Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 4/16

[SVPete]

So the Pope met with David Axelrod last week

https://x.com/Knesix/status/2044111234673299936

So the Pope met with David Axelrod last week. David Axelrod. Obama's campaign architect. A man who is not Catholic, has never met a pope before, and whose entire career has been engineering political narratives for the American left.

And then, by pure coincidence, the Pope immediately started lobbing shots at the Trump administration, and three US Cardinals popped up on 60 Minutes doing the same thing.
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I'm a practicing Catholic. I need you to understand that part. But in my opinion, Trump has all the right to lash out at him. Maybe you'll disagree, but in the end, Trump talks like Trump. Water is wet. I'm talking about MY Church being run like a DNC satellite office but with a golden throne.

This is the same Vatican that watched governments padlock churches during COVID and said nothing. That let Biden take communion while funding abortion and said nothing. That fired Bishop Strickland for defending actual Church doctrine. That removed Bishop Fernández in Puerto Rico for defending religious exemptions THE CATECHISM ITSELF supports.

But somehow Trump is the threat to human dignity.

Pope Francis was bad. Leo has turned out to be worse. Francis at least was vague about his politics. Leo went and hired the consulting firm.

The man has ignored the slaughter of Christians across Nigeria, the Sahel, India, Syria, Bangladesh, Pakistan. Hundreds of believers murdered, churches burned, pastors kidnapped. His response? Platitudes about dialogue.

As writer Jesús Enrique Rosas points out, Axelrod and Leo are trying to force observant Catholics into choosing, Trump or the Pope. Axelrod and Leo may find observant US Catholics are not blindly lockstep supporters of the Pope in anything/everything he says.

[SVPete]

DOJ report: The Biden admin teamed up with Planned Parenthood to track pro-lifers so it could "seek harsher" prison sentences

https://notthebee.com/article/doj-report-shows-biden-teamed-up-with-planned-parethood-to-track-down-pro-lifers-in-weaponization-of-face-act

Unless you're just now tuning in, you probably knew the Biden Justice Department weaponized the FACE Act, a 1994 law sponsored by Chuck Schumer, to go after peaceful protesters.

But it's even more sinister than that.
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The Department of Justice allowed, encouraged, and accepted research and investigation dossiers from Planned Parenthood and Feminist Majority Foundation to help plan their prosecutions of Christian pro-lifers.

This isn't an independent investigation. It's Planned Parenthood telling the FBI who to imprison.

Here's News Channel 9 on the revelation:

The new report is based on a review of over 700,000 internal records, claiming that the Biden-era Justice Department coordinated with abortion-rights groups to track activists, seek harsher sentences for pro-life defendants and in some cases, withhold evidence ...

The report noted multiple cases, including one involving pro-life activist Mark Houck, who was originally charged with two felony violations of the FACE Act ...

Despite being later acquitted, the report revealed that prosecutors denied a request for him to self-surrender and instead authorized an FBI arrest at his home.

Yes, the FBI chose to SWAT raid the home of a Christian pro-lifer (who was found innocent by a jury) in the middle of the night and terrorize his young children.
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There is some good news here, because elections really DO matter. Not only did Trump pardon the peaceful pro-life activists that were sentenced to jail under Biden, but the DOJ has now purged any employee involved.

[SVPete]

US Senate narrowly overturns Minnesota mining ban, sending bill to Trump

https://srnnews.com/us-senate-votes-to-overturn-minnesota-mining-ban-sending-bill-to-trump/

April 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Thursday narrowly voted to overturn former President Joe Biden’s mining ban in northern Minnesota, agreeing with the House of Representatives and sending the bill to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.

The move reverses Biden’s 20-year block on mining across 225,504 minerals-rich acres (91,200 hectares) in the Superior National Forest and gives a major boost to Antofagasta’s Twin Metals copper, cobalt and nickel project, as well as other proposed mines in the region bordering Canada.

Environmentalists have long worried that the mine could damage the water-rich region, which is visited by more than 200,000 hikers and canoeists each year. Mining companies have said they believe minerals can be extracted safely.

The Senate voted 50-49 to send the measure to Trump, who campaigned in 2024 on overturning the ban. The House approved the bill in January.

Should Trump sign the bill, a future president could not replicate Biden’s ban because of a provision in the 1996 Congressional Review Act. ...

[SVPete]

Gabbard refers impeachment whistleblower to DOJ for criminal investigation

https://justthenews.com/government/security/gabbard-refers-impeachment-whistleblower-doj-criminal-investigation

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday referred the 2019 Ukraine impeachment whistleblower against Donald Trump, as well as the former intelligence community inspector general, for criminal investigation by the Justice Department, officials told Just The News.

The criminal referrals were sent to the Justice Department just four days after Gabbard declassified intelligence that the CIA analyst who filed against Trump that prompted the impeachment had misled the investigators who first received his whistle-blower complaint and that then-inspector general Michael Atkinson kept evidence of the whistleblowers' bias from the impeachment proceedings.