An Ancient Civilization of Millions Once Flourished in the Amazon

 From Phys.org:

New research conducted using airborne laser scanning reveals that a multicultural civilization that flourished in southwestern Amazonia between 600 BCE and 850 CE was home to millions of people. Spanning roughly 183,000 square kilometers (71,000 square miles), the Aquiry civilization built large centers for political and ritual purposes. By surveying a representative section of the area, researchers identified the remains of more than 400 well-preserved sites of monumental ceremonial architecture, along with some later settlement sites.

Extrapolating their findings to the civilization's full territory, the researchers arrived at a cautious estimate of more than 20,000 ancient earthwork ceremonial centers. The largest known site covers 50 hectares (124 acres).

Comprehensive surveys and radiocarbon dating showed that the Aquiry territory—which makes up less than 3% of Greater Amazonia—was already home to 1.25–3 million people at the start of the first millennium. This finding challenges earlier, more conservative estimates of the population across the wider Amazon region, which have ranged between 1 million and 10 million. The Amazon's total population may have numbered in the tens of millions.

"Our findings overturn our understanding of the Amazon region's past," says the emeritus professor at the University of Helsinki who led the study published in Nature. (Read more.)

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The Challenge of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus

 From Charles Coulombe at 1P5:

But as with everything Catholic in the Americas, devotion to the Sacred Heart long predates the United States.  Although Spain opened up the Evangelisation of the Western Hemisphere, it was in New France that this devotion took root, with the arrival of St. Marie de l’Incarnation, who founded the Ursuline Order in Canada in 1632, half a century before Our Lord began appearing to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.  Nine years later, Catherine Symon de Longpré, Mother Catherine of Saint Augustine in religion, brought devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary to Canada, along with her veneration for Marie des Vallées, with whom she was in contact.

On March 17, 1727, King Philip V of Spain, grandson of Louis XIV, wrote to Benedict XIII, asking him to approve the Office and Mass of the Sacred Heart for the kingdoms and states of the Spanish  Crown – the bulk of these were of course Spanish America and the Philippines; from this time on, the cultus of the Sacred Heart had official approbation in the Viceroyalties of the Americas.

In the newly independent United States, the Jesuit Mission at Conewago, Pennsylvania was renamed in honour of the Sacred Heart in 1787, when a new church was built.  A minor Basilica to-day, it was the first parish church named after the Sacred Heart in the United States – and possibly in the Western Hemisphere.

Inspired by the French Voeu Nationale, Gabriel García Moreno (1821-1875), President of the Republic of Ecuador, consecrated his country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  He was assassinated two years later, as he left the cathedral of Quito where he had just completed his customary adoration.  But he established what became the template for National Consecrations to the Sacred Heart across the globe.  In keeping with St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s request to Louis XIV, it was done by both the Head of State, the Legislature, and the Bishops of the Country.  This emphasises that the Faith ought to encompass both Church and State.  Following Ecuador’s example, several Central and South American countries undertook this national consecration in the following years – the first being the Republic of El Salvador in 1874. (Read more.)

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Ancient DNA of the Incas

 From Nature:

This paper tracks long-distance migration on the Pacific coast that began no later than the thirteenth century AD. Genome-wide data for 21 sampled individuals from the lower and middle Chincha Valley of southern Peru show shared ancestry with groups 700 km to the north. A large-scale polity known as the Chincha Kingdom controlled the Chincha Valley from the thirteenth century until the fifteenth century, when it fell to the Inca Empire. The earliest migrants have unadmixed ancestry, whereas in subsequent generations, intermarriage resulted in admixtures from neighboring coastal areas. Relatives buried together in a family ossuary practiced consanguineous endogamy. We build a generation-scale Bayesian model informed by an aDNA-based family tree and individual calibration curves for estimated proportions of marine diet, addressing long-standing difficulties with temporal precision on the Pacific coast due to the marine reservoir effect and uncertainty inherent in estimating marine consumption based on δ¹⁵N. These data demonstrate population continuity from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, coinciding with persistent traditions of cranial modification and postmortem red pigment application. We reveal close-knit and far-reaching coastal interaction networks that shaped the sociopolitical landscape encountered by Inca emissaries before they integrated these communities into their empire. (Read more.)

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Trump’s Strategic Masterclass

 From Tierney's Real News:

Many people still think President Trump’s recent foreign policy moves are scattershot — a tariff here, a blockade there. But if you zoom out, and look past the bluster, the bigger picture becomes clear: there’s a method to it all, a global strategy to stop the BRICS nations, especially Communist China and Russia and Iran, from tightening their grip on the world’s oil, trade routes and resources.

Trump’s not reacting. He’s positioning. While the fake news still chases quick photo-ops and weak “summits,” Trump’s locking down key economic and military chokepoints that decide who really holds power in the modern world.

President Trump’s recent moves against Iran, Venezuela, and even Greenland aren’t random. They’re smart, calculated steps in a bigger plan to stop the Islamo-Communist BRICS nations - led by Communist China and Russia and backed by the UN - from controlling America and the world. (Read more.)

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The West Must Restore Christendom to Survive

 From TFP:

Dom Bertrand’s lineage reads like a panorama of some of Europe’s most prominent monarchs. Besides all the Portuguese royals, his family tree includes Emperor Maximilian I of Austria, Charlemagne and Charles V of Spain. He is especially proud to descend from canonized saints, including Saint Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal, Saint Nuno of Saint Mary, Saint Vladimir the Great and Saint Louis IX of France.

In 1807, as Napoleon conquered vast portions of Europe, Portugal found itself under imminent threat. To outmaneuver the French, the Prince Regent of Portugal, Dom João VI—also a direct ancestor of Dom Bertrand—transferred the capital of the sprawling, four-continent Portuguese Empire to Brazil in 1808. The move ensured the monarchy’s survival and ushered in a new era in the Americas.

From that moment on, Brazil became the seat of the Portuguese Empire, with the city of Rio de Janeiro as its capital. The arrival of the Portuguese court transformed Brazil, which, until then, had been a colony with no national unity beyond its geography and was composed of nearly autonomous provinces. The country’s cohesion as a nation grew stronger, leading to a notable period of progress in which libraries, schools, industries and urban development initiatives, among other advancements, flourished.

In 1822, Dom João VI’s son, Dom Pedro I, proclaimed Brazil’s independence, turning it into a new and thriving empire itself with one of the world’s most powerful navies, the first long-distance submarine telegraph cable connecting South America to Europe, the world’s first modern postal systems, one of the highest literacy growth rates in the Western Hemisphere, and the biggest industrial park in Latin America. (Read more.)

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Why Did the Inca Empire Fall So Quickly?

 From How Stuff Works:

The Inca Empire once controlled much of western South America, stretching from modern Ecuador to northern Chile. Its fall was not the result of a single battle but of a deadly combination of internal conflict, disease, and the arrival of Spanish conquistadors. The Inca Empire was the largest empire in the Western Hemisphere before European contact. Ruled by the Sapa Inca from the capital city of Cusco, the empire relied on a sophisticated Inka administration, vast road networks, and a powerful Inca army.

The Inca civilization united millions of people across the Andes, including regions near Lake Titicaca, the Ecuadorian coast, and present-day Peru. When Inca emperor Huayna Capac died, likely from a European disease brought indirectly through Central America, a power struggle erupted between his sons. The resulting Inca civil war between Atahualpa and his brother devastated the empire. Although Atahualpa won the civil war, the conflict fractured Inca leadership and drained military strength. (Read more.)

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The Real Target

 From Forbidden.News:

It isn’t regime change. It’s a surgical strike against the British Empire’s irregular warfare and a key component of that, which we have long called “Dope Inc.”, the nexus of narcotics trafficking, terrorism, and the City of London-centered banking system. And today, we’re going to break that down.

I’m Susan Kokinda. I’ve been tracking this since the 1970s, watching how the offshore banking operation was set up to sidestep regulation, sovereignty, and law enforcement. And I’m here to tell you that for the first time, someone is taking that on, and it’s Donald Trump.

So if this sounds like your kind of fight, please hit those like, share, and subscribe buttons so we can reach more people. Here’s what we’re going to cover today.

First, it’s not regime change – and the Empire knows it. Second, how the Empire’s operations of dirty money is now in the crosshair – and the Russians know it, and how Trump is deploying to defeat all of these imperial operations.

So let’s clear up the biggest misconception, right now. Many former MAGA allies, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, are screaming that this is “Neocon regime change 2.0”. They’re just looking at the surface or outright lying.

But listen to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He told us exactly what this is. (Read more.)

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Badass

 From James Howard Kunstler:

The capture of Nicolás Maduro is driving the Lefty-left batshit crazy for a very good reason: it portends the extinction of their financial life-support, since Señor Maduro used his country as a money laundry for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and, in turn, cartel drug money, to funnel gazillions through Cuba to America’s Democratic Party and its political satellites. Not even George and Alex Soros can fill that hole.

For a nearly failed state, Cuba has been able to exert undue influence on US political life through the decades. Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles was trained-up in Marxist revolution there in the 1970s and traveled to Cuba many times during her stint in Congress. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal dropped into Havana during the last election year. NGOs such as the Center for Democracy in the Americas act as distribution nodes for money that comes through Cuba and supports Lefty-left activists around the USA. Don’t be surprised if a lot of this laundered money ended up in the bank accounts of US congresspersons and senators, too. Remember this when you watch them howl on your screens. (Read more.)

 

From Tierney's Real News:

Dear America,

Here’s a question for everyone who hates Donald Trump, and I ask it with genuine curiosity and just a touch of smug clarity:

So tell me, what would you do? Because so far, all I hear is outrage with no operating instructions.

You inherit a country with $30+ trillion in debt, a border that was effectively unenforced for decades, trade deals that hollowed out manufacturing towns, endless foreign wars with no victory conditions, NATO allies who openly admitted they weren’t paying their share, a federal bureaucracy that outlives presidents, and a media class that abandoned neutrality a long time ago.

Those are facts. Not vibes. Not opinions.

Now answer the question.

Do you renegotiate trade deals and bring jobs back knowing Wall Street will scream? Or do you keep the status quo and call it “global cooperation”?

Do you pressure NATO allies to finally pay their bills, something they later admitted they did because of Trump, or do you keep sending American money so no one calls you rude?

Do you enforce existing immigration law, which Congress already passed, and accept the media hysteria? Or do you selectively ignore the law and pretend that’s compassion?

Do you pull troops out of endless wars and get accused of abandoning allies, or keep Americans dying indefinitely because withdrawal looks messy?

Do you confront a bureaucracy that slow-walks orders and leaks to the press, or do you pretend that unelected agencies undermining elected authority is just “how government works”?

And now let’s add the newest example everyone’s suddenly hyperventilating over: What do you do with Maduro?

A narco-trafficking dictator with a U.S. arrest warrant. A man who ran his country into the ground, starved his people, crushed dissent, and turned Venezuela into a cartel-run failed state.

Do you: Look the other way because “international norms”? Issue strongly worded statements while people suffer? Or do you take him into custody, put him on a plane, and let a federal court handle it, like we do with criminals?

Because that’s what leadership looks like.

This isn’t “running Venezuela for oil.” This isn’t imperialism. This isn’t some Marvel-villain fantasy. It’s law enforcement at the international level, something we used to understand before performative outrage replaced common sense.

And notice the irony: Venezuelans are dancing in the streets, while the left are losing their minds from their couches screaming about legality. (Read more.)

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Trump Acted. Raskin Whined.

 From Direct Line News:

Let’s start with the core reality Raskin tiptoes around while pretending to acknowledge it: Nicolás Maduro is not a normal head of state. He is not a misunderstood reformer. He is a narco-dictator indicted by the United States, accused of turning an entire nation into a cocaine pipeline while starving its people and exporting chaos throughout the hemisphere. When the U.S. government acts against someone like Maduro, it is not “imperialism.” It is law enforcement on a scale.

Raskin’s constitutional argument collapses under scrutiny. The president did not declare war on Venezuela. He authorized a targeted military operation to apprehend an indicted criminal enemy of the United States. Presidents of both parties have conducted such operations for decades without prior congressional approval against terrorists, warlords, pirates, and narco-traffickers. Congress is not consulted before every special operation any more than a judge convenes a jury before issuing an arrest warrant. The Constitution makes the president commander-in-chief for a reason.

Raskin’s second claim that drug trafficking was merely a “pretext” is even more detached from reality. The U.S. Department of Justice has spent years building a case against Maduro, accusing him of conspiring to flood the United States with cocaine using state institutions and foreign terrorist groups. This is not speculative. It is documented. Maduro’s regime has been sanctioned, indicted, and internationally isolated precisely because it operates as a criminal enterprise masquerading as a government.

To distract from that reality, Raskin points to President Trump’s pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández. This is classic whataboutism masquerading as moral clarity. Hernández’s pardon, controversial or not, does not magically erase Maduro’s crimes. Nor does it invalidate the mountains of evidence against the Venezuelan regime. Law enforcement does not stop arresting bank robbers because one criminal elsewhere received clemency. That argument would be laughed out of any courtroom. (Read more.)

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Venezuela & RICO

 From Tierney's Real News:

I could write a book about Team Trump’s operation to arrest Maduro in Venezuela but I distilled the most important points down to a 10 minute read. By now, you’ve all read about how the operation happened - I’m going to discuss why it happened and cover viewpoints that the fake news isn’t talking about.

President Trump’s sanctioning of Venezuelan oil, destroying drug boats and seizing or blockading the tanker ghost fleet was having stupendous repercussions in not only Venezuela, but their allies in Cuba, Iran, Russia and Communist China:

1. Severe weakening of the Maduro cartel regime.

2. Severe weakening of the Cuban Communist regime.

3. Choking off the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which took Venezuelan oil to sell for cash.

4. Leaving the Chinese Communist Party without reliable oil from Venezuela and Iran.

Trump’s embargo in Venezuela was also likely the final straw to neuter the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and start the Iranian revolution and economic collapse that’s going on right now in Iran. It’s ALL connected. (Read more.)

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Why Arresting Maduro Was Legal, Lawful, and Long Overdue

 From Amuse on X:

Maduro was not seized as the president of Venezuela. He was seized as an indicted narcotics trafficker. That fact matters, and it is not rhetorical. It is the organizing premise of the case.

In March 2020, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York unsealed charges against Nicolás Maduro for narco-terrorism, cocaine trafficking, weapons offenses, and conspiracy to import massive quantities of drugs into the US. The indictment alleged that Maduro led the Cartel de Los Soles, a transnational criminal organization embedded within Venezuela’s security services and political institutions. The charges were not symbolic. They carried potential life sentences. A $15M reward was publicly offered for information leading to his arrest. From that moment forward, Maduro was not treated by the US as a protected sovereign. He was treated as a fugitive.

Critics often respond that indictments are cheap, and that powerful states can always criminalize their enemies. But this objection ignores a crucial legal fact. The US position was not merely that Maduro committed crimes. It was that he did so without sovereign immunity because he was not a legitimate head of state. That claim did not arise from convenience. It arose from recognition doctrine.

Following Venezuela’s fraudulent 2018 election, the country’s own National Assembly declared the presidency vacant and recognized Juan Guaidó as interim president under Venezuela’s constitution. More than 50 countries followed suit. The US formally withdrew recognition from Maduro’s regime and described it as illegitimate. This matters because head of state immunity is not a metaphysical property. It is a legal consequence of recognition. States decide whom they treat as governments. When recognition is withdrawn, immunity dissolves with it.

This principle is not controversial. Courts have long held that immunity flows from recognition decisions made by the political branches. When the executive branch states that an individual is not a recognized head of state, courts defer. That deference is not lawlessness. It is separation of powers. (Read more.)

 

From  Paul E. Vallely:

Finally, action to cleans the Western Hemisphere. No toleration of Communism and Sharia law and their destructive effect on Nations and free-standing citizens. The U.S. conducted a flawless, well-planned special operations mission in Venezuela early Saturday morning. President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured and moved to a US Navy ship for transportation to New York for formal indictment. He will “face the full wrath of American justice on American soil,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said.[1]

Asked who will lead Venezuela, Trump told Fox News, “Well, we’re going to have to look at it right now.” Trump also said that he expects the U.S. to get “very strongly involved” in the future of Venezuela’s oil industry. Venezuela’s attorney general said innocent civilians were killed in the military strikes on several facilities in Caracas and the surrounding area.

The U.S. has been ramping up the pressure on Venezuela for months, assembling a huge military presence in the Caribbean, intercepting two fully loaded Venezuelan crude tankers, and killing dozens in strikes on boats near it alleges were carrying drugs. Many Venezuelans rejoice after news Maduro was captured, arrested and moved to the United States. “I’m extremely happy, it’s a sensation that finally people understood that Venezuela was no longer a democratic country,” said Raquel De Faria, a Venezuelan-Brazilian doctor who grew up in Venezuela and left the country in 2018 due to the ongoing political and economic situation.

Trump “took the reins,” she added. “The reality is that they are a narco-government and that needed to be controlled.” It is “a great conquest,” she said. “I feel like something huge was accomplished, a victory and what a start of the year for Venezuela.” The next 48 hours in Venezuela could prove decisive, with risks of civil conflict and uncertainty over whether U.S. involvement escalates, according to one analyst. “I think the next 48 hours are probably the most crucial in this entire scenario,” said Brian Fonseca, director of the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy. “There is a pathway that could lead to pronounced civil conflict, and may force the Americans to double down even more.” Fonseca cautioned that removing President Nicolás Maduro does not automatically dismantle the power structures around him, and that “taking Maduro out doesn’t necessarily mean that the regime goes away.” “You have a political, military elite that are as tied to the survival of Maduro as Maduro himself, in many ways,” he told NBC News. (Read more.)

From the Gateway Pundit:

President Trump announced the successful “large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader,” adding that Maduro and his wife were captured and flown out of the country.

The President further announced that a news conference will be held at his Mar-a-Lago home this morning at 11 am ET.

The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP (Read more.)

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Surrounded

 From Tierney's Real News:

I hear from so-called “conservatives” every day who call themselves “Libertarians” and they want me to hate Trump and hate Israel. Their latest narrative is to tell me how stupid it is that Trump is focusing on Venezuela. They say he’s clueless and needs to put America First.

Let me tell you why focusing on Venezuela right now IS putting America First.

Where do conservative voters get these constant Never Trump narratives from? Primarily from Koch Libertarian RINO “influencers” who have large followings on X.

Many Soros-Koch Libertarian RINO influencers, like Jesse Kelly, MTG, Tucker, Emerald Robinson, Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, Michael Tracy, Candace Owens, etc., keep telling their followers on a daily basis that President Trump is letting America down.

They say he must focus on America First because Venezuela isn’t an important issue and voters don’t care. WRONG. Smart and informed voters DO care.

Here’s just a few examples of the garbage that Koch Libertarians spew on a daily basis - I could give you lots more but you can research their feeds yourself. Their constant Trump hate is documented if you just look. (Read more.)

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¿What Is Really Going on in Venezuela?

 From Forbidden.News:

Last Sunday, the State Department announced that it intends to designate the Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), effective November 24, 2025. The announcement accuses Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking members of his regime of leading of the Cartel de los Soles to corrupt the Venezuelan government and of being “responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere and of trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe, together with other designated FTOs including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel.”

There is a lot of conflicting information out there about this, arising from bribery, threats and opposing political agendas, so I’ve taken a stab, here at coming to a clear understanding of what’s really going on.

For example, French state media, France24 reports that Venezuela and Colombia insist there is “no such thing” as the Cartel de los Soles, noting that last March, “The latest US State Department report on global anti-drug operations made no mention of the ‘Cartel de los Soles’ or any connection between Maduro and narco trafficking.” (Read more.)

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Greece Was Once Part of South America

 From The Greek Reporter:

A geological study suggests that part of modern-day Greece may have once been physically connected to what is now South America, hundreds of millions of years ago. The findings come from research into ancient rock formations in the Pelagonian zone of northern and central Greece, showing strong chemical and age similarities with crust from the Amazon region. Lead researcher Olga Zlatkin, a geologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and her team analyzed zircon crystals found in rocks that date back nearly 700 million years. (Read more.)

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Inca String Codes

 From The Conversation:

Five centuries ago, the Incas ruled the western half of South America with the help of a unique form of writing based on coloured and knotted cords. These strings, called khipus, recorded major events, tracked economic matters, and even encoded biographies and poetry, according to the Spanish chroniclers who witnessed their use.

Most khipus have knots that indicate numbers that we can “read”, but we’ve lost the ability to interpret what those numbers mean. Recent discoveries are bringing us closer to deciphering these mysterious strings. In a remote community set high in the Peruvian Andes, my team and I have found khipus that were used by villagers to track climate change.

Last year, I was invited to study the centuries-old khipus preserved in the village of Santa Leonor de Jucul in the Peruvian Andes. The 97 khipus conserved by villagers include the largest khipu in the world, which is over 68 metres long. (Read more.)

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Light in Peru

 From Artnet:

The Chachapoya remain one of the lesser known pre-Hispanic cultures of South America. This is partly down to geography. As suggested by their epithet “people of the cloud forest,” the Chachapoya occupied a rugged, jungled pocket between the Andes and the Amazon. Even today, their settlements can be tricky to reach. Conquest by the Inca in the second half of the 15th century furthered their obscurity, dramatically altering the Chachapoya population and way of life that had existed for roughly 800 years. Over the past five years, however, researchers in Peru equipped with the latest technologies have greatly expanded the archaeological record, shedding light on Chachapoya’s circular architecture, cliffside tombs, and complex agricultural systems. Most recently, a team from the World Monuments Fund has uncovered more than 100 previously unknown buildings at Gran Pajatén, a hilltop archaeological site in Río Abiseo National Park, which is located 300 miles north of Lima. (Read more.)

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Judicial Coup

 From Tierney's Real News:

So, Trump’s plan bypassed Maduro’s nonsense and involved sending the TdA gangsters to El Salvador’s mega-prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), under an agreement with President Nayib Bukele, who accepted them for a fee, reportedly $6 million for 300 migrants over a year. If America were to keep the illegal alien gangsters here on American soil - instead of deporting them - the cost to American taxpayers would be over $200 million, not $6 million.

So far, the illegal alien TdA gang members have been arrested hundreds of times in the US - for crimes including drug trafficking, human trafficking, sexual assault, terrorism, theft, murder, attempted murder and kidnapping. The murder victims so far include 22-year old Laken Riley of Georgia, 33-year old Arneaud-Petit in Texas, a retired police officer in Florida and the attempted murder of 2 New York police officers. 

Tren de Aragua began in the early 2010s in Tocorón prison, located in Venezuela’s Aragua state, about 80 miles southwest of Caracas. It emerged under the leadership of “Niño Guerrero” who was imprisoned in 2005 for murdering a police officer. 

By 2014, Guerrero and his associates had transformed the gang into a powerful “megabanda” within the prison. Under the “pran” system - where crime bosses run prisons with Maduro’s approval - Tren de Aragua turned Tocorón into a criminal headquarters, complete with a zoo, nightclub, and pool, funded by extortion, drug trafficking, and kidnappings.

In other words, the Communist dictator of Venezuela let TdA run the prison and live like Kings within it.

In September 2023, Maduro’s forces allegedly raided Tocorón with 11,000 troops, but Guerrero and key leaders escaped, possibly tipped off, and the gang’s operations have continued unabated across borders, including into the U.S. (Read more.)

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Corruption, Compromise, and China's Grip on the Panama Canal

 From Amuse on X:

In the ongoing geopolitical chess game between major powers, small nations often fall victim to coercive diplomacy and financial manipulation. Panama, historically crucial due to its canal—one of the world’s most strategic maritime passages—now finds itself ensnared by China's aggressive expansionism. Through targeted financial incentives—commonly recognized in the U.S. as outright bribes—Chinese entities effectively compromised Panamanian officials, securing control over both strategic entries of the Panama Canal. This arrangement, clearly orchestrated to advance Chinese Communist Party (CCP) strategic ambitions, not only flagrantly breaches Panama's constitutional obligations but also violates its longstanding treaty commitments with the United States.

A careful review of the agreement that transferred control of the ports and canal to China supports Attorney General Luis Carlos Gómez's findings. In 1997, CK Hutchison Holdings, a major Hong Kong conglomerate closely linked to China's Communist Party, secured a concession to control the crucial ports at Balboa and Cristobal. Though presented publicly as a commercial agreement, the ports' infrastructure was improved to support dual-use operations, facilitating both civilian and military vessels. The concession thus poses serious national security risks, far surpassing simple economic concerns and directly involving the strategic interests of multiple global powers.

Notably, when the concession approached its expiration, Panamanian officials curiously declined to invite competing bids. In a market-driven world, particularly in the strategically sensitive sector of maritime infrastructure, competitive bidding should be standard practice—indeed, it is mandated by Panamanian law. Instead, Hutchison received an automatic renewal for another twenty-five years in 2021. This unilateral decision, bereft of additional compensation or negotiation, starkly demonstrates Panama’s negligent abandonment of its economic interests and raises grave concerns about potential corruption. (Read more.)

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Open Letter to the Pope on Immigration

Pope Francis recently wrote a letter criticizing Trump’s deportations of illegal immigrants. Let me say, as a Catholic, that the both the Catholic catechism and writings of past popes and even the American bishops have upheld the right of every nation to maintain a border and make laws about who comes in. If a nation allows immigrants to come in, it has a right to make laws creating an orderly process of immigration. It has the right to turn people away, and it certainly has a right to deport illegal immigrants who not only violated the laws by coming in, but further broke the law by committing violent crimes or drug-dealing, human-trafficking, etc. And all this about Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus being migrants, they may have been migrants but they were not breaking the law, they did not break any border laws as they never left the confines of the Roman Empire. Plus they were obviously not dealing in contraband goods or other criminal activity.  Now I know many non-Catholics think that Catholics believe that every utterance of the Pope is directly from Heaven; we do not believe that. When the pope speaks ex cathedra, which is rare, the he speaks infallibly. However, Catholics are supposed to respect what the Pope says and look to him for guidance, but when he says something that is just plain false, which contradicts both Scripture and Tradition, then a person must follow their conscience. Here is the letter which I sent via @Pontifex on X:

Holy Father, the American people, and most especially American Catholics, have bent over backwards to help immigrants, even illegal immigrants, for decades, sometimes at great cost to themselves. Americans have been assaulted and killed by illegal aliens. Huge amounts of our tax money have gone to assist them. We have even sent money to their home countries. Many American missionaries, some from my own parish, have risked their lives and their health to minister to the needy in countries in Latin America. There is no lack of generosity here. While lecturing President Trump, Holy Father, I would hope you also have words for the leaders of the countries from which the migrants are fleeing. The leaders of Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, etc have created unlivable situations for their people. The immigrants I know love their homelands and would rather be there except the circumstances were horrific. Please Holy Father, help those immigrants to stay in their beloved homelands by guiding their leaders in the path of justice. President Trump does not need such guidance but there are plenty of tyrannical dictators in Mexico, Latin America and South America who do. And I wish, Holy Father, that you might offer some words of sympathy for the American women and girls who have been murdered and raped by migrants who entered illegally. OR sympathy for the family of Dave Funk who was killed by an illegal alien driving drunk just last January. We have a growing number of homeless people who should come before non-citizens. Americas are suffering, too.

 More, on the podcast, HERE.

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An Inca Tunnel

 From The Jerusalem Post:

Archaeologists in Peru find a hidden Inca tunnel network, known as the Chinkana, beneath the city of Cusco. The extensive underground passages stretch over 1,750 meters and connect several significant sites, including the Temple of the Sun (Coricancha) and the fortress of Sacsayhuamán.

The discovery was announced at a press conference on Monday, in the Municipality of Cusco. Archaeologists Jorge Calero Flores and Mildred Fernández Palomino led the research team that confirmed the existence of this ancient network. "We have analyzed documents from the 16th and 17th centuries; the chronicler Anello de Oliva indicates to us that there were many underground passages; an anonymous chronicler tells us that it passed beside the Cathedral, that is, the archbishop's houses; then he says that it is beside Sacsayhuamán; all that has helped to locate the trace," Calero stated, as reported by El País.

The first clue about the Chinkana came from an anonymous Jesuit chronicle from 1600, which provided key information about the tunnel's layout. The chronicle detailed that the entrance to this cave was located at the fortress of Sacsayhuamán. Other historical chronicles also mentioned the existence of the tunnel network. (Read more.)

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