Pope Francis Pentecost Homily

Pope Francis celebrates Pentecost Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica May 31, 2020

“There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:4), as the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians. He continues: “There are different forms of service, but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone” (vv. 5- 6).

Diversity and unity: St. Paul puts together two words that seem contradictory. He wants to tell us that the Holy Spirit is the one who brings together the many; and that the Church was born this way: we are all different, yet united by the same Holy Spirit. 

Let us go back to the origin of the Church, to the day of Pentecost.
Let us look at the Apostles: some of them were fishermen, simple people accustomed to living by the work of their hands, but there were also others, like Matthew, who was an educated tax collector. They were from different backgrounds and social contexts, and they had Hebrew and Greek names. In terms of character, some were meek and others were excitable; they all had different ideas and sensibilities. They were all different. Jesus did not change them; he did not make them into a set of pre-packaged models. He left their differences and now he unites them by anointing them with the Holy Spirit. The union comes with the anointing. At Pentecost, the Apostles understand the unifying power of the Spirit. They see it with their own eyes when everyone, though speaking in different languages, comes together as one people: the people of God, shaped by the Spirit, who weaves unity from diversity and bestows harmony because there is harmony in the Spirit. He himself is harmony. 

Let us now focus on ourselves, the Church of today. We can ask ourselves: “What is it that unites us, what is the basis of our unity?” We too have our differences, for example: of opinions, choices, sensibilities. But the temptation is always fiercely to defend our ideas, believing them to be good for everybody and agreeing only with those who think as we do. And that's a bad temptation that divides. But this is a faith created in our own image; it is not what the Spirit wants. We might think that what unite us are our beliefs and our morality. But there is much more: our principle of unity is the Holy Spirit. He reminds us that first of all we are God’s beloved children, all the same, in this, and all different. The Spirit comes to us, in our differences and difficulties, to tell us that we have one Lord -- Jesus -- and one Father, and that for this reason we are brothers and sisters! Let us begin anew from here; let us look at the Church with the eyes of the Spirit and not as the world does. The world sees us only as on the right or left, with this ideology, with that one; the Spirit sees us as sons and daughters of the Father and brothers and sisters of Jesus. The world sees conservatives and progressives; the Spirit sees children of God. A worldly gaze sees structures to be made more efficient; a spiritual gaze sees brothers and sisters pleading for mercy. The Spirit loves us and knows everyone’s place in the grand scheme of things: for him, we are not bits of confetti blown about by the wind, rather we are irreplaceable fragments in his mosaic. 

If we go back to the day of Pentecost, we discover that the first task of the Church is proclamation. Yet we see that the Apostles do not prepare a strategy; when they were shut in there, in the Upper Room, they did not make a strategy, no, they do not prepare a pastoral plan. They could have divided people into groups according to their roots, speaking first to those close by and then to those far away... They could have also waited a while before beginning their preaching in order to understand more deeply the teachings of Jesus, so as to avoid risks... No. The Spirit does not want the memory of the Master to be cultivated in small groups locked in upper rooms where it is easy to “nest.” And this is a bad disease that can come to the Church: the Church not as a community, not as a family, not as a mother, but as a nest. He opens doors and pushes us to press beyond what has already been said and done, beyond the precincts of a timid and wary faith. In the world, unless there is tight organization and a clear strategy, things fall apart. In the Church, however, the Spirit guarantees unity to those who proclaim the message. The Apostles set off: unprepared, yet putting their lives on the line. One thing kept them going: the desire to give what they received. The beginning of the First Letter of John is beautiful: “What we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you” (1 John 1:3). 

Here we come to understand what the secret of unity is, the secret of the Spirit. It is gift. For the Spirit himself is gift: he lives by giving himself and in this way he keeps us together, making us sharers in the same gift. It is important to believe that God is gift, that he acts not by taking away, but by giving. Why is this important? Because our way of being believers depends on how we understand God. If we have in mind a God who takes away and imposes himself, we too will want to take away and impose ourselves: occupying spaces, demanding recognition, seeking power. But if we have in our hearts a God who is gift, everything changes. If we realize that what we are is his gift, free and unmerited, then we too will want to make our lives a gift. By loving humbly, serving freely and joyfully, we will offer to the world the true image of God. The Spirit, the living memory of the Church, reminds us that we are born from a gift and that we grow by giving: not by holding on but by giving of ourselves. 

Dear brothers and sisters, let us look within and ask ourselves what prevents us from giving ourselves. There are, let us say, three enemies of the gift -- the main ones, three -- always lurking at the door of our hearts: narcissism, victimhood and pessimism. Narcissism makes us idolize ourselves, to be concerned only with what is good for us. The narcissist thinks: “Life is good if I profit from it.” So he or she ends up saying: “Why should I give myself to others?” In this time of pandemic, how wrong narcissism is: the tendency to think only of our own needs, to be indifferent to those of others, and not to admit our own frailties and mistakes. But the second enemy, victimhood, is equally dangerous. Victims complain every day about their neighbour: “No one understands me, no one helps me, no one loves me, everyone has it in for me!” The victim’s heart is closed, as he or she asks, “Why aren’t others concerned about me?” In the crisis we are experiencing, how ugly victimhood is! Thinking that no one understands us and experiences what we experience. Finally, there is pessimism. Here the unending complaint is: “Nothing is going well, society, politics, the Church...” The pessimist gets angry with the world, but sits back and does nothing, thinking: “What good is giving? That is useless.” At this moment, in the great effort of beginning anew, how damaging is pessimism, the tendency to see everything in the worst light and to keep saying that nothing will return as before! When someone thinks this way, the one thing that certainly does not return is hope. In these three -- the narcissistic idol of the mirror, the ‘mirror-god;’ ‘I feel like a person with grievances;’ and the ‘god-negativity,’ ‘everything is black, everything is dark’ -- we find ourselves in the famine of hope and we need to appreciate the gift of life, the gift that each of us is. Therefore we need the Holy Spirit, God's gift that heals us from narcissism, victimhood and pessimism, heals us from the mirror, from grievances and darkness. 

Brothers and sister, let us pray to him: Holy Spirit, memory of God, revive in us the memory of the gift received. Free us from the paralysis of selfishness and awaken in us the desire to serve, to do good. Even worse than this crisis is the tragedy of squandering it by closing in on ourselves. Come, Holy Spirit: you are harmony; make us builders of unity. You always give yourself; grant us the courage to go out of ourselves, to love and help each other, in order to become one family. Amen. 

Pentecost: Easy Does It

Easy Does It

It is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Phillipian 2:13)

My father and I used to fell trees and cut them to size with a two-man crosscut saw. Being young and energetic, I tried to force the saw into the cut. “Easy does it,” my father would say. “Let the saw do the work.”

I think of Paul’s words in Philippians: “It is God who works in you” (2:13). Easy does it. Let Him do the work of changing us.

C. S. Lewis said that growth is much more than reading what Christ said and carrying it out. He explained, “A real Person, Christ, . . . is doing things to you . . . gradually turning you permanently into . . . a new little Christ, a being which . . . shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity.”

God is at that process today. Sit at the feet of Jesus and take in what He has to say. Pray. “Keep yourselves in God’s love” (Jude 1:21), reminding yourself all day long that you are His. Rest in the assurance that He’s gradually changing you.

“But shouldn’t we hunger and thirst for righteousness?” you ask. Picture a small child trying to get a gift high on a shelf, his eyes glittering with desire. His father, sensing that desire, brings the gift down to him.

The work is God’s; the joy is ours. Easy does it. We shall get there some day. 

By:  David H. Roper

Reflect & Pray

What does it mean to you that “It is God who works in you”? What do you want Him to do in you?

God, I’m grateful that You’re changing my heart and actions to make me like Jesus. Please give me a humble attitude to learn from You.

Today's Scripture

Philippians 2:12–18(NIV)

Insight

Today’s passage begins with “therefore” (v. 12), building on the teaching in verses 1–11 to follow Jesus’ humility and selfless and sacrificial example as we live out this Christlike life. In instructing us to “continue to work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling” (v. 12), Paul isn’t saying that we’re to work for our salvation, for our salvation is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8–9). Rather, Paul reminds us of our responsibility as believers in Jesus. Now that we’re saved, we’re to “work hard to show the results of [our] salvation” (Philippians 2:12 nlt). By the empowerment of the Spirit, we’re to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8), to show to the world that we’re “blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation,’ ” and to shine “like stars in the sky” in a world darkened by sin (Philippians 2:15).

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Surrenders

Mike Pompeo finally lets go of his Wuhan Lab theory.  It would be just too embarassing to admit his "enormous" evidence all came from Falun Gong's Epoch Times conspiracy theories newspaper.

He and Donald Trump would do better to follow science as the one in this posting instead of forcing a Falun Gong conspiracy theory to justify his re-election strategy of bashing China in whatever format to excuse their own failure in governance.

========================
Pompeo changes tune on Chinese lab's role in outbreak, as intel officials cast doubt

Secretary of State Pompeo is leaning even harder into his attacks on the Chinese government over the novel coronavirus pandemic -- even as he further walks back his claim that the U.S. has "enormous evidence" a biomedical laboratory in Wuhan, China, is responsible for the outbreak.

A worker inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province., Feb. 23, 2017.

The change comes as an intelligence official says there is no signals or human intelligence backing up the idea, while lawmakers press the administration to turn over any evidence.  

The U.S. intelligence community is investigating whether or not the virus originated in a lab, but it "concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified," the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement last week.

While Pompeo has said he doesn't doubt the intelligence community assessment, he has boosted the unproven theory the first human infection came from an accidental or intentional release at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He first told ABC News' "This Week" Sunday that there was "enormous evidence" supporting that unproven theory, before shifting slightly Wednesday to say there's "significant" evidence, but the U.S. doesn't have "certainty" yet.

But in interviews Thursday, Pompeo shifted again, telling a conservative talk radio host, "There's evidence that it came from somewhere in the vicinity of the lab, but that could be wrong."  

"We've seen evidence that it came from the lab. That may not be the case," he said in a second talk radio interview.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, a China hawk from Arkansas who has also boosted the lab theory, told Fox News this week that the evidence is "circumstantial," but "points directly to the labs." Asked about what kind of evidence the U.S. government has, Pompeo told CNBC Thursday, "One man's direct is another man's circumstantial."

U.S. intelligence officials have been more careful, including the ODNI statement, which made clear the virus's natural origins.

An intelligence official briefed on the situation told ABC News that there is so far no signals or human intelligence backing up the speculation that the lab was the culprit. It also doesn't appear any person or neighborhood connected to the lab became sick at the start of the outbreak, the official said.

"Sometimes political figures use the general term 'intelligence' to include raw reports that are not finished, analyzed intelligence. Raw intelligence is rarely conclusive on a specific topic. Picking one raw report to support a position can be misleading," said Mick Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official under President Donald Trump and CIA paramilitary operations officer. "The intelligence community would not rely on one report for an assessment on an issue as complex as this. Their assessment would include intelligence from multiple sources and be peer-reviewed."

Reports from the closest U.S. allies have also cast doubt on Pompeo's statement. Known as the "Five Eyes," the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand cooperate and share signals intelligence, which intercepts signals like communications or radar.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks about the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during a media briefing at the State Department in Washington, D.C., May 6, 2020.

"There's nothing that we have that would indicate that was the likely source," Australia's conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison said of the Wuhan lab last Friday. Days later, the Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the theory around the lab's role is "mostly based on news reports and contained no material from intelligence gathering," citing Australian intelligence officials.

"The fact that Australia came out so strongly that they do not believe the line that it all originated in a lab is significant," said Mulroy, now an ABC News contributor, because they're part of the "Five Eyes," "generally see all our intel" and are "well-known for the capabilities in China."

Members of Congress have pressed the Trump administration to provide evidence showing the lab's responsibility. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a letter Thursday he'd been requesting a briefing by the department for a month now on "what intelligence, if any, the U.S. government has regarding the origins of the virus."

The top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, wouldn't back Pompeo's statement either, telling reporters Tuesday, "I don't think we know, except we know it was in China."

Instead of providing details of the "enormous evidence," Pompeo pivoted questions Thursday to demand transparency from China, saying the Chinese government's lack of transparency has halted any efforts to find out how that first transmission took place.

China still has not provided samples of the virus to other countries, instead having its scientists share the virus's genome online in January. It also shut down and sterilized the wet market in Wuhan, where live and freshly killed animals are sold and the virus might have originated, one month before World Health Organization scientists, including two Americans, were given access to the country. While some of those scientists traveled to Wuhan, neither American did.

Critics say brow-beating the Chinese government is not an effective way to get them to open up and provide WHO or other outsiders access to the Wuhan lab, the market or other possible sites. But Pompeo dismissed that again Thursday, telling one host, "We're not raising the rhetoric. We're simply trying to protect the world from a global pandemic by sharing what we know."

He went further on The Steve Gruber Show, setting up U.S.-Chinese relations as a generational challenge between different values systems and agreed with Gruber that China is "the most dangerous adversary for the United States and for all Western governments."

"The whole world can now see that this regime, this authoritarian regime, is just different than we are," said the top U.S. diplomat. "We can see the challenge this presents to our kids and grandkids, and we're determined. We're going to do the right things by building up our military. We're going to do the right things diplomatically."

"In the end, the Chinese Communist Party will have to decide: Do they really want to participate as a member of civilized society, the nations that work toward better outcomes for people all across the world, or are they going to do what we've seen?" he added.

This isn't the first time Pompeo has cast relations with China as a sort of clash of civilizations. He gave a major address last October when he said the Chinese Communist Party is "truly hostile to the United States and our values."

But he has escalated that argument and started to hammer it more often, especially in interviews with conservative media -- 28 of which he's done in the last three weeks -- and near weekly press conferences since March.

==========================

Why Scientists Think The Novel Coronavirus Developed Naturally — Not In A Chinese Lab

By Philip Kiefer, FiveThirtyEight (05/04/20)

The Trump administration has sought to tie the coronavirus pandemic to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

REUTERS

You could be forgiven for wondering how a disease as fast-moving and deadly as COVID-19 could just appear naturally, out of nowhere, seemingly overnight. President Trump expressed doubt, saying that “a lot of people” were looking at the possibility that a Chinese lab was responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier that week, Fox News ran a story in which unnamed sources suggested that the COVID-19 outbreak originated in a Wuhan laboratory — the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which studies coronaviruses with a number of international collaborators. The New York Times reported that spy agencies are being pressured to find evidence blaming the lab, and at the end of April, the National Institutes of Health withdrew funding from a research consortium that had collaborated with the lab. As recently as this weekend, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, despite saying there was no reason to disbelieve the intelligence community’s assessment that the virus was neither manmade nor genetically modified, claimed there was “enormous evidence” connecting the virus to the WIV.

But the truth is almost certainly not that salacious. Robert Garry, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Tulane University School of Medicine, said this dynamic is familiar. “Every time there’s an outbreak, people say, oh, there’s a lab close by.” He should know: In 2014, during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, conspiracy theorists alleged his team’s lab in Sierra Leone, not far from the origin of the outbreak, was a George Soros-funded bioweapons site.

According to a growing body of research, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is almost certainly a naturally occurring virus that initially circulated in bats then spilled into humans. But that hasn’t stopped some from trying to find a more sinister origin. “It seems like such an extreme event that people are looking for an extraordinary explanation for it,” said Stephen Goldstein, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Utah who studies coronaviruses. No single piece of evidence has yet confirmed the virus’ origin. But according to scientists, the evidence that does exist paints a consistent picture of a wild virus, not one that sprang from a lab.

Why do scientists think it wasn’t genetically engineered?

To genetically engineer a new virus, scientists can combine pieces of viruses they’ve seen before. In the case of a genetically engineered coronavirus that was designed to infect humans, the bulk of its genetic material — its “backbone” — would come from SARS or a close relative, while the tools it used to infect cells would be grafted on. But the backbone doesn’t look like any disease-causing virus, and other key parts of the virus are new to science.

In SARS-CoV-2’s case, scientists thought they knew how to optimize SARS to infect human hosts. Coronaviruses enter host cells using protein “spikes” that cover their outer surface. At the tip of each spike is a cluster of amino acids that can bind to a certain receptor on a host cell, like a pick designed to open a particular cellular lock. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, the spike binds to human ACE2 receptors, which coat lung cells.

The original SARS coronavirus targeted the same receptors, and after the 2002 SARS epidemic, experiments tinkered with its spike to determine the structure of an “optimized” version of the SARS lock pick. Many factors influence the success of a virus, but its binding ability is thought to be important, so “if you were going to make a new virus, and make it even more infectious than SARS,” said Goldstein, you would give it that optimized tip.

But, Garry said, the tip of the SARS-CoV-2 spike is unlike anything scientists have seen before, sharing only a single key amino acid with SARS. Modeling suggests that it shouldn’t be able to bind to human lungs well, but the new configuration is about as effective as the optimized SARS.

How SARS-CoV-2 acquired this unusual tip is still a mystery. But blaming it on genetic engineering overstates the abilities of scientists, Garry said. Guessing that these particular amino acids can bind to ACE2 so effectively is nearly impossible— there are 20 common types of amino acids, and tens of millions of ways to arrange them into a binding tip. It would be like if you looked out over the proverbial infinite monkeys with their infinite typewriters, guessed that a specific macaque would type out King Lear, and then picked the right animal.

“Nobody has that kind of insight into how the viruses evolve or cause disease,” said Garry. “You could randomly try to make changes, but we’re talking about thousands of years of trying pathogens out. I’ve been really lucky to know a lot of talented virologists, and they’re not clever enough to come up with a virus that’s quite this good at spreading.”

What if it was in a petri dish and got out?

Another theory suggests a researcher at the WIV studying a precursor to SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally infected.

But the researchers I spoke to threw cold water on that. “I think it’s not unreasonable to ask these questions and examine all sources of the outbreak,” said Gregory Koblentz, a professor at George Mason University who studies biosecurity. “But based on what we know of the biology of the virus, a natural source of the outbreak is the most likely explanation.”

The virus’s spike has a hinge-like structure, allowing the spike to change shape as the virus enters the host cell. Like the spike tip, the hinge on SARS-CoV-2 is markedly different from anything seen in its close relatives. New research suggests that the hinge loses its unique characteristics when cultured in a lab, said Garry. The spike also appears to be able to shield itself from antibodies—another hint that it evolved in the presence of host immune systems.

Most importantly, there’s no smoking gun connecting the lab to an ancestor of the virus. There’s “no bat virus that’s close enough to be the progenitor,” said Garry. The closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2 is a cousin that diverged decades ago in bats.

And while critics suggest that the WIV might have concealed the ancestral virus, 27 scientists who have collaborated with the WIV, including former U.S. officials, rejected the idea in a letter to The Lancet.

Koblentz agrees there’s not much evidence to suggest a cover-up. “If the Chinese government suspected that the outbreak was the result of a biosafety breach in Wuhan, I would have expected them to come down very hard on that lab, not letting them talk to foreigners,” he said. But in March, a lead researcher at the WIV talked to Scientific American about her search for the ancestral strain.

The WIV has released sequences of bat coronavirus in the months since the epidemic started, giving other scientists insight into the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19. Several of the early virus genome sequences in an open-source international database were submitted by the WIV, which allowed other countries to begin developing diagnostic tools. That willingness to release data, Koblentz said, could be evidence that weights “the scale towards [the WIV] being transparent and cooperative.”

Then how’d it get here at all?

There’s a simpler, if less flashy, explanation for the emergence of a new SARS. A study, published in 2018, of four rural villages in Yunnan province located near caves containing bats known to carry coronaviruses found that 2.7 percent of those surveyed had antibodies for close relatives of SARS. Thousands, if not millions, of people are exposed to wild coronaviruses every year. Most of them aren’t dangerous, but “if you roll the dice enough times,” Goldstein said, you’ll see a bad one.

Critics have raised concerns over biosafety protocols at the WIV, but Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, said the criticisms are based on evidence taken out of context. The reports of biosafety issues, she said, are “like having the health inspector come to your restaurant. It could just be, ‘Oh, you need to keep your chemical showers better stocked.’ It doesn’t suggest, however, that there are tremendous problems.”

And Garry reiterated that it’s incredibly unlikely SARS-CoV-2 is the result of a “bad” roll of the dice at the WIV. “All the natural exposures dwarf the possibility that it was some lab guy that was out catching bats and infected himself. That’s one little thing among millions of encounters.”

It’s impossible to totally rule out a lab accident, Rasmussen said, but she worries that unilateral, politically charged investigations will permanently damage international scientific collaboration.

“We live in a global world,” said Rasmussen. “It would hurt us tremendously if we were to stop collaborating with Chinese scientists.” The next pandemic is unlikely to come from a lab, just as Ebola, SARS, Zika and avian flu did not, she said. And the U.S. will be much more vulnerable if our epidemiologists face it alone.

Philip Kiefer is a New Orleans-based journalist who’s written about science and the environment for Outside, National Geographic, and Grist.

Darth Vader Trump and His Death Star

The righteous, brave and courageous is taking up this fight against President Darth Vader this year.  Now Christian evangelicals are in the Dark Side.  Righteous Christians should take up this battle to save our brethren falling further into Sheol and our country toward chaos and tyranny.

The weaks fighting the powerful

Darth Vader Trump

Trump and his election enabler

Trump and Chairman Kim,as he called 

In the end the weak shall prevail

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Trump campaign calls itself the 'Death Star'; Biden team notes it gets blown up
David Jackson, USA TODAY (05/07/20)

WASHINGTON – Donald Trump's re-election campaign is comparing itself to a famous "Star Wars" space station, the Death Star – the weapons facility that is blown up at the end of at the end of the 1977 epic.

"For nearly three years we have been building a juggernaut campaign (Death Star)." tweeted Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. "It is firing on all cylinders. Data, Digital, TV, Political, Surrogates, Coalitions, etc. In a few days we start pressing FIRE for the first time."

It didn't take long for the campaign of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden to respond with a tweet showing the scene in which rebel Luke Skywalker destroys the Death Star.

"11/3/20," tweeted Biden aide Andrew Bates, a reference to the date of Election Day.

Brad Parscale

The Star Wars political battle lit up Twitter.

David Rothkopf, an anti-Trump commentator, cited the coronavirus pandemic in telling Parscale "you should have considered the term 'Death Star' a little more carefully-what with the 100,000 or more people who are likely to die because of your candidate's failed leadership."

Parscale, who also spent Thursday tweeting out anti-Biden ads, said reporters gave him the idea, and he is happy to oblige.

"I didn’t give our campaign the name, Death Star, the media did," he tweeted in a follow-up. "However, I am happy to use the analogy. The fact is, we haven’t used it yet. Laugh all you want, we will take the win!"

The back-and-forth comes three days after "Star Wars Day," as proclaimed by the many fans of the film series. The symbolic holiday is always May 4 – as in, "may the Force be with you."

This is far from the first time that Star Wars themes have been applied to politics.

For years, critics dubbed Vice President Dick Cheney "Darth Vader," an identity Cheney happily claimed for himself.

Some analysts said there may be method to movie madness – after all, a lot of people talked about Parscale's tweet.

Tommy Vietor, a national security spokesman for President Barack Obama, tweeted: "Hey maybe Brad Parscale knows how Star Wars ends and he knows that a million WELL ACTUALLY tweets drives up engagement and virality of content."

The Source of Pompeo and Trump's Wuhan Wisdom

Let's see if Donald Trump or Pompeo could do this pose

Come on!  Why don't Pompeo just tell reporters he got his evidence from Falun Dafa?  He won't admit it because what kind of optics if his bible study buddy Housing Secretary Ben Carson or Education Secretary Betsy DeVos learn of it.  It won't look good.

You see, Falun Gong has its Buddha figure in Master Li and its practitioners are pretty New Age in that they receive their power from the universe.  Even though the press call it a spiritual movement, Chinese Christian churches all consider it a cult.

Pompeo won't look very good to Bible-believing Christians once people know its connection.  Neither will Donald Trump when evangelicals know about it.  There goes the evangelical votes.  Well, never mind.  Us evangelicals consider President Trump our Master Li.

The commonality evangelical Christians and Falun Gong is that both are rabid Chinese Communist Party haters.  So, if Falun Gong could come up with a good story (https://evangelicaldave.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-trump-wuhan-lab.html), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would more than happy oblige it to the American people.  I'm sure our intelligence community had vetted this Falun Gong story.  To them, not only it's not credible, it's incredible!!  Only Donald Dumb Trump could fall for it.

Donald Trump is the wise one to Bible-believing Christians

For Pompeo and Donald Trump the Falun narrative is very tempting because they want to distract American electorates away from their inept response to the pandemic to a very convenient scapegoat, the Chinese.

Master Li Hongzhi

Li Hongzhi demonstrates technique.  He a Jimmy Bakker type figure.

He even waves like Donald Trump

And now Democrats are asking where Donald Trump got his "enormous" evidence?  Are you kidding?  You are expecting him actually telling you that he got it from a group of voodoo meditation practitioners?  Dream on.

Group practice in Taipei

==========================
Democrats demand intel on coronavirus origins
By Nahal Toosi and Natasha Bertrand

Top Democratic lawmakers say the Trump administration should share with Congress the allegedly “enormous” evidence showing that the coronavirus sprang from a Chinese lab.

 President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have pushed the theory that Covid-19 emerged from a Chinese lab.

Otherwise, they warn, the administration should quit hyping questionable information.

The demands come as President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo push the theory that Covid-19 somehow emerged from a Chinese lab that studied such viruses. Their claims are leading some critics to draw comparisons to the misleading way the administration of George W. Bush argued the case for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Asked last week whether he's seen evidence that would suggest the virus originated in the lab, Trump replied: “Yes, I have.” But he said “I'm not allowed to tell you that” when pressed on what the evidence looked like. Pompeo on Sunday told ABC News that there was an “enormous” and “significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan,” the Chinese city where the disease first hit, but he did not provide details.

Others in the administration, including military and intelligence officials, have not been willing to go as far as Pompeo or the president. Instead, they’ve said they do not believe the virus was manmade, while downplaying the possibility that it was released intentionally. And while that leaves open the possibility that the virus accidentally escaped the lab, people who have seen the intelligence say there is still no evidence to support that theory, either—directly contradicting Pompeo’s characterizations.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who has been reviewing intelligence on the pandemic throughout the crisis -- including a batch on Wednesday -- blasted the administration’s messaging. “I’ve seen no evidence that connects the virus to the lab,” he said, though he noted: “I’ve also seen no evidence that 100 percent rules out the fact that it could have escaped from the lab.”

Pressed by reporters on Wednesday, Pompeo insisted that his statements were “entirely consistent” with what other U.S. officials have said.

“We’re all trying to figure out the right answer. We’re all trying to get to clarity,” he said, while accusing one reporter of spending her “whole life trying to drive a little wedge between senior American officials.”

And he pushed back against suggestions that there’s internal administration discord over the information. “There are different levels of certainty assessed at different places,” Pompeo said. “That’s highly appropriate. People stare at datasets and come to different levels of confidence.”

Republicans and Democrats alike are critical of China’s handling of the crisis, especially what journalists have documented as a slow-footed early response and a seeming reluctance to share information with the world. But Democrats in particular are wary of some of the anti-China rhetoric emanating from Trump aides as the pandemic has killed more than 70,000 Americans.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Vice Chairman Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) have written to the State Department asking for “all cables and information related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” a committee aide said.

“No one is defending China’s handling of this crisis. But the administration is working overtime to shift the blame away from themselves, and even our own health and intelligence officials have cast doubt on the Wuhan lab theory that the President and Secretary Pompeo are pushing,” the aide said. “If Secretary Pompeo has evidence, Congress and the public should see all of it, without spin and without cherry-picking.”

The House and Senate Intelligence Committees have been continuing their regular oversight of the intelligence community, which has been providing updated intelligence to the panels on the coronavirus and its origins, according to people with direct knowledge of the oversight. As of this week, however, they said there was still no intelligence to back up Trump and Pompeo’s claims that the virus appears to have spread from the Wuhan lab.

“I think they’re basically categorizing the absence of definitive intelligence as proof,” said one person who’s seen the intelligence. “And that’s a dangerous thing.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an unusual statement last week that said while the intelligence community concurred with scientists that the virus was not man-made, agencies were still investigating its origins—whether it was transmitted naturally from an animal to a human, or whether the lab was somehow involved.

The statement prompted Democrats to demand to see the evidence.

“If there is anything to have high confidence about in that regard, or enormous evidence, they have yet to share that with Congress,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on MSNBC on Monday, referring to Trump and Pompeo. “And we are told that we are currently informed on the latest intelligence. So I don’t know where they’re getting this, apart from either expressing their desire, or they are withholding information from Congress -- but I don’t see what would be gained by doing so.”

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the panel expects the administration to produce any and all intelligence it has received about the origins of the novel coronavirus.

"It is our expectation that on a subject this important the [intelligence community] and the administration will absolutely share everything with the SSCI, and to the extent possible, the rest of Congress and the public,” he said. “And we continue to discuss their collection and what they're seeing pretty much on a daily basis.”

In a statement Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the onus is on China’s ruling Communist Party to be honest about what transpired.

“Critics of this administration should ask themselves: Have any independent scientists or doctors, from outside China, confirmed the origin of the virus? Not only has the Chinese Communist Party stonewalled the world at every turn, but it continues to refuse requests to share isolates, clinical specimens, and details about December patients and patient zero,” Ortagus said.

On Tuesday, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, said the U.S. does not know where the virus first originated, including whether it was from a lab or a wet market where Chinese purchase fresh meat.

“Did it come out of the virology lab in Wuhan? Did it occur in a wet market there in Wuhan? Did it occur somewhere else? And the answer to that is: ‘We don’t know.’” the Army general told reporters, adding that the U.S. will keep investigating.

But at least one of America’s closest intelligence allies, Australia, which is part of a five-country intelligence-sharing arrangement known as the Five Eyes, is now openly shooting down the Wuhan lab leak theory. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters on Tuesday that while nothing can be ruled out yet, a market selling live animals was “most likely” the origin of the pandemic.

Aides to several top Republican lawmakers either did not respond to questions about whether they want the administration to share more information or they declined to offer comment.

One exception was Sen. Rand Paul’s office. The Kentucky Republican was himself infected by the virus but has been back at work in recent days.

“The White House is in regular touch with our office, and Senator Paul regularly speaks with President Trump,” said Sergio Gor, Paul’s deputy chief of staff. “We have been kept informed and provide input when asked. While we don’t discuss private conversations with the administration or the president, we have been kept fully informed.”

Several Republican lawmakers have pushed versions of the Wuhan lab theory without offering any evidence, while most have remained silent. Some, like Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, one of the early proponents of the idea, see the Trump administration’s tough approach to China as critical to reducing the influence of the Chinese Communist Party in the long run.

Trump administration officials have differed, however, over to what extent it even matters whether the virus escaped from a Wuhan lab or leaped from bats to another animal before infecting humans, as most scientists believe.

Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told National Geographic magazine that the science so far indicates that the virus evolved naturally and was not doctored in a lab. When asked what if the virus had been taken from nature to the lab, then escaped the lab, Fauci downplayed the implications.

“But that means it was in the wild to begin with,” he said. “That’s why I don't get what they're talking about [and] why I don't spend a lot of time going in on this circular argument.”

The coronavirus has spread to more than 180 countries and killed more than 260,000 people worldwide, wrecking economies along the way. Trump initially downplayed the spread of the disease -- saying it was under control in the United States and repeatedly praising Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s handling of the outbreak. But in recent weeks, the president and his aides have sought to deflect criticism of the mounting death toll by pointing to suspicions of a Chinese coverup.

A Department of Homeland Security intelligence report reviewed by POLITICO on Sunday accused China of essentially hoarding medical supplies in January in preparation for a pandemic, dramatically increasing its imports and decreasing its exports while hiding the details of the Covid outbreak from the world. Pompeo affirmed the report during his Sunday TV interview, saying it showed “the Chinese Communist Party did all that it could to make sure that the world didn’t learn in a timely fashion about what was taking place.”

China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, called for an end to the “blame game” in a Washington Post op-ed on Wednesday, arguing that while “there is no denying that the first known case of covid-19 was reported in Wuhan...this means only that Wuhan was the first victim of the virus.”

Tiankai also suggested that China had proof that it had been keeping Washington apprised of the virus’ spread from early on: “In their phone calls, President Xi Jinping gave detailed accounts of China’s measures to President Trump,” he wrote.

Concerns about the Wuhan lab’s safety practices are not entirely unfounded. According to a report last month in the Washington Post, U.S. diplomats in 2018 visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology and were so concerned about some of the safety practices there that they sent cables to their superiors saying the lab deserved attention and help. According to the Post, one of the cables warned that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses risked a new pandemic.

And in 2004, two people who worked with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus at a lab in Beijing were infected by it in apparently separate incidents, according to reports at the time. The outbreak was eventually contained, but not before infecting at least nine people and killing one, according to those reports.

Still, critics of the administration see dark motives and even darker implications.

Ilan Goldenberg, a former Obama Pentagon and State Department political appointee who is now with the Center for a New American Security, said Pompeo in particular seemed to be trying to manipulate the public narrative -- an “American disinformation campaign.”

Goldenberg drew parallels to the Bush administration’s incorrect insistence that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and its attempts to justify a U.S. invasion of Iraq in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“The Bush administration never actually said Saddam was responsible for 9/11. They just asked questions. They made statements about Saddam and in the next statement they talked about 9/11,” Goldenberg said. “Pompeo is doing the same thing. He’s putting the two things next to each other, and they’re putting an impression out to the public.”

Ortagus, the State Department spokeswoman, dismissed such analogies. “No one is making a case for war, so gross comparisons like this are neither fair nor helpful in holding the Chinese Communist Party to account,” she said.

Murphy, however, slammed the motivations of Pompeo and others.

“They’re being terribly irresponsible because their statements on the origin of the virus are driven by political considerations,” he said. “This administration is scurrying to try to deflect blame from a president who is floundering in his response to the epidemic. And China is a very convenient scapegoat.”

He added: “What worries me is that this escalation of rhetoric, back and forth, between the U.S. and China, it comes with consequences. We should call the Chinese out on what they’ve done wrong. But the hyperbole the administration is engaged in for political reasons hurts our efforts to try to fight the disease in the short term and long run. Ultimately, we need to have some cooperative relationship with the Chinese on battling pandemic diseases."

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Pompeo defends Wuhan lab claims in combative press conference
Laura Kelly

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sparred with reporters Wednesday, insisting questions remain over whether the novel coronavirus pandemic came from a Chinese lab, despite pushback from senior intelligence officials and health experts.

"Barbara, Barbara, let me just, let me just put this to bed. Your efforts to try and find -- just to spend your whole life trying to drive a little wedge between senior American officials... it's just false," Pompeo said in response to a question by BBC reporter Barbara Plett Usher about the intelligence over the origins of the virus.

Pompeo has pushed the theory that the first cases of the novel coronavirus could have come from a scientist exposed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, part of efforts to demand Beijing allow international experts to investigate the outbreak as well as take responsibility for the global pandemic.

Pompeo said in an interview Sunday there is "enormous evidence" the virus came from a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan. But that statement has received pushback from from senior officials and health experts.

But Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said on Tuesday the evidence points to the virus naturally occurring and there is no "conclusive evidence" it was accidentally or intentionally leaked from a lab.

Global scientific consensus is that the virus originated in an animal and jumped to a human. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious and a leading member of the White House's coronavirus task force, has pushed back on the argument the virus escaped a lab and said the disease likely originated in the wild.

Asked if the State Department had new intelligence supporting the "enormous evidence," Pompeo responded by saying it is both true that the U.S. does not know if the virus came from the lab and that there is evidence.

"Those statements are both entirely consistent," he said.

"I'm not sure what it is that about the grammar that you can't get," Pompeo said. "We don't have certainty and there is significant evidence that this came from the laboratory. Those statements can both be true. I've made them both. Administration officials have made them. They're all true."

Pompeo defends Wuhan lab claims in combative press conference

Last week, U.S. intelligence officials issued a rare public statement saying they agree with the global scientific consensus that the virus originated in an animal but will continue to investigate if it was the result of an accident in a lab.

China first reported "mysterious" cases of pneumonia to the World Health Organization at the end of December, and the cluster of cases associated with vendors and sellers at a seafood market in Wuhan.