Amazon-Employed USAID Contractor, Northwestern Professor Among Top Donors to Party for Socialism and Liberation

An Amazon employee who coordinated closely with USAID, a Bloomberg engineer, a professor at Northwestern University, and an armada of tech bros donated large sums to the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL)—a militant marxist political party in the United States in the news over its ties to Washington D.C., shooter Elias Rodriguez.

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New pope, old problem: Will Leo XIV resist tyranny?



Catholics have a new pope: Leo XIV. Most of the cardinals who elected him were appointed by Pope Francis, and at first glance, the new pontiff appears to share much with his predecessor. But it’s early yet. Catholics should pray that Leo charts a very different course. The reason is simple: The Catholic Church finds itself locked in a battle against three hostile ideologies — globalism, Islam, and communism. And right now, it’s losing on all fronts.

Pope Francis earned the nickname the "People’s Pope,” a title meant to suggest he championed ordinary Catholics. In truth, he aligned more closely with the globalist left. He openly opposed President Trump’s push to restore American borders and criticized similar efforts by European nations to reclaim their sovereignty. Under Francis, the Church’s advocacy of open borders helped dismantle Western Christendom by encouraging the mass migration of Muslims into Europe. Many of these migrants view their secularized Christian hosts with contempt. European leaders, meanwhile, steeped in guilt and detached from the virtues of their own civilization, capitulated. The result: rape, murder, and a continent sinking into self-loathing. Only a radical reformation can pull Europe back from the brink.

Communism and Christianity cannot coexist. The new pope must say so — clearly, unambiguously, and without fear.

Francis also failed pastorally. Faced with the ongoing sexual abuse crisis that has haunted the Church for decades, he refused to lead with transparency or justice. When he became pope, he had the chance to hold predatory priests accountable for their demonic crimes and restore trust among the faithful. Instead, he did next to nothing. His silence signaled to the hierarchy that abuse could still be covered up, even tolerated. That betrayal deepened the wounds of a Church already in crisis and demoralized millions of believers.

Pope Leo XIV now has a moment to break with the past. He must act swiftly and decisively. The Church cannot afford another papacy of retreat and complicity.

A disgraceful bargain

In December 2017, Pope Francis appeared on Italian television and publicly questioned the traditional wording of the Lord’s Prayer. The closing line — “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13, Luke 11:4) — is a direct teaching from Christ. Francis asked, “What kind of Father would lead his children into temptation?”

That question revealed a deeper confusion. The line reflects not divine cruelty but the profound gift of human freedom. God grants mankind free will — the ability to choose between good and evil, between virtue and temptation. The Lord’s Prayer acknowledges that freedom and asks God to help us navigate it. Pope Francis, it seems, struggled to grasp this. His discomfort with the line suggests a broader discomfort with the idea that freedom comes with moral risk — and that risk, in turn, calls for responsibility, discipline, and faith.

At the same time, Francis sent disgraced pedophile Cardinal Theodore McCarrick to Beijing to negotiate a secret deal with the Chinese Communist Party. That deal handed partial control of the Church in China to the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, a CCP-run front established in 1957 to suppress Christianity and replace it with a state-approved imitation.

Religious freedom in communist China remains a fiction. Teaching the faith to children is effectively banned. The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association exists not to protect believers but to pacify the Vatican and deceive the West. It offers a false promise of coexistence — as long as Catholicism conforms to state-imposed restrictions. Some call this process the “Sinicization” of the Church. A more accurate term would be its communization.

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Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images

The CCP has not simply demanded obedience — it has altered doctrine and replaced sacred symbols. The crucifix — central to the Christian faith as a reminder of Christ’s suffering — has been replaced in churches with portraits of Xi Jinping. That’s not contextualization. That’s desecration.

McCarrick, a despicable character to be sure, traveled to China at least three times to help broker the Vatican’s secret agreement with the CCP. Those negotiations produced disturbing compromises: among them, a shared arrangement where the Vatican and the Communist Party jointly approve bishops. Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong has condemned the deal as a betrayal of faithful Chinese Catholics — many of whom spent their lives resisting communist persecution.

Even Pope Francis acknowledged that the agreement would cause suffering. He was right. Since its implementation, the CCP’s Ministry of State Security has “disappeared” at least 15 bishops who refused to submit to party rule. Their whereabouts remain unknown.

But the suffering extends further — to millions of Chinese parents forbidden from teaching their children about Jesus. Families must wait until their children turn 18 before they can legally attend church, at which point they don’t approach the altar as supplicants to God but as subjects of the Chinese Communist Party. This forced delay in faith formation is not only spiritually damaging — it is deeply humiliating. It turns the act of worship into a form of ideological submission.

No more submission

Some may argue that Chinese Catholics are better off with a compromised, state-approved church than with no church at all. Pope Francis may have reasoned that accepting the replacement of the cross — the profound symbol of Christ’s suffering — with portraits of the Chinese Communist Party’s first secretary was a small price for institutional survival.

But allowing an atheistic regime to oversee Christian worship amounts to cruelty disguised as prudence. It undermines the very purpose of the church. There is something profoundly demoralizing to the entire world to watch the Holy Roman Catholic Church behave in such a craven manner.

Pope Leo XIV must draw a clear line. He must reject every agreement with the Chinese Communist Party that surrenders human freedom in exchange for bureaucratic recognition. The freedom of conscience, the freedom to worship, and the freedom to speak the truth — these stand at the heart of the Christian mission. In China, the underground church continues to bear witness to that mission. Its members worship in secret, often at great personal risk, defying a regime that demands their silence and obedience. Their defiance reveals a faith rooted in courage and dignity.

The CCP’s version of Catholicism, by contrast, fuses materialism, Maoism, and political submission. No Catholic worthy of the name should pretend that such a hybrid represents anything but ideological fraud. Communism and Christianity cannot coexist. The new pope must say so — clearly, unambiguously, and without fear.

What should alarm the faithful most is the Vatican’s submission to totalitarian rule. Instead of forming a bulwark against tyranny, the Catholic Church has, through its secret pact with Beijing, told its flock to put Caesar before God. That message contradicts the very heart of the faith. The Vatican must repeal its secret agreement with the Chinese Communist Party and make public its contents. Only then can the world see clearly the extent of the CCP’s repression — and the Church’s role in enabling it.

The disaster in China offers a painful reminder: While Christ is king and has conquered sin, Satan still rules the world (John 14:30). That truth remains central to Christian belief. It underscores man’s constant dependence on God — and Satan’s persistent effort to pull mankind away. In China’s repression of believers, its sponsorship of Islamic terrorism, its support for Iran’s nuclear program, and its vicious treatment of its own people, Satan’s fingerprints remain obvious and unhidden.

Catholics and all Christians should pray that Pope Leo XIV receives the grace to lead boldly and reject the globalist path of his predecessor. As an American, he might take inspiration from the words of Thomas Jefferson: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” That counsel has never been more urgent. May the new pope heed it.

Democrats pick Beijing over Trump in shocking trade war poll



In a development that would have shocked most Americans just a decade ago, a new poll shows more Democrats now hope China wins the trade war with the United States than want their own country to come out ahead. That’s not exaggeration. It’s not spin. It’s a brutal fact.

A national survey I co-authored for the Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports found that 32% of likely Democratic voters want China to prevail, while just 30% say they support the Trump administration in the conflict. Another 38% say they’re unsure.

The poll should serve as a wake-up call. We are not just facing a battle over policy. We’re engaged in a war over the very soul of our country.

By comparison, 88% of likely Republican voters support the Trump administration in the trade war. Among voters who identify as politically unaffiliated, just 16% favor China over the United States.

Think about that. A growing number of Democrats would rather see a repressive communist regime — one that jails political dissidents, censors speech, and persecutes religious minorities — defeat America in an economic showdown, simply to spite Donald Trump.

This isn’t just disturbing. It’s un-American.

The poll results reveal a troubling reality about today’s left. Partisan hatred has overtaken even the most basic sense of national loyalty. It’s no longer about what helps America — it’s about what hurts Donald Trump, even if that means handing a strategic victory to our greatest geopolitical adversary.

This debate isn’t about tariff policy. Reasonable people can disagree on trade. This is about cheering on a totalitarian regime simply because it opposes a U.S. president. That’s not ideology — it’s pure partisan spite. And it should alarm every American who values country over party.

Some might dismiss this as ignorance. But the survey suggests something deeper. Everyone understands what the Chinese communist regime represents. This is the government that covered up the COVID-19 outbreak, steals hundreds of billions worth of U.S. intellectual property annually, and props up its economy with forced labor.

Yet, a large share of Democratic voters would still rather see China win a trade war than watch Trump succeed.

This is the rot at the core of the modern progressive movement: a deep, pathological loathing for everything that even resembles traditional American values — capitalism, strength, independence, and yes, national pride. That’s why so many on the left can’t bring themselves to cheer for a U.S. victory in a confrontation with a foreign adversary.

The poll should serve as a wake-up call. We are not just facing a battle over policy. We’re engaged in a war over the very soul of our country.

It’s no longer enough to assume that all Americans, no matter how fiercely they disagree, are on the same team when it comes to defending our national interest. That assumption is now demonstrably false.

The fight for the future of the United States is not just happening in Washington — it’s happening in the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens. And based on this data, that fight is far from over.

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How St. Joseph reveals the true meaning of work — and exposes the emptiness of socialist ideology



Many of us in the West are familiar with May Day, and most of us would say we are opposed to it.

When asked why, we might say that it promotes communism, or that the evil regime of the Soviet Union enforced its celebration. These arguments may be perfectly reasonable, but I do not believe they are sufficient.

'There could not be a better protector to help you to let the spirit of the gospel penetrate your life.'

To understand fully why Christians ought not to celebrate May Day, we should look at what the holiday is really about: the socialist understanding of work and the worker.

Challenging May Day

In response to the growth of socialist power and influence throughout the first half of the 20th century, the Catholic Church repeatedly pushed back against the ideology, especially under the leadership of Leo XIII (1878-1903), Pius XI (1922-1939), and Pius XII (1939-1958).

In 1955, as a direct challenge to May Day, Pius XII established May 1 as the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. It's through the figure of Joseph that the Church exposes the emptiness of the socialist idea of work.

“Cursed is the earth in thy work;” God tells Adam in Genesis 3. “With labor and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life.”

Man will always need to "labor and toil." Any hope for a work-free, earthly utopia rests on the fundamental ignorance of this basic fact. To be human is to work; it is an essential and permanent aspect of any human society.

Meaningful work

The question then becomes: What is the purpose of our work? What makes it meaningful?

According to the socialists — best exemplified by the massive labor force of the Soviet Union — the purpose of work was simply the betterment of the state. The “rights of the worker" exist only to allow each individual to contribute to the good of the collective.

For Pius XI, this negation of man's true purpose was the fundamental problem of socialism. In his 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, he admits that while communism produces the the evils of unrelenting class warfare and the total abolition of private ownership, less extreme versions of socialism cannot be as broadly condemned.

'Utterly foreign to Christian truth'

This is because some of the concerns expressed by socialists are not unfounded. The central example Pius XI points to is Western capitalism's tendency to allow the market to seize “sovereignty over society."

In contending that such sovereignty belongs “not to owners, but to the public authority,” the pope emphasizes that socialism's opposition to Western capitalism is not in itself enough to dismiss it. Instead, he cuts to the real issue — that socialism's very "concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth.”

Man is placed on earth so that he might order his life “unto the praise and glory of his creator.” Man derives happiness in this life and the next from seeking to do what is pleasing to God.

Socialism, writes Pius XI, is “wholly ignoring and indifferent to this sublime end of man.” In the socialist view, human society exists “for the sake of material advantage alone.” We can clearly see how an ideology devoid of supernatural meaning cannot possibly possess a correct understanding of work and its purpose.

When Pius XII established the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, he showed why socialism and the socialist celebration of May Day are incompatible with the Christian understanding of work.

In speaking to workers' associations, he reminded them, “Your first concern is to preserve and increase the Christian life of the worker.” This prioritization of the divine is in direct conflict with the materialist worldview of socialism.

Capitalism's excesses

Like his predecessor, Pius XII did not dismiss the concerns of socialists without due consideration. He warned against the excesses of unchecked capitalism (which could also become an oppressive system if not properly subordinated to Christian charity) and declared that the worker must be “supported and sustained in his legitimate demands and expectations.”

In highlighting these concerns and how Christianity might best address them, Pius XII reveals the utter incapacity of socialism to respect the inherent dignity of man as well as the true dignity and purpose of the worker.

Instead of seeking solace in the empty promises of socialism, Pius XII urges Christians to order their lives and work toward God. To that end, he recommends St. Joseph as a model and patron, pointing out that “there could not be a better protector to help you to let the spirit of the gospel penetrate your life.”

A tangible example

In placing workers under the patronage of St. Joseph, the pope gives them a tangible example on which to model their labor and their lives and a visible counter to the socialist idea of work as a merely material endeavor.

Today, we may no longer be threatened by the looming behemoth of the Soviet Union, but we still contend with the rise of communist China and the rampant secularization of our own workplaces. We can still look to St. Joseph as an example of “the dignity of the worker.”

It is as important now as ever to recall that our work is, above all else, in service to God. It is from this service that we draw pleasure and meaning in our work. Do not fall for the empty platitudes and vain anthems of the socialists and their May Day. We know that true solidarity and true meaning in our work and in our lives are found in joyful service to Christ our Lord.

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