Category: Uncategorized

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed a bill Wednesday allowing public officials to refuse to perform same-sex marriages.

State lawmakers approved Tennessee House Bill 878 last week. The legislation states people “shall not be required to solemnize a marriage” if they refuse to doing so based on their “conscience or religious beliefs.” According to the Tennessee Legislature website, the governor signed the bill Wednesday.

Lee has not publicly commented on the bill yet, per his social media and his office’s website.

The bill does not allow officials to deny marriage licenses to couples based on their beliefs but prevents officials from being required to solemnize a marriage. The State House first passed the bill in March 2023, but the State’s General Assembly booted it to 2024 for consideration.

Lee was thrown into the spotlight last year after signing a bill that became the first-in-the-nation restriction on drag performances, and banned gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. A federal judge later ruled that the restrictions on drag shows were unconstitutional.

The legislation has faced criticism from LGBTQ advocacy organizations. Molly Whitehorn, associate director of regional campaigns for the Human Rights Campaign, said last week the bill was “intended to exclude LGBTQ+ folks from equal protection under the law.”

Tennessee Republicans argued that the bill was not meant to discriminate against same-sex couples or prevent them from getting married. State Sen. Mark Pody (R), the bill’s primary sponsor in the Senate, said on the Senate floor last week that the bill has “nothing to do with getting a license.”

Read more at: thehill.com

Corporate Christianity, meaning your average 501(c)3 “nonprofit” organization calling itself a church, is riddled with corruption and deception, including with regard to medicine, healing and honoring God with one’s body.

Joined at the hip with the government, Christianity as it predominantly exists today is Big Pharma’s best kept secret. Modern churches, so-called, are infested with corrupt psychiatrists, doctors and other medical professionals who instead of directing congregants to Jesus Christ, push mainstream “mental health” dogmas and tell people to trust modern medicine, vaccines and all, to treat life’s woes.

One of the most predominant Christian organizations herding the sheep into the pharmaceutical and mental health slaughterhouse is Focus on the Family, founded by psychiatrist Dr. James Dobson. Broadcast on more than 5,000 stations in more than 150 languages, Focus on the Family programming reaches an estimated 200 million people globally.

This past week, Focus on the Family published a two-part broadcast on “mental health” that instead of discussing anything from the Bible focused on mental health as the cure for depression. The broadcast featured Dr. Gregory Jantz, a leading authority on mental and behavioral health, who told “success” stories about patients who have found hope and healing for mind, soul and body not by trusting and relying on Jesus Christ and His Word but by taking prescribed pharmaceutical medications.

It turns out that the medications Jantz pushed are not only dangerous but they also do not work as claimed. They also constitute the pharmakeia concept that the Holy Scriptures tells followers of Christ to flee from in order to save their souls from the spiritual and physical destruction they inflict.

Read more at: naturalnews.com

The country’s national draft emergency defense plan reportedly assigns construction roles for civilians

Germans will be expected to turn their homes into bomb shelters if a major war breaks out in Europe, newspaper Bild reported on Saturday, citing a draft document from the Defense Ministry.

According to the report, the ministry is set to complete work on the classified ‘Operational Plan’ (OPLAN) by April. The draft envisions Germany as a “transit country” crucial for the delivery of weapons and equipment, rather than a state with an active frontline. For that reason soldiers would be tasked with securing key highways, railway stations and ports, Bild said.

At the same time, the government would have to rely on civilians to step in and cover some duties typically assigned to the military and police, including the protection of power plants.

There are only 579 functional bomb shelters in Germany, so the plan reportedly sees citizens setting up their own shelters in places such as basements and garages. Bild quoted the head of the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance, Ralph Tiesler, as saying that building new shelters is “no longer feasible” due to time constraints.

Germany has been looking for ways to boost its army, citing the threats stemming from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The government has set the goal of increasing the size of the Bundeswehr from 183,000 soldiers to 203,000 by 2031.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated this month that Russia could attack a NATO country “within five to eight years.” He later somewhat adjusted his assessment, telling Bild on Friday, “At the moment, I don’t see any danger of a Russian attack on NATO territory or on any NATO partner-country.”

Read more at: rt.com

We must ‘take seriously, very seriously, the possibility that Bergoglio intended to obtain the election by means of fraud… in order to do the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ gave a mandate to Saint Peter and his Successors to do.’

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has released the following statement on the ongoing theological debate over the status of Pope Francis and the papacy. In many ways, this is his most pointed criticism yet. His Excellency argues that given the devastation caused by “Jorge Mario Bergoglio” on the universal Church — which stems from his embrace of the “cancer” of Vatican II — and given the role the Saint Gallen mafia played in the 2013 conclave, Pope Francis does not have and never did have the intention of serving as the head of the Catholic Church. Rather he hid his intentions from electors with the end goal of using the authority of the papacy to undermine the Church and to make it the “handmaid” of the New World Order. “I believe instead that his acceptance of the papacy is invalidated, because he considers the papacy something other than what it is,” Viganò remarks. He continues: “I would like us to take seriously … the possibility that Bergoglio intended to obtain the election by means of fraud, and that he intended to abuse the authority of the Roman Pontiff in order to do the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ gave a mandate to Saint Peter.” The Archbishop also states that he disagrees with Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s view that “universal acceptance” of Francis as the pope makes him the pope. His Excellency points to the historical example of Clement VII in the 14th century to support his argument. While admitting the current situation is “humanly irremediable,” his goal in publishing the letter is to “get to the root of the question” and to find a common starting point that can lead to a “remedy [to] the disconcerting, scandalous presence of a pope who presents himself with ostentatious arrogance as inimicus Ecclesiæ, and who acts and speaks as such.”

VITIUM CONSENSUS

By their fruits you will know them.
Does anyone pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
Just so, every good tree bears good fruit; and a rotten tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
Therefore By their fruits you will know them.

Mt 7:16-20

In this speech I will not try to give answers, but to pose a question that can no longer be postponed, so that we bishops, the clergy, and the faithful can look clearly at the very serious apostasy present as a completely unprecedented fact, one that cannot be resolved, in my opinion, by resorting to our usual categories of judgment and action.

The evidence of the ‘Bergoglio problem’

The proliferation of declarations and behaviors completely foreign to what is expected of a pope – and indeed in contrast with the Faith and Morality of which the Papacy is the guardian – has led many of the faithful and an increasingly large number of bishops to take note of something that until some time ago seemed unheard of: the Throne of Peter is occupied by a person who abuses his power, using it for the opposite purpose to that for which Our Lord instituted it.

Some say that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is manifestly heretical in doctrinal questions, others that he is tyrannical in matters of government, still others consider his election invalid because of the multiple anomalies of the resignation of Benedict XVI and the election of the one who took his place. These opinions – more or less supported by evidence or the result of speculations that cannot always be shared – nevertheless confirm a reality that is now incontestable. And it is this reality, in my opinion, that constitutes a common starting point in trying to remedy the disconcerting, scandalous presence of a pope who presents himself with ostentatious arrogance as inimicus Ecclesiæ, and who acts and speaks as such. An enemy who, precisely because he occupies the Throne of Peter and abuses papal authority, is capable of inflicting a terrible and disastrous blow, such as no external enemy in the entire history of the Church has ever been able to cause. The worst persecutors of Christians, the fiercest adherents of the Masonic Lodges, and the most unrestrained heresiarchs have never before succeeded, in such a short time and with such effectiveness, in devastating the Lord’s vineyard, scandalizing the faithful, disgusting the Ministers, discrediting its authority and authoritativeness before the world, and demolishing the Magisterium, Faith, Morals, Liturgy, and discipline.

Inimicus Ecclesiæ, not only with respect to the members of the Mystical Body – which he despises, ridicules (he never ceases to launch poisonous epithets against it), persecutes, and strikes; but also with respect to the Head of the Mystical Body, Jesus Christ: whose authority is exercised by Bergoglio no longer in a vicarious way, which would therefore be in necessary and dutiful consistency with the Depositum Fidei, but rather in a self-referential and thus tyrannical way. The authority of the Roman Pontiff is in fact derived from the Supreme Authority of Christ, in which it participates, always within the boundaries and scope of the goals which the Divine Founder has established once and for all, and which no human power can change.

The evidence of Bergoglio’s alienity to the office he holds is certainly a painful and very serious fact; but becoming aware of this reality is the indispensable premise for remedying an unsustainable and disastrous situation.

Read more at: lifesitenews.com

Pope Francis has doubled down in his support of blessing gay couples, suggesting those who oppose the practice are “hypocrites.”

“I don’t bless a ‘same-sex marriage’; I bless two people who love each other and I also ask them to pray for me,” the pontiff told the Italian weekly magazine Credere this week.

Just before Christmas, the Vatican’s doctrinal office, under the leadership of Argentinian Cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández, reversed the Vatican’s position on blessing gay couples.

From a “strictly liturgical point of view,” a blessing requires that what is blessed be conformed to God’s will, affirmed the Vatican Declaration Fiducia Supplicans, whereas from a “pastoral” point of view this need not be so.

Under a broader, pastoral understanding of blessings, “one can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage,” Cardinal Fernández stated in his presentation of the Declaration.

In an earlier declaration of March 2021, the Vatican declared that the Church has no authority to bless homosexual unions, because God Himself “does not and cannot bless sin.”

Blessings require “the right intention of those who participate” as well as “that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation,” stated the text, published with the express approval of Pope Francis.

“For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage,” it read, “as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.”

While forbidding the blessing of gay couples, the 2021 text explicitly allowed for the blessing of individual persons, even those who commit grave sins, according to the Church’s long-standing practice.

The rejection of the possibility of blessing a homosexual couple “does not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching,” the text declared.

In this week’s interview with Credere, the pope seemed to confuse these two issues, as if some people have a problem with blessing persons with homosexual inclinations.

“Nobody is scandalized if I bless a businessman who exploits people, but they are when I bless a homosexual,” he said, adding that this is “hypocrisy.”

There has been widespread resistance to the Vatican’s volte-face on the question of blessings for homosexual couples, notably from the Pan-African Bishops’ Conference, which stated in a joint declaration: “In Africa there is no place to bless homosexual couples. Not at all.”

For his part, Francis asserted that the people who are “vehemently protesting” the decision to allow the blessings “belong to small ideological groups,” while adding that the case of the African continent is “special,” because for them, “homosexuality is something ‘ugly’ from a cultural point of view; they do not tolerate it.”

The bishops of Africa “are now being condescendingly portrayed as culturally conditioned,” responded Dr. Nina Heereman, professor of theology, “while we fail to ask ourselves to what extent we are the ones succumbing to the pressure of the culture around us.”

Read more at: breitbart.com

It was on a cool Tuesday afternoon that the residents of Sinanché, a small town in southeastern Mexico, first heard the hissing.

Looking out their windows, the leaves of the fruit trees in their back gardens had been licked clean, while chewed-on lemons, oranges and hoya covered the grass.

But not a single one of Sinanché’s some 3,100 residents had to look far for the culprit – or culprits, rather.

All they had to do was look up.

Miles-long clouds of locusts have been blanketing the skies above the state of Yucatán this week, flying through shopping plazas, smacking into the windows of apartment complexes and gobbling up anything green in local parks.

Social media users and the Mexican press both asked the same question: Is this a sign the world is coming to an end?

In Exodus, locusts were the eighth of 10 plagues sent to carpet Egypt.

One regional outlet even quoted the Book of Revelation 9:3, which reads: ‘And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

‘And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.’

Except these locusts certainly have certainly hurt any and every green thing in sight.

Farmers have said the blizzard of bugs has nibbled on their cornfields in the middle of harvest, though officials say the swarm will unlikely lead to any major losses to the agriculture sector.

Some farmers have tried to douse crops with pesticides in a bid to kill the insects.

With not enough vegetation to go around, the famished swarms have buzzed into urban areas to eat trees, bushes and flowers.

Read more at: metro.co.uk

As the migrant crisis reaches boiling point and divides cities and states, DailyMail.com can reveal another border scandal occurring right under Americans’ noses.

These are the faces of a prolific people smuggling gang run by undocumented migrants who started sneaking into the US illegally in 2019 and are now offering passage to others by bringing them in from Canada for $6,000-a-head.

Several have been running the gang from New Jersey, where they settled after being released by ICE.

To date, they have moved dozens if not hundreds of migrants into the US using secretive tactics to sneak them across the scarcely-guarded border between between Quebec and Vermont.

Astonishingly, the gang was able to continue operating despite being caught red-handed multiple times.

US authorities have arrested and charged two accused ringleaders who are both undocumented migrants.

A third alleged leader remains at large in Canada, where authorities say they have no powers to detain him.

Despite snaring two of the ringleaders, individuals linked to the gang have continued to smuggle migrants across the border.

Prosecutors have linked the ringleaders to at least five foiled smuggling incidents in Vermont which brought ‘at least 25 migrants’ into the country. Runners have confessed to Border Patrol investigators that many more illegal crossings went undetected.

The gang’s sophisticated operation – and the astonishing decision to release smugglers even after they were caught in the act – can be revealed by DailyMail.com amid a sharp increase in illegal crossings at the Canadian border.

There were 10,021 arrests for illegal crossings at the border with Canada in 2023, more than five times the number in the previous year. The majority of incidents took place in and around the Vermont area where the gang operated.

Analysts believe the route has become increasingly popular among wealthier migrants who want to avoid the more chaotic and dangerous conditions on the southern border. The northern border also faces a disproportionately high number of crossings by people on the United States terror watchlist, official figures reveal.

SMUGGLING GANG RUN BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

The gang’s US operations were led in New Jersey by Jhon Reina-Perez, 34, and Victor Lopez-Padilla, 35.

Both men are undocumented migrants who entered the US illegally across the southern border and were allowed to remain in the country pending immigration proceedings.

Reina-Perez is a Colombian national who illegally crossed from Mexico into the US near El Paso, Texas, in April 2022, court filings reveal.

He was processed then released into the United States ‘pending immigration proceedings’, but failed to comply with a condition that he check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

Six months later in October 2022, Reina-Perez was detained again. This time, he was arrested near the Canadian border in Vermont while acting as a suspected ‘foot guide’ to five other people who had just crossed the northern border illegally.

Despite the circumstances, Reina-Perez was released again after telling Border Patrol agents he ‘intended to live in the state of Washington’, according to an affidavit. The document added that following his release, Reina-Perez ‘again failed to check in with ICE as a required condition of his release’.

Read more at: dailymail.co.uk

Amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, a Chinese newspaper warned on Sunday that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could expand the conflict into a “world war.”

The high tensions between Russia and NATO have seemingly escalated in recent weeks after the military alliance’s announcement last month of its largest military exercise in more than 35 years. Dubbed “Steadfast Defender 2024,” the operation launched in late January and will run through May. It ultimately will include participation of around 90,000 military personnel from 31 NATO allies and Sweden.

NATO officials have said the exercise will test the allies’ ability to quickly deploy forces and test new defense plans. Military analysts have speculated Steadfast Defender is meant to prepare alliance members for the potential of a future Russian invasion on NATO territory.

The military alliance’s announcement about the operation did not mention Russia by name, though based on documents from the military alliance obtained by Reuters, Russia is viewed as the biggest security threat to its member nations. One of the primary goals of the exercise will be to “demonstrate NATO’s ability to rapidly deploy forces from North America and other parts of the alliance to reinforce the defense of Europe.”

In a Sunday opinion piece titled, “NATO is pushing the Russia-Ukraine conflict toward a ‘world war,'” published by the Global Times, a nationalistic English-language tabloid published by the propaganda department of the ruling Communist Party, noted NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s recent visit to the United States in which he spoke about the “readiness” of NATO along with the investment in aid and defense.

“Clearly, this is not just about NATO seeking funds. This is a clear preparation of public opinion to expand the Russia-Ukraine conflict into a world war,” Global Times‘ opinion piece read.

According to NATO’s website, Stoltenberg warned of challenges amid the war in Ukraine in a speech in Tampa, Florida, on Thursday, adding that “NATO has implemented the biggest adaptation, the biggest change for our Alliance, since the end of the Cold War with more forces on higher readiness. For the first time in our history, we have combat-ready troops in the eastern part of the Alliance. And Allies are now actually investing more in defense.”

However, the Global Times‘ opinion articled warned of impacts NATO may have as it could lead to “divisions and confrontations” on a global scale.

“This strategic adjustment by NATO may enhance its internal cohesion in the short term and continue to maintain its position as the world’s most powerful military force held by the US and the West. However, in the long term, it may lead to more divisions and confrontations globally, profoundly affecting international relations and the security environment around China,” the opinion article stated.

“The danger of war will inevitably increase as NATO advances and expands globally, and those affected will not be limited to Asia,” the Global Times, whose views do not always reflect official policy in China, added.

Newsweek has reached out to NATO and the Russian Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

The warning comes after Dmitry Medvedev, former president of Russia and a staunch ally of current Russian President Vladimir Putin, warned in a social media post on Friday about the potential for a “big war” with NATO.

Writing in an extended social media post on Friday on VKontakte, a Russian social media network, Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman for the Security Council of Russia, decried the organizers of “Steadfast Defender 2024” as “Western politicians who have s*** their pants and their mediocre generals in NATO have once again decided to scare us.”

He also claimed that Russia would never initiate a first strike against a NATO member nation, but claimed that it would respond to any potential aggression against its own “integrity” or increased NATO association with Ukraine, warning of a “big war” that would follow.

Read more at: msn.com

Just three years after decriminalizing the possession of all drugs, Portland has declared a 90-day state of emergency over its fentanyl crisis.

Following recommendations from the Portland Central City Task Force, officials from the city, county and state have declared a “tri-governmental” emergency, citing deaths and overdoses as reasons for the declaration. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson made the declaration.

Governor Tina Kotek said: “Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly addictive and all are grappling with how to respond.”

She added: “The Chair, the Mayor and I recognize the need to act with urgency and unity across our public health and community safety systems to make a dent in this crisis. We are all in this together.”

The emergency order will enable the city, county and state to allocate more resources for responding to the crisis and establish a command center, which will be headed up by the director of Portland’s Community Safety Division. Individuals who are addicted to fentanyl who interact with first responders in the city during the next 90 days will be triaged by the command center. Officials will also launch public health campaigns and improve outreach to help people with treatment and recovery.

In addition, Portland Police will join forces with the Oregon State Police to patrol the streets of the city’s downtown area for sales of fentanyl.

Multnomah County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards explained that fentanyl use is everywhere. She said: “If you go to any neighborhood, whether it’s near a school, inside the bathroom at a public library, at a bus shelter, all over the city, you will see that fentanyl has a grip on our neighborhoods.”

Decriminalization measure could be rolled back

In 2020, voters in Oregon passed Measure 110. This decriminalized the use of some hard drugs, including fentanyl. However, opioid overdose deaths have risen considerably since then, and the measure has come under fire. In 2019, the state had 280 opioid overdose deaths; the number climbed to 956 in 2022. Oregon is grappling with the biggest increase in fatal overdoses of synthetic drugs in the nation and ranks third in overall overdose deaths, according to CDC data.

A proposal to roll back some parts of Measure 110 has attracted bipartisan support in the Oregon legislature; the new measure will see some hard drugs being recriminalized and require people who are arrested for possession to undergo counseling for addiction.

Much of the fentanyl in U.S. originates in China and is smuggled across Mexican border

Fentanyl is a highly addictive drug that is deadly even in very small amounts. The synthetic opioid is said to be 100 times more powerful than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. It is approved by the FDA for the treatment of acute pain.

Read more at: naturalnews.com