnate and other Russian oligarchs appear to have failed. In April, Deripaska and his company were hit by sweeping US sanctions, with Washington accusing him of links to crime, various abuses and even of ordering a murder. • TeaParty.org called it "collusion" and "secret meetings" -- "except it might not be what you’re thinking." TeaParty.org wrote that : "Deripaska, rumored to be Donald Trump’s 'back channel' to Putin via the Russian’s former association with Paul Manafort, says he 'colluded' with the US Government between 2009 and 2016. In 2009, when Robert Mueller was running the FBI, the agency asked Deripaska to spend $25 million of his own money to bankroll an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent -- Robert Levinson, who was kidnapped in 2007 while working on a 2007 CIA contract in Iran. This in and of itself is more than a bit strange. Deripaska agreed, however the Obama State Department, headed by Hillary Clinton, scuttled a last-minute deal with Iran before Levinson could be released. He hasn’t been heard from since." • The TeaParty says : "FBI agents courted Deripaska in 2009 in a series of secret hotel meetings in Paris; Vienna; Budapest, Hungary, and Washington. Agents persuaded the aluminum industry magnate to underwrite the mission. The Russian billionaire insisted the operation neither involve nor harm his homeland." TheHill laid it out in plain Emglish : "In other words -- Trump’s alleged 'back channel' to Putin was in fact an FBI asset who spent $25 million helping Obama’s 'scandal free' administration find a kidnapped agent." And, we might add, Levinson was one more American left to die by Hillary. • The NYT report goes on : "The attempt to flip Mr. Deripaska was part of a broader, clandestine American effort to gauge the possibility of gaining cooperation from roughly a half-dozen of Russia’s richest men, nearly all of whom, like Mr. Deripaska, depend on President Vladimir V. Putin to maintain their wealth, the officials said." The NYT wrote that central to the recruiting effort were two central players in the Trump-Russia investigation -- twice-demoted DOJ #4 official Bruce Ohr and Christopher Steele -- the author of the largely unverified Russia Dossier. The NYT says that Steele, a longtime associate of Ohr’s, worked for Deripaska beginning in 2012 researching a business rival -- "work which would evolve to the point where the former British spy was interfacing with the Obama administration on his behalf -- resulting in Deripaska regaining entry into the United States, where he visited numerous times between 2009 and 2017." The State Department tried to keep him from getting a US visa during the GW Bush presidency between 2006 and 2009 because they believed he had unspecified connections to criminal elements in Russia as he consolidated power in the aluminum industry. Deripaska has denied those allegations. BUT, says the report : "It is irrefutable that after he began helping the FBI, Deripaska regained entry to the United States. And he visited numerous times between 2009 and 2017, visa entry records show." The Hill says Deripaska is now banned from the United States as one of several Russians sanctioned in April in response to alleged 2016 election meddling. • Deripaska vehemently denies the assertions about Manafort and himself, and even took out newspaper advertisements in the US last year volunteering to testify to Congress, refuting an AP report that he and Manafort secretly worked on a plan to “greatly benefit the Putin government” a decade ago. The NYT said that : "Soon after the advertisements ran, representatives for the House and Senate Intelligence Committees called a Washington-based lawyer for Mr. Deripaska, Adam Waldman, inquiring about taking his client up on the offer to testify, Mr. Waldman said in an interview. What happened after that has been in dispute. Mr. Waldman, who stopped working for Mr. Deripaska after the sanctions were levied, said he told the committee staff that his client would be willing to testify without any grant of immunity, but would not testify about any Russian collusion with the Trump campaign because 'he doesn’t know anything about that theory and actually doesn’t believe it occurred.' " So, according to TheHill, Putin insider Deripaska wants it to be known that he worked with the FBI and DOJ, and that he had nothing to do with the Steele Dossier. According to a statement provided by his team, Deripaska says he did collude with Americans in the form of voluntarily assisting and meeting with the FBI, the DOJ and people such as Ohr between 2009 and 2016 -- during the OBAMA presidency. He also wants Americans to know he did not cooperate or assist with Steele’s Dossier, and he tried to dispel the FBI notion that Russia and the Trump campaign colluded during the 2016 election. InfoWars says : "Interestingly, Steele’s Dossier which was partially funded by the Clinton campaign, relied on senior Kremlin officials. It would be most helpful if the Department of Justice could please investigate and then prosecute themselves and/or members of the previous administration, so that journalists like John Solomon, Sara Carter, Luke Rosiak, Chuck Ross and others don’t have to continue to break stories that are seemingly ignored by all but a handful of congressional investigators.' You can read more about this issue at < zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-01/russian-oligarch-and-putin-pal-admits-collusion-secret-meetings >. • • • WHAT ABOUT THAT ANONYMOUS OP-ED? We might want to ask if the FBI / DOJ, who are trying to "frame" President Trump, are up to other misdeeds. • On Sunday, Fox News noted that : "Vice President Pence lambasted Barack Obama's return to the campaign trail in an interview with 'Fox News Sunday,' telling host Chris Wallace that the former President's rhetoric was a 'very disappointing' attempt to paper over a legacy pockmarked by major tax increases and a massive hike in the national debt." • BUT, VP Pence also unloaded on what he called the "un-American" anonymous author of a New York Times Op-Ed last week, and vowed that he would take a lie-detector test to prove he did not write it. "I would agree to take it in a heartbeat and would submit to any review the administration wanted to do," Pence said. The much-publicized Op-Ed, purportedly penned by a "senior administration official," depicts a White House in chaos and claims that top-level bureaucrats are actively working to undermine parts of President Trump's agenda. Pence told Fox News : "If they are that senior administration official -- they're violating an oath, not to the President, but to the Constitution," adding that President Trump was concerned about the national security implications of the situation as well. "Look, it's un-American. And I think that's why you've seen Republicans and Democrats condemn this....To have someone who literally celebrates coming in every day to frustrate the agenda that the President and I were elected to advance -- it really is an assault on our democracy. And it should be universally condemned." The Vice President added that the whole "brouhaha" is an attempt to "distract attention from this booming economy and from the President's record of success." • I find it interesting that very soon after the Op-Ed appeared in the totally anti-Trump New York Times, Bob Woodward's new book “Fear: Trump in the White House" appeared, claiming that then-chief White House economic advisor Gary Cohn removed a document from President Trump's desk that would have withdrawn the US from the US-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). The book makes a similar claim about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which is also being renegotiated. We know that the Mexican part of NAFTA is resolved becasue of a newly negotiated bilateral US-Mexico treaty. And, we know that Canada and the US are now negotiating a similar new trade treaty. • So, why would the Op-Ed and the Woodward book take ion trade, when President Trump is obviously doing a grezat job of putting America back into the US trade treaty situation? Vice President Pence told Fox News: "Sometimes I watch a little bit of TV in the morning, and then I go to the White House, and I feel like I’m in a parallel universe. I walk into a White House where there’s a President behind the desk; he’s in command. He's constantly driving forward on delivering on the promises that we made for the American people. And then I go home at night and I see cable TV talking about all of this stuff about disarray in the White House, and it's just not my experience....You look at the passage of historic tax cuts for businesses and individuals, and the way that jobs are coming back, and investment is coming back. The re-negotiation of trade deals, our allies contributing more to our common defense. All of that is happening because we have a President of almost boundless energy who comes in every day -- regardless of what's happening in the Washington media culture -- and says, 'What are we doing today to deliver for the American people?' And I think that's why I see such enthusiasm as I travel across the country. And that's why I believe the American people are going to vote to re-elect Republican majorities in the House and Senate this fall." • And, that gets down to the reality of the Op-Ed and the Woodward book. They are justt he latest effort of the Progressive Left to destroy Trump. Since their next shot at it is in the Novmeber mid-term elections, the Progressives are hammering away at whateverthey cangrab onto to make Trump look bad. The problem is that there isn't much "ba" to grab onto. Son they hope that by stirring up doubt about the President's trade agreements, they can convince Americna workers to shift back to voting Democrat. It jsut isn't going to happen -- not while taxes are low, paychecks are bigger, and Americans see a President who is working for them every day -- and who actually goes out into America to talk with them and to show how he is keeping his promises to them. • • • SENATOR COLLINS IS REPUBLICAN, AFTERALL. And that is why she is being bribed by a Soros-backed group to vote against Judge Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court. The story is really scandalous -- only ProgDems would consider stooping so low. • Legal Insurrection wrote an article on Wednesday about "Activists Threatening and Trying to Bribe Senator Collins and Staff Over Kavanaugh Vote." Mary Chastain wrote that all of this because Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, is a notorious moderate in the Senate and one not hesitant to go against the Republican Party. This is why people have been pushing her to vote against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but some, says Mary Chastain, have gone too far. While some have threatened and wished rape upon her female staff members, others have raised money to defeat her if she doesn’t vote against Kavanaugh. Chastain says : "Collins claims that is bribery and she may be correct." • TheHill reported that Steve Abbot, Collins' chief of staff, told a Maine TV station : “We’ve had some very abusive callers....We’ve had some very vulgar calls and sort of harassing the staff.” TheHill says : "The TV station obtained voicemails being left at Collins’s offices, including one caller who brought up a 2003 email where Kavanaugh suggested cutting a paragraph out of a draft op-ed that characterized Roe v. Wade as widely accepted among legal scholars as settled law. 'Have you seen the emails...where he talked about Roe v. Wade not being settled law. He [bleeped] lied to you? How [bleeped] naive do you have to be?' the caller in the voicemail says. The New York Times reported that Collins’s office 'received about 3,000 coat hangers' while other people dressed themselves like those in The Handmaid’s Tale and demonstrated outside of her private home. It gets worse. Collins’s spokeswoman Annie Clark gave the NYT letters and phone messages. One person 'told a 25-year-old female staff member at one of Ms. Collins’s Maine offices that he hoped she would be raped and impregnated.'....An audio recording obtained by @NBCNews, reveals that a man left a voicemail at @SenatorCollins’ office saying : 'I already donated to the gofundme opposing you...If you care at all about women's choice vote no on Kavanaugh, don't be a dumb b***h. F**k you also.' • All this is about BRIBERY. Liberal activists started a crowdfunding campaign that has raised over $1 million to give to Collins’s opponent in 2020. That might sound reasonable. EXCEPT -- the money will only go to the opponent if Collins votes against Kavanaugh. That is where the bribery allegation comes into play. The editorial board at the Wall Street Journal wrote : "The fine print makes clear the quid pro quo : 'Your card will only be charged if Senator Susan Collins votes for Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.' To avoid the money bomb, all Ms. Collins must do is vote 'no.' It isn’t clear this is even legal. We’re all for citizens exercising their free-speech rights, including campaign donations, for or against political candidates. But federal law defines the crime of bribery as 'corruptly' offering 'anything of value' to a public official, including a Member of Congress, with the intent to 'influence any official act.' The crowdfunders in this case are offering something of value -- withholding funds from her opponent -- in return for a Supreme Court confirmation vote. 'I have had three attorneys tell me that they think it is a clear violation of the federal law on bribery,' Ms. Collins says. 'Actually, two told me that; one told me it’s extortion.' She adds that her office hasn’t 'made any kind of decision' about whether to refer the matter to prosecutors. But her astonishment at the strategy is clear : 'It’s offensive. It’s of questionable legality. And it is extraordinary to me that people would want to participate in trying to essentially buy a Senator’s vote.' ” • EVEN the Washington Post contacted an ethics expert about the situation and explained “that it may very well violate federal bribery statutes, which prohibit giving or offering anything of value to government officials in exchange for any acts or votes.” • Maine People's Alliance and Mainers for Accountable Leadership have teamed up to crowdsource the effort. They had received $987,922 from 35,317 pledges as of Tuesday morning with a goal of $1.3 million. The campaign was launched by members of the Center for Popular Democracy, a group that incorporated some of the chapters of the disgraced ACORN and receives funding from the George Soros-backed Democracy Alliance that also includes billionaire Leftist Tom Steyer. “Every Democrat should be condemning these antics in Maine,” Senator Orrin Hatch said on Twitter. “Attempting to bribe Senator Collins to vote against Judge Kavanaugh and threatening sexual violence against staffers if she votes for him is absolutely disgusting.” Senator John Cornyn said it’s not about the money. He said both Republicans and Democrats should denounce the campaign because “the false, nasty, vulgar, personal, uncivil verbal abuse of an honorable and diligent public servant like Senator Collins.” Carrie Severino, the Judicial Crisis Network’s chief counsel and policy director, said in a statement that all senators should be openly denouncing the attacks. But instead, most Democratic Senators are “standing on the sidelines while Judge Kavanaugh’s opponents resort to bribes, smears, and physical threats.” The efforts mirror similar bribery tactics used to encourage paid protestors to disrupt the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, although it is unclear what the funding source of that operation is. • • • PROGRESSIVES : THE REAL WORLD VS NEVERLAND. Gatestone Institute published an article by Dr. David C. Stolinsky, a rtetired oncologist living in California, on September 2 with this title. Dr. stolinsky wrote : " 'Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain forever a child,' Cicero astutely observed. For many self-described Progressives today, however, this seems not to be a drawback. On the contrary, like adolescents -- insisting that they are grown-ups when their parents get in the way of their fun, but then running home for all their basic needs and creature comforts -- such people seem to give no thought to the past and equally little to the future. Many people like this are said to suffer from a 'Peter Pan Syndrome' : the inability or unwillingness to grow up. In thought, they seem to lean to the political left. They want the government to take on the role of parent, even if that involves maxing out the country's 'credit cards,' so that even for a short time, they can live beyond what they earn. Possibly in a hurry not to concern themselves with 'dreary details,' they pressed for a huge health-care bill, passed in 2010, that forever changed how we receive -- or do not receive -- medical care. It seems the details of the bill were too time-consuming and complex for the world of tweets and sound bites for them to pay attention to what it actually contained. When the bill was being debated, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said, 'We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.' Many of these children in adult bodies were told, and actually believed, that better health care for everyone, including an unlimited number of illegal immigrants, would be attainable at a low cost, if only the government were to run it. That Medicare and Medicaid, both of which the US government currently runs -- as well as the UK's National Health Service -- are going broke does not appear to have occurred to them. So they persist in their fantasy that government-controlled health care is not an ill but a cure. Their fantasy is not restricted to the realm of health care. Many of these children in adult bodies believe that many, if not all, major aspects of the economy would be more efficient if the government ran them. This is in spite of the fact that the facilities currently run by the government -- from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the Department of Motor Vehicles -- are inefficient, unhelpful or sometimes even downright hostile -- to the people they are meant to serve." • Dr. Stolinsky notes that : "Many children in adult bodies also seem not to know that Socialism failed in the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, China, North Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Cuba, and is now failing in Venezuela. Yet, illogically, they appear to believe that they themselves could make it work. The irrational wish is evidently stronger than rational arithmetic. These victims of arrested emotional development seem to confuse good motives with good results. They want better health care for a greater number of people at a lesser cost; so they fantasize that they can achieve it without denying care to those who are too old, too sick or too expensive to receive it. They kind-heartedly want a 'more equal distribution of wealth'; so they fantasize that they can maneuver it without penalizing and discouraging the productive members of society, while rewarding and encouraging the unproductive ones. Yet this is exactly what has happened wherever the redistribution of wealth was tried." • Dr. Stolinsky also understands how it works for young Progressives in the outside world : "These people, like all of us, want to be liked; so they fantasize that if they treat others kindly, the behavior will be reciprocated. They refer respectfully to the unelected theocratic leader of Iran as 'Supreme Leader,' even as oppressed Iranian demonstrators are arrested, beaten, tortured or killed. Although bullies -- from those who terrorize fellow students in the schoolyard, to those who commit terrorist acts against innocent people across the world -- speak the language of hatred and force, children in adult bodies persist in their fantasy that if they and their government would only project appeasement and weakness, regimes such as that in Teheran would lay down their arms and hate-filled hegemonic aims. Hence, presumably, the support among Progressives for the Iran nuclear deal that former President Barack Obama pushed through, without regard to its potential cost of a fully nuclear-capable Iran to America and the rest of the world after the deal expires." • And, as for illegal immigrants, Dr. Stolinsky says : "These adults still clinging hard to their wishes seem to believe that crime is caused by poverty or other societal ills, and conclude that criminals are victims of society....illegal immigrant José Inés García Zárate...a five-time deportee and drug offender....[killed] Steinle, who met a cruel and untimely death, Garcia Zarate, not only was acquitted of murder and manslaughter, but aroused sympathy on the left." • • • DEAR READERS, this may seem disconnected from our blog topics today, but it is part and parcel of the story of the gullibility of these young Americans, who detest President Trump because he demands work and love of country, who think bribing a Senator to vote against a Supreme Court nominee is correct because they see only the "women's right" side of abortion, and who find Fake news agreeable because it tells them what they would like to believe -- that the world is a gentle and peaceful place where appeasement will solve all ideological disputes. As Dr. Stolinsky says : "These adults who apparently do not want to grow up call those who disagree with them 'fascists' or 'Nazis' -- without knowing the history of either -- yet accept as gospel any statements or actions, no matter how questionable, on the part of those who agree with their romanticized positions. Like Peter Pan, these children wish to live in Neverland -- a place that, in the real word, does not exist. Fictional characters, however, have the advantage of enjoying adventures with imaginary dangers. In the real world, unfortunately, people who never grow up may enjoy themselves for a time, but sooner or later the all-too-real dangers they had ignored, like an overstretched credit card, catch up with them. By the time their future is lost to them, it will be too late to wake up or rectify the situation. This means that the adults among us who acknowledge and take on the responsibilities of adulthood must be even more vigilant in exposing fantasies as child-like and preventing these daydreamers from doing even more damage than they already have done." • That is why we adults in the room must strive mightily to provide facts, history, and truth. It is why we must continue to point out the flaws in the mindset of our younger generations. It is why we lament their lack of civics and American history -- which is the foundation upon which ANY opinion of America must be formed. The rest is Hollywood and Fake News. • Hurricane Florence is on the doorstep of the south east Altantic coast of America. I have heard little from either ProgDem leaders or their young robot-like followers about it or its possibilities for personal and community devastation. I know many young Americans will be on the front lines helping those caught up in Florence's fury to survive and recover. These proud and generous young Americans must wonder why their fellow cohorts are so angry and anti-American. • Here is one answer. They are alone spiritually and have little reserve of personal moral or religious strength to draw on. Consider this. • There is a church in a little South Carolina community. It is an active, community-engaged church that reaches out to its parishioners, and to all those who need help. A friend sent me the pre-landfall letter from its pastor. The title of the email letter is "Touching Base Before Hurricane Florence - Please Stay In Touch." Here is the text : "Date: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 9:58 AM. Dear [church] family, As Hurricane Florence approaches our community, we continue to pray for the safety of all those affected on the east coast. If you haven't already done so, please let us know that you are safe (that you have either evacuated or you have decided to shelter in place in your home.) As you are able, PLEASE SEND A QUICK EMAIL TO ME AT...or CALL OR TEXT ME at....Fr. Donald and I will continue to check on parishioners by phone and in person during and after the storm. Fr. Donald is in Maine until the storm passes and he can return, so he will have electricity and phone services when those of us here may not -- he will be a good point of contact if I am not reachable by phone or email. Donald's email is...and his cell phone is....(We will also check on parishioners who do not have email access and do not receive this message.) As a reminder, our Sunday services are cancelled this week. Please do not drive or travel this weekend until the 'all clear' has been given by local and state authorities. Safety is our priority in this dangerous storm situation, especially with the great potential for flooding in our area. Your vestry, staff, and clergy are here for you. Please stay in touch as you are able. May God protect us and guide us during these days. A prayer for our community : 'Almighty God, who calmed the storm that tossed the boat, calm the fears that beset us as we await Hurricane Florence : Grant us the peace that comes from you alone as we sit with the uncertainty of evacuation and in fear of damage to our homes and communities, draw us even closer to you, and give us the grace to comfort and aid others in need; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.' Father Jason." • America is so simple, yet so powerful, as an idea. Can we ever find enough Father Jasons to reach these lost children and bring them home?