Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

In a move that should carry weight in future court battles, former national security officials are declaring the "emergency" to build the manhood edifice of Donald "Rump" Trump a hoax:

A bipartisan group of 58 former senior national security officials will issue a statement Monday saying that “there is no factual basis” for President Trump’s proclamation of a national emergency to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. 

The joint statement, whose signatories include former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former defense secretary Chuck Hagel, will come a day before the House is expected to vote on a resolution to block Trump’s Feb. 15 declaration.

The former officials’ statement, which will be entered into the Congressional Record, is intended to support lawsuits and other actions challenging the national emergency proclamation and to force the administration to set forth the legal and factual basis for it. 

“Under no plausible assessment of the evidence is there a national emergency today that entitles the president to tap into funds appropriated for other purposes to build a wall at the southern border,” the group said.  (our emphasis)

The House will pass a resolution of disapproval Tuesday, which will then go to the Senate for a vote.  Spineless hypocrites that they are, the vast majority of Republicans in both houses are expected to support Rump rather than stand up for the Constitution's separation of powers and American democracy.  Remember them.

Color us not surprised:

A top cardinal has admitted that the global Catholic Church destroyed files to prevent documentation of decades of sexual abuse of children, telling the prelates attending Pope Francis' clergy abuse summit Feb. 23 that such maladministration led "in no small measure" to more children being harmed. 

In a frank speech to the 190 cardinals, bishops and heads of religious orders taking part in the four-day summit, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx said the church's administration had left victims' rights "trampled underfoot" and "made it impossible" for the worldwide institution to fulfill its mission. 

"Files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed, or not even created," said Marx, beginning a list of a number of practices that survivors have documented for years but church officials have long kept under secret. 

"Instead of the perpetrators, the victims were regulated and silence imposed on them," the cardinal continued. "The stipulated procedures and processes for the prosecution of offences were deliberately not complied with, but instead cancelled or overridden." (our emphasis)

The rot runs old and deep.

What happens when an ignorant, threatened, narcissistic demagogue thinks he can do diplomacy with his Big Brain and (vastly bigger) gut?  We're about to find out:

His intelligence chiefs warn that North Korea is unlikely to surrender its nuclear weapons. His advisers fret that a breakthrough could prove elusive and that he might make an impulsive concession to score headlines. And his allies around the world worry he could get easily outmaneuvered. 

Yet, President Trump is steadfast in his determination to meet face-to-face here this week with Kim Jong Un, aides say, because he has an unwavering faith in the power of the pen-pal relationship he has cultivated with the North Korean leader not only to bend the course of history, but to shape his own legacy. [snip]

Trump gloats about the half dozen or so letters Kim has written him as if he were a smitten teenager in possession of valentines from a crush. White House officials refer to the diplomatic correspondence jokingly as “love letters.” Kim addresses Trump as “Your Excellency” and employs flowery language to describe the president’s energy and political smarts, according to people who have read them. Trump has shown the documents to dozens of Oval Office visitors and bragged about them in public. 

“He wrote me beautiful letters — and they’re great letters,” Trump said in September at a rally in West Virginia. “We fell in love.”  (our emphasis)

What. A. Dangerous. Moron.

Elections have consequences, global climate change edition:

The White House plans to create an ad hoc group of select federal scientists to reassess the government’s analysis of climate science and counter conclusions that the continued burning of fossil fuels is harming the planet, according to three senior administration officials. 

The National Security Council initiative would include scientists who question the severity of climate impacts and the extent to which humans contribute to the problem, according to these individuals, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. 

The group would not be subject to the same level of public disclosure as a formal advisory committee. 

The move would represent the Trump administration’s most forceful effort to date to challenge the scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions are helping drive global warming and that the world could face dire consequences unless countries curb their carbon output over the next few decades. [snip]

... Rear Adm. David Titley, who served as oceanographer of the Navy and chief operating officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the new initiative could imperil national security by clouding “truthful assessments of the risks stemming from a changing climate.” 

“I never thought I would live to see the day in the United States where our own White House is attacking the very science agencies that can help the president understand and manage the climate risks to security of today and tomorrow,” said Titley, who sits on the advisory board of the Center for Climate and Security, a nonpartisan group focused on climate-related risks. “Such attacks are un-American.” 

More than un- American, they're attacks on human life and civilization, all to wring out more profits for the fossil fuel industry that bankrolls the rotted- out Republican Party. 

As always, we conclude by recommending you check out Infidel 753's link round- up for many more topics of interest.  We would also recommend, if you haven't already, checking out his blog on a regular basis for his comments on politics, philosophy, religion, technology, etc. Always stimulating reading.

Now It's Sistine Choir Fraudsters? Really?

With the Pope convening bishops from around the world to discuss the burgeoning sex abuse scandals plaguing the Catholic Church, this matter doesn't rank very high for the Catholic Church, but it's emblematic of endemic corruption. The Sistine Chapel choir's manager and director -- a layman and a priest respectively -- are under investigation for fraud, embezzlement and money laundering. The investigation, ordered by Pope Francis, has apparently been ongoing for months. The choir, founded in 1471, is likely the oldest choir in existence.

Little is know beyond the linked reporting, as the investigation in in the hands of Vatican magistrates. It's not clear whether the Vatican intends to turn the accused over to Italian authorities should the evidence prove their guilt.

BONUS: Washington, D.C. Cardinal Donald Wuerl is expected to ask the Pope to accept his resignation. Wuerl was mentioned some 200 times in a Pennsylvania grand jury report on decades of sex abuses by Catholic clergy in Pennsylvania. Wuerl was a bishop in Pittsburgh during much of that time. A petition for his removal has received some 80,000 signatures as of last week.

Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report: Over 300 Priests Sexually Abused Children Over Decades

A pious rat's nest, in just one state, in just one country:

More than 300 Catholic priests across Pennsylvania sexually abused children over seven decades, protected by a hierarchy of church leaders who covered it up, according to a sweeping grand jury report released Tuesday. 

The investigation, one of the broadest inquiries into church sex abuse in U.S. history, identified 1,000 children who were victims, but reported that there probably are thousands more. 

“Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades,” the grand jury wrote in its report. 

The 18-month investigation covered six of the state’s dioceses — Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton — and follows other state grand jury reports that revealed abuse and coverups in two other dioceses. The grand jury reviewed more than 2 million documents, including from the “secret archives” — what church leaders referred to the reports of abuse they hid from public for decades, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro said at a news conference Tuesday.

If something of this duration and magnitude of perversity was uncovered in any other organization, it would be shut down and jails would be filling up.

A long aside: We would note that the archbishop of Pittsburgh for 18 years during this time period was Donald Wuerl, who succeeded the recently "retired" Cardinal Theodore McCarrick as archbishop of the Washington, DC, diocese.  McCarrick, you may know, had to "retire" after it came out that he sexually abused minors and adult seminarians over decades.  The grand jury report "depicts Wuerl’s actions in Pittsburgh as mixed, at times stopping abusive priests from continuing in their ministries in the diocese and at other times guiding them right back into parishes."

Wuerl also serves on occasion as an enthusiastic prop for his moral beacon, Donald "Rump" Trump, as in this 2017 signing ceremony for a "religious freedom" executive order. What "religious freedom" are we talking about?

The executive order instructs government agencies to consider issuing new regulations to address conscience-based objections to federal HHS mandate, which requires employers to offer health insurance plans that fund contraception, sterilizations and some drugs that can cause early abortions.   

It also calls for a loosening of IRS enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits religious ministers from making endorsements of political candidates from the pulpit to retain the tax-exempt status of churches.

Here's the happy, holy group with Wuerl beaming at Rump (and "prosperity gospel" grifter Paula White on the right):



These are rotted out people, in rotted out institutions, in a rotted out belief system. Period.

BONUS:  Charles Pierce --

There is no longer any doubt that the institutional Roman Catholic Church in the United States existed in part—and likely still exists—as a vast conspiracy to obstruct justice in the crime of sexual assault by members of its clergy. If you ever wondered why the Church fought so hard to keep the civil criminal justice system at bay in regards to the criminals and deviants in its ranks, the report of the grand jury in Pennsylvania ought to clear that up for you.

It cleared it up for us all right.

Protector Of Pedophile Priests Dies

The Vatican announced this morning that the disgraced former Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law, has died. Law was the central figure in the pedophile priest scandal that first engulfed the Catholic Church 15 years ago, and was responsible for covering up the scandal in his archdiocese. Law initially dismissed the allegations, while he reassigned priests to other parishes without informing them or the police. When he resigned that position,  he was recalled to the Vatican, where he served in policy-making committees, including the powerful Congregation for Bishops, which has the responsibility for recommending clergy for promotion to the Pontiff. He retained his lofty status as Cardinal, despite his gross misdeeds, as if nothing happened:

"He seemed to escape any scrutiny or punishment by the church for his well-known crimes, and instead remained part of the Vatican elite under John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, enjoying celebrity status that is akin to a clerical club membership bestowed on all top cardinals in Rome. He was often spotted dining with high-ranking cardinals at Rome’s better restaurants."

The damage that Law did to the lives of abused children and their families in his archdiocese and beyond is staggering. He belonged behind bars. The fact that the Church later provided a place of honor for him in Rome is a signal that the Church hasn't learned its lesson, and may never.

BONUS:  As Infidel notes in the comments, Law is but one of many, many high- ranking Church officials who are part of this shameless history, that continues today.

(photo: Scheming, no doubt. E. Vandeville, Getty Images)

Let Us "Prey"

Earlier this year, it was revealed that former head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien of Edinburgh, had been accused by several men of sexual misconduct, forcing O'Brien to resign as Archbishop in February and not participate in the selection of Pope Francis.  Now, one priest has come forward to allege that he had a long-term physical relationship with O'Brien, which only recently ended.  O'Brien had been one of the more vocal homophobic voices in the Church, once referring to homosexuality as a "grotesque subversion."

Aside from apparently not practicing what he preached, O'Brien's position as a "Prince of the Church" conferred moral authority on him, which he seems to have abused over a long period not only in his private life but in attempting to stigmatize gays and lesbians while living a secret life of his own.   If he's serious about cleaning up the sex abuse problem of the Church, Pope Francis needs to start at the top with his "Princes."