Seymour Hersh: Trump's Red Line

The intelligence made clear that a Syrian Air Force SU-24 fighter bomber had used a conventional weapon to hit its target: There had been no chemical warhead. And yet it was impossible for the experts to persuade the president of this once he had made up his mind.

“The president saw the photographs of poisoned little girls and said it was an Assad atrocity,” the senior adviser said. “It’s typical of human nature. You jump to the conclusion you want. Intelligence analysts do not argue with a president. They’re not going to tell the president, ‘if you interpret the data this way, I quit.’”

The national security advisers understood their dilemma: Trump wanted to respond to the affront to humanity committed by Syria and he did not want to be dissuaded. They were dealing with a man they considered to be not unkind and not stupid, but his limitations when it came to national security decisions were severe.

"Everyone close to him knows his proclivity for acting precipitously when he does not know the facts," the adviser said. "He doesn’t read anything and has no real historical knowledge. He wants verbal briefings and photographs. He’s a risk-taker. He can accept the consequences of a bad decision in the business world; he will just lose money. But in our world, lives will be lost and there will be long-term damage to our national security if he guesses wrong. He was told we did not have evidence of Syrian involvement and yet Trump says: 'Do it.”’


Read the entire article by Seymour Hersh here.

Love Is the Refuge of the Way

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles."

Nor will love be seen coming from the hearts of those who are fallen into wickedness: they are the fruit of hate, deceit, greed, fear, pride, possession, and aggression. And they will not only forsake love by washing their hands of it, they will eventually come to condemn it, and persecute it—  and thereby condemn themselves.

For the people of God love is the touchstone of faith, the way to know if what we believe is with Him, or from something else;  if we are walking with Him, or with something else;  if the one who speaks is speaking for Him, or for something else;  if we are keeping Him in our hearts, or something else; if we love Him, or ourselves, or something else.

Love does not speak with hate or fear or derision, but with the fullness of existence which is joy and mercy.

Love is ridiculed and trampled upon by that which is in opposition to His creation.

When you are in doubt or confusion about what is true and what is false, look for the light of love. This is the hallmark of the spirit in the world.

And if it is not there, if an act is wrapped in the hardness of pride, disguised even as an elaborate ritual observance and Pharisaical pride, then you will know what it truly is. It is a sin against the spirit.

Love is not easy; it is not a natural state. It seems weak and foolish, and despicable to the fallen of this world and the next who by declaration of their hearts and minds non serviam, will not serve.

Love is an attitude of the mind and of the heart, a living for oneself in the other, an act of acceptance of grace, not by but through the will.  Love is a shield against temptation.  It is a predisposition, a habit of acting and looking at things in a certain way.

The disposition to love becomes easier and more comfortable as we carry that yoke, that restraint on our weaker nature and our harsher emotions. Over time the yoke that restrains our anger and pride becomes lighter, and a light to steady us in life's darker moments.

But it is rarely easy or natural, which makes it the stuff of the brave, of the spiritually and emotionally hardy, and especially of God's knights. The way of the world, of anger and oppression and power, is the easy path. But it is not the way of the truly human.

So we remember that we are sinners, but reaching out to the eternal, and thereby attempting great things— if but clumsily and with a number failings and denials like the apostle himself.

This is how the people of God may guide themselves and their own actions along the way.  If there is no love evident in the words and the heart, then the words and the actions are not of God, but of something else.

Love is not what we do, but how we do what we do. Love is found in the most ordinary things, not in grand gestures and elaborate mannerisms.  It resides in small daily acts of kindness and fellowship, done lovingly and with care, for His sake. It is how we carry our cross, not in front of a cheering crowd, but in the quiet moments, and the little things, while walking with Him.

The hardened heart judges others, while ignoring its own sins, thinking itself good.   Love is mercy, as it shows us our commonality with our fellow humanity as a weak and sinful creature.

We do not need to hate and reject the world, and despise and subdue His creation. Creation is a gift from God, to which we bring our own good use and order in His name. And if we are wise, with our reverent humility and wonder.

We can work with His gifts lovingly, and not abuse them from an excess of greed.  It is not the world itself that is a source of evil, but the willfulness of our hearts, hardened by pride.

Only love is creative and productive. Only love is accepting and uplifting, able to bring all things forward to His plan and make them new. Love consecrates, while sin desecrates and destroys in its lust for possession and the will to power.

Obviously this law of love is applicable to all people, but is of particular attention to those whose hearts have been already touched by God's mercy.  It is the way to be abundant and merciful, in a time of spiritual wickedness, and dark powers in high places.

God is the essence of all existence, which is His love. The pity for those who would otherwise be faithful to the word, the spirit of the Logos, then, is not to love.    Love endures all.

Because of the increase in wickedness, the love of many will grow cold. But those who stand firm to the end will be saved. And the gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts

Here are the charts updated for the close.

Have a pleasant weekend.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds

"Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him."

Groucho Marx

Confronting the Unspeakable

"Those who are at present so eager to be reconciled with the world at any price must take care not to be reconciled with it under this particular aspect: as the nest of The Unspeakable. This is what too few are willing to see...

Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God."

Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable


“A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death—  the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, and murders that we are not going to be judged.”

Czesław Miłosz


“We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.”

John Henry Newman

They house people in deathtraps.   They poison the drinking water.  They financialize and corrupt almost every otherwise beneficial social institution from public education to healthcare. They foment endless wars for the pursuit of their own power and profits.

They have the courts pronounce their soulless piles of money, the corporations, as 'people,' while people themselves are judged to be of little consequence, to be thrown aside as if they were trash.

They catch the unsuspecting  within the jaws of stagnant wages and corporate monopolies, and squeeze until there is nothing left.

This is the return of the anti-human madness.  This is the Unspeakable.

Government ministers ‘congratulated themselves’ for cutting fire regulations
Charles White for Metro.co.uk
Friday 16 Jun 2017

"Conservative ministers were proud of slashing fire regulations, just months ahead of the Grenfell Tower block blaze.

In February this year, ministers posted on a government website details of their ‘anti-red tape’ agenda on new-build properties.

In a separate report fire safety inspections, the Conservatives said, had been reduced for some companies from six hours to just 45 minutes.

The move, titled Cutting Red Tape, was part of the Tory plans to abolish a ‘health and safety’ culture that they claimed was hurting money-making businesses.

Residents in Grenfell Tower block have complained that their homes were not properly fire-safe including lack of sprinklers and alarms.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron promised to abolish the ‘albatross’ of ‘over regulation’.

He said in 2012 that a Conservative government would: ‘Kill off the health and safety culture for good’.

The death toll from the fire in Kensington is expected to rise to almost 100.

More than 2,400 pieces of regulation have been scrapped since Cut Red Tape began...

Read the original article here.