Are they REALLY pro-life? ASK them!
Evangelicals and Catholics claiming to be pro-life, campaign for legislation to ban abortion. I have been receiving group emails from one such activist. An investigation revealed a disturbing fact.
Several times, after receiving her email, I replied asking if she stands with Israel. She ignored me each time.
My response is reproduced below.
If you are as outraged as I am about the Israeli genocide against Palestine, I invite you to write to any pro-life group and ask to know how they feel about people claiming to be pro-life but who support Israel.
Here’s my latest response to Kristan Hawkins, one of the best-known “pro-life” activists, who, oddly, has posed a photo of Donald Trump wearing a “pro-life” cap.
To "kristan@studentsforlife.org" <kristan@studentsforlife.org>
Your site would be much more convincing if you could just let your readers in on a little secret, which I have asked you about several times before.
You see, many devout Americans, both Evangelical and Catholic, claim to be pro-life, but in fact, oddly, they proudly support the Israeli authorities who have so far murdered over 46,000 innocent people, mostly children and women.
Is that a good pro-life example?
There is no way you can spin that to make it righteous and just.
So if you want people who REALLY support life — not just the politically correct lives of American babies in the womb — to believe in you, it is important to take a REAL stand, pro-life for ALL, including Arab babies and others, and that takes courage.
It is very popular these days for fundamentalist Christians, most of whom purport to be "pro-life," to blindly support the state that we for some reason call "Israel" (though it bears no resemblance to the ancient country of that name), despite the live-streamed murders and atrocities that we view daily on the internet and in the msm.
I have asked you this question before, but I am asking you once again because you have so far chosen to ignore this:
Do you “stand with Israel”?
That is, do you have the strength of your convictions or are you bowing to the utter Satanism displayed by a Washington government that sends bombs to Tel Aviv to slaughter children?
You can't have it both ways.
Either you are pro-life, or you are pro-Israel. You can’t be both.
It's easy to bow to the endlessly wealthy and powerful but pro-genocide Washington government, but if you are brave enough to stand up to them and do what's right – according to the scriptures and to your God-given conscience, you may be slighted or attacked at first, but you will eventually be in the righteous majority. And your organization will prosper. But if you are seen as a weak person who compromises with evil, you will never be admired as a strong Christian with the courage to stand up for what is right.
Therefore, go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you.
2 Corinthians 6:17
Don Hank
PS: Did you know that Donald Trump, who appears in the photo on your FB site, is extremely pro-Israel, and hence, pro-genocide? You need to tell him to kindly return that cap. He has forfeited the right to wear it. And by putting it on your site, you have compromised your “pro-life” stand.
Kristan: No one can be “pro-life” and pro-Israel at the same time!
**
Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]
https://ria.ru/20250109/kanada-1992918356.html
12:45 09.01.2025 (updated: 14:58 09.01.2025)
Canada discusses the purpose of tariffs on the US
Canadian Energy Minister: retaliatory tariffs should cause the US the most pain
MOSCOW, 9 Jan — RIA Novosti. Ottawa is preparing retaliatory trade tariffs against the US aimed at US President-elect Donald Trump’s refusal to impose tariffs on Canadian products, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in an interview with CTV.
"This list (of US goods that Canada could impose tariffs on — Ed.) will definitely be focused on trying to cause the United States the most pain in order to put pressure on President Trump to remove the tariffs," he said.
Earlier, the Globe and Mail reported that Canada was considering introducing retaliatory trade duties on American steel and ceramic products, including toilets and sinks, as well as orange juice.
Wilkinson also did not rule out introducing export duties on electricity supplies to the United States. However, according to the minister, Canada has ways to negotiate with the administration of the future president, American senators and business representatives in order to avoid the tariffs promised by Trump.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on December 10 that Ottawa would respond if Trump decided to impose tariffs of 25 percent on Canadian goods. Later, Ontario Premier Douglas Ford threatened to cut off electricity supply to a number of neighboring US states if the American leader did impose them.
Earlier, Trump said that after taking office as president, he would impose tariffs of 25 percent on goods from Canada and Mexico due to the unresolved problem of illegal immigration and drug trafficking in the United States, and also promised to add ten percent to export duties on goods from China. The Wall Street Journal noted that the new measures threaten to undermine the global trading system and cause serious damage to key sectors of the American economy, including the auto industry, opening up new opportunities for China in international markets.
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Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]
Published on January 9 at 10:21 tsargrad.tv
Todd's Prophecy: NATO awaits defeat.
The famous French scientist Emmanuel Todd, who accurately predicted the collapse of the USSR, is now talking about the imminent destruction of NATO. Everything will be decided in 2027. And this is not just a prophecy - we are dealing with a military-political forecast.
The founder of Tsargrad Konstantin Malofeev recalled how great the potential of Emmanuel Todd is:
The French historian Emmanuel Todd, the author of the sensational book "The Defeat of the West", is one of the key thinkers in Europe. Back in 1976, based on demographic data, he predicted the collapse of the USSR within the next 15 years. Todd made many other predictions that came true, including the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023. Now the historian points to NATO's numerous mistakes, which will ultimately lead to the bloc's defeat in the hybrid war against Russia. We discuss Todd's prophecy in detail in the full version of the article on the Tsargrad website:
Todd shares the opinion that in 2014, Russia did not go further than annexing Crimea and agreed to the Minsk agreements because it was not yet ready to be disconnected from the international interbank payment system SWIFT, which at that time could lead to catastrophic consequences for its economy.
The Minsk agreements were signed because everyone wanted to buy time. The Ukrainians wanted to prepare for war, the Russians wanted to prepare for the maximum sanctions regime... The Russians challenged NATO in February 2022 because they felt ready... They assessed their available forces and decided that for military and demographic reasons they would have an optimum window for combat in the period from 2022 to 2027.
Todd then explains why it should take Russia 5 years to defeat the West.
He points to Russia's fundamental weakness, "which it shares, frankly, with the rest of the more developed world" - its low birth rate. From 1995 to 2000, it fell to 1.35 children per woman in Russia, rose to 1.8 in 2016, and then stabilized at 1.5.
Todd is primarily interested in the number of men potentially mobilized for military service.
In 2020, shortly before the war, there were six million men aged 35-39, 6.3 million aged 30-34, 4.6 million aged 25-29, and 3.6 million aged 20-24. These figures show how the number of Russia's defenders is shrinking.
These statistics debunk speculation that Russia, after Ukraine, intends to invade Europe. With a shrinking population, God grant that it will be able to hold on to and develop its territory of 17 million square kilometers.
According to Todd, these same figures explain the military strategy chosen by Russia in the war in Ukraine, and the fact that at the beginning of the Central Military District, only 120 thousand troops were deployed on our side against a country of 603.7 thousand square kilometers.
It is stupid to equate Putin with Stalin, as Western propagandists do, if only because under Stalin there were plenty of people. During World War II and in the following decades, the Soviet army had no problem with personnel.
For comparison: in 1968, the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies sent half a million soldiers to Czechoslovakia, a country of 127.9 thousand square kilometers, to quell the “Prague Spring.”
But even with 120 thousand, as Todd writes, the Russians conquered a significant part of Ukraine’s territory along the Black Sea in 2022.
Contrary to what could be heard everywhere, the Russian army preferred to wage a slow war... The priority of the Russians is not to capture the maximum amount of territory, but to lose the minimum amount of people, the scientist believes.
[This theory is perfectly applicable to the Syrian invasion by the HTS, where Western commentators bleated that Russia was too weak to fight on behalf of Assad. If Russia had joined the fight, it would have lost men badly needed in Kursk and Donbass]
This tactic explains, according to Todd, the abandonment of part of the Kharkov region and the right bank of the Dnieper by our troops almost without a fight, "where the Russians were one to three." And the limited, "frugally conducted" mobilization. And the conscription of prisoners to the war. Here we can also recall the recent revelations of the head of the Union of Donbass Volunteers Alexander Borodai, who explained the involvement of older, "unproductive" men in the fighting.
The Americans, as Todd writes, are also betting in their strategy on reducing the population of Russia, to which they put a lot of effort in the 90s. But the demographic decline will become dangerous only in the medium and long term, when problems with both civil and military mobilization begin. However, the Americans do not take into account another point: the reduction in population can be compensated by an increase in the educational and technological level.
Since 2018-2019, they have hypersonic missiles that provide them with an undeniable superiority, including over the United States; they can, as they have proven, be cut off from SWIFT… The Russians were in no hurry; their entry into the war was gradual. To limit human casualties. To preserve the fundamental achievement of the Putin era - a return to stability, guaranteeing a decent existence for everyone.
So far, this strategic calculation seems reasonable to Todd: Russia, of course, underestimated the potential of the Ukrainian army, but it was not wrong about the very weak industrial potential of NATO.
**
An article from the site Scheerpost, linked in the following, was SOOO riveting, I could not excerpt it. Each time I was impressed by a paragraph or passage, I found myself equally captivated by the next one. It occurred to me to keep running this each day and posting paragraph after paragraph, day after day – obviously not the best treatment I ought to be giving this amazing text.
To wrap up what was said, it looks like the Empire, ie, the Elites, are so intent upon stifling the message of how evil colonialism is in our Western milieu that they are daily violating our First Amendment rights to muzzle us.
One of the themes I was able to isolate is that the rights and lives of medical personnel in Palestine are being obliterated, and in order to perpetuate this crime (basically, of genocide), medical personnel and medical teaching and reporting staff, are being silenced – illegally I should add – back home in the US.
This is as perfect a replication of Third Reich thought control, if I may use that term, that we have ever witnessed in the West, and all I can say is that this illegal and criminal censorship and mind control MUST be fought with all our strength and all our will. Otherwise, it will get worse, MUCH worse, and concerned people of conscience will no longer be free to discuss this Neonazi phenomenon on even those platforms still available to us.
Example: I used to be able to post alerts to my Substack articles on Facebook, for months, well over a year. Then all of a sudden, a few months into the genocide (following the Oct 10 attack), FB started refusing to post them and sending me emails telling me I was violating their rules. However, this was nonsense because I had posted my alerts for quite a few months using the same methods and same topics as always, and no one had ever refused to let me post anything.
So someone had suddenly changed the FB policies, and let me guess – it was the pro-Palestine posts that triggered them.
Fellow Americans, if we don’t get this censorship stopped before the next round of repression begins, we could lose the battle. Trump is a wild card. With his unwavering support of Israel, he could repress us even worse, or he could just keep inventing more silliness and distract us away from the Palestinian issues. (In fact, I suspect he may be doing just that with his strange threats against all these countries – what else would be his motive?)
Oddly, while Zuckerburg’s organization ramped up the censorship, Elon Musk’s X gave me complete freedom – for the moment.
But I trust no one at this point.
Our thanks to AN for this:
Zionists kill doctors in Gaza (The Chris Hedges Report on Scheerpost)
Thu 1/9/2025 7:18 PM
"The IDF not only targets hospitals with airstrikes but also enters them to deploy gun-strapped drones that kill patients and staff as well as destroy vital medical machines and instruments. Hamas is not hiding in those machines. This is an attempt to shorten the life of Palestinian people.”
Text here – PLEASE read attentively:
Video here:
**
Excerpt:
And because Ukraine is now dependent on Europe and the United States for its electricity and fossil fuel needs, including Slovakia for electricity, Zelensky’s decision will likely hurt Ukraine more than it hurts Russia.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/zelensky-gas-pipeline/
Who pays for Zelensky's gas cut-off gamble?
Ukraine loses billions in transit fees, Europe faces soaring energy prices, with Russia largely insulated from the fallout
Mike Fredenburg
Jan 09, 2025
President Zelensky’s decision not to renew a five-year contract allowing Russian gas to flow through Ukraine by pipeline to Europe joins a long list of actions by Europe and the U.S that have greatly reduced Europe’s energy security, and badly damaged its economy.
And because Ukraine is now dependent on Europe and the United States for its electricity and fossil fuel needs, including Slovakia for electricity, Zelensky’s decision will likely hurt Ukraine more than it hurts Russia.
A large and increasing amount of Russian petroleum products are being sold into Turkey and India, and then being processed and sold to the EU, so the loss of $5 billion in annual revenues (0.22 percent of Russia’s 2024 $2.184 trillion GDP) from natural gas passing through Ukrainian via pipelines will have little impact on Russia’s $240 billion per year in petroleum revenues. And given that Ukraine will lose about a billion USD (0.56 percent of Ukraine’s 2024 $189.83 billion GDP) in annual transit fees, and that the loss of gas to Europe has caused natural gas prices to soar, the question that comes to mind is whether Zelensky’s decision was more about punishing EU countries, such as Slovakia and Hungary who oppose NATO membership for Ukraine, than hurting Russia?
Not only do Slovakia and Hungary oppose NATO membership for Ukraine, but they have at times blocked the EU from delivering military aid to Ukraine out of the belief that such aid will not only delay peace, but will result in more fruitless deaths and destruction, increase the chances of WW III, and have zero impact on the outcome of the war.
Unsurprisingly, the actions of Slovakia’s and Hungary’s leaders have angered Zelensky, who is well aware of their reliance on Russian fossil fuels. Hungary depends on Russia for 70% of its imported oil. Likewise, Slovakia is reliant on Russian oil and gas delivered across Ukraine to supply the vast majority of its transportation infrastructure as well as part of its electricity generation. [It is interesting to note that Zelensky’s decisions are based not on strategic considerations but on spur-of-the-moment emotional responses to perceived enemies – Slovakia and Hungary in this case. Wars are not won by this kind of helter-skelter shoot-from-the-hip tactic]
Consequently, it is also no surprise that Zelensky’s decision to cut off the pipeline supplying Russian gas to Slovakia induced Slovakian President Robert Fico to respond by threatening to cut off electricity exports to Ukraine. That President Fico would make such threats makes even more sense when you consider that some of the electricity generated in Slovakia comes from gas-fired facilities that have been relying on cheap Russian supplied natural gas.
President Fico’s threat must be taken seriously by Ukraine as it has lost over 73 percent of thermal power generation to Russian attacks and depends on Slovakian electricity imports for 19% of its imported electricity. Having electricity is vital to both Ukraine’s defense industry and its civilian population which is facing big electricity shortages in the midst of winter. It is worth noting that as of November of this year, Ukraine’s primary sources of electricity imports are Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Moldova.
This is a classic Catch-22 situation, as the natural gas flowing into Slovakia from Russia is generating cash for Russia that Zelensky wants to cut off but is also being used to generate electricity that Ukraine needs.
The spat between President Fico and President Zelensky is the most recent event in the war-prompted energy saga that has been playing out between the EU, the United States, and Russia. But while it has caused a spike in natural gas prices, it is only the most recent blow to Europe’s energy security and supplies, which saw August 2022 gas prices increase by about 1,500 percent in comparison to the cheap prices Europe had been paying prior to 2021. Since then, gas prices have dropped back down to being “only” about 300 percent more than what Europe had been paying prior to when the cheap Russian fossil fuel supplies that Europe had been benefiting from began to suffer disruptions due to EU/U.S. sanctions levied against Russia.
Ironically, despite the sanctions that were supposed to crush Russia’s economy, Moscow has continued benefitting from cheap, plentiful energy and has outperformed that of the EU and the United States. Indeed, the EU’s GDP plunged from growing 3.4 percent in 2022 to shrinking by 0.4 percent in 2023, and its 2024 GDP is expected to grow only by 0.9 percent. In particular, Germany, the cornerstone of the European Union’s economy, has seen its GDP shrink by 0.1 percent in 2024 as unrealistic plans to transition to renewable energy away from nuclear and fossil, combined with the loss of cheap Russian fossil fuels, dealt a major blow to Germany’s energy intensive manufacturing economy.
Hence, while the price increases have been a boon for the profits of U.S. natural gas suppliers that have stepped in to fill part of the gap, it has hurt Europe’s economy badly. But it is not just Ukraine and Europe that have been impacted by the Ukraine-Russia war and the U.S-led sanctions levied against Russia. As a direct result of sanctions and the war, over the last few years U.S. consumers and businesses have ended paying well over $100 billion more for natural gas due to having to compete with the premium Europe was willing to pay for U.S. natural gas.
Russia’s GDP growth did take a sanctions/war related hit in 2022, dropping to 1.2 percent, then rebounding in 2023 to grow by 3.6 percent, and then grow again by 3.9 percent in 2024. However, in 2025, inflation and other factors, including sanctions, could see Russia’s GDP drop to 2.5 percent. Meanwhile, the far more energy independent United States saw GDP grow 2.5 percent in 2023 and an estimated 2.7 percent in 2024 and an estimated 2.0 percent in 2025.
To put it mildly, while sanctions have no doubt impacted Russia’s economy, their impact has been far less than what the experts assured us they would be and Russia does not appear to be anywhere near collapse.
President Fico does not view Russia as a threat and is thus loath to take actions that position Slovakia as Russia’s enemy. He is also very concerned about the United States continuing to push for NATO membership for Ukraine. In a recent Facebook video Fico stated, “I understand Ukraine’s wishes, it is a sovereign country, but Ukraine’s membership in NATO is just a guarantee of World War III.” In the context of calling for an end to war, Fico further added: “There must be some kind of compromise. What do they expect, that the Russians will leave Crimea, Donbas and Luhansk? That's unrealistic." None of these statements have endeared him to Zelensky.
It is hard to imagine Zelensky does not know how little impact his most recent action will have on Russia, and how big an impact it will have on Europe. Further, because the cost to Ukraine to import electricity and fuel from its neighbors is bound to rise due to his January 1 action, even as Ukraine loses $1 billion per year in transit fees, Zelensky’s actions look very much like an exercise of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.
Mike Fredenburg
Mike Fredenburg has been writing on defense policy and politics for over 30 years, with articles in numerous publications including The California Political Review, The San Diego Union Tribune, and National Review.
The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.
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Our thanks to AC for this:
California is on fire - is in flames . . . Firefighting equipment sent to Ukraine . . . WOW . . . As Einstein stated - "STUPIDITY has NO limits" . . . DEMOCRATS prove the truth of that all across America.
I thought you would be interested in this story I found on MSN: Fact Check: Did California Donate Firefighting Equipment to Ukraine? - YES --
Me:
It’s not just Dems. BOTH parties do really STUPID things.
**
Here’s your air strike update for Jan 9, 2025
Search phrases for those who want to do their own research:
EN phrase for translation: Jan 9, 2025, russian missiles, drones, bombs hit Ukraine
Translated into RU: 9 января, 2025, российские ракеты, беспилотники, бомбы поражают Украину
Google translate:
https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&op=translate
To optimize results, searches must be done in Yandex search
Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]
https://ria.ru/20250109/ukraina-1992915014.html
12:17 09.01.2025 (updated: 14:13 09.01.2025)
Russian Armed Forces hit military airfield infrastructure in Ukraine
Russian Armed Forces hit military airfields in Ukraine and UAV storage sites
MOSCOW, 9 Jan — RIA Novosti. Russian troops hit the infrastructure of Ukrainian military airfields, as well as assembly shops and UAV storage sites, the Defense Ministry reported.
"We have defeated <...> concentrations of manpower and equipment of the armed formations of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and foreign mercenaries in 163 districts," the department added.
The strikes were carried out by aircraft, drones, missile forces and artillery.
In addition, air defense systems shot down a French-made Hammer guided aerial bomb, 14 US-made HIMARS MLRS shells and 71 aircraft-type drones.
**
Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]
Russians hit a plant in Zaporozhye with FAB-500 bombs, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost 50,000 militants near Kursk. Latest news from the SMO on January 9, 2025
Viktor Zagvozdin
09 January 2025 12:30
The Russians hit a plant in Zaporozhye with FAB-500 bombs, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost 50 thousand militants near Kursk. Latest news of the SMO on January 9, 2025
A strike with FAB aerial bombs was carried out on the defense enterprise "Motor Sich", which repairs engines for aircraft and helicopters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
It became known that Russian pilots attacked the defense enterprise in Zaporizhia "Motor Sich" with FAB-500 aerial bombs with a unified guide and correction module. This was reported by the Telegram channel "Military Correspondents of the Russian Spring".
Yesterday, a bomb strike was carried out on the defense enterprise "Motor Sich" in Zaporizhia. It is known that the military plant specializes in the production and repair of aircraft engines for military aircraft, helicopters and industrial installations.
After the air strike, the floors of the plant building caught fire. Windows were knocked out in the building, and bricks were scattered around the territory after the bomb struck. The Ukrainian defense enterprise suffered significant damage, and the plant's work was temporarily suspended. There are no reports of any killed employees yet.
The Ukrainian media immediately howled that the main blow of the bombs fell not on the defense enterprise itself, but on the peaceful neighborhoods of Zaporozhye. This false news is being passed on to Western media with great pleasure. [And, of course, the US-controlled Western media are delighted to deceive their audiences as usual]
The tense military situation also persists in the Kursk border area. As reported by the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry, during the entire period of fighting in the Kursk oblast, the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces exceeded 50 thousand Ukrainian nationalists and foreign mercenaries.
In total, during the fighting in the Kursk oblast, the Ukrainian army lost more than 50,120 servicemen, 294 heavy tanks, 217 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), the country's military ministry clarified.
Over the past 24 hours, Russian fighters destroyed more than 290 Ukrainian militants in the Kursk oblast. One Ukrainian tank, an armored personnel carrier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, four military vehicles and three field artillery pieces were destroyed.
Yesterday, the Russian military in the Kursk oblast captured a Ukrainian "Gvozdika artillery mount. In the latest idiotic offensive on the Kursk oblast, the enemy is losing not only its soldiers, but also artillery and NATO equipment. Our soldiers destroyed the artillery mount "Gvozdika" 2S1 122-mm caliber, writes military correspondent Andrey Rudenko in his Telegram channel.
The head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov announced that the Chechen special forces have organized a real hunt in the Sudzhansky district of the region for militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Telegram channels are already posting photos from Berdino, where a real meat grinder is underway. The commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are mocking their soldiers who are leaving their positions, subscribers write in social networks.
**
Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]
January 9, 2025, 15:00
Russian Armed Forces strike Ukrainian military airfields
Aircraft, drones, missile forces and artillery struck Ukrainian military airfields. Drone assembly shops were also targeted. A French Hammer bomb and 14 American HIMARS munition were shot down. Our units advanced in several directions at once.
Kupyansk area, Kharkiv oblast. Intelligence discovered militant dugouts in the forest. First, mortar fire. Then an attack with drones.
Combat work of the Grad MLRS crew. Precise strikes on a Ukrainian Armed Forces stronghold on the right bank of the Dnieper. A drone control point was destroyed in the DPR.
According to the defense ministry, a large number of pieces of the militants’ equipment were destroyed in a day. In the Orekhov direction, a Ukrainian armored vehicle burned, which our FPV drone hit. More work by drone operators. This time, a Polish Krab self-propelled gun was hit. And in the border area of the Kursk oblast, a German Marder infantry fighting vehicle became the target. According to the defense ministry, an ammunition depot was also destroyed.
Jesus, save us from your Christian zionist followers.
TRAITOR Trump's 'talk' about Canada, Greenland, Gulf of MEXICO and Panama......
and people are STILL NOT CONNECTING DOTS.........
The NORTH AMERICAN UNION!
The New World Order/U.N. Agenda21 plan.......and it is TRAITOR Trump who was SELECTED to usher in these things. There would be LESS push-back under a RepubTard POTUS, than there would be under a LibTard POTUS. The NORTH AMERICAN UNION TREATY was SIGNED, between Canada/USSA/Mexico under Bush; another RepubTard!
Was there push-back THEN??
*crickets*