Author: Papa Giorgio

False Memory Candidates – Hypnosis Update!

Published by Papa Giorgio

UPDATE For years I have known that hypnosis as a psychotherapy is dangerous. Most of the “alien abduction” stories, or contacts with spirits or past historical figures comes from some altered state of mind. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus mentions hypnosis in her TED-TALKS which I edit into the below audio a bit. I mentioned to a cyber acquaintance that I wonder if part of her (Christine Blasey Ford) therapy included hypnosis. This is what he said (I will emphasize the main point):

  • The timing of the specificity of her memories is certainly disquieting, but unless we learn more about her therapy, it will be hard for this to be more than speculation. It seems very likely that the name “Kavanaugh” never in fact came up until this summer, despite reports to the contrary.

True dat. HOWEVER, new information has come forward to bolster the hypnosis angle. Here is a great post by GATEWAY PUNDIT:

Christine Ford has not turned over her therapist’s notes to the Senate regarding her suppressed memories about Judge Kavanaugh abusing her decades earlier. This may be because if the memories were revealed through hypnosis they would be “absolutely inadmissible” in the court of law in many states, including New York and Maryland.

>>> Editor’s Side Note: (1) Dr. Ford released any confidentiality when she shared her therapy notes with the Washington Post, and (2), the FBI needs to view her therapy notes.

[….]

One of Christine Blasey Ford’s research articles in 2008 included a study on self-hypnosis. The practice of self-hypnosis is used to retrieve important memories and “create artificial situations.”

My cyber acquaintance’s response after reading the story above? “Wow” Continuing on now with the previous post:

  • If I’ve learned anything from my decades working on these problems, it’s this: Just because somebody tells you something and they say it with lots of confidence, detail, and emotion does not mean that it really happened. We can’t reliably distinguish true memories from false memories; WE NEED INDEPENDENT CORROBORATION. Such a discovery has made me more tolerant of friends and family who misremember. Such a discovery might have saved Steve Titus. We should all keep in mind that memory, like liberty, is a fragile thing. — Dr. Loftus

The only book I have read from years ago is “Confabulations: Creating False Memories, Destroying Families.” I would be curious to know if some of the counseling for Dr. Ford included hypnosis. I would also like to know the factors used to “recover” Ms. Ramirez’s memory. There have been many more studies based a lot more in control groups and the scientific method:

  • The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory
  • Witness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial
  • The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse
  • Memory Warp: How the Myth of Repressed Memory Arose and Refuses to Die
  • Victims of Memory: Sex Abuse Accusations and Shattered Lives

National Review has an excellent article regarding the issue of false memories, “‘False Memories’ Are More Common Than You Think”. In this excellent radio segment by the JOHN & KEN SHOW I add video and end in humor to embolden the idea herein.

 

An LDS Workbook for “Celestial Marriage” Explaining gods Attributes

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Originally posted in April of 2014)

This post is intimately tied to my chapter in my book on the Mormon concept thusly the attributes assigned to “god.” It is from a seminary level book all seminary level LDS have to read. Right click and choose “open link in new tab” in order to see it larger. The first three smaller scans are the publishing date and rear/front covers. I also cataloged these as part of my “Conversation Series” because the link to my chapter is partly from an actual conversation I had with two LDS missionaries. (I will also be importing and beefing up my “Mormon” tag.)

The larger pages (below) are the meat of the issue dealt with and specifically referenced (and thus explained) in my chapter in my book, linked directly below. I was just reading veraciously on this topic then and was fine-tunes to respond, so, enjoy the read if you link to my chapter on it:

CLICK TO ENLARGE IN NEW WINDOW

Trump @ War – The Movie

Published by Papa Giorgio

Trump @ War, a movie documentary by Steve Bannon, is an amazing and detailed accounting of the revolution between liberal and conservative ideologies that took place in the months leading up to the 2016 elections. Most people who followed mainstream liberal media outlets never saw the depth of the actual force and violence exacted against Trump supporters during demonstrations and rallies. This film is a display of the no-holds-barred attacks against his supporters, and a truthful exposition of the efforts to diminish Trump’s message and stop him from winning the election in November of 2016. Bannon, former White House chief strategist, released this movie to chronicle Trump’s road to the White House. More importantly, Bannon says the movie shows why it’s critical for every American who voted for him in 2016 to support him in the midterms.

Three Accusers | No Evidence

Published by Papa Giorgio

Wednesday on the radio, Mark Levin addressed the latest sexual assault allegations raised against Judge Brett Kavanaugh and pointed out a pattern:

  • “No witnesses, no corroboration, no evidence. That’s the pattern.”

CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD

BREAKING! WRONG GUY

Holy moly the news just gets more wild and crazy. Now there’s a man who has come out to say that Dr. Christine Ford has confused an interaction HE had with her, and accidentally blamed Kavanaugh for it!!!!

[….]

WOW ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!?

That would completely wipe out her credibility, on the evening before she’s set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Unbelievable. We’ll update as this story develops…

UPDATE: THERE ARE NOW TWO MEN!!!

“Whoa. Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans say they have spoken to two men who think they, not Kavanaugh, had the 1982 encounter that formed the basis for her sexual abuse claim. (These tables are from a timeline the committee majority published 15 minutes ago.)”…

(RIGHT SCOOP)

NO WITNESSES

  • All of Ford’s named witnesses of the party, both male and female, have now denied any recollection of attending such a party.

(WEEKLY STANDARD; CNN, POWERLINE, NATIONAL REVIEW, WESTERN JOURNAL, WASHINGTON TIMES). 

LIE DETECTOR TEST – Different Story

LIE DETECTOR TEST – Only 2 Questions

  • Ford’s lawyer took her to a polygraph examiner who concluded she was not being ‘deceptive’ with claims about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh
  • Attorney sent the results to Senate Republicans but refuse to show them a therapist’s notes from the sessions where Ford first discussed it
  • The polygraph test consisted of two yes-no questions
  • Ford and Kavanaugh are scheduled to testify in a Senate hearing on Thursday
  • Polygraphs, so-called ‘lie detactor’ tests, are generally inadmissible in court

The California woman who first accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault passed a ‘lie detector’ test in August that consisted of two questions.

Christine Blasey Ford’s attorneys sent Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans a report from a polygraph examiner who interviewed her on August 10.

But they refused on Wednesday to provide the committee with copies of notes from her psychotherapy sessions. Ford has said she first spoke to a therapist in 2012 about her memories of an ordeal.

‘Any request that she expose her private medical records for public inspection represents an unacceptable invasion of privacy,’ attorney Debra Katz wrote.

Katz, however, handed over the polygraph results to buttress her client’s accusation.

The test examiner asked Ford to write down a description of what happened to her at a high school party in the early 1980s, where she claims a drunken teenage Kavanaugh groped her and tried to remove her clothing while pinning her to a bed and covering her mouth.

AFTER INTERVIEWING HER ABOUT HER STATEMENT, THE EXAMINER ASKED HER A PAIR OF YES-OR-NO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WRITTEN NARRATIVE.

‘IS ANY PART OF YOUR STATEMENT FALSE?’ HE ASKED, FOLLOWED BY: ‘DID YOU MAKE UP ANY PART OF YOUR STATEMENT?’ FORD ANSWERED ‘NO’ TO BOTH QUESTIONS.

The report doesn’t mention questions about any specific parts of her story.

The polygraph examiner wrote that her two responses were ‘not indicative of deception,’ and that the chance she was lying was a tiny fraction of one per cent….

(DAILY MAIL | emphasis added | editor’s note: there were no comparison questions asked in differing ways to create a baseline)

DEBORAH RAMIREZ

NEW YORK TIMES – No Evidence/Witnesses At All

The New York Times reported on Sunday that it was unable to corroborate the claims of a second accuser who says Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to her in college.

Deborah Ramirez alleges that Kavanaugh thrust his penis into her face while she was drunk at a Yale University dormitory party. The New Yorker ran with Ramirez’s allegation on Sunday despite being unable to produce any firsthand witnesses or confirm that Kavanaugh was at the party where the incident was said to have occurred.

The New York Times noted several paragraphs deep in a report that it chose not to report on Ramirez’s allegation because of a lack of corroborating evidence.

“The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge,” the NYT’s Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos reported. “Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.”….

(DAILY CALLER)

CLOSEST COLLEGE FRIEND DENIES

…However, a woman who described herself as Ramirez’s best friend at the time told the New Yorker that she never heard about the story: “I was never told this story by her, or by anyone else. It never came up. I didn’t see it; I never heard of it happening.”

(BREITBART)

RAMIREZ NOT SURE – ONE

The Washington Post and other news outlets had attempted to report out Ramirez’s story in the days before the New Yorker report. She declined to speak with the Post. The New York Times could not corroborate it,

 saying It also said that some potential witnesses hadn’t seemed certain about the alleged perpetrator when Ramirez called them about it recently:

The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.

(WASHINGTON POST)

RAMIREZ NOT SURE – TWO

…Confronted with a New York Times report indicating Ramirez expressed doubts about Kavanaugh’s guilt to former Yale classmates, Mayer said Ramirez shared those doubts before they published their bombshell report on Sunday.

“To Ronan she said she wasn’t absolutely certain, she needed to make certain before she was going to say anything publicly. She remembered the specifics, the graphic specifics, and she tried to remember for sure who that man was who was in her face,” she told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough.“With all due respect to the New York Times, which is the best paper in America, just because they couldn’t get the story and speak to her or find the person that we found, who remembered it from back then, doesn’t mean it’s not true.”…

(NATIONAL REVIEW)

SIX DAYS OF INTENSE PRESSURE

The woman at the center of the story, Deborah Ramirez, who is fifty-three, attended Yale with Kavanaugh, where she studied sociology and psychology. Later, she spent years working for an organization that supports victims of domestic violence. The New Yorker contacted Ramirez after learning of her possible involvement in an incident involving Kavanaugh. The allegation was conveyed to Democratic senators by a civil-rights lawyer. For Ramirez, the sudden attention has been unwelcome, and prompted difficult choices. She was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident. In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty. After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. Ramirez is now calling for the F.B.I. to investigate Kavanaugh’s role in the incident. “I would think an F.B.I. investigation would be warranted,” she said.

(AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE)

JULIE SWETNICK

NEW YORK TIMES – No Corroboration 

…The New York Times noted that it could not independently corroborate the third Brett Kavanaugh accuser’s allegation that he engaged in “abusive” behavior toward girls at parties in high school.

“None of Ms. Swetnick’s claims could be independently corroborated by The New York Times, and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, declined to make her available for an interview,” the Times wrote in a story Wednesday….

(DAILY CALLER)

CRAZY PAST – Threats and Taxes

REPORT: Kavanaugh Accuser’s Ex-Boyfriend Filed Restraining Order After They Broke Up

…A Miami-Dade County court docket shows a petition for injunction against Swetnick was filed March 1, 2001, by her former boyfriend, Richard Vinneccy, who told POLITICO Wednesday the two had dated for four years before they broke up.

Thirteen days later, the case was dismissed, not long after an affidavit of non-ability to advance fees was filed.

According to Vinneccy, Swetnick threatened him after they broke up and even after he got married to his current wife and had a child.

“Right after I broke up with her, she was threatening my family, threatening my wife and threatening to do harm to my baby at that time,” Vinneccy said in a telephone interview with POLITICO. “I know a lot about her.”

“She’s not credible at all,” he said. “Not at all.”

Vinneccy, 63, is a registered Democrat, according to Miami-Dade County voting records….

(POLITICO)

OWES MONEY – Lied In The Past

Swetnick also claims to have a security clearance with the IRS despite having recently had a $40,000 judgement against her for unpaid taxes. She settled a $40,303 IRS judgement on March 23 of this year, according to a public records search. Maryland court records show a $62,821 tax lien filed against her on Oct. 2, 2015.

Swetnick has also been involved in civil cases in Maryland and Oregon.

In November 2000, she was sued by Webtrends, a web company in Portland that Swetnick worked for from December 1999 through August 2000. It is not clear how the case was decided or what Swetnick allegedly said to defame the company. Webtrends did not respond to a request for comment.

Swetnick filed a personal injury lawsuit against the Washington, D.C. Metro in September 1994. The outcome of that case is also unclear.

(DAILY CALLER | DAILY MAIL)

NO CONFIRMATION RAMIREZ AT PARTY

This is amazing —two male students who were allegedly at the party, the wife of another male student, and three other Yale classmates all tell Ronan Farrow that there is no way Kavanaugh assaulted Ramirez.

[….]

And here’s the kicker… Ronan Farrow could not confirm Kavanaugh was at the party Ramirez describes.

(GATEWAY PUNDIT)

1991 Democrats vs. Today’s Lot

Published by Papa Giorgio

In 1991, the presumption was with the accused:

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) declared that Donald Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, does not deserve the presumption of innocence when it comes to sexual assault allegations against him — because she disagrees with his judicial philosophy.

You got that? If you’re one of those dastardly “conservatives”, you don’t get any presumption of innocence! (See more at PJ-MEDIA). BUT WAIT! We aren’t done. Even if all four people named by an accuser say they were not at a party with Kavanaugh, that proves Dr. Ford’s claims.

…No really:

Mormon Glossary (Words Have Meaning)

Published by Papa Giorgio

In any discussion with a Mormon, the following redefinition of biblical/ Christian terms must be kept in mind. Although Mormons themselves may be ignorant of some of the definitions cited below, they represent true Mormon teaching as proven by an evaluation of standard Mormon theo­logical works. (Mainly from John Ankerberg’s and John Weldon’s book, Cult Watch: What You Need To Know About Spiritual Deception)

FIRST, here is a good site where an easy online access to a glossary is found at TRUTH IN LOVE (you may have to sign up [free] to access it), via an adult study at church. Enjoy the below.

  • Christianity: sectarianism; a false and damnable apostate religion.
  • God: “Elohim”; one of innumerable self-progressing bodily deities; for­merly a man, a finite creature. In early Mormon theology, Adam (of the Garden of Eden) was considered by many Mormons as the true earth deity.
  • Jesus Christ: a self-progressing deity (“Jehovah” of the Old Testament) and the first spirit child of “Elohim” and his wife.
  • Holy Ghost: a man with a spiritual body of matter.
  • Trinity: tritheistic; coordinated under general Mormon polytheism; thus the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are separate deities.
  • The Gospel: Mormon theology.
  • Born-again: water baptism into Mormonism.
  • Immortality: Mormon salvation by grace (limited to the universal resurrec­tion of all men).
  • Atonement: the provision God has supplied for an individual to earn their true salvation “by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel” (Articles of Faith, 3).
  • True salvationleternal life/redemption: Exaltation to Godhood in the highest part of the celestial kingdom based upon individual good works and personal merit; exaltation incorporates ruling a new world and sexual procreation in order to produce spirit children who will eventually be embodied and inhabit that world, each then having the opportunity to be exalted.
  • The Fall: a spiritual step upward; a blessing permitting the production of physical bodies for preexistent spirits to inhabit and thus have the possibility of attaining their own “exaltation” or Godhood.
  • Death: generally a step upward; death represents the possibility of a form of salvation (if not exaltation) for those who have never heard of Mormon­ism.
  • Heaven: three “kingdoms of glory” comprising various spiritual grada­tions.
  • Hell: generally purgatorial; possibly eternal for a very few (primarily apostate Mormons).
  • Virgin birth: the birth of Christ through a physical sex act between God the Father (the Mormon earth god “Elohim”) and Mary (hence, not a virgin birth).
  • Man: a preexistent spirit with the potential to earn Godhood by obedience to Mormon dictates.
  • Creation: the reorganization of eternal matter.
  • The Scriptures: the Book of Mormon; Doctrine and Covenants; The Pearl of Great Price; and the Bible “as far as it is translated correctly” (Articles of Faith, 8).
  • The Bible: an erring and often unreliable inspired record, properly inter­preted only by Mormons and only in light of Mormon theology.

Compared

MORMONISM

CHRISTIANITY

BIBLE

  • Unreliable
  • Incomplete as it is
  • Adds new revelations to God’s Word
  • Unbiblical theological presupposisitions utilized in interpretation

BIBLE

  • Reliable
  • Complete as it is
  • Rejects new revelations
  • Accepted historical, grammatical prin­ciples utilized in interpretation

GOD

  • Tritheism/polytheistic – Many (polytheistic) Evolving (changing) Material (physical/sexual)
  • Physical (evolved man)/Finite
  • Morally questionable/imperfect (requiring salvation)
  • Organizer of eternal matter
  • Sexual polygamist

GOD

  • Trinity/monotheistic – One (monotheistic) Immutable (unchanging) Immaterial (spirit) Nonsexual
  • Spirit
  • Infinite
  • Eternally Holy
  • Creator of matter from nothing
  • Nonsexual/Celibate

JESUS

  • A god
  • Created (by sexual act)
  • Earned salvation (exaltation to Godhood)
  • Not virgin born
  • Polygamist (married)

JESUS

  • Uncreated God
  • Eternal
  • As eternal God neither salvation nor exaltation was required
  • Virgin born
  • Unmarried

SALVATION

  • By works
  • Denies biblical atonement
  • Possible after death

SALVATION

  • By grace
  • Affirms atonement
  • Impossible after death

DEATH

  • “Purgatorial”
  • three celestial king­doms
  • almost universalistic

DEATH

  • Eternal heaven or hell
  • no purga­tory
  • not universalistic

This is a common comparison I have used over the years:

Jesus of Historic Christianity: Jesus is eternal, there never was a time when He did not exist.  He is the creator of the time/space continuum which includes the entire known and unknown universe, all the planets and stars, energy, gravity, natural laws, and the like – all this places him as part of the Trinity.  Because of His all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-presence nature, he is rightly called God Almighty.

Jesus of the Watchtower (Jehovah’s Witnesses): Michael the Archangel is the first creative act of God, after that God creates everything else through Michael the Archangel.  When Michael comes to earth he is known as Jesus Christ, but when back in heaven once again takes his place as Michael the Archangel.

Jesus of LDS (Mormons): Jesus was the first begotten son by Heavenly Father and Mother (one of many mothers, but presumably this one is the most important.  Polygamy is practiced in the Mormon top-tear heaven), Lucifer was also born of a sexual act in heaven, so Jesus and Satan are literally brothers – as we are all brothers and sisters, albeit most likely half-brother or sister.  During the judgment period Elohim, Jesus, and Joseph Smith will judge every Mormon and according to his works.  (I say his, because in Mormon theology women are consecrated to a Mormon man, so her salvation depends on his good works.  If he does not make it, in heaven she may become one of the many wives of a Mormon male that did make the cut, so-to-speak.)  Again, Jesus had to become exalted Himself to also attain the best Heaven so he to can be a god of his own world.  This godhood exaltation goes back to infinity in Mormon theology.  So Heavenly Father was once a man on a planet much like our, and he too had to attain exultation, he had a father, that father had a father, and so on.

You can see some of this “fleshed out” in my routine I typically follw with Mormon Missionaries that come to my door — as outlined somewhat in my chapter on Mormonism:

Read my chapter discussing Mormon Theology titled:

Infinitely Finite – Mormon Materialism (PDF)

 

Alan Dershowitz on Christine Blasey Ford’s Inquisition

Published by Papa Giorgio

Alan Dershowitz discusses the earlier “prerequisites” to testify. Professor Dershowitz calls on the ACLU and other civil libertarians tp publicly reject the idea that the accused goes first — LIKENING it to the Inquisitions. A great commentary by a man who leans Left.

GATEWAY PUNDIT notes (as do I):

…Blasey Ford went public with her allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh last week. THERE ARE NO WITNESSES WHO HAVE CONFIRMED CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD’S ACCUSATIONS!

NOT ONE!

Mark Steyn Talks To Joe Concha About Media Malpractice

Published by Papa Giorgio

INFO UPDATE:

  • All of Ford’s named witnesses of the party, both male and female, have now denied any recollection of attending such a party.

(WEEKLY STANDARD; CNN, POWERLINE, NATIONAL REVIEW, WESTERN JOURNAL, WASHINTON TIMES). 

Mark Steyn filled in for Rush on Friday, and I caught this interview that discusses just how bad the media has gotten in regard to anything Republican. Joe’s article can be found at THE HILL.

An extended excerpt from Joe Concha’s article:

The examples of misleading tales are apparent for all to see, mostly on the anti-Kavanaugh side.

For example, MSNBC goes heavy with a story affirming the allegations from Ford’s classmate based on a Facebook post. The classmate later admitted to not even knowing Ford or hearing a story firsthand. The national news outlet covered this without, apparently, any reasonable vetting.

“I did not know her personally but I remember her. This incident did happen,” Ford schoolmate Christina King Miranda wrote. “Many of us heard a buzz about it indirectly with few specific details. However, Christine’s vivid recollection should be more than enough for us to truly, deeply know that the accusation is true.”

This was enough for MSNBC and other outlets to run with the story.

Third-party tale? She didn’t know Ford directly? Screw it. Let’s go with it anyway.

It’s gossip treated as gospel.

MSNBC would later in a subsequent tweet note that King Miranda had removed the post without deleting the initial tweet, which was retweeted nearly 900 times.

The follow-up tweet was retweeted less than 100 times, or nine times fewer, for those keeping score at home.

“That it happened or not, I have no idea,” King Miranda told NPR on Friday. “I can’t say that it did or didn’t.”

“I had no idea that I would now have to go to the specifics and defend it before 50 cable channels and have my face spread all over MSNBC news and Twitter,” she later added.

Meanwhile, CNN anchor Jim Scuitto tweets out an incomplete claim about how and where Ford could potentially be interviewed, publicly or privately or in Washington, D.C., or California, where she lives. The tweet’s omission is egregious enough that committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley’s (R-Iowa) office is forced to respond to.

“The offer to #ChristinaBlaseyFord is blunt: testify in public six days from now while under death threats or your allegation will be ignored in the confirmation of a SCOTUS nominee. That is quite a choice,” Scuitto wrote in a tweet that is retweeted more than 7,600 times and liked 17,000 times.

“This is not close to the offer to #ChristinaBlaseyFord,” replied Grassley’s office to Scuitto, a former Obama State Department official. “Chairman Grassley offered an open or closed hearing, reached out to discuss timing that would work for Dr. Ford, has even offered to send staff to California. This deserves a correction.”

More than 20 hours later, Sciutto sends a second tweet clarifying his original tweet. That is retweeted just 134 times and liked just 320 times.

[….]

Washington Post bureau chief Philip Rucker also was lambasted for a story involving a photo showing a ritual that Kavanaugh’s fraternity at Yale participated in back in 1985 involving a flag woven together by women’s underwear.

[….]

[….]

One small problem: The photo doesn’t have Kavanaugh in it….

(Read it all at THE HILL)

POWERLINE notes another glaringly wrong media story (see Kimberley’s TWITTER for more):

Trey Gowdy On Kavanaugh, FISA Documents And Jeff Sessions

Published by Papa Giorgio

Sep. 20, 2018 – 8:37 – Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee says he hopes both Judge Kavanaugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford face ‘good, fair but firm’ questions from Senate Judicial Committee.

HAT-TIP to INDEPENDENT SENTINEL (See SARA CARTER’S newest)

Wow! Fear & Loathing At The DOJ

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is the same tactic Andrew Weissmann used on Flynn (WASHINGTON TIMES)…

UPDATED POST by POWERLINE intros the video for us:

In the memoir Cardiac Arrest: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO on the Feds’ Hit List (written with Stephen Saltarelli), Howard Root tells the story of his experience as chief executive officer of Vascular Solutions caught in the crosshairs of the federal government when prosecutors sought to put his company out of business and to send him to the big house. Howard touched on one aspect of his story in the Wall Street Journal column “Sally Yates’s legacy of injustice at the Department of Justice.”

Howard is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. Among other things, he is a corporate lawyer turned entrepreneur, inventor, and corporate executive.

Howard faced down the government. The jury didn’t think much of the government’s case. It returned with a verdict of acquittal on all charges after a day of deliberations, and that includes the time spent electing a foreman.

Howard’s case is important in its own way. The crimes charged were bogus. The government procured testimony through serious prosecutorial misconduct. The prosecution represented fruit of the poisonous Yates Memo tree. Howard had the resources to fight the government’s case against him and his company, but it exacted an enormous toll. The case cries out for study and reform.

Howard has thus sought to engage prosecutors in discussion of the case in person before professional audiences of lawyers and businessmen for whom it holds immediate relevance. The prosecutors and their superiors in the department have sought to keep Howard from speaking to such audiences. When I wrote the Department of Justice to request its explanation for what it was doing, it declined to comment (a week after I asked the question).

Former Assistant United States Attorney Andrew McCarthy was more forthcoming. He called out the Department of Justice’s behavior as “a disgrace.”

The Department of Justice declines to answer to Howard or me but it has at long last responded to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Utah Senator Mike Lee. Senators Grassley and Lee sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein seeking an update on the Justice Department’s inquiry into professional misconduct committed by prosecutors and higher-ups who brought the charges against Howard and have since sought to prevent him from being heard. I posted the Grassley/Lee letter in “Fear & loathing at the DoJ, cont’d.”

In their letter Senators Grassley and Lee noted that “reports suggest a pattern of threatened and actual retribution against defendants and witnesses borne out of the Department’s disappointment with the outcome of a particular case. This not only casts doubt on the Department’s ability to accept the results of judicial proceedings in a professional manner befitting the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency, but it significantly undermines our confidence in its commitment to hold government attorneys accountable for questionable actions that may have occurred in the course of this case or other cases.” …..

DECLASSIFIED: Jay Sekulow | Jim Jordan | Devin Nunes | Jason Chaffetz

Published by Papa Giorgio

Hannity led his radio interview of Rep. Jim Jordan with Jay Sekulow (I added the extended video of what was audio). A good interview, Jim is on it and we will within weeks have many more damning texts and understandings of the flimsy evidence of the “dossier” used to get the FISA warrants. See more here:

  • Nunes: Democrats, Journalists Will Be “Frightened” By Declassified Trump-Russia Documents (DAILY CALLER)

Here is Jason Chaffetz discussing his book regarding the “deep state”

The Bible Assumes Private Property and Business Ownership

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Originally posted February 2011)

Here is a great quote from Dr. Grudem:

A. PRIVATE PROPERTY

According to the teachings of the Bible, government should both document and protect the ownership of private property in a nation.

The Bible regularly assumes and reinforces a system in which property belongs to individuals, not to the government or to society as a whole.

We see this implied in the Ten Commandments, for example, because the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal” (Exod. 20:15), assumes that human beings will own property that belongs to them individually and not to other people. I should not steal my neighbor’s ox or donkey because it belongs to my neighbor, not to me and not to anyone else.

The tenth commandment makes this more explicit when it prohibits not just stealing but also desiring to steal what belongs to my neighbor:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exod. 20:17).

The reason I should not “covet” my neighbor’s house or anything else is that these things belong to my neighbor, not to me and not to the community or the nation.

This assumption of private ownership of property, found in this fundamental moral code of the Bible, puts the Bible in direct opposition to the communist system advocated by Karl Marx. Marx said:

The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property.

One reason why communism is so incredibly dehumanizing is that when private property is abolished, government controls all economic activity. And when government controls all economic activity, it controls what you can buy, where you will live, and what job you will have (and therefore what job you are allowed to train for, and where you go to school), and how much you will earn. It essentially controls all of life, and human liberty is destroyed. Communism enslaves people and destroys human freedom of choice. The entire nation becomes one huge prison. For this reason, it seems to me that communism is the most dehumanizing economic system ever invented by man.

Other passages of Scripture also support the idea that property should belong to individuals, not to “society” or to the government (except for certain property required for proper government purposes, such as government offices, military bases, and streets and highways). The Bible contains many laws concerning punishments for stealing and appropriate restitution for damage of another person’s farm animals or agricultural fields (for example, see Exod. 21:28-36; 22:1-15; Deut. 22:1-4; 23:24-25). Another commandment guaranteed that property boundaries would be protected: “You shall not move your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess” (Deut. 19:14). To move the landmark was to move the boundaries of the land and thus to steal land that belonged to one’s neighbor (compare Prov. 22:28; 23:10).

Another guarantee of the ownership of private property was the fact that, even if property was sold to someone else, in the Year of Jubilee it had to return to the family that originally owned it:

It shall be a Jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan (Lev. 25:10).

This is why the land could not be sold forever: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Lev. 25:23).

This last verse emphasizes the fact that private property is never viewed in the Bible as an absolute right, because all that people have is ultimately given to them by God, and people are viewed as God’s “stewards” to manage what he has entrusted to their care.

The earth is the LORD’S and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein (Ps. 24:1; compare Ps. 50:10-12; Hag. 2:8).

Yet the fact remains that, under the overall sovereign lordship of God himself, property is regularly said to belong to individuals, not to the government and not to “society” or the nation as a whole.

When Samuel warned the people about the evils that would be imposed upon them by a king, he emphasized the fact that the monarch, with so much government power, would “take” and “take” and “take” from the people and confiscate things for his own use:

So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day” (1 Sam. 8:10-18).

This prediction was tragically fulfilled in the story of the theft of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite by Ahab the wicked king and Jezebel, his even more wicked queen (see 1 Kings 21:1-29). The regular tendency of human governments is to seek to take control of more and more of the property of a nation that God intends to be owned and controlled by private individuals.

SOCIALISM likewise is the taking over of private property, industry, and the capital of a man’s labor. Here is a good working definition of socialism followed by Professor Richards describing it as well:

In order to have a “favorable” view of socialism one must have either forgotten what the entire world learned about socialism from the late nineteenth century on, or have never learned anything about it in the first place. The latter is obviously true of much of the younger generation.

Socialism started out being defined as “government ownership of the means of production,” which is why the government of the Soviet Union confiscated all businesses, factories, and farms, murdering millions of dissenters and resisters in the process. It is also why socialist political parties in Europe, once in power, nationalized as many of the major industries (steel, automobiles, coal mines, electricity, telephone ser­vices) as they could. The Labour Party in post-World War II Great Britain would be an example of this. All of this was done, ostensibly, in the name of pursuing material “equality.”

In the foreword to the 1976 edition of his famous book, The Road to Serfdom, Nobel laureate economist Friedrich Hayek wrote that the definition of “socialism” evolved in the twentieth century to mean income redis­tribution in pursuit of “equality,” not through govern­ment ownership of the means of production but through the institutions of the welfare state and the “progres­sive” income tax. The means may have changed, but the ostensible end—equality—remained the same.

Hayek’s mentor, fellow Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, explained in his classic treatise Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, that the wel­fare state, the “progressive” income tax, and especially pervasive government regulation of business were all tools of “destructionism” in the eyes of the socialists of his day. That is, he observed that the proponents of socialism always employed a two-pronged approach: (1) the government takeover of as many industries and as much land as possible, and (2) attempts to destroy existing capitalist societies with onerous taxes, regula­tions, the welfare state, inflation, or whatever they thought could get the job done.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Problem with Socialism (New Jersey, NJ: Regnery, 2016), 4-5.