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Christian Nationalist Group's Secret Documents Promise Apocalyptic Violence

Christian Nationalist Group's Secret Documents Promise Apocalyptic Violence

In a recent article, The Guardian's Jason Wilson detailed the links between the Claremont Institute — a right-wing think tank — and a "shadowy" Christian nationalist group called the Society for American Civil Renewal (SACR).

Claremont, founded in 1979, was once a traditional conservative outfit that championed the ideas of Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) and President Ronald Reagan. But in recent years, Claremont has taken a decidedly MAGA turn that critics have described as extreme and authoritarian. And Wilson's March 11 article illustrated Claremont's willingness to embrace the far-right fringe.

Now Wilson follows up his earlier report with another Guardian article — this time, describing newly revealed documents that "shed light on" the "secretive" SACR's "origins and inner workings."

The documents, Wilson reports in an article published on March 19, address "methods for judging the beliefs of potential members on topics such as Christian nationalism, and indications that its founders sought inspiration in an apartheid-era South African white men-only group, the Afrikaner-Broederbond."

Wilson explains, "(The documents) also show that Boise State University Professor and Claremont think tank scholar Scott Yenor tried to coordinate SACR's activities with other initiatives, including an open letter on 'Christian marriage.' One expert says that one of the new documents — some previously reported in Talking Points Memo — use biblical references that suggest a preparedness for violent struggle against the current 'regime.'"

According to Wilson, the "origins" of SACR "appear to date to the latter half of 2020" — and there are "indications that the inner circle of the group sought inspiration from earlier iterations of Christian nationalism in authoritarian states."

"In the early part of 2021," Wilson explains, "Yenor drafted documents that firmed up SACR's purpose and character. To a 27 April 2021 e-mail sent to himself and his wife at her employment address, Yenor attached a document entitled 'Working Membership and Recruiting Guide for Chapter Leadership.' In spelling out SACR’s rules, the document reveals the high value the organization places on secrecy."

Wilson notes that the SACR material has a "patriarchal edge," calling for "taking ownership as head of the household in terms of leading regular prayer and spiritual reading and reflection."

The Guardian discussed the SACR documents with Bradley Onishi, author of the 2023 book Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism — and What Comes Next.

According to Onishi, the prayers described in SACR documents may include "coded" biblical references to violence.

Onishi told The Guardian, "What happens when the walls fall down? Joshua's men go in and kill everyone: men, children, women, animals. It's an attempted genocide, right? In that prayer, they're saying we're Joshua's men. We're the type of men who trust God. And when God, when God gives us the signal, we're going to go kill everybody. That's what we do.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Chefs Reveal Their Secrets

Chefs Reveal Their Secrets

By Daniel Neman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (TNS)

More than half of all chefs say they have found customers making out — at least making out, if you catch my drift — in their restaurant restrooms.

This fact, which fascinates me far more than it really should, comes to us courtesy of the Food Network magazine. In a 2009 story that has recently resurfaced again on the Internet, the magazine surveyed about 100 chefs across the country and came up with a list of 25 things chefs never tell you.

For one, chefs can be picky eaters. Only 15 percent of the ones surveyed say they will eat absolutely anything. The foods they said most frequently that they will not eat are liver, sea urchin, and — this is a surprise, probably because I like them both — eggplant and oysters.

On the other hand, the chefs don’t like it when their customers are picky. You know how some people claim to be allergic to items when they aren’t really allergic to them? Chefs hate that (though it is unexplained how they can distinguish fake allergies from real ones).

And they like their customers to follow their own rules. If you’re a vegetarian, don’t tell them “a little chicken stock is OK.”

One trend made unappetizingly clear from the survey is that restaurant kitchens are less sanitary than we, the dining public, may like to think.

Although 85 percent of the chefs rated their kitchens as very clean (at least an 8 on a scale from 1 to 10), it should come as no particular surprise that 75 percent of them also reported having seen roaches. Roaches go where there is food and water. Restaurants have food and water and kitchen doors that are open much of the time. Restaurants are going to get roaches; the trick lies in getting rid of them as quickly as possible.

Of more concern is the revelation that 25 percent of the chefs say they’ve served food that they had dropped on the floor, and three of them say they have taken uneaten bread out of one bread basket and sent it out to other customers in another bread basket. Health inspectors tend to look at both of these practices with understandable consternation.

Also alarming, at least for vegetarians, is that a minority of the chefs admitted to using meat products in the dishes they claim are vegetarian. About 15 percent of those surveyed said they do that.

Worst of all are the 13 percent of chefs surveyed who said they have seen cooks do terrible things to customers’ food. After one customer sent his steak back twice, a chef reported that “someone” (ahem) ran it through the dishwasher and then sent it back out to him.

Fifteen years ago, chef-turned-writer-turned-celebrity Anthony Bourdain revealed that he never orders fish on a Monday because it is usually several days old. “Several” of the chefs — there is no telling how many that is — agreed, saying they do not get fresh deliveries on Sundays.

Some of the 25 things chefs don’t tell you they don’t have to tell you because you have probably figured them out for yourself.

More than 75 percent, for instance, say they get ideas from other restaurant menus (as the publication puts it, “there’s a reason so many restaurants serve molten chocolate cake”).

You have also probably realized that waiters are told to try to sell you on certain dishes (95 percent of the chefs say they tell the wait staff to do that), and it certainly cannot be a surprise that restaurants typically charge 2 1/2 times what a bottle of wine would cost at a retail store.

Nearly 60 percent of the responding chefs say they would like to have their own cooking show — a bigger surprise is that more than 40 percent claim they don’t — and they hate working on New Year’s Eve more than any other holiday. Valentine’s Day is a close second, though 54 percent acknowledged they like it when couples get engaged in their restaurant.

Half of the chefs say they come into work when they’re sick — remember, they’re preparing food, or are at least around food when it is prepared — and many stay through their inevitable injuries. Nearly every surveyed chef said he has been injured in some way, with several missing fingers or parts of fingers.

For this dangerous and hard work — most of them work 60 to 80 hours a week, including holidays — 65 percent of them reported making less than $75,000 a year. When they go out to dinner, they typically leave about a 20 percent tip, unless they feel the service has been inadequate.

But what about when they go to a restaurant that has no tipping? What about fast food? Where do the chefs go most often when they want something fast and bad for them?

Survey says: Wendy’s.

©2015 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Choo Yut Shing via Flickr

 

Since Its Founding, The CIA Rarely Has Met A Secret It Doesn’t Like

Since Its Founding, The CIA Rarely Has Met A Secret It Doesn’t Like

By Michael Doyle and Marisa Taylor, McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The CIA’s current fight to keep secret the details of its terror suspect interrogations echoes its long history of keeping the public in the dark, sometimes for decades.

This latest skirmish pits the spy agency against the Senate Intelligence Committee, which wants to reveal more from its five-year, $40 million investigation. It’s a fight, like so many before, over what stays undercover and why.

Invariably, the CIA is ultra-cautious about releasing information. This might save lives and protect operations. The results, though, can also obstruct oversight, frustrate lawmakers, and anger judges. Sometimes, it can simply verge on the absurd.

“There is a belief inside the CIA that it does not have to release anything about anything it does,” said Kel McClanahan, a Washington lawyer who sues the CIA over its classification decisions. “They have been smacked down again and again in court, but they continue to think they’re exempt from the law.”

The CIA and others within the Obama administration now want to excise pseudonyms from the public version of the long-awaited interrogation report. Describing the blackouts as “significant,” the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, delayed release of the 480-page executive summary of the panel’s inquiry.

The CIA, meanwhile, will be detailing its own version of events in a rebuttal timed to come out with the committee’s report.

The battle over fake names is higher-stakes than it sounds. Such blackouts could water down the impact of a report that is expected to detail “un-American” abuses of detainees that many believe to be torture, said Michael J. Quigley, a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer who was part of the investigating team in 2009.

“The American people in general still think torture works, and this report is supposed to show it doesn’t,” said Quigley, who wouldn’t comment on the content of the still-unpublished report. “If this report loses its context and meaning, then the only narrative that is comprehensible and public is from the agency. The agency’s argument is that it does work, and that’s not valid.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest countered that “more than 85 percent of the report was un-redacted, and half of the redactions that occurred were actually just in the footnotes.”

“This is an indication that there was a good-faith effort that was made by the administration and by national security professionals to evaluate this information and to make redactions that are consistent with the need to protect national security, but also consistent with the president’s clearly stated desire to be as transparent as possible about this,” Earnest said.

An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Aug. 5 that “constructive dialogue” with the Senate committee was underway. James Clapper, director of national intelligence, added in a statement that “we are confident that the declassified document delivered to the committee will provide the public with a full view of the committee’s report on the detention and interrogation program.”

AFP Photo/Mark Wilson

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China Accuses U.S. Of ‘Hypocrisy’ As Hacking Row Escalates

China Accuses U.S. Of ‘Hypocrisy’ As Hacking Row Escalates

Beijing (AFP) – Beijing summoned the U.S. ambassador and accused Washington of double standards Tuesday as a diplomatic row escalated over the unprecedented indictment of five Chinese military officers for cyber-espionage.

The world’s top two economies have long been at loggerheads over hacking and China’s defense ministry denounced Washington’s allegations as “a pure fabrication by the U.S., a move to mislead the public based on ulterior motives.”

“From ‘WikiLeaks’ to the ‘Snowden’ case, U.S. hypocrisy and double standards regarding the issue of cyber-security have long been abundantly clear,” the ministry said in a statement on its website.

China also summoned U.S. ambassador Max Baucus to lodge a “solemn representation” over the indictment, suspended cooperation with the U.S. on cyber-security issues and banned the use of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system on all new government computers.

Beijing’s furious response came one day after the U.S. charged five members of a shadowy Chinese military unit with allegedly hacking U.S. companies for trade secrets.

In the first-ever prosecution of state actors over cyber-espionage, a federal grand jury indicted the five on charges they broke into U.S. computers to benefit Chinese state-owned companies, leading to job losses in the U.S. in the steel, solar and other industries.

Cyber-spying has long been a major sticking point in relations but Washington’s move marked a major escalation in the dispute.

Analysts said the U.S. was unlikely to be able to put the men on trial but the indictments were an attempt to apply public pressure on China over the issue.

U.S. prosecutors said the five officers belonged to Unit 61398 of the People’s Liberation Army.

A report last year by U.S. security firm Mandiant said the unit had thousands of workers operating from a nondescript, 12-story building on the outskirts of Shanghai to pilfer intellectual property and government secrets.

The grand jury indicted each of the five on 31 counts, which each carry up to 15 years in prison.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called on China to hand over the men for trial in Pittsburgh and said the United States would use “all the means that are available to us” should it refuse.

President Barack Obama’s administration “will not tolerate actions by any nation that seek to illegally sabotage American companies and undermine the integrity of fair competition”, Holder told reporters.

China’s foreign ministry rejected the U.S. indictment as “absurd” and suspended the activities of a bilateral cyber working group.

Its formation was announced last year by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, but analysts said there had been little progress on the issue and Washington had probably decided to change tack.

“I think the U.S., they probably realized they’re not going to get any cooperation from the Chinese, so they wanted to take things into their own hands,” Hoo Tiang Boon, a China expert at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told AFP.

The fact that the case was the first of its kind made Beijing’s reaction difficult to anticipate, he said.

But he noted: “The U.S. has been frustrated with the Chinese for quite some time, especially over cyber-security.”

“It really sends a message to the Chinese to say, ‘Look, we can actually identify the actual individuals.’

“It’s a pretty calibrated move, because it basically means that these five individuals, they can’t travel anywhere around the world to places where there are extradition treaties with the United States,” he added.

China itself regularly seeks to use legalistic routes to pursue its interests, as in its proclamation of a so-called “nine-dash line” to justify its territorial claims over much of the South China Sea.

James Brown, a military fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, said that by trying to move the cyber-espionage debate into the legal realm, the U.S. was taking a “taking a page out of China’s playbook.”

Beijing has in the past accused the U.S. of hypocrisy on cyber-spying and foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Tuesday: “It is the U.S. who has launched cyber-surveillance and wire-tapping against individuals, companies and institutions of many countries around the world. China is a victim of this.”

Leaks by former government contractor Edward Snowden have alleged widespread U.S. snooping in China including into telecom giant Huawei — which has itself been the object of security allegations.

Xinhua cited data from an official Chinese network centre as showing that from mid-March to mid-May, “a total of 2,077 Trojan horse networks or botnet servers in the US directly controlled 1.18 million host computers in China.”

Hoo said Beijing and Washington see cyber-espionage differently.

“I think all along the Obama administration has been trying to demonstrate that spying for national security purposes is fair game,” he told AFP. “But if you do it for commercial interests, that’s a different story altogether: that’s intellectual property theft.”

©afp.com / Saul Loeb