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Thursday, February 28, 2019

Who is King? The Total Sacrifice of Humanism - Dr. Joel McDurmon (An Open Challenge to Christians in Western Civilization! - CL)


We must constantly return to Scripture and ask “Who is King?” over these areas. To the extent that Christians let the State usurp the God-given roles of family and church, we have accepted the legitimacy of a false god. The fires of Molech will continue to consume and grow until Christians lose the ability to withdraw. Withdraw from your interest in the tophet schools and the false-prophet State systems of Molech while you still can. Ask yourself the question “Who is King?”
A lot depends on your answer.
Kings and Total Sacrifice
In the 1 Samuel 8 passage we just covered, the Hebrew uses the standard word for “king”—mlk, or melech. This common word appears all through the Old Testament, but when referring to a particular practice of neighboring pagan divine-king States, the Hebrew scribes replaced the vowels with those from the Hebrew word boseth, “shame.” The resulting name “Molech” refers to the pagan total-State, the great tyrannies incurred where the civil State usurped the place of God and worship in society and demanded ultimate sacrifice.
The symbols of these tyrannies are perpetual servitude to the State in both person and property, and the unforgettable legacy of child sacrifice. For this reason the Hebrew scribes distinguished between “kings” (melech) and “king-mandated human sacrifice” (molech). The commands forbidding child-sacrifice appear in Leviticus 18:2120:1–5, and in Deuteronomy 12:29–3218:9–10. These commands appear among sections of God’s law that forbid divination, false prophecy, and other attempts to control the future. In other words, God’s law recognized the propensity of kings and the State to attempt total control of its people, capital, environment, and future (as a god would do), and that same law condemned these actions. “The Moloch state simply represents the supreme effort of man to command the future, to predestine the world, and to be as God.… Moloch worship was thus state worship. The state was the true and ultimate order.… The state claimed total jurisdiction over man; it was therefore entitled to total sacrifice.”1
And sacrifice it was: The “Molech sacrifices” of children were widespread in Mediterranean culture.2  Archeologists have uncovered—from Tyre in the Middle East to Carthage in North Africa, and even in Italy and Sicily—thousands of urns and burials containing the charred remains of infants and small children. One find notably uncovered inscriptions of mlk ’mr and mlk ’dm—“molech amar” and “molech adam”—meaning “king-sacrifices of lamb,” and “king-sacrifices of man.” Ancient historians as well attest to pagan rituals of rolling children into an idol-furnace shaped like a god with horns, whose hollowed midsection belched fire—sacrifices by the hundreds, even thousands.3  A fairly recent site near modern-day Tyre uncovered so many cinerary jars and urns that the number “cannot even be approximated.”4
Despite a clear mandate from God Almighty, the community of the “faithful” could not refrain from acting “like all the nations.” It was not immune from even these barbarous practices. We find Judah’s kings Ahaz and Manasseh leading the country in pagan worship and even in the fires of Molech (2 Kings 16:321:6), and we see the people of Israel following right along (2 Kings 17:17). Historian Vaux comments,
The sacrifice of children, then, by burning them to death probably made its way into Israel from Phoenicia during a period of religious syncretism. The Bible mentions only two specific instances, and they were motivated by the same exceptional circumstances as the Phoenician sacrifices [see 2 Kings 16:321:6].5
“Exceptional circumstances” allegedly being the portents of invasion and war, for which the sacrifice of children expected to gain the pagan god’s favor for salvation and victory. Whatever the circumstance may have been, the fact of human sacrifice is what concerns us. Formerly faithful people adopted the practice, following the God-denying, State-worshiping cultures around them.
During this time of social decline, the Valley of Hinnom—just outside the city of Jerusalem—became a center of such worship, including the erection of a “tophet,” or furnace for sacrifice. Jeremiah decried judgment upon the “tophet” which the children of Judah had built in order “to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire” (Jer. 7:31–32). It took the reform efforts under good king Josiah (contemporary with Jeremiah) to destroy the shrine-furnace “that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech” (2 Kings 23:10). In other words, it took a return to God’s word, and correction of the doctrine of God, a concurrent correction of the doctrine of king, and civil action in society to overcome the total sacrifice demanded by a pagan view of society and State.
Consent of the Civilized
Do not make the mistake of believing this total sacrifice existed only among ancient primitive peoples or particularly bloodthirsty tribes. The aforementioned Tyre was part of ancient Phoenicia, the people who pioneered maritime trading across the Mediterranean and who also invented the alphabet. The Phoenician colony Carthage practiced child sacrifice extensively, while growing rich through international trade, and requiring three Punic Wars before finally succumbing to the power of Rome. And Rome! The great civilizer of the known world, the paver of Europe, and the benevolent dictator behind the Pax Romana! Even great civilized Rome sacrificed humans in order to control her State gods. Despite the fact that early Rome had “officially” outlawed human sacrifice for the people, the State practiced it widely. The great historian Lord Acton elaborates:
But in Rome, where religion was more real, the awe of the gods greater, the view of life more earnest and gloomy, the morals more severe, human sacrifice was less hateful to the popular mind. . . . The deification of the State made every sacrifice which it exacted seem as nothing in comparison to the fortune of Rome; and the perils which menaced it from Carthage or Gaul, Epirus or Pontus, Parthia, Spain, or Germany, each demanded its human victims. . . .
In every generation of the four centuries from the fall of the Republic to the establishment of Christianity, human victims were sacrificed by the emperors. In the year 46 B.C. Julius Caesar, after suppressing a mutiny, caused one soldier to be executed, while at the same time two others were sacrificed by the flamen of Mars on the altar in the Campus Martius. . . . Five years later, when Perugia was taken, Octavian sacrificed three hundred senators and knights to his deified predecessor; and the altars of Perugia became a proverb. In the same age Sextus Pompeius flung captives into the sea, as a sacrifice to his father Neptune. . . . When Germanicus died, his house was found to be lined with charms, images, and bones of men whom Tiberius had sacrificed to the infernal gods to hasten his end.… Nero, by the advice of the astrologers, put many nobles to death, to avert himself from the evils with which a comet threatened him. . . . Didus Julianus offered sacrifices of children. . . . At the beginning of the fourth century Maxentius divined the future by sacrificing infants, and opening the bodies of pregnant women. . . . Children were publicly sacrificed to Moloch in [Roman] Africa until the middle of the second century. . . .6
I have omitted many of the instances Acton lists. The practice was widespread, and accepted by many if not most of the most civilized nations in the world. It took the advance of Christianity to end it for the most part (it still survived in some small pockets). The reader should see now what even the most civilized and well-intentioned States can do when made complete arbiters of life and death. The cradle-to-grave Nanny State is the replacement of God, and will just as easily end your life as sustain it when it so deems it beneficial to its agenda, or “the whole.”
The sacrifice of children and humans in general can only occur where an earthly power has total control, and (excepting the possibility of kidnapping, which does not appear to be in play) where parents are brainwashed into handing their children over to an earthly king for some ungodly cause, even to the point of mindless murder in case of “national emergency” or for “the common good.”
Human Sacrifice Today
What goes unstated or unnoticed is that human sacrifice continues openly today despite the advance of every measure of religion, science, and reason. In fact, we could say that the butchery is often aided and promoted by the march of both science and what passes as science. Likewise, human sacrifice in the “open society” is carried out by the most prosperous and self-appointed rational people on earth: most of Western Civilization. The massacres continue under two main guises: abortion and unnecessary war.
The practice of abortion, from a pro-life perspective anyway, stands as an obvious modern counterpart to the ancient Moloch worship of sacrificing infants, only today done for human convenience, money, or social status, rather than religion. But don’t assume the difference is so great. The ancient pagans ritually killed infants as propitiation of a false god that didn’t exist. Today, it is done for the propitiation of a false god called man, humanity, society, woman’s rights, choice—this demon is legion. As a result, nothing has changed but the object of worship: society has exchanged a non-existent false god, Moloch, for an existent false god, man.
The case of war is no less controversial, but no less clear. Without any intended reference to current wars (though it may apply), it should be obvious that if any war is waged unjustly, and troops are killed in that battle for an ungodly cause, then the perpetrators of that war have offered human blood as an agent of social change, rather than relying on godly principles. This is human sacrifice pure and simple. Christians should not be afraid to oppose war, to oppose it vigorously, and to oppose hasty wars especially. Well does the Anglican prayer book include in its military prayer, “Ever spare them from being ordered into a war of aggression or oppression.”7
Even when modern States do not engage in blood sacrifice outright, they nevertheless call for total sacrifice—the full offering of one’s all to its mandates. When the State makes claim to your service, your children’s service, your property, your wealth, and meddles in the medical and “end of life” care you get, then there is no other name for it than total sacrifice.
On top of this, most Christian parents today unquestioningly pass their children through the fire of Molech education; they have offered their children up to the tophet-furnace of the king’s public schools, funded by the God-rejecting State’s property taxes and divine-State multiple-tithes. These arms of the State’s power teach—at every opportunity, for hours per day, from every angle—every idea that contradicts the law of God and supports the State’s power. It is child sacrifice to the gods of the State, and a rejection of God’s command for families, not the State, to educate their children in the ways of God (Deut. 6:6–9Eph. 6:4).
In this matter, Christians have failed, and secular humanists (who believe the State is the highest expression and guardian of man, and thus god) have consciously accepted Christian children as sacrifices toward advancing their social agenda. This was their plan from early on, as Charles Potter, as signer of the first Humanist Manifesto clearly stated:
Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday-school, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?8
The schools are humanistic because the system of socialism in which the State taxes other people to pay for other people’s kids’ education is humanistic and deifies the State. The secular Molech has increased his power, and the Christians have fed the beast!
This failure repeats the sad, recurring legacy of people of faith—a pattern we see in 1 Samuel as well. The priesthood grew corrupt (1 Sam. 2:12–36), and a generation arose without proper education in the ways of God. Even Samuel’s two sons departed from God’s ways even though Samuel had appointed them to judge over Israel (1 Sam. 8:1–3). As Samuel grew old the people sensed his decline and began to fret about leadership. Instead of falling back on God’s word and trusting in God, they appealed to Samuel to give them their king “like all the nations.” This was a failure of national faith. It led to the national tyranny outlined above.
The cycle repeats itself today. Christians have accepted humanistic ways of doing things “like all the nations.” In the health care debate, in education, in other public programs, and in economics, Christians have sacrificed their lives and the lives of their children in exchange for the protection and security offered promised by the humanistic State. Unless we return quickly to God’s ways, we will enter the period of God refusing to hear our prayers for some time.
Conclusion
Some Christians ask me why I write so much about “politics.” The answer goes far beyond the simple idea that we should apply God’s Word to every area of life. The answer must include the fact that if we don’t apply God’s Word to every area of life, the forces of darkness will push their word in the neglected areas. There is no neutrality. Either God reigns and His law is honored, or the enemy rules and humanists carry out their will in law, politics, and ethics. The reason for Christians in politics—and all other areas—begins with the answer to question, “Who is King?”
Most, if not all, of the problems we face in society stem from the State’s transgression of Christ’s Kingship. This does not mean that Christ ceases to rule in these areas; rather, the State interferes in areas Christ has not decreed for it to manage. As a result, the State sets itself up in the place of God in these areas. This is false kingship, and with it comes judgment for idolatry and for worshiping a false god. Society progresses into the judgment of its own making.
The progression into a sin-dominated culture happens slowly, and Christians tend to accept the drift unless sudden changes drastically strike at obvious issues. Thus, Christians speak out against abortion and homosexual marriage. Meanwhile, more subtle things creep in: Social Security, public education, Medicare, welfare, multiple taxes, etc, and possibly compulsory national service. Each of these programs violate biblical principles of property and life, and strike just as severely at the biblical idea of family as do homosexual marriage and abortion, yet Christians accept and even applaud them. The applause comes for many reasons—apparent benefits, self-interest, the programs appear moral, sustainable, and they are already established by our parents and grandparents. What gets lost in the whole process is a consistent, biblical assessment of the God-determined boundaries for Family, Church, and State.
We must constantly return to Scripture and ask “Who is King?” over these areas. To the extent that Christians let the State usurp the God-given roles of family and church, we have accepted the legitimacy of a false god. The fires of Molech will continue to consume and grow until Christians lose the ability to withdraw. Withdraw from your interest in the tophet schools and the false-prophet State systems of Molech while you still can. Ask yourself the question “Who is King?”
A lot depends on your answer.
***
Notes:
1.   Rushdoony, Institutes, 35, 33.(↩)
2.   Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, trans. John McHugh (New York, Toronto, and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1961), 445.(↩)
3.   Vaux, Ancient Israel, 445.(↩)
4.   Helga Seeden, “A Tophet In Tyre?,” BERYTUS 39 (1991); (accessed August 26, 2009). Despite acknowledging that “probable human bone” was found among the urns’ contents, and that some of these fragments “consisted of shaft bone a few millimeters of diameter,” the report naïvely concludes that “their size was not consistent with them being remains of small infants.”(↩)
5.   Vaux, Ancient Israel, 446.(↩)
6.   J. E. E. D. Acton, “Human Sacrifice,”Essays in Religion, Politics, and Morality: Selected Writings of Lord Acton, 3 vols. ed. J. Rufus Fears (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1988), 3:413, 415–7.(↩)
7.   The Book of Common Prayer (Reformed Episcopal Church of North America, Third Edition, 2003) 63.(↩)
8.   Charles Francis Potter, Humanism: A New Religion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930), 128. Quoted in David A. Noebel, J.F. Baldwin, and Kevin Bywater, Clergy in the Classroom: The Religion of Secular Humanism (Manitou Springs, CO: Summit Press, 1995), vi. I have taken this from Gary DeMar, “Why Creation and Prophecy Can’t Be Separated,” (accessed August 27, 2009).(↩)


Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Globalists Go All Out to Stop Russia’s Massive Gas Pipeline to Germany (Russian TV News) - Patrick Fleming


Washington loves to accuse others of that which it is guilty of. The primary attack on Nord Stream in the MSM is based on the pretext that European dependence on Russia for gas will lead to Russia using this to “assault European values”.


American Globalists use a mix of sanctions and fines to hinder companies from participating in the project, and push Europe to purchase gas from other countries like America instead, which is substantially more expensive. That way Europe will remain under the influence of “American values”.

The attacks on Nord Stream and affordable Russian gas are nearly identical to the attacks on the Chinese company Huawei and it’s 5G network, which globalists see as a threat to their own international hegemony in technology.

This segment goes over the Western establishment’s desperate attempts at sabotaging the project.

Transcript below:

Transcript:

On Monday, the Head of Gazprom Alexei Miller announced that over 20% of the Nord Stream-2 offshore gas pipeline had already been built. On Saturday, the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki admitted defeat of Russia's new gas pipeline opponents. In an interview with Interia, he explained the senselessness of resistance, since Russia is a world power, and Germany is the fourth economy in the world. However, this is just the opinion of the Prime Minister of Poland. There is no doubt that Americans will not give up so simply. We discussed just last Sunday that the US accomplishes its tasks either by taking people hostage or by destroying reputations through blackmail and dirt, using the “no person - no problem” principle.

At this point, it would be logical to expect an American attack on German Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who heads the board of directors of the Swiss Nord Stream AG, a company established to manage the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

Mikhail Antonov with the details from Berlin.

On January 26 Germany "sentenced" coal power: by 2038, there will be only gas and wind. Gas is more stable. It can be taken from different sources: it will be safer and cheaper from Siberia than from the USA or Qatar, and the North Sea running out of it altogether. Everyone in Germany is aware of this, but a separate category of Western, even German politicians and the media, can't be kept from participating in propaganda campaigns against the construction of Nord Stream-2.

Jens Muller, Press Secretary, Nord Stream-2: “We, being project developers, do not evaluate political processes and statements. We take note of them and should take them into account in our work. We note the intensification of the discussion: the closer the project is to completion, the more active are the political debates.”

Opponents of the Nord Stream-2 have already used almost the entire arsenal of psychological pressure means: from intimidating their own people with a Russian energy "weapon" aimed at European values, and the attack on the young "Ukrainian democracy," to direct threats to Gazprom partners in Germany, Austria, France, and the Netherlands.

“Americans have various ways to obstruct the construction of a gas pipeline. Banks participating in the project may face sanctions, while specialized firms responsible for laying and maintaining the pipeline at sea may be fined.”

The farther, the harsher are the attacks, that are coordinated and funded from Washington and London. The United States wants to make the European energy sector use the American liquefied gas and is no longer shy of demanding this through its ambassador to Germany, Rick Grenell. Parallel problems are created for the pipeline logistics. It's still unclear whether it will be possible to lay the pipe near Bornholm Island in the Danish territorial waters.

They also harm people who participate in the project. Political analyst Alexander Rahr is not directly related to Nordstream-2, but his personal experience is applicable to the situation. A few years ago he underwent a campaign of harassment.

Alexander Rahr, political analyst: “The fourth power, the press is, of course, is very strong in Germany and in Europe. It is not controlled by anyone, so the editors-in-chief can get away with a lot. And politicians, by the way, are becoming scared. The sad thing is, I know that from my personal experience, that you lose friends. Many people who are there with you do not want to be blackmailed, they don't want to be under the same pressure that falls on you, so they step aside, too.”

The chairman of the Nord Stream-2 board of directors, Gerhard Schroeder, is a man on whom the ultraliberal press, funded off grants from the State Department, has been practicing personal discredit tactics for many years. The press began to poke him in the days when he worked as German Chancellor, spoke against the country's participation in the Iraqi gamble and supported the idea of the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

Gerhard Schroeder, Nord Stream-2, Board of Directors: “The US is eager to hinder the project, they do not show solidarity to the EU, and act based on their own economic interests. If you look at how President Trump tends to promote sanctions, it becomes clear it is all about selling American liquefied gas on the European market.“

“The USA gives us an example of agility and maneuverability but their actions will not remain unanswered. I hope the EU will find enough strength to stay committed to the project and won't follow the American scenario.”

Russian gas is in the interests of Germany, but Schroeder will still easily be represented as a lobbyist for the Kremlin interests. Just as categorically and without proof as the Mirotvorets site moderators did, who have listed Schroeder as an enemy of Ukraine. Sometimes, he is accused of something entirely from the subjective area, such as the accusations that heading Nord Stream-2 is “beyond the limits of permissible”, almost immoral. How do you object this?

Alexander Rahr: “It was once written that Schroeder allegedly met with this or that person somewhere behind the curtains in the Russian Embassy in Germany, to somehow get permission to build the Nord Stream. It's all a lie, there was no such meeting. But it was simply impossible to refute. And there are a lot of such versions, half-versions, injustices, media frauds.”

Schroeder is a convenient target for demagogic accusations, a Putin’s friend, who dares not to hide it. He acts annoyingly, causes envious attention to his personal life, connections, interests, incomes.

It is possible that in the near future Schroeder will become the object of a new attack developed by Western intelligence agencies for the Western press on the principle "it doesn't matter if it really happened, it is important that you believe it".

But, of course, the most important task of such special actions is not to harm a particular person, but to hit the Nord Stream, which is currently supported by most Germans. Opponents of the Nord Stream will try to break the image of the project to justify any further lawlessness and gangster methods. As they say, it's nothing personal, just business.

This post first appeared on Russia Insider

Putin to Russians: "Have Kids, Build Houses, Read Books." - Gilbert Doctorow


To Americans, "I have the bomb." To Euros, "Oink Oink, Amero-Piggies."


As he stated at the outset, Vladimir Putin’s annual state of the nation address today before a joint session of the nation’s bicameral legislature was devoted preponderantly to domestic policy. He was expanding on the practical implications for the Russian population of the policy priorities for his current six-year term that he set out in decrees of May 2018. These have in the meantime taken the form of national projects organized around support to families to encourage child-bearing and stabilize the national demographics; housing construction and financing; roads, ports and other transport infrastructure development; improved health services; upgrading public education; encouragement to business innovation and export; and the like.

This material was delivered with a human touch, drawing on many experiences of contact with people from all walks of life that the President has gathered in specially organized meetings focused on these national projects at various cities around his vast country. He cited in particular his time in Kazan last week talking about housing.

For most political observers outside of Russia, myself included, the domestic policy story was marginal to our interests, though we did sit up and pay close attention to his brief remarks on one achievement illustrating the strides the country is making in state of the art applied sciences. This was his description of the breakthrough represented by the design and production of the hypersonic Avangard missile system. He likened it to the launch into orbit of the first Sputnik and he promised spill-over of the science into the civilian economy.

Otherwise, we foreigners had to wait until the very end of his speech to hear what brought us to watch this annual ritual in the first place. The raisins in our cake came when the President finally turned to international affairs. And there, after a rather cursory summary of Russia’s foreign policy priorities, his discourse shifted to defense issues raised by the recently announced American withdrawal from the Intermediate- Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty. Indeed, notwithstanding the mention a few moments before of the key importance of bilateral ties with China and also with India, Putin’s focus on Washington and the way the whole Russian defense industry is directed to meeting threats from the USA, highlights the centrality of that one country in Russian thinking. Thus, Putin allowed himself to mock Europe as US “satellites.” Further to the point, he went on to use folksy language that Nikita Khrushchev would surely a have approved to describe the Europeans as so many little piglets oinking their assent to Washington’s allegations of Russian INF violations. The audience in the hall turned to smiles and applauded enthusiastically.

Western mainstream media have been quick to note the direct threat by Putin in his speech to respond to any US placement of nuclear armed cruise missiles in Europe by targeting not only the European host countries of such installations but the decision-making centers authorizing their use, meaning Washington. By its new hypersonic weapon systems, Russia would be able to reach targeted American cities within the same 10 – 12 minutes that the Americans would enjoy by lobbing their slower cruise missiles at Moscow from perches in Poland and Romania.

This is tough talk over basic issues that suggest not so much a revisiting of the US-Russian Cold War confrontation over European based Pershings versus Soviet medium range SS20s targeting Western Europe in the 1980s, as a revisiting of the issues underlying the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. At that time, US missiles secretly based in Turkey brought a mirror image response from Russia (the Soviet Union) in the form of missiles positioned just off the American coast and having comparable flying times to hit the American heartland.

Surely, as I have remarked in recent essays, the highly polished Putin is no Khrushchev, and he is careful to avoid appearing to issue threats. But the toughness is there under the velvet glove in speeches like today’s.

To allow readers to draw their own conclusions, I offer below my translation of the complete text of the speech relating to the United States.

Russian text

Excerpt – the final 12 minutes devoted to foreign and defense policy of a speech that ran approximately 90 minutes.

Quote:

The most acute and discussed issue today in Russian-American relations is the unilateral withdrawal of the USA from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Therefore, I am simply compelled to dwell on this in some detail. Yes, to be sure, from the moment of the conclusion of this Treaty in 1987 there have been serious changes in the world. Many countries have developed and continue to develop this form of weapons, whereas Russia and the USA do not. We voluntarily have restricted ourselves in this matter. Such a situation, of course, can raise questions; that is understandable. That is what our American partners should have said, honestly, and without using fabricated accusations against Russia to justify their unilateral withdrawal from the Treaty. It would have been better if, as in 2002, when they left the ABM Treaty, they had been open and honest about it. Whether this is a good or bad thing is another matter. I believe it is bad. But they did so and that’s it. Here they should have acted honestly. How are they themselves acting in fact? They are violating everything and then seek justification and designate guilty parties. And still more, they mobilize their satellites: they are very cautious, but still like piglets they oink their assent on this question. At first, they began development and application of medium range missiles, seeking to divert attention by calling them “target missiles” for their missile defense system. Then they began installing in Europe the MK-41 multi-purpose launchers which make it possible to perform combat use of the medium range Tomahawk cruise missiles.

I am talking about this and taking your time with it only because we are compelled to respond to the accusations which we hear directed against us. But having done everything that I have just said, the USA openly disregarded and demonstratively ignored the whole set of provisions stipulated by articles 4 and 6 of the INF Treaty. In particular, according to point 1, article 4 of the Treaty, (and I quote) “each of the parties liquidates its medium range missiles and launch installations for such missiles so that neither of the parties has such missiles and such launchers.” In article 6, point 1, we see (I am reading word for word): “after this Treaty comes into force and thereafter neither of the parties will produce any medium range missiles or carry out flight tests of such missiles, nor produce any stages of such missiles or any launch installations of such missiles.” End of citation.

By launching medium range target-missiles and by installing in Romania and Poland launchers suitable for use with Tomahawk cruise missiles, the USA directly and crudely violated these requirements of the Treaty. Well, they did this already long ago. In Romania these launch installations are already standing, and nothing, or seemingly nothing is happening. Strange, you might say. We see nothing strange. But people should see this and understand.

How do we evaluate the situation in this regard. I have already said and want to repeat: Russia does not intend – and this is very important, I repeat it especially – Russia does not intend to be the first to locate such missiles in Europe. If they really will be produced and placed on the European Continent, and the USA has such plans, in any case we have not heard contrary statements, then this will greatly exacerbate the situation in the sphere of international security; it will create serious threats for Russia. After all, the flying time to Moscow of certain categories of such missiles can amount to 10 – 12 minutes. This is a very serious threat for us. In this case, we will be compelled, and I want to underline, precisely compelled, to take mirror-image and asymmetrical actions. What does this mean?

I will say right now directly and openly what I am talking about so that no one will rebuke us later, and so that everything is clear in advance. Russia will be forced to create and deploy forms of weapons which can be used not only with respect to those territories from which the respective direct threat arises, but also with respect to those territories where are located the centers for taking decisions about using the missile complexes threatening us.

What is important in this connection: here there is a lot that is new. By their tactical and technical characteristics, including flight time to the indicated management centers, these weapons will fully match the threats which are being directed against Russia.

We know how to do this and we will carry out these plans immediately, as soon as the respective threats to us become real. I do not think that the international situation today is such that it needs additional and irresponsible exacerbation. We do not want this

What do I want to add here? Our American colleagues have already tried to achieve absolute military superiority with the help of their global missile defense system. They must put such illusions aside. The response from our side will always be powerful and effective.

Work on the promising models and systems of arms about which I spoke in my Address a year ago is continuing – at an even pace, without interruptions, according to plan. We have begun serial production of the Avangard complex about which I already spoke today. This year, as was planned, the first regiment of the Strategic Missile Troops will be supplied with it. We are in production and carrying out the cycle of tests on the heavy, intercontinental missile Sarmat which has unprecedented power. The Peresvet laser installations and air force complexes equipped with the hypersonic Kinzhal missiles have confirmed their unique specifications in test and battle duty; the personnel have gained experience operating them. In December of this year all the Peresvety units delivered to the Armed Forces will be put on combat duty. We are continuing work to extend the infrastructure for hosting MiG-31 planes equipped with Kinzhal missiles. The tests are going well on our unlimited range cruise missile powered by the Burevestnik nuclear engine, as well as on the Poseidon, our underwater drone with unlimited range.

In this connection, I want to make a very important remark. We didn’t talk about this previously, but today I can say this: already in the spring of this year we will put out to sea our first atomic submarine carrying this drone complex. The work is proceeding according to plan.

Today, I consider it possible also to officially inform you about still one more promising new unit. Remember that last time I said: there is something additional to talk about, but it is a bit early. Now, calmly we will tell you what we have held in the vaults. It is one more promising innovation, work on which is going successfully, with completion certain to occur within the planned timeline. Namely, I want to speak about the hypersonic Zircon missile, having a speed in flight of around Mach 9 and a range greater than one thousand kilometers, capable of destroying targets both on land and at sea. Its use is foreseen on naval carriers, serial produced surface ships and submarines, including those already produced or under construction and fitted with the high precision Kalibr missile complexes. That is to say, all of this will not incur extra costs for us.

In this connection, I want to emphasize that for the defense of the national interests of Russia, we will turn over to the Russian Navy two – three years earlier than scheduled seven new multifunctional submarines, and in the near future we will begin construction of five surface ships for global service, while a further 16 ships of this class will be introduced into the fleet by 2027.

In closing out the subject of the unilateral withdrawal of the USA from the INF Treaty, I would like to say the following. In the past few years, the USA has been conducting towards Russia a policy which one could hardly call friendly. They ignore the lawful interests of Russia. They are constantly organizing various kinds of anti-Russian campaigns which are absolutely unprovoked, and I emphasize this, from our side. They introduce more and more new sanctions which are illegal from the standpoint of international law. They are dismantling unilaterally practically all the treaties and legal basis of international security that developed over recent decades, and at the same time they just about call Russia the main threat to the USA.

I will say directly that this is untrue. Russia wants to have full-bodied, equitable and friendly relations with the USA. Russia is not threatening anyone. All of our actions in the sphere of security bear an exclusively reactive, meaning defensive character. We are not interested in a confrontation and do not want it, least of all with such a global power as the United States of America. But it would appear that our partners are not noticing how and with what speed the world is changing, where it is headed. They continue their destructive and clearly erroneous policy. It hardly corresponds to the interests of the USA itself. But that is not for us to decide.

We see that we are dealing with business-like, very talented people. However, among the ruling class there are many of those who are excessively captivated by the idea of their exceptionalism and their superiority over the rest of the world. It stands to reason that they have the right to think so if they wish. But do they know how to count? Surely they do. Let them calculate the range and speed of our upcoming weapons systems. We only ask one thing: let them first do their calculations, and only after that take decisions which can create serious threats for our country, understandably leading to actions in response from the Russian side to reliably ensure our security.

Moreover, I already spoke about this and want to repeat it: we are ready for negotiations on disarmament, but we will no longer knock at a closed door. We will wait until our partners mature, come to understand the need for equitable dialogue on this subject.

We will continue to develop our Armed Forces, to raise the intensity and quality of combat preparation, including our taking into account our experience from the anti-terrorist operation in Syria. And this was received by practically all the commanders of the major units of our Ground Troops, our special operations forces and military police, navy crews, army, tactical operations, strategic and military transport aviation.

I want to emphasize the following: for steady and long-term development we need peace. All of our work to raise our defense capability has only one objective: it is directed towards ensuring the security of the country and of our citizens, so that no one will not only not think about committing aggression against Russia but will not try to use the methods of forcible pressure against our country.

Full video of the Address to the joint houses of the Russian parliament:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt-IDPWJrZk


Source: GilbertDoctorow.com



https://russia-insider.com/en/node/26338

Time for Action: Chase Bank Denies Service to Conservatives | BY JOHN HAWKINS


It’s hard to imagine how conservatives could be even more complacent than they actually are about what’s being done to this country.
The schools our children are taught in are almost universally run by liberals who hate everything we stand for, but we don’t demand that our representatives pull funding from state schools that behave that way.
Hollywood has become vocally, over-the-top hostile to Christians and conservatives, but we go see the movies anyway.
We still buy the papers and watch the cable news shows of networks that talk about us like we’re Nazis because we don’t agree with their liberal worldview.
More recently, increasingly monopolistic social media companies that have an inordinate amount of control over who gets heard and who doesn’t have started actively targeting conservatives and we just shrug or spout platitudes.
“If you don’t like the way they do it, take on those monopolies with hundreds of millions of users and billions in cash by building your own company.”
So, what happens when banks and credit card companies target people for their political views? Do we need to build our own banks, too?
Activist Laura Loomer, who has already been banned by PayPal, claims she had her account suspended by Chase Bank.
Enrique Tarrio, the black leader of the Proud Boys, a group that has laughably been branded a white supremacist organization by liberals, was also suspended by Chase. So was Martina Markota. And Joe Biggs, who made enough of a stink that Chase reluctantly gave him his account back.
Banking is one of the most heavily regulated industries in America for a good reason – and it’s not just because the bankers can steal your money. The idea that citizens could be cut off from using a bank because of their political views is extremely dangerous. Imagine going to your bank and being told to produce your voter registration before you’re allowed to open an account or get a credit card. If Chase is allowed to do this, we are taking a step into that world. A world where your political views could keep you from being able to get credit or run a business. Certainly, there are an awful lot of liberals who would love to see us enter a world like that. In fact, there was a column in the New York Times last year calling for weaponizing the financial industry in exactly this way to shut down the gun industry as part of an effort to deny Americans their Second Amendment rights.
Republicans in the Senate should demand that Chase executives come before them and answer some hard questions about targeting customers for their political views. Maybe we need to rewrite banking regulations to make sure this kind of discrimination can’t occur. I tell you what’s not a “maybe”: Republicans in Congress should at least let banks know that they are paying attention to this issue and that there could be rather severe consequences for Chase or, alternately, for the whole industry if this practice spreads.
You may have heard someone say, “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” I would add to that “capitalism is not a suicide pact.” Breaking up monopolies is a conservative idea with a long track record. Protecting middle-class citizens from the abuses of corporations that are targeting them unfairly is not something conservatives have historically shied away from doing when it was needed.
If conservatives are too complacent and lazy to address the challenges of the 21stcentury, maybe they should step aside for the socialists. They’re not complacent. They don’t sit around saying, “Gee, our people are being mistreated, but it would take work to do something about it and we might offend some powerful business owner if we fight back, so I guess we should let them trample us into the dust.” Conservatives with power need to stop mumbling platitudes about the free market and capitalism while their supporters are being stomped into the ground. They need to defend the real human beings, warts and all, who make it possible for conservatism to exist.

Bills Indicate Scary Trend Of Treating Parents Guilty Until Proven Innocent - By Margot Cleveland


While these two bills focused on homeschooling, the same perspective on parental rights—that the state knows best, parents be damned—can be seen in legislative branches throughout the country.

Two recent bills proposed by state legislators in Illinois and Iowa reveal a disturbing perspective on parental rights that’s becoming more prevalent in our country: the belief that parents cannot be trusted to care for their children.
The Swiftly-Defeated Illinois Bill
In Illinois, a little over a week ago, Democratic state Rep. Monica Bristow introduced House Bill 3560. That bill sought to amend the school code to require the Child Protective Service unit of the Department of Children and Family Services to investigate the home of a child being homeschooled “to ensure there is no suspected child abuse or neglect in the home.” The proposed law would have applied to every child being homeschooled, even when there was no reason to suspect neglect or abuse.
The response of homeschooling families was swift. “We live in such a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ culture,” Amy Kwilinski, an Illinois homeschooling mom of six (including four with special needs) told The Federalist. “It seems like our culture is headed toward a mistrust of homeschooling, which might send us dangerously toward a German-like ban,” Kwilinski added, noting that she plans to contact all of her elected officials.
Other homeschooling parents apparently felt similarly, because within days of Bristow’s bill being referred to the Rules Committee, the sponsor filed a motion to table the bill. In less than a week, HB 3560 was dead.
Scott Woodruff, senior counsel with Home School Legal Defense Association told The Federalist that Bristow’s “bill struck a raw nerve among homeschool families.” “They don’t want to be treated like criminals. Who wants to be investigated for child abuse for absolutely no other reason than choosing to homeschool your child?” Woodruff said. “It also would have been a fabulous waste of the limited time that child protective workers have to protect kids who are in trouble,” Woodruff added.
A Different Bill Attempts to Surveil Families In Iowa
While the Illinois bill is essentially dead, a similar bill remains under consideration in Iowa. Late last month, representatives in Iowa introduced a bill that would require school districts to conduct “quarterly home visits to check on the health and safety of children” being homeschooled. The bill specified that “home visits shall take place in the child’s residence with the consent of the parent, guardian, or legal custodian and an interview or observation of the child may be conducted.”
Unlike the Illinois bill, which would have forced parents to allow the government to investigate their homes and children before they could homeschool—likely an unconstitutional condition—the Iowa bill at least recognized that such inspections require the consent of the parent or guardian. However, the following section stated that “if permission to enter the home to interview or observe the child is refused, the juvenile court or district court upon a showing of probable cause may authorize the person making the home visit to enter the home and interview or observe the child.”
This probable cause provision raises several red flags. First, the proposed bill does not specify what there must be “probable cause” of. The most reasonable interpretation would be “probable cause” of neglect or abuse, which leads to the second point: The law already allows the government to obtain a court order to enter a home upon a showing of “probable cause” of neglect or abuse, so why the need to amend the code regulating homeschooling?
There is no need. Rather, the Iowa bill would provide school officials the ability to bully parents by demanding entry, knowing many homeschoolers would not realize they could refuse to consent. For those parents who know their rights and exercise them, they risk retaliation when the school districts later review the objecting parents’ homeschool curriculum. Even worse, the school officials might present unfounded claims of neglect to a court which, given the normal ex parte (without notifying the parents of the court filing) proceedings, may authorize the government’s invasion of the family’s home.
That the Iowa bill seeks to target homeschool families under the auspices of “protecting the children” seems clear when you consider the law already provides a mechanism to enter homes when cause exists to believe children are suffering from neglect or abuse. The bill’s backing from the Iowa State Education Association, an association that sells itself “an integral part of the 3 million-member National Education Association,” is another huge tell.
Parents Are Not the Enemy
Whether the Iowa bill, which has been in committee for nearly a month, will suffer the same fate as the Illinois one is yet to be seen. But the mere proposal of these bills should serve as a wake-up call to all parents of the trend among policymakers to view them as the enemy. While these two bills focused on homeschooling, the same perspective on parental rights—that the state knows best, parents be damned—can be seen in legislative branches throughout the country.
For instance, in Indiana, last year the legislature gutted a law that would have required schools to provide parents access to materials used for instruction on sexual activity and gender identity and to obtain their consent before “teaching” kids about gender identity. South Dakota’s legislature recently killed a bill expressly protecting a parent’s right to refuse to consent to health care “treatment” for a child that would promote the child’s belief that he is a she, or vice versa.
The aggressive move to replace a parent’s love, care, guidance, and decision-making with whatever whim the experts of the bureaucratic state currently profess is a disturbing and growing trend, and it threatens all parents—not merely those homeschooling their children.
Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Cleveland served nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk to a federal appellate judge and is a former full-time faculty member and current adjunct instructor at the college of business at the University of Notre Dame. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.


America: ‘Indispensable Nation’ No More | By ANDREW J. BACEVICH


Rather than seeing 'far into the future,' American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week.
“Only those of us who were born under Queen Victoria,” wrote Ronald Knox, “know what it feels like to assume, without questioning, that England is permanently top nation, that foreigners do not matter, and that if worst comes to the worst, Lord Salisbury will send a gunboat.” Knox offered this trenchant observation, redolent with irony and perhaps tinged with regret, not as a policymaker or strategic thinker, but from the vantage point of a clergyman. From the 1920s through the 1950s, Monsignor Knox was the most famous and influential Catholic priest in all of Great Britain. As such, he entertained a distinct perspective on what actually qualifies as permanent and what merely offers the appearance.
While perhaps using different terms—our preference is for dispatching nuclear aircraft carriers rather than gunboats—Americans born after World War II came into adulthood imbued with precisely the same sentiment about their own country. From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we—not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians—were number one, and, more importantly, were meant to be. That history’s verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living in or near Washington, D.C.
If doubts remained on that score, the end of the Cold War removed them. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, politicians, journalists, and policy intellectuals threw themselves headlong into a competition over who could explain best just how unprecedented, how complete, and how wondrous was the global preeminence of the United States.
Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright’s justification for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever). 

“If we have to use force,” Secretary of State Albright announced on morning television in February 1998, “it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.”
Back then, it was Albright’s claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright’s insistence that “we see further into the future.” 
In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright’s “we” napping. The 9/11 terrorist attacks and the several unsuccessful wars of choice that followed offer prime examples. But so too did Washington’s belated and inadequate recognition of the developments that actually endanger the wellbeing of 21st-century Americans, namely climate change, cyber threats, and the ongoing reallocation of global power prompted by the rise of China. Rather than seeing far into the future, American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week. More often than not, they get even that wrong.
Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment’s formula for militarized global leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers, including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent counted for nothing.
Yet in 2016, Trump’s critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump’s half-baked formula for Making America Great Again—building “the wall,” provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat—is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether irrelevant. His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don’t help.
So the nation today finds itself in an interesting predicament. The media elites that drive the national conversation have reached the conclusion that nothing surpasses in importance Trump’s removal from office. The midterm elections that returned the Democrats to power in the House have heightened expectations of the Trump era coming to an end. This has injected into the early maneuvering for the 2020 presidential election a palpable sense of urgency. Sensing opportunity, candidates rush to join the competition. The field promises to be a crowded one.
Among progressives, the presence of women, people of color, and at least one gay person in the race suggests that something of epic importance is about to unfold. Maybe so. But here’s one thing that’s likely to be missing: any serious assessment of the costs and consequences of recent policies formulated pursuant to the insistence that the United States is, as Monsignor Knox put it, “permanently top nation.” 
The gatekeepers of the orthodoxy, united in denouncing Trump, will not permit any such assessment. So the coming campaign will no doubt be entertaining. In some respects, it may also be enlightening. But in all likelihood, it will leave untouched the basic premises of U.S. policy—the bloated military budget, the vast empire of bases, the penchant for interventionism, all backed by the absurd claims of American exceptionalism voiced by the likes of Madeleine Albright and her kindred spirits.
When Ronald Knox was born, Queen Victoria presided over an empire on which the sun never set. By the time he died during the reign of Victoria’s great-great-granddaughter, that empire had vanished. Funny how quickly these things can happen.
Andrew Bacevich is The American Conservative’s writer-at-large. His new book The Age of Illusions is due out this fall.