Rubio hosts meeting with 70+ countries on threat of ‘transnational far-left terrorism’; Rubio slams International Criminal Court, urges allies to disengage from organization; Ahead of midterms, House Speaker Mike Johnson sounds alarm on serious threat of communist candidates: ‘This is not a game’; Justices make rare personal plea to Congress for more security funding, Barrett’s plea triggers internet; Trump reinstates ICE traffic stops after DHS Secretary suspends them; Trump endorses Mike Lindell for Minnesota governor; Christians mourn slain Catholic youths in Pakistan, Islamic group claims responsibility; Catholics honor 13th century saint-scholar who said: ‘Since happiness is nothing else than the enjoyment of the Supreme Good, and the Supreme Good is above us, no one can enjoy happiness unless he rises above himself’; and more —
Rubio expands plans for high-level [international] meeting focused on ‘far-left terrorism’
Officials will lay the groundwork for “coordinated action,” documents say.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is preparing to host delegations from more than 70 countries this week for a gathering focused on addressing what the Trump administration describes as the overlooked threat posed by “the resurgence of transnational far-left terrorism,” according to a State Department official and internal documents reviewed exclusively by ABC News.
“For too long this threat has remained a blind spot in the international community’s counterterrorism focus, underestimated and under-resourced, despite the danger it poses,” a note shared with foreign governments describing the concept of the meeting reads.
It goes on to assert that law enforcement and counterterrorism experts have revealed a “clear trend” of “globally networked, politically-motivated terrorists — particularly far-left terrorists” increasingly turning to “organized, deadly violence to advance their political objectives.”
The meeting, which will take place in Washington on Thursday, will lay the foundation for “coordinated action” to counter international organizations that are “seeking to implement an extreme political vision through intimidation and coordinated campaigns of terror,” the document states.
Read more at ABC News
US Secretary of State is calling on allies to leave International Criminal Court
Watch @StateDept
Marco Rubio: US should not be ruled by foreign bureaucrats
Watch @SecRubio
Speaker Mike Johnson Whips Out Some Tough Love on GOP’s Approach to Communism – ‘This Is Not a Game‘
The 2026 midterm elections will be like none we have ever seen before. Traditionally, the party in the White House loses seats. In the past, that might not have been a huge deal, but as Democratic Socialists take over the Democratic Party, it is not only a huge deal, but the most deadly serious deal we have ever seen. On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to impress upon the American people, including a media that will make light of their real agenda, just how serious a threat to the nation this is.
Johnson began by explaining what has happened to millions all around the world who have been under the boot of communism, saying: “Communism and this philosophy has led to the murder of tens of millions of innocent people in the 20th century alone. It is a nightmare! It is a trail to certain death!”…
Johnson also went on to illustrate the scheme that Democratic Socialists, who are really just a polite way of saying communists, employ to win over potential converts. Johnson said, “If they promise you free stuff, there is far more beneath those promises that even some of these people do not understand themselves.” Johnson stated that the Republican Party will “stand on the founding principles of the greatest nation in the history of the world. It is our duty to do that.” …
Speaker Johnson used the phrase “this is not a game” several times and for very good reason. What they are advocating for is the complete and total dismantling of the foundation of America. …
Read more at RedState; watch @EricLDaugh
Justices make rare personal plea to Congress for more security funding
Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett highlighted increased threats to their personal safety as they justified the Supreme Court’s $228 million budget request for the upcoming fiscal year.
In a rare moment on Capitol Hill, a pair of Supreme Court justices on Tuesday implored congressional appropriators to greenlight millions more in government funds for high court security, including expanded personal protection for the justices themselves.
The unusual testimony from members of the Supreme Court bench — the first such occasion since 2019 — proved another opportunity for the justices to sound the alarm over an increased threat environment against the court that has personally affected several jurists and their families.
Speaking to the House Appropriations Committee during a hearing Tuesday morning, Justice Elena Kagan said Supreme Court police expect a 38% annual increase in threats to the high court in the upcoming year, up from a 25% increase in such threats the year prior.
Read more at Courthouse News Service
Internet posts abound: Death threats against Amy Coney Barrett may be impacting ability to do job
Watch @HansMahncke; watch @Timcast; see @LoneStarLegendX
One more —
Watch @knesix
President Trump just announced ICE traffic stops to be reinstated after DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin suspended them due to recent shootings in Maine and Texas
Watch @BillMelugin_
Deportations Are Only Deadly Because Of Democrat Resistance by Eddie Scarry
A majority of Americans said they wanted these people out of their country. If Democrats believed in elections, they would have respected that choice, but they don’t. So things have naturally turned violent.
Two more people died in recent days encountering immigration authorities, which predictably means a renewed enthusiastic push by Democrats and the dying media to halt deportations altogether. The only acceptable message from the Trump administration is: Those who caused this mess don’t get a say in how to clean it up.
It’s not a good sign that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Tuesday reportedly instructed law enforcement to “cease all non-urgent vehicle stops” in relation to immigration enforcement. Any action that carries the whiff of a suggestion that the problem isn’t the nearly 20 million illegal aliens in this country — allowed in by Democrats — but rather the attempt to remove them is precisely the wrong signal.
Read more at The Federalist
Trump endorses Mike Lindell for Minnesota Governor
See @pjcolbeck
Ignorance Is Not Bliss: The Dumbing Down of America by Richard K.Vedder
The bill for lowered standards is coming due.
The news is awash with reports that younger Americans are learning less than their parents did a generation ago. One in eight freshmen at the highly selective University of California, San Diego campus place below high school levels in math, leading professors to complain that declining student proficiency is imperiling their ability to provide at least a modicum of math competency. Grade inflation is also leading university students to study far less than their parents or grandparents did in college — for much higher grades. Are we becoming a nation of lazy dumbbells?
Any college student who has finished even one course in basic economics knows that a nation’s output of goods (and, simultaneously, incomes for the producers of those goods) is dependent on the factors of production: land (and the natural resources contained within it), labor (workers), and capital (machines and tools).
For several decades, economists have emphasized that workers possess “human capital” — knowledge that enhances production far beyond that provided by their physical capabilities to produce goods. Nerdy computer analysts have been more productive than brawny and far more physically fit construction workers or farm laborers. Well-educated college graduates typically produce far more valuable output than workers with less than a high school education and, accordingly, are far better paid. If the nation’s stock of knowledge per capita starts falling, the nation’s ability to expand output through new discoveries and acquired skills using the sophisticated machinery of the modern age is imperiled, lowering or even ending centuries of growth in per capita incomes.
Read more at The American Spectator
The War on Language by Julia James Davis
Watch @thewaronbeauty
How we know who assassinated Ann Widdecombe – and why
As the anti-terrorist police drag their heels in giving us the details that lay behind the assassination of Anne Widdecombe we do our own detective work theologically and politically and discover we know the answer.
Watch at Dr. Gavin Ashedon
Christian MP Päivi Räsänen’s UK travel authorisation cancelled
Päivi Räsänen, the Christian politician convicted in Finland for her views on marriage and sexuality, says her electronic travel authorisation (ETA) for the UK has been cancelled.
The former Finnish Minister of the Interior said her application for an ETA was initially successful but she later received a notification informing her that it had been cancelled.
ETAs are required for travellers who do not have a visa and need to pass through UK border control upon arrival in the country – including transits if they leave the secure area to change terminals or collect luggage.
Mrs Räsänen said she was not given any explanation for the cancellation of her ETA and that it has thrown into doubt her plans to travel to Northern Ireland next month. The 66 year old is due to visit the country in August to speak at a conference and visit the Parliament. She no longer knows if this trip will be possible.
Read more at Christian Today
Too Catholic To Be French Officers
French military schools face a backlash after excluding Catholic pupils, exposing ideological bias and raising concerns over future army recruitment.
A scandal has come to light alleging that pupils from French independent Catholic schools were deliberately excluded during the admissions process for a military secondary school. This case, which serves as a reminder that the victims of discrimination are not always those we might expect or those who make a profession of it, highlights a deeper problem affecting the military establishment: can the army today do without traditional families who, alongside their faith, still instil in their children a love of their country and a sense of sacrifice?
The affair was revealed by Le Figaro in early July. Based on accounts from several families, it emerged that the prestigious Prytanée de la Flèche—a military high school preparing its pupils for officer training colleges such as Saint-Cyr or the Naval Academy—was systematically rejecting applications from pupils attending independent Catholic schools.
It might have been a coincidence or a misunderstanding, but it turned out that the management fully stood by this decision: “It is set out in black and white in its Parcoursup report for the 2025 intake [the system used to manage French pupils’ applications for higher education, Ed.], accessible to candidates via the allocation platform. Enrolment in non-state-funded schools is one of the exclusionary criteria leading to certain applicants not being ranked,” Le Figaro explains. This means that pupils from these schools are not even considered. The model applied at La Flèche is also in place at other renowned military schools in France, such as those in Autun and Aix-en-Provence.
Read more at The European Conservative
Christians mourn slain Catholic youths in Pakistan’s Balochistan
Christians, a majority of them ethnic Punjabis, make up 0.43 percent of province’s nearly 15 million residents
The death of two Catholic youths in an attack by motorcycle-borne gunmen in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province has sparked fresh calls for better protection of the tiny Christian community.
Unidentified motorcyclists shot and killed Ayush Michael, 21, and Dominic Laazar, 24, a father of two, on July 8 while they were playing cricket with others in the Shamsabad area of Mastung district, according to police.
The Islamic State-Khorasan Province, a regional affiliate of the Islamic State group, also known as Daesh, claimed responsibility for the killings.
Read more at the Union of Catholic Asian News
Mob Threatens Salesian Sisters Over Cemetery Construction in West Bengal, Catholic [Groups] Seek Action
A group of around 60 people entered the premises of the Auxilium Salesian Sisters in Barasat on July 12 and threatened the nuns with violence unless they immediately demolished a memorial chapel and cemetery currently under construction, according to the FMA [Figlie di Maria Ausiliatrice which translates to Daughters of Mary Help of Christians] Salesian Sisters and the All India Catholic Union (AICU).
The FMA Sisters said the cemetery, intended for members of their congregation, had received all necessary government approvals before construction began under the previous state administration. They said the project has faced objections following the change in government and has since become the focus of protests.
In a statement issued after the incident, the AICU condemned what it described as a mob attack on the convent, alleging that the Sisters were subjected to intimidation and abusive language. The organisation said members of the group told the nuns, “Your government is no more, now it is our government,” which it said reflected an attempt to override legal processes through intimidation.
The AICU further claimed that the incident was part of what it described as a broader pattern of harassment targeting Christian institutions in different parts of West Bengal. It said the incident raised concerns about the constitutional rights of minority communities to practise their faith and manage their institutions and properties.
Read more at Catholic Connect; read ‘Indian lay group deplores ‘mob’ threats against Salesian Sisters’ at The Pillar
25 Catholic Churches destroyed by Venezuelan earthquakes
See @CatholicAcad
Today is the Feast of St. Bonaventure
Read @father_rmv
St. Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor
Watch at Catholic Saints and Feasts
