DC Cardinal Donald Wuerl Is Entangled in 2 Sex Abuse Scandals

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, is facing a storm of criticism and calls for his resignation after becoming entangled in two major sexual abuse scandals roiling the church that he has served with distinction since 1966. A scathing grand jury report this week on rampant abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses accused Wuerl of helping to protect some child-molesting priests while he was bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006. At the same time, Wuerl is facing widespread skepticism over his recent insistence that he knew nothing about years of alleged sexual misconduct by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, his predecessor in the nation's capital.

The Washington Archdiocese, home to more than 630,000 Catholics, is considered an important power center for the church in the U.S., and Wuerl has been ranked by commentators as one of the most influential of the 10 active American cardinals. The two scandals represent a stunning turn for the 77-year-old leader, who over the decades earned the respect of fellow bishops across the U.S. and prided himself in taking tough steps to combat clergy sex abuse during his 18 years in Pittsburgh. Some conservative Catholics are calling for his resignation or ouster, and a petition is circulating to remove his name from a parochial high school in suburban Pittsburgh.

Wuerl has said he has no plans to resign. He apologized this week for the damage inflicted on the victims but also defended his actions in Pennsylvania. "The Diocese worked to meet or exceed the requirements of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the reporting requirements of Pennsylvania law,'' Wuerl said. "We showed pastoral concern by reaching out to victims and their families, while reporting allegations to the authorities so they could investigate crimes.''' The Vatican on Thursday issued its first statement on the grand jury report, expressing "shame and sorrow while also suggesting that reforms undertaken by U.S. Catholic leaders had sharply reduced the prevalence of clergy sex abuse since 2002. The statement did not mention Wuerl.

Separately, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced an investigation into the McCarrick scandal and said it would invite the Vatican to participate. Wuerl has not been charged with any wrongdoing but is named numerous times in the grand jury report, which details instances in which he allowed priests accused of misconduct to be reassigned or reinstated.

In one case, Wuerl — acting on doctors' recommendation — enabled priest William O'Malley to return to active ministry in 1998 despite allegations of abuse lodged against him in the past and his own admission that he was sexually interested in adolescents. Years later, according to the report, six more people alleged that they had been sexually assaulted by O'Malley, in some cases after he had been reinstated. "Cardinal Wuerl does not contest the facts. He should resign,'' tweeted Matthew Schmitz, senior editor of the conservative Catholic magazine First Things. Many of Schmitz's online followers expressed agreement. In Wuerl's defense, the archdiocese has released documents that include a detailed account of a case admirers cite as evidence of Wuerl's strong stand against sex abuse.

The case surfaced in 1988, when a 19-year-old former seminarian, Tim Bendig, filed a lawsuit accusing a priest, Anthony Cipolla, of molesting him. Wuerl initially questioned Bendig's version of events but later accepted his account and moved to oust Cipolla from the priesthood. In 1993, the Vatican's highest court ordered Wuerl to restore Cipolla to the ministry, but Wuerl resisted and, after two years of legal procedures, prevailed in preventing Cipolla's return. Wuerl "made a lot of enemies, but he persisted, said author and journalist Michael Sean Winters, who writes for the National Catholic Reporter. "He risked his career over five years of battling. Looking more broadly at Wuerl's career, Winters described him as "kind of exemplary. "When he gets up and goes to the microphone, everybody listens, Winters said of bishops' conferences he has covered. "He's not an old leftie, he's not a right-wing culture warrior. To use a word that's out of currency, he's a churchman.''

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/DC-Cardinal-Donald-Wuerl-Entangled-in-Two-Sex-Abuse-Scandals-491055411.html

The Weekly Standard's Ties to Fusion GPS

In his online appeal for money after being fired this week, disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok credited an unlikely source to vouch for his victim status: The Weekly Standard. At one time a leading conservative magazine, the Standard declared last month that Strzok’s plight was merely an “overwrought tale of bias” and the case against him is “just sound and fury.” The article brushed off Strzok’s actions as “several bad judgment calls” and blasted Congressional Republicans for continuing a criminal investigation into the now-unemployed G-man. Strzok is following only 32 people on his newly-verified Twitter account. Bill Kristol, the editor-at-large of the Standard, is one of them.

So, what’s with the fanboying between the Standard—an allegedly serious publication dedicated to advancing conservative principles—and a corrupt government bureaucrat who embodies everything the conservative movement fought against for decades? I found an article in the Standard archives this week that might explain why. On July 24, 2016, just days before Strzok helped launch a counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign, Kristol gave Strzok and the Obama Justice Department a big assist from the anti-Trump Right by posting a flawed and questionably-sourced article. “Putin’s Party” is compelling evidence that Kristol and the Standard were far from mere sideline observers as the Trump-Russia collusion scam took shape in the summer of 2016. At the very least, the timing of the article suggests there was careful coordination between the central players—including the Hillary Clinton campaign—and Bill Kristol to derail Trump’s candidacy just weeks before the election. But the article’s content also serves to raise alarming questions about the claims by many Republicans that “conservatives” had no knowledge of or involvement with the Christopher Steele dossier.

Let’s back up a bit. On the morning that Kristol’s piece posted, the Trump-Russian election collusion story was in its embryonic stage—nearly all American voters that summer remained blissfully unaware of the details in this preposterous story—but secretly it was being peddled to the media by Fusion GPS, a political opposition research firm hired by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to dig up Russian-related dirt on Donald Trump. Talking points produced by Glenn Simpson, the head of Fusion, and contained in the Steele dossier, were making the rounds in the D.C.-NYC media claque during July 2016. (At the same time, Steele was working with the FBI and alerting the agency to his dubious findings about the Trump campaign.) Kristol’s article hits on every single one of the Simpson-Steele talking points: Trump forced the GOP to water-down language on the Ukraine in the party’s platform (it didn’t happen); the Russians were behind Wikileaks’ release of the DNC’s hacked emails (unproven); Trump encouraged foreign powers to interfere in the election (he didn’t); and Trump would not honor U.S. commitments to NATO (an overblown assessment of Trump’s NATO criticism nearly all the Republican candidates made). He listed a handful of unknown Trump campaign associates who would soon become household names, including campaign manager Paul Manafort; national security advisor, Lt. General Michael Flynn; and foreign policy aide Carter Page. (Strzok and the FBI formally opened their investigation into the three men—and campaign aide George Papadopoulos—on July 31, 2016.)

The content of Kristol’s piece closely mirrored reporting by other news outlets at the same time. (Lee Smith wrote about how the Fusion-planted media echo chamber evolved before the election.) But despite the flimsiness of the accusations, Kristol took his advocacy a step further.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/16/the-weekly-standards-ties-to-fusion-gps/

Pentagon says Trump's military parade postponed until 2019 amid reports costs jumped 666%

Amid reports of a soaring estimated cost for President Donald Trump's planned military parade in Washington, the Defense Department announced Thursday that it would delay the parade until 2019. The estimated cost for the parade, originally slated for Nov. 10, had jumped $80 million, The Associated Press reported Thursday citing an unnamed Pentagon official.

"The Department of Defense and White House have been planning a parade to

honor America's military veterans and commemorate the centennial of World

War I," Department of Defense Spokesman Col. Rob Manning said in a statement. "We originally targeted November 10, 2018 for this event but have now agreed to explore opportunities in 2019." A Defense Department spokesman told USA TODAY earlier Thursday finals plans for the parade have not yet been approved and that costs could still change. Last month, the Military Times reported that initial estimates of the parade's cost were $12 million. The official – who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that haven’t been released yet – told AP the new projection is $92 million. That represents an increase of 666 percent. About $50 million would cover Pentagon costs for equipment, personnel and other expenses for the parade, the official said. The rest would be handled by other agencies, including security costs. Pentagon spokesman Jamie Davis cautioned that "planning for the Military Veterans Day Parade continues and final details are still being developed. Any cost estimates are pre-decisional."

In February, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney put the cost at $10 million to $30 million.

The American Legion said in a statement Thursday that the organization appreciates Trump's desire to "show in a dramatic fashion our nation's support for our troops." But the veterans group believes that with troops still deployed overseas in the fight against terrorism, "the parade money would be better spent fully funding the Department of Veterans Affairs and giving our troops and their families the best care possible." Trump has expressed a desire for such a parade for years and was greatly impressed by the Bastille Day march he witnessed on a presidential trip to Paris in 2017.

https://ux.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/08/16/trump-military-parade-cost-increase/1011519002/

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I smell black hats at work frens, they have missed on just about every mark they have tried, just another tactic, how stupid are they, they are telling us they are doing it.