Friends, this is so unprecedented and so unbelievable we had to insure accuracy with direct sourcing for context, via exact quotes, and comprehension, via video of events.

For the vicar of Christ, Pope Francis, to say another man “is not Christian” entirely because the pope disagrees with a specific point of political opinion – is unprecedented in historic Catholicism, Christianity and ancient-to-modern expressions of faith.

It is almost certain the Vatican will try to clean up this political mess with intense urgency [opinion follows content].  The Pope was asked the following question by a Reuters reporter, Phil Pullella:

Phil Pullella, Reuters: Today, you spoke very eloquently about the problems of immigration. On the other side of the border, there is a very tough electoral battle. One of the candidates for the White House, Republican Donald Trump, in an interview recently said that you are a political man and he even said that you are a pawn, an instrument of the Mexican government for migration politics.

Trump said that if he’s elected, he wants to build 2,500 kilometers of wall along the border. He wants to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, separating families, etcetera. I would like to ask you, what do you think of these accusations against you and if a North American Catholic can vote for a person like this? (citation link)

Here is the exact response by Pope Francis today: (more…)

Today is one of those days when political junkies realize why CTH is such a desperate threat to the professional political class because tripwires are being triggered in all directions exactly as predicted.  HERE – HERE – HERE

We will get to the NBC nonsense in another discussion thread.

Today, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is endorsing GOPe Marco Rubio, oh, now there’s a shock fail… and the narratives the apoplectic political class are using to accompany the endorsement are so transparent all we can do is laugh at their effort.

Earlier […]  ♦  Now to the endorsements.  Again, go back to the original road-map and cut through the media fog surrounding South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

Haley has done the bidding of the GOPe DC Machine (Ryan, McConnell, etc.) with the SOU response to knock down Donald Trump.   Republican party leadership approved the script.  Governor Haley also spoke highly of Marco Rubio in the 36 hours that followed the controversy.

Absent of GOPe intervention, a Rubio endorsement from her was/is all but certain. (link)

(more…)

This is an interesting situation.  Obviously no-one has any sympathy for the terrorists, but a federal judge is requiring Apple to build access to unlock an iPhone.  There’s a more complex issue at stake, at least there appears to be – maybe not.  Here’s the story:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. magistrate has ordered Apple to help the Obama administration hack into an iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in San Bernardino, California.

The ruling by Sheri Pym on Tuesday requires Apple to supply highly specialized software the FBI can load onto the phone to cripple a security encryption feature that erases data after too many unsuccessful unlocking attempts.

Federal prosecutors told the judge they can’t access a county-owned work phone used by Syed Farook because they don’t know his passcode.  By default, Apple has encrypted its iPhones to allow them only to be accessed using a passcode. (read more)

And HERE is Apple’s Response

What do you think?

(more…)

The U.S. State Department released more of Hillary Clinton’s emails today.  One of those emails is noted as originating on March 22nd 2011, the exact day President Obama launched the attacks on Libya.

The newly released email confirms what many already knew – it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power who convinced President Obama to go to war in Libya:

“Turning POTUS around on this is a major win for everything we worked for”..

(more…)

Mohamed Barry, 30, carried a machete into an Ohio restaurant and began chopping at people.

However, Barry was known to the FBI, and was in their suspect database because of prior radical jihadist threats he made.

But that didn’t stop the Columbus police spokesman Rich Weiner from proclaiming:

“There’s nothing to lead us to believe this is anything more than a random attack.”

I doubt there is severe enough sarcasm possible here; because everyone knows “random attack” is generally defined as a self-proclaimed Muslim jihadist walking into a kosher deli, which coincidentally is named, Nazareth Restaurant and Deli, and chopping people up with a machete.

C’mon, happens all the time – right?  Nothing to see here folks, move along, step right this way… move along now.  Pay no attention to the Jihad near the counter.

(more…)

INDIANAPOLIS — There were gasps of anger and disbelief. There was yelling. At least one person in the crowd of Carrier employees shouted things that cannot be written here.

The employees had just been told the heating, cooling, air conditioning, and refrigeration company was relocating its Indianapolis plant to Monterrey, Mexico.

Statement from Carrier: (more…)

It did not take long for the earlier predictions of the upcoming South Carolina debate to be confirmed.  According to a local media report the Peace Center in South Carolina, with an audience capacity of 1,900, will be attended by only the most exclusive party insiders and Republican donors.

[…]  Republican National Committee decided not to go with a lottery system. “If we had not had it at the Peace Center we probably would have had more people come, but the Peace Center is the venue that CBS chose,” said Chad Groover, chairman of the Greenville County Republican party.

Groover said supporters who work hard for the party will be rewarded tickets. People selected will fill the 1,900 seats that have been made available for the event, according to Groover.  Groover said the Republican National Committee gives a lot of tickets to supporters. He said more are then allocated for the state party to distribute among the county chairs.  […]  Groover said he gave tickets to supporters, including elected officials, who work hard for the party. (link)

As typical for the cocktail class, “work hard for the party” translates to opening checkbooks and demanding influence.

The New Hampshire debate audience was Old School Republicans who cheered Jeb Bush and jeered the ‘next-in-line-jumper’ Marco Rubio.  However, South Carolina has already shown their most preferential candidate in the North Charleston debate, where party insiders were majority Rubio supporters.  Expect Greenville to be more like the latter than former. (more…)

If you begin to receive weird phone text messages, Facebook contacts and weird emails from the Cruz campaign, it’s probably because one of your “friends” is a Ted Cruz supporter – and he or she has you in their contact list.

An alarming article from the Associated Press explains how Ted Cruz has moved his campaign from direct cyber contact to data-mining and spyware within the contacts on phones and social media of Ted Cruz supporters.

According to the Associated Press outline the Cruz campaign has launched an app which targets the “friends” list of Facebook supporters of Ted Cruz, and extracts their information for use:

[…]  The Cruz app prompts supporters to register using their Facebook logins, giving the campaign access to personal information such as name, age range, gender, location and photograph, plus lists of friends and relatives. Those without a Facebook account must either provide an email address or phone number to use the app. (link)

But the Cruz campaign doesn’t limit themselves to just social media.  According to the media report the campaign is also retrieving, extracting and targeting those names and phone numbers within the supporters cell phone: (more…)

Mexico’s former president Felipe Calderon recently responded to Donald Trump’s border wall proposal by stating:

…The Mexican people, we are not going to pay any single cent for such a stupid wall! And it’s going to be completely useless… (link)

Why now?

Why would Calderon make such a claim at this specific moment in time?  Well, here’s a report that will answer that question.

(Mexico) Remittances sent home by Mexicans working outside the country surpassed petroleum revenues in 2015 for the first time.   There was a 4.75% increase in money sent from abroad, most of which comes from the U.S., to total US $24.8 billion last year, up from $23.6 billion in 2014, said the Bank of México.

The bank said it was the first time remittances had totaled more than petroleum revenues since it began tracking them in 1995.   Oil revenues last year totaled $23.4 billion.

An important factor in the increase in remittances is the jobs created by economic recovery in the U.S.   Some 11 million Mexicans are believed to be living in the U.S. and many work in construction. Remittances, 97% of which are sent electronically, averaged $292 last year. (link)

Yes, you read that correctly. Immigrant remittances received by Mexico have surpassed Mexico’s $23.4 billion in oil earnings.  This means the government of Mexico is more dependent than ever on the earnings of maids and gardeners in the U.S. to keep itself afloat. This is the leverage Donald Trump talks about to pressure Mexico to pay for the border wall. (more…)

In the run-up to the 2012 presidential election President Obama was quick to dismiss the growing threat of ISIS as a “junior varsity team”.

However, in 2016 with no reelection needed, a rather stark and somber forecast is delivered by the Department of National Intelligence head, James Clapper.

Prior to delivering testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, James Clapper submitted a summary of intelligence analytics describing the scope of threat. (more…)