Your cheat sheet to four potential investigations of Russia and President Trump - The Washington Post

Your cheat sheet to four potential investigations of Russia and President Trump - The Washington Post

The State of Trump's State Department - The Atlantic

The State of Trump's State Department - The Atlantic

Bishop Barron's Lenten Gospel Reflection March 2, 2017

Your daily Lenten Gospel reflection!

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Lent Day 2

Luke 9:22-25

Friends, our Gospel today lays out Jesus' conditions for discipleship. For all of us sinners, to varying degrees, our own lives have become god. That is to say, we see the universe turning around our ego, our needs, our projects, our plans, and our likes and dislikes. True conversion—the metanoia that Jesus talks about—is so much more than moral reform, though it includes that. It has to do with a complete shift in consciousness, a whole new way of looking at one's life. Jesus offered a teaching that must have been gut-wrenching to his first century audience: "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." His listeners knew what the cross meant: a death in utter agony, nakedness, and humiliation. They didn't think of the cross automatically in religious terms, as we do. They knew it in all of its awful power. Unless you crucify your ego, you cannot be my follower, Jesus says. This move—this terrible move—has to be the foundation of the spiritual life.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/state-department-trump/517965/

The State of Trump's State Department

Anxiety and listless days as a foreign-policy bureaucracy confronts the possibility of radical change

• Julia Ioffe
• March 1, 2017 | The Atlantic

The flags in the lobby of the State Department stood bathed in sunlight and silence on a recent afternoon. “It’s normally so busy here,” marveled a State Department staffer as we stood watching the emptiness. “People are usually coming in for meetings, there’s lots of people, and now it’s so quiet.” The action at Foggy Bottom has instead moved to the State Department cafeteria where, in the absence of work, people linger over countless coffees with colleagues. (“The cafeteria is so crowded all day,” a mid-level State Department officer said, adding that it was a very unusual sight. “No one’s doing anything.”) As the staffer and I walked among the tables and chairs, people with badges chatted over coffee; one was reading his Kindle.
“It just feels empty,” a recently departed senior State official told me.mhttps://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/state-department-trump/517965/

New Report Says Islam Will Surpass Christianity And Become The Largest Religion In The World

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/new-report-says-islam-will-surpass-christianity-and-become-the-largest-religion-in-the-world

Pauline Books & Media: Inviting Goe in - A Minute a Day for Lent

Ash Wednesday: we're taking our first steps into the desert with Jesus.

Take a moment and let God in. Invite him into the places of your heart and your life that you most want to hide from him. Ask him to speak to you about these places and to give you the courage to begin to trust him with your life in ever deeper ways.

Today's Word NEW What newness is God opening up for you today?

We'd love for you to share this message! © Daughters of St. Paul. All Rights Reserved.

 Donald Trump Goes All In for the Military-Industrial Complex

The president’s address signaled his plans for domestic austerity and military bloat.

By John NicholsTw

https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trump-goes-all-in-for-the-military-industrial-complex/

The US Warms Up To Trump: 3 In 4 Americans Approve Of Trump Address | Zero Hedge

The US Warms Up To Trump: 3 In 4 Americans Approve Of Trump Address | Zero Hedge

Losing a War One Bad Metaphor at a Time Thrashing About in the Afghan Petri Dish

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176248/tomgram%3A_william_astore%2C_in_afghanistan%2C_america%27s_biggest_foe_is_self-deception

Losing a War One Bad Metaphor at a Time
Thrashing About in the Afghan Petri Dish
By William J. Astore
America’s war in Afghanistan is now in its 16th year, the longest foreign war in our history.  The phrase “no end in sight” barely covers the situation.  Prospects of victory -- if victory is defined as eliminating that country as a haven for Islamist terrorists while creating a representative government in Kabul -- are arguably more tenuous today than at any point since the U.S. military invaded in 2001 and routed the Taliban.  Such “progress” has, over the years, invariably proven “fragile” and “reversible,” to use the weasel words of General David Petraeus who oversaw the Afghan “surge” of 2010-2011 under President Obama.  To cite just one recent data point: the Taliban now controls 15% more territory than it did in 2015.
That statistic came up in recent Senate testimony by the U.S. commanding general in Afghanistan, John "Mick" Nicholson Jr., who is (to give no-end-in-sight further context) the 12th U.S. commander since the war began.  Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he called for several thousand more U.S. troops to break what he optimistically described as a "stalemate."  Those troops would, he added, serve mainly as advisers and trainers to Afghan forces, facilitating what he labeled “hold-fight-disrupt” operations. 

U.S. Allies Are Learning that Trump’s America Is Not the ‘Indispensable Nation’

Grappling with an unpredictable White House, foreign partners in Europe and Asia are weighing contingency plans and bracing for the worst.

• By Dan De Luce, John Hudson
• February 27, 2017
• http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/27/u-s-allies-are-learning-that-trumps-america-is-not-the-indispensable-nation/

On Saturday night, President Donald Trump dined at his new D.C. hotel with the governor of Florida, Rick Scott, his daughter Ivanka, her husband and powerful senior White House advisor Jared Kushner, and Nigel Farage, the nemesis of the European Union. A few tables away, alone with his wife, sat Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the man nominally charged with charting America’s relations with the rest of the world.
Photos of the president dining with a smiling Farage, the former UKIP leader who has railed against the EU for years, and who led the populist campaign to pull Britain out of Europe, only served to reinforce growing doubts about America’s stance toward the European Union and much of the international order forged by U.S. leadership in the years after World War II.

Trump’s Grand Strategic Train Wreck

Believe it or not, the president has a grand strategy. But it's a nightmarish mess.

By Colin Kahl, Hal Brands

January 31, 2017 | Foreign Policy | http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/31/trumps-grand-strategic-train-wreck/

Believe it or not, President Donald Trump has a grand strategy. According to some analysts, Trump’s endless streams of erratic and apparently improvisational ideas don’t add up to anything consistent or purposeful enough to call a grand strategy. We see it otherwise. Beneath all the rants, tweets, and noise there is actually a discernible pattern of thought — a Trumpian view of the world that goes back decades. Trump has put forward a clear vision to guide his administration’s foreign policy — albeit a dark and highly troubling one, riddled with tensions and vexing dilemmas.
Grand strategy is the conceptual architecture that lends structure and form to foreign policy. A leader who is “doing grand strategy” is not handling global events on an ad hoc or case-by-case basis. A grand strategy, rather, represents a more purposeful and deeply held set of concepts about a country’s goals and orientation in international affairs.http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/31/trumps-grand-strategic-train-wreck/

Isis has industrialised martyrdom, says report into suicide attacks

Study of 923 attacks between 2015 and 2016 likens group’s tactics to Japan’s use of kamikaze pilots in the second world war

The Guardian | 28 February 2017

Jamie Grierson

Tuesday 28 February 2017 13.01 EST Last modified on Tuesday 28 February 2017 17.00 EST

Islamic State is launching suicide attacks as a military tactic with similarities to Japan’s use of kamikaze pilots in the second world war, according to a study that looked at nearly 1,000 Isis suicide operations in a single year.
At least 923 Isis militants killed themselves in attacks between December 2015 and November 2016, according to Charlie Winter, the author of the report, War by Suicide. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/28/isis-has-industrialised-martyrdom-says-report-suicide-attacks?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=*Situation%20Report

Winners and losers from President Trump’s big speech to Congress

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/28/winners-and-losers-from-president-trumps-big-speech-to-congress/?utm_term=.cf14d31673b0&wpisrc=nl_heads-draw6&wpmm=1

President Trump’s surprisingly presidential speech to the nation, annotated

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/28/president-trumps-first-big-address-to-the-nation-annotated/?utm_term=.56ad89e79eb0&wpisrc=nl_heads-draw6&wpmm=1

Trump and the PISS Industry

by David Isenberg
Given his reputation as an allegedly successful businessman before being elected president, it should come as no surprise that Donald Trump favors greater use of the private sector. Thus, those favoring privatizing and outsourcing activities previously done by the government are predictably elated by Trump’s election.
Various private security companies in particular are licking their chops. I previously wrote about the good times the private military and security contracting industry can expect in the Trump era. But Iraq, Afghanistan, or Africa are not the only realms for private security contractors. Another venue for private contractors, both here at home and in many other parts of the world, is the one dealing with immigrant, refuges, and homeland security issues, and it’s about to get very big. You could call it PISS (Private Immigrant and Security System).
Most people think of this industry only in the context of the occasional headline concerning private prison companies like Corrections Corporation of America (since rebranded CoreCivic) or GeoGroup. But the PISS industry is global. http://lobelog.com/trump-and-the-piss-industry/#more-38237

 

Trump has WTO rulings in sights, leaked report shows

Administration vows to defend American sovereignty on policy

https://www.ft.com/content/60b30712-fe0f-11e6-96f8-3700c5664d30

Bishop Barron's Lenten Gospel Reflection March 1, 2017

Your daily Lenten Gospel reflection!

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18

Friends, today’s Gospel at the beginning of Lent asks us to do three things: pray, fast, and give alms. Let’s focus today on prayer. Studies show that prayer is a very common, very popular activity. Even those who profess no belief in God pray! What is prayer, and how should we pray? Prayer is intimate communion and conversation with God. Judging from Jesus’ own life, prayer is something that we ought to do often, especially at key moments of our lives. Well, how should we pray? What does it look like? You have to pray with faith, and according to Jesus’ model, you have to pray with forgiveness. The efficacy of prayer seems to depend on the reconciliation of differences. You also have to pray with persistence. One reason that we don’t receive what we want through prayer is that we give up too easily. Augustine said that God sometimes delays in giving us what we want because he wants our hearts to expand. Finally, we have to pray in Jesus’ name. In doing so we are relying on his influence with the Father, trusting that the Father will listen to him.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday
Lectionary: 219

Reading 1 Jl 2:12-18

Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God.
For gracious and merciful is he,
slow to anger, rich in kindness,
and relenting in punishment.
Perhaps he will again relent
and leave behind him a blessing,
Offerings and libations
for the LORD, your God.

Blow the trumpet in Zion!
proclaim a fast,
call an assembly;
Gather the people,
notify the congregation;
Assemble the elders,
gather the children
and the infants at the breast;
Let the bridegroom quit his room
and the bride her chamber.
Between the porch and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep,
And say, "Spare, O LORD, your people,
and make not your heritage a reproach,
with the nations ruling over them!
Why should they say among the peoples,
'Where is their God?'"

Then the LORD was stirred to concern for his land
and took pity on his people.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14 and 17

R. (see 3a) Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
For I acknowledge my offense,
and my sin is before me always:
"Against you only have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight."
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
R. Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

2 Cor 5:20—6:2

Brothers and sisters:
We are ambassadors for Christ,
as if God were appealing through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Working together, then,
we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
For he says:

In an acceptable time I heard you,
and on the day of salvation I helped you.

Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.

Verse Before the Gospel see ps 95:8

If today you hear his voice,

Gospel Mt 6:1-6, 16-18

Jesus said to his disciples:
"Take care not to perform righteous deeds
in order that people may see them;
otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.
When you give alms,
do not blow a trumpet before you,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets
to win the praise of others.
Amen, I say to you,
they have received their reward.
But when you give alms,
do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,
so that your almsgiving may be secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

"When you pray,
do not be like the hypocrites,
who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners
so that others may see them.
Amen, I say to you,
they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go to your inner room,
close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

"When you fast,
do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
They neglect their appearance,
so that they may appear to others to be fasting.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you fast,
anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to be fasting,
except to your Father who is hidden.
And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you."

22 of 47 Your Lenten Prayer for Ash Wednesday

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." —John 8:12

www.AtonementFriars.org GRAYMOOR P.O. Box 301, Garrison, NY 10524 For more information, call us at 888-720-8247. © 2017 1Mar Lenten Prayer for Spiritual Renewal God, heavenly Father, look upon me and hear my prayer during this holy Season of Lent. By the good works You inspire, help me to discipline my body and to be renewed in spirit. Without You I can do nothing. By Your Spirit help me to know what is right and to be eager in doing Your will. Teach me to find new life through penance. Keep me from sin, and help me live by Your commandment of love. God of love, bring me back to You. Send Your Spirit to make me strong in faith and active in good works. May my acts of penance bring me Your forgiveness, open my heart to Your love, and prepare me for the coming feast of the Resurrection of Jesus. Lord, during this Lenten Season, nourish me with Your Word of life and make me one with You in love and prayer. Fill my heart with Your love and keep me faithful to the Gospel of Christ. Give me the grace to rise above my human weakness. Give me new life by Your Sacraments, especially the Mass. Father, our source of life, I reach out with joy to grasp Your hand; let me walk more readily in Your ways. Guide me in Your gentle mercy, for left to myself I cannot do Your Will. Father of love, source of all blessings, help me to pass from my old life of sin to the new life of grace. Prepare me for the glory of Your Kingdom. I ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever. Amen.

Choosing a Lenten Sacrifice that's Just Right | The Great Adventure Catholic Bible Study

Choosing a Lenten Sacrifice that's Just Right | The Great Adventure Catholic Bible Study



First Reading: Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7

Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17

Second Reading: Romans 5:12-19 or Romans 5:12, 17-19

Verse Before the Gospel: Matthew 4:4B

Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11

First Sunday of Lent | The Great Adventure Catholic Bible Study

First Sunday of Lent | The Great Adventure Catholic Bible Study