Wow, is it time for the Year in Review already? It seems like only a couple decades have passed since January 1, 2020 -- a year some experts are now saying lasted a full double dog year, 14 human years, or about three stake conferences in length.
Although TSCC's shenanigans were overshadowed this year by outrageously insane behavior from every corner, TSCC nevertheless made its own valuable contributions to the insanity pile -- the icing on the cake, if you will, or perhaps more accurately, the dry heave on top of the stomach-emptying vomit.
But now, as 2020 comes to a close, let us sit back, reflect on the past year, and wonder what the hell was everyone smoking? Yet somehow, despite everything getting turned upside down this year, 2020 still began with . . .
January
Foreshadowing the year to come, 2020 attacks right from the start and scorches Australia with massive wildfires. Also foreshadowing the year to come, TBMs offer to help by skipping a couple of meals and donating the value of those meals to the church, which then used the donated money to pay the cable bill for Brother Richards in your ward. The logic behind this series of transactions is still somehow one of the least confusing aspects of the year to come.
Despite the Book of Mormon literally saying the Lamanites were cursed with dark skin, TSCC claims it was an "error" in the Come Follow Me manual that described the Lamanites' dark skin as a curse. Clarifying the clarification, Pres. Newsroom stressed that it wasn't the dark skin that was the curse, the curse was having to still defend the racist passages in the Book of Mormon in 20 freaking 20.
Finally in January, controversy erupts at BYU over, of all things, ballroom dancing, when BYU announced it would prohibit same sex couples from competing in the US Nationals Amateur Dancesport Championships it was hosting, despite national organization guidelines which allowed same sex couples to compete. Several prominent dancers announced they would boycott the BYU-hosted competition, but BYU stuck to its principles despite this withering pressure from super-intimidating ballroom dancers. Ha ha! But seriously though -- BYU predictably caved and allowed same sex couples to dance in the competition. Pres. Newsroom later defended BYU's changing stance, claiming the university had not sold its values for a mess of pottage but had done so for the glory of ballroom dance, which was a different matter altogether.
February
Two years after Ballard emphatically declared that church leaders weren't hiding anything, church leaders admit in a Wall Street Journal article that they've been hiding 100 billion dollars out of fear members would stop paying tithing if they knew about it. Following the example of shining role model, Enron, TSCC used more than a dozen shell companies to hide their investment portfolio from members. Shocked by this brazen deception, TBMs vigorously protest by continuing to pay a full tithe, keeping their mouths shut, and pretending this is all fine.
In an unusual move, BYU deletes the section prohibiting homosexual behavior from its honor code, leaving the impression that comparable hetero behaviors such as dating and kissing would now be permitted for homosexual students, with BYU's own Honor Code office privately telling students homosexual couples would now be held to the same morality standards as unmarried heterosexual couples. After a photo of two female students kissing outside the honor code office goes viral, BYU spokesperson Carrie Jenkins backpedaled and claimed there had been a "miscommunication", but refuses to say what the school's policy is. After much confusion, the matter is finally cleared up when Mormon church president Nelson issues a statement demanding the media stop referring to him as "Mormon church president Nelson" and insists the media instead refer to him as "brilliantly gifted heart surgeon Nelson".
A man wielding a knife is shot and killed by police after caught trespassing inside the MTC in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Afterward, police claimed the man was clearly suffering from mental illness, noting that he willingly entered a location known to be crawling with Mormon missionaries.
March
In March, absolutely nothing happened, so we can move on to April -- unless you consider the beginning of the apocalypse, the end of the world as we know it, and the imminent return of Jesus to be worth mentioning.
But first, in March: in the midst of continued confusion over the BYU honor code change, Ballard offers hope to the LGBT community when he delivers a BYU devotional speech condemning marginalizing anyone based on sexual orientation, calling it "evil and horrifying". Gay BYU students barely have time to applaud Ballard's speech when, the very next day, BYU -- which aspires to the level of evil and horrifying -- marginalizes LGBT students by issuing a formal letter stating that no, they are still not allowed any form of romantic expression because such behaviors still violate the "principles", if not the actual language, of the honor code. Clarifying the matter further, BYU spokesperson Carrie Jenkins said LGBT students should have known all along the honor code changes were meant for the Big 12 Conference and not for them.
TSCC gets pummeled from all sides in March, with God hitting Salt Lake City with a 5.7 earthquake that breaks the angel Moroni statue on top of the temple, and Covid forcing TSCC to cancel church services, close its temples, recall missionaries from overseas missions, close the MTCs, and cancel all BYU sports, just as the basketball team looked to have its best showing in the NCAA tournament in years. Summing up the disastrous month, Pres. Newsroom said TSCC hasn't taken a beating that bad since the last BYU-Utah football game.
April
In a historic first, TSCC cancels the live audience for general conference. The precaution was necessary, Pres. Newsroom said, to prevent panicky Mormons from stealing all the toilet paper in the Conference Center.
Recalling that last October Nelson promised a conference unlike any other, TBMs feverishly share wild rumors in the run-up to April conference, ranging from Jesus Christ personally appearing at conference to the prophet solemnly ordering members to pack up and move to Missouri. Realizing the conference had been a deep disappointment compared to expectations, Nelson tried to spin the narrative by insisting the conference had achieved a historic first: for the first time ever, not a single live audience member had fallen asleep during a session.
In the midst of a global pandemic, economic collapse, apocalyptic rumors, and widespread unemployment, TSCC demonstrates how keenly they are in touch with members' needs when they . . . rollout a new church logo. Dubbed "Snow Globe Jesus", the new logo design barely won out over top contenders Bobblehead Jesus and 70s Playgirl Centerfold Jesus.
Having failed in their first fasting attempt to eradicate Coronavirus, Nelson announces a second, more powerful fast to be held on Good Friday, for an extra spiritual power-up. Cases in Utah -- which averaged 100 positive cases per day prior to the fast -- promptly doubled, then tripled, then increased 5x, then increased 10x, then increased 20x, then increased 30x . . . Alarmed at the exponential increase in cases, Utah lawmakers hurriedly pass legislation preventing Mormons from conducting a third fast.
May
TSCC -- long accused of being a money-seeking corporation masquerading as a religion --releases plans for the Tooele Utah temple, including a master planned community of high-priced homes surrounding the temple which will be developed, and profited by, TSCC. When asked about the comparison to Jesus driving the money changers at the temple, Pres. Newsroom happily cited the prepositional loophole of "at" vs. "around" to justify TSCC's money changing behavior. When informed that the same Hebrew preposition means "at, in, by, or near" in English and therefore the church is technically still in violation of Jesus's injunction, Pres. Newsroom claimed his religious freedom was under attack from linguistics.
In the midst of a global pandemic, economic collapse, apocalyptic rumors, and widespread unemployment, TSCC again demonstrates how keenly they are in touch with members' needs when they . . . proudly release updated standards for the artwork permitted in church foyers. Although Caucasian Jesus predictably won the coveted approval, Pres. Newsroom let it be known there was stiff competition from top contenders Catholic Sacred Heart Jesus and Fat Buddha.
In what many observers regarded as a somewhat controversial move, two BYU students, Jeff and Steve, are disciplined by the honor code office for failing to say "no homo" after engaging in a handshake that lingered a bit too long.
June
In the midst of a global pandemic, economic collapse, apocalyptic rumors, and widespread unemployment, TSCC again demonstrates how keenly they are in touch with members' needs when Rebrand Rusty makes a fashion update to that most recognizable symbol of Mormonism, the missionary in the white shirt. Although missionaries may now wear blue shirts, over-zealous elders quorum presidents everywhere want you to know you will still be looked down upon if you wear a blue shirt to quorum meeting.
Three months after Ballard condemned persecution of the LGBT community as "evil and horrifying", TSCC files an amicus brief in a Supreme Court case, arguing in favor of the right to fire LGBT employees simply for being LGBT and not for any job violation. When asked whether the church was now "evil and horrifying" or whether Ballard had been wrong in his devotional address, Pres. Newsroom wondered aloud how difficult it would be to find another job in this weak economy.
In the face (ha ha!) of rising anti-mask sentiment, a coalition of Utah religious leaders sign a joint statement urging Utahns to wear face masks. TSCC is represented in the coalition by a counselor in the Utah area presidency, who ranks on the Mormon authority meter somewhere around the assistant secretary of the Beehive class.
In a fiery online speech, Bednar complains about the loss of religious freedom during the pandemic, claiming that governments had forced TSCC to shut down. When pointed out to him that other churches adapted by conducting online services, and that Alma 32:10 specifically says that meeting in a church is not required, Bednar doubled-down on his complaint, insisting that his religious freedom to sit on the stand and be adored by the congregation each week had most definitely been infringed.
July
In an all-out attack on exmos, the July Ensign boldly claims that truth will never be found on exmormon sites. Exmos quickly compiled a list of truths hidden by TSCC that were revealed on exmo sites, such as the $100 billion Ensign Peak investment, general authority pay, the seer stone translation method, the LGBT policy of exclusion, the multiple versions of the first vision, and church tithing money being invested in City Creek. When confronted by this list, the Ensign published a follow-up article claiming its religious freedom to lie about its religion was under attack.
Looking to send a stronger signal on the mask mandate, the full Utah area presidency now issues an official statement to members, urging them to wear masks in public. This upgraded authoritative mandate now ranks on the Mormon power meter somewhere around a ward PEC meeting with half the attendees asleep.
Finally in July, Utah County Mormons make national news when, in the midst of the pandemic, they crowd into a packed Utah County Commission meeting, purposefully not wearing masks, to demand that area schools reopen without requiring students to wear masks, because -- given the size of their excessively large families -- the least the school district could do is help them trim the number back a bit.
August
In the midst of a global pandemic, economic collapse, apocalyptic rumors, and widespread unemployment, TSCC again demonstrates how keenly they are in touch with members' needs when Rebrand Rusty renames the church magazines. The Ensign will be rebranded as The Liahona and The New Era will now be called For the Strength of Youth, because "New Era" simply wasn't weird enough. TSCC also dropped the old fashioned term "garments", now calling its special underwear For The Strength of Your Loins.
Colleges across the country begin to reopen, but with modified sports schedules, leaving independent football school BYU scrambling to fill its schedule at the last minute. Announcing its modified schedule, BYU noted that the 200,000 U.S. Covid deaths, while tragic, were a small price to pay to guarantee that BYU would not lose to Utah in football again this year.
And August wraps up with the First Presidency issuing a letter forbidding bishops and stake presidents from testifying in court cases, because the last people TSCC wants on the stand are leaders who have pledged to be honest in all their dealings.
September
Always striving to use the full name of the church and emphasize the name of Jesus Christ, Rebrand Rusty renames LDS Business College to Ensign College, after the itself recently rebranded Ensign magazine, with neither rebranding using the full name of the church or of Jesus Christ. This series of name changes is still, somehow, one of the least confusing aspects of 2020.
With the Covid epidemic worsening by the day, TBMs plead with God in fervent prayer to please let them die of Covid before they have to eat the 40 year old buckets of wheat in the basement.
October
Feeling like 2020 hasn't kicked enough people while they are down, Christofferson attacks a vulnerable group in his general conference talk by insulting single women who choose to have their baby rather than have an abortion, calling their children "bitter fruit." When asked about his choice of words, Christofferson defended himself, saying that he couldn't very well call them "bastards" over the conference center pulpit, now could he?
Two years after gaslighting church youth about polygamy at a Face 2 Face broadcast in Nauvoo, Master Gaslighter Cook uses his general conference address to gaslight the entire church over slavery and Native American relations. Boldly claiming the church was always against slavery and had great relations with the Native Americans, Cook spun a beautiful but demonstrably false narrative. It was somewhat surprising then, when independent fact checkers awarded Cook's talk the exact same credibility level as the other conference addresses.
The Book of Mormon becomes the surprise publishing hit of the Fall, with copies flying off the shelves, after Mormon Senator Mike Lee compares serial adulterer, porn-star banging, own-daughter-lusting Donald Trump to Book of Mormon fictional character Captain Moroni. Publishing experts scrambled to proclaim the Book of Mormon the next big hit in the popular billionaire porn genre, adding that a powerful, shirtless military captain in the early Americas breathed new life into the somewhat tired genre. Negative reviews soon killed book sales, however, with reviewers slamming Captain Moroni as "even more vanilla than my parents", with one reviewer tartly noting that even if all the "coming to passes" were replaced with "coming with lasses", the book would still be boring beyond belief.
November
With a contested US election, rumors and accusations flying on all sides, and the Constitution hanging by a thread, Mormon Senator Mitt Romney fulfills the long-awaited "White Horse" prophecy by saving the Constitution and the election by acknowledging that Trump lost the election and there is no legal path to overturn it. TBMs rejoice in the prophecy's fulfillment and delight in their role at preserving the US Constitution in such a critical moment. Ha ha! No. TBMs start a petition calling for Romney's impeachment, continue to call for overthrowing the election result, and demand that God himself reissue the white horse prophecy, with the "right" side winning this time. For his part, God answered the prayers of the right-wing petitioners in exactly the same way he answered Joseph Smith's prayer in 1820.
With the Covid epidemic worsening by the day, Nelson addresses the full church and kind of, sort of hints that members should maybe follow medical advice and wear masks. TBMs, who only last March were waxing poetic about God calling a doctor -- a doctor! -- to be president of the church during a pandemic, promptly ignore Nelson's counsel and turn to the real experts: some anonymous guy on Youtube and Aunt Phyllis on Facebook.
In what many observers regarded as a somewhat controversial move, BYU roommates Emma and Madison are disciplined by the honor code office for sitting too close together on the couch while watching a romcom on Netflix.
December
December opens with the traditional First Presidency Christmas devotional, but with the unusual sight this year of the first presidency seated in a socially distant arrangement. Noting the seating change, Nelson likened the social distancing to the Savior himself, who -- as in all things -- had led by example by socially distancing himself from the church for 200 years now.
In a final effort stressing the importance of masks, Elder Renlund -- himself a Covid survivor -- releases a video unambiguously instructing members to wear masks, calling it a sign of Christlike love. TBMs, many of whom opposed mask-wearing, thoughtfully ponder this clear counsel from one of God's chosen mouthpieces and reflect how to bring their lives in harmony with . . . Ha ha! No. TBMs excoriate Renlund for being too political and grumble that if everyone wears a mask, they might have to start going back to church soon, and no one wants that.
Fairmormon -- already sufficiently embarrassing thanks to its own tortured apologetics -- sinks to a new level of shame by releasing clownish videos attacking the CES letter on a Youtube show called This Is The Show, or TITS for short. As if that weren't juvenile enough, show host Kwaku El, in a fit of bravado, threatens to kill John Dehlin -- which even stiff-necked exmos know violates at least one of the commandments. Fairmormon's behavior is so appalling that even Tapir Dan Peterson, former Fairmormon shill and staunch defender, distances himself from the group and resigns from its board. Fairmormon's antics -- disturbing as they are -- somehow still provide a comforting assurance that even in 2020, when everything is upside down, some things still remain the same: the best weapon against the church isn't the CES letter, it's a passionate Mormon believer with a microphone.
And now, fellow exmos, as 2020 -- finally! -- comes to a close, let us gather our families together in the fallout bunkers where we are hiding, and wish each other a better and brighter 2021. It can't get any worse, can it?
No, really -- can it?
Happy New Year, exmos.

H. Res. 160: Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution - Floor Vote

H. Res. 160

The Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution

IN THE HOUSE
6/29/2020 Speaker of the House Ninjjadragon (D-CH-2) authored and introduced the following piece of legislation.

A RESOLUTION

Be it enacted by the House of Representatives here assembled,

SECTION I. SHORT TITLE

(1) This legislation shall be known as the “Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution.”

SECTION II. HOUSE FINDINGS

(1) The House of Representatives here assembled does find that:

(a) on June 25th, 2020 there was a clear effort made by members of the House to disrupt the legislative process through the proposal of bad faith and dilatory amendments;
(b) in this show of discontent, there was a record number of over 1,500 statements entered into the record between proposed amendments, rulings of the Speaker, and votes cast by the membership;
(c) behavior such as this is detrimental to the normal order of the fundamental operations of the House of Representatives;
(d) clarification is necessary for some portions of the Rules of the House of Representatives to promote proper discourse; and
(e) American democracy is, by design, built in a manner that allows for the minority caucus to have a voice but not in such a manner whereby they can prevent the majority caucus from governing effectively.

SECTION III. REFERENCES

(1) The Rules, for the purposes of this piece of legislation, shall refer to H. Res. 158: The Rules of the 123rd House of Representatives.

SECTION IV. AMENDMENTS TO RULE XII

(1) Rule XII of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

Rule XII
Disorderly Amendments

No member shall submit an amendment which seeks to:

1.1. strike significant portions of a piece of legislation;

1.1.1. A significant portion shall be taken to refer to multiple sections of a piece of legislation or a singular section wherein the Speaker of the House believes is a major portion of the pice of legislation.
1.1.2. Multiple amendments proposed by the same member or members of the same caucus that seek to strike individual sections may be deemed paired by the Speaker of the House and considered a violation of Rule XII, section 1.1.

1.2. strike the enactment clause of a piece of legislation, amends the enactment date to be further than five years after the original enactment clause, or otherwise attempts to significantly delay the enactment of a piece of legislation beyond what could be considered fair or reasonable;
1.3. strike particular tenses, letters, or other grammatical functions to make the legislation incoherent;
1.4. add non-germane or otherwise absurd sections to a piece of legislation that would likely ensure its failure; OR
1.5. alter the language of a piece of legislation to be unduly severe or contrary to its original purpose.

The Speaker of the House, should they determine a member has submitted an amendment contrary to the regulations stipulated by Rule XII, section 1.1., shall have the right to unilaterally rule an amendment to be in bad and strike it out of order until the end of the amendment voting period.

The Minority Leader, should they disagree with the assessment of the Speaker of the House as it pertains to Rule XII, section 1.1., shall solely have the right to object to a ruling issued by the Speaker. In such a case, the Speaker of the House shall be required to cite specifically which portion of Rule XII, section 1.1. the amendment is in violation of.

3.1. Should the Speaker of the House state which portion of Rule XII, section 1.1. the amendment is in violation of in their initial ruling then the Minority Leader’s right to object shall be null.

The Speaker of the House shall have the right to unilateral rule an amendment dilatory and strike it out of order until the end of the amendment voting period.

4.1. For the Speaker of the House to deem an amendment dilatory, it must clearly be proposed with the sole intention of delaying the legislation process.

Members shall permit no more than 2 amendments for consideration on the House Floor and no more than 3 amendments for consideration whilst it is being considered in Committee.

It shall be the sole duty of the Speaker of the House to enforce the provisions of Rule XII once a piece of legislation reaches the House Floor.

While a piece of legislation is in Committee, Rule XII shall still stand with the only alterations being that all references to the Speaker of the House shall be swapped for Committee Chair and all references to the Minority Leader shall be swapped for Ranking Member.

SECTION V: CLARIFICATION OF RULE IV

(1) Rule IV, section 1 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

There shall be three types of committees, those being:

1.1. Standing Committees: Permanent committees of the House wherein the members address a particular set of policy issues and regularly meet to discuss and vote on relevant pieces of legislation as determined by the Speaker of the House.
1.2. Select Committees: Permanent committees of the House wherein the members focus on oversight of a particular group, meet as needed to discuss disputes and/or the need for investigations into a particular matter, and, as needed, meet to discuss and vote on pieces of legislation that pertain to the committee’s jurisdiction as determined by the Speaker of the House.
1.3. Conference Committees: A temporary joint committee of the House and Senate wherein the members address conflicting versions of the same piece of legislation passing both chambers and determine the final language of said piece of legislation.

SECTION VI: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VI

(1) Rule VI, section 5 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

Committee Chairs shall have comparable powers to the Speaker of the House as it pertains to the leadership of their committee and its regular scheduling.

5.1. This shall not be taken to mean that a Committee Chair may unilaterally move legislation into their committee, as per Rule VIII, section 7 that power falls to the Speaker of the House.

(2) Rule VI, section 6 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

In the event of temporary leave of absence of a particular Committee Chair, the Speaker of the House shall appoint a Chair Pro-Tempore for a period of no longer than 10 days.

6.1. A Committee Chair must notify the Speaker of the House in writing with no less than 24 hours notice if they intend to take a temporary leave of absence.

6.1.1. The Speaker of the House may wave this provision in the event of an emergency at their discretion.

SECTION VII: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VIII

(1) All the sections of Rule VIII are renumbered with the section previously labeled 5 becoming section 1., so on and so forth.
(2) Nothing the freshly renumbered sections of Rule VIII, the following is inserted after section 2.2.:

2.3. Any resolution sponsored by the Speaker of the House and the House Majority Leader which seeks to amend these Rules shall supersede the standard procedures of the House and be automatically rushed to a Floor Vote.

(3) Noting the freshly renumbered sections of Rule VIII, the following is inserted following section 9.:

A quorum, as used throughout these Rules, refers to 50% plus 1 of all members present and voting.

SECTION VIII: PLAIN ENGLISH EXPLANATIONS

(1) Section II presents the House of Representatives’ findings as it pertains to the Rules of the House.
(2) Section III provides that any references to the “Rules” refer to the Rules of the House of Representatives passed at the beginning of the 123rd Congress.
(3) Section IV amends the Rules to provide for a more clear process whereby amendments are deemed out of order by the Speaker of the House. Additionally, it expands the definition of bad faith amendments and clarifies the concept of dilatory amendments.
(4) Section V amends the Rules to explain the types of committees in the House of Representatives as previous Rules were silent on the matter.
(5) Section VI amends the Rules to clarify the powers of Committee Chairs and ensure that a proper Chair Pro-Tempore is selected as needed.
(6) Section VII amends the Rules to provide that amendments to the Rules are privileged, corrects misnumbers of that particular Rule, and defines a quorum.

SECTION IX. ADOPTION

(1) This resolution shall come into force immediately upon its adoption by the House of Representatives.
Voting on this piece of legislation shall be open for 48 hours unless specified otherwise by the relevant House leadership.

H.Res.160 - Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution -- Committee Amendments

H. Res. 160

The Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution

IN THE HOUSE
6/29/2020 Speaker of the House Ninjjadragon (D-CH-2) authored and introduced the following piece of legislation.

A RESOLUTION

Be it enacted by the House of Representatives here assembled,

SECTION I. SHORT TITLE

(1) This legislation shall be known as the “Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution.”

SECTION II. HOUSE FINDINGS

(1) The House of Representatives here assembled does find that:

(a) on June 25th, 2020 there was a clear effort made by members of the House to disrupt the legislative process through the proposal of bad faith and dilatory amendments;
(b) in this show of discontent, there was a record number of over 1,500 statements entered into the record between proposed amendments, rulings of the Speaker, and votes cast by the membership;
(c) behavior such as this is detrimental to the normal order of the fundamental operations of the House of Representatives;
(d) clarification is necessary for some portions of the Rules of the House of Representatives to promote proper discourse; and
(e) American democracy is, by design, built in a manner that allows for the minority caucus to have a voice but not in such a manner whereby they can prevent the majority caucus from governing effectively.

SECTION III. REFERENCES

(1) The Rules, for the purposes of this piece of legislation, shall refer to H. Res. 158: The Rules of the 123rd House of Representatives.

SECTION IV. AMENDMENTS TO RULE XII

(1) Rule XII of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

Rule XII
Disorderly Amendments

No member shall submit an amendment which seeks to:

1.1. strike significant portions of a piece of legislation;

1.1.1. A significant portion shall be taken to refer to multiple sections of a piece of legislation or a singular section wherein the Speaker of the House believes is a major portion of the pice of legislation.
1.1.2. Multiple amendments proposed by the same member or members of the same caucus that seek to strike individual sections may be deemed paired by the Speaker of the House and considered a violation of Rule XII, section 1.1.

1.2. strike the enactment clause of a piece of legislation, amends the enactment date to be further than five years after the original enactment clause, or otherwise attempts to significantly delay the enactment of a piece of legislation beyond what could be considered fair or reasonable;
1.3. strike particular tenses, letters, or other grammatical functions to make the legislation incoherent;
1.4. add non-germane or otherwise absurd sections to a piece of legislation that would likely ensure its failure; OR
1.5. alter the language of a piece of legislation to be unduly severe or contrary to its original purpose.

The Speaker of the House, should they determine a member has submitted an amendment contrary to the regulations stipulated by Rule XII, section 1.1., shall have the right to unilaterally rule an amendment to be in bad and strike it out of order until the end of the amendment voting period.

The Minority Leader, should they disagree with the assessment of the Speaker of the House as it pertains to Rule XII, section 1.1., shall solely have the right to object to a ruling issued by the Speaker. In such a case, the Speaker of the House shall be required to cite specifically which portion of Rule XII, section 1.1. the amendment is in violation of.

3.1. Should the Speaker of the House state which portion of Rule XII, section 1.1. the amendment is in violation of in their initial ruling then the Minority Leader’s right to object shall be null.

The Speaker of the House shall have the right to unilateral rule an amendment dilatory and strike it out of order until the end of the amendment voting period.

4.1. For the Speaker of the House to deem an amendment dilatory, it must clearly be proposed with the sole intention of delaying the legislation process.

Members shall permit no more than 2 amendments for consideration on the House Floor and no more than 3 amendments for consideration whilst it is being considered in Committee.

It shall be the sole duty of the Speaker of the House to enforce the provisions of Rule XII once a piece of legislation reaches the House Floor.

While a piece of legislation is in Committee, Rule XII shall still stand with the only alterations being that all references to the Speaker of the House shall be swapped for Committee Chair and all references to the Minority Leader shall be swapped for Ranking Member.

SECTION V: CLARIFICATION OF RULE IV

(1) Rule IV, section 1 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

There shall be three types of committees, those being:

1.1. Standing Committees: Permanent committees of the House wherein the members address a particular set of policy issues and regularly meet to discuss and vote on relevant pieces of legislation as determined by the Speaker of the House.
1.2. Select Committees: Permanent committees of the House wherein the members focus on oversight of a particular group, meet as needed to discuss disputes and/or the need for investigations into a particular matter, and, as needed, meet to discuss and vote on pieces of legislation that pertain to the committee’s jurisdiction as determined by the Speaker of the House.
1.3. Conference Committees: A temporary joint committee of the House and Senate wherein the members address conflicting versions of the same piece of legislation passing both chambers and determine the final language of said piece of legislation.

SECTION VI: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VI

(1) Rule VI, section 5 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

Committee Chairs shall have comparable powers to the Speaker of the House as it pertains to the leadership of their committee and its regular scheduling.

5.1. This shall not be taken to mean that a Committee Chair may unilaterally move legislation into their committee, as per Rule VIII, section 7 that power falls to the Speaker of the House.

(2) Rule VI, section 6 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

In the event of temporary leave of absence of a particular Committee Chair, the Speaker of the House shall appoint a Chair Pro-Tempore for a period of no longer than 10 days.

6.1. A Committee Chair must notify the Speaker of the House in writing with no less than 24 hours notice if they intend to take a temporary leave of absence.

6.1.1. The Speaker of the House may wave this provision in the event of an emergency at their discretion.

SECTION VII: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VIII

2.3. Any resolution sponsored by the Speaker of the House and the House Majority Leader which seeks to amend these Rules shall supersede the standard procedures of the House and be automatically rushed to a Floor Vote.

(3) Noting the freshly renumbered sections of Rule VIII, the following is inserted following section 9.:

A quorum, as used throughout these Rules, refers to 50% plus 1 of all members present and voting.

SECTION VIII: PLAIN ENGLISH EXPLANATIONS

SECTION IX. ADOPTION

(1) This resolution shall come into force immediately upon its adoption by the House of Representatives.

H. Res. 160: The Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution

H. Res. 160

The Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution

IN THE HOUSE
6/29/2020 Speaker of the House Ninjjadragon (D-CH-2) authored and introduced the following piece of legislation.

A RESOLUTION

Be it enacted by the House of Representatives here assembled,

SECTION I. SHORT TITLE

(1) This legislation shall be known as the “Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution.”

SECTION II. HOUSE FINDINGS

(1) The House of Representatives here assembled does find that:

(a) on June 25th, 2020 there was a clear effort made by members of the House to disrupt the legislative process through the proposal of bad faith and dilatory amendments;
(b) in this show of discontent, there was a record number of over 1,500 statements entered into the record between proposed amendments, rulings of the Speaker, and votes cast by the membership;
(c) behavior such as this is detrimental to the normal order of the fundamental operations of the House of Representatives;
(d) clarification is necessary for some portions of the Rules of the House of Representatives to promote proper discourse; and
(e) American democracy is, by design, built in a manner that allows for the minority caucus to have a voice but not in such a manner whereby they can prevent the majority caucus from governing effectively.

SECTION III. REFERENCES

(1) The Rules, for the purposes of this piece of legislation, shall refer to H. Res. 158: The Rules of the 123rd House of Representatives.

SECTION IV. AMENDMENTS TO RULE XII

(1) Rule XII of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

Rule XII
Disorderly Amendments

No member shall submit an amendment which seeks to:

1.1. strike significant portions of a piece of legislation;

1.1.1. A significant portion shall be taken to refer to multiple sections of a piece of legislation or a singular section wherein the Speaker of the House believes is a major portion of the pice of legislation.
1.1.2. Multiple amendments proposed by the same member or members of the same caucus that seek to strike individual sections may be deemed paired by the Speaker of the House and considered a violation of Rule XII, section 1.1.

1.2. strike the enactment clause of a piece of legislation, amends the enactment date to be further than five years after the original enactment clause, or otherwise attempts to significantly delay the enactment of a piece of legislation beyond what could be considered fair or reasonable;
1.3. strike particular tenses, letters, or other grammatical functions to make the legislation incoherent;
1.4. add non-germane or otherwise absurd sections to a piece of legislation that would likely ensure its failure; OR
1.5. alter the language of a piece of legislation to be unduly severe or contrary to its original purpose.

The Speaker of the House, should they determine a member has submitted an amendment contrary to the regulations stipulated by Rule XII, section 1.1., shall have the right to unilaterally rule an amendment to be in bad and strike it out of order until the end of the amendment voting period.

The Minority Leader, should they disagree with the assessment of the Speaker of the House as it pertains to Rule XII, section 1.1., shall solely have the right to object to a ruling issued by the Speaker. In such a case, the Speaker of the House shall be required to cite specifically which portion of Rule XII, section 1.1. the amendment is in violation of.

3.1. Should the Speaker of the House state which portion of Rule XII, section 1.1. the amendment is in violation of in their initial ruling then the Minority Leader’s right to object shall be null.

The Speaker of the House shall have the right to unilateral rule an amendment dilatory and strike it out of order until the end of the amendment voting period.

4.1. For the Speaker of the House to deem an amendment dilatory, it must clearly be proposed with the sole intention of delaying the legislation process.

Members shall permit no more than 2 amendments for consideration on the House Floor and no more than 3 amendments for consideration whilst it is being considered in Committee.

It shall be the sole duty of the Speaker of the House to enforce the provisions of Rule XII once a piece of legislation reaches the House Floor.

While a piece of legislation is in Committee, Rule XII shall still stand with the only alterations being that all references to the Speaker of the House shall be swapped for Committee Chair and all references to the Minority Leader shall be swapped for Ranking Member.

SECTION V: CLARIFICATION OF RULE IV

(1) Rule IV, section 1 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

There shall be three types of committees, those being:

1.1. Standing Committees: Permanent committees of the House wherein the members address a particular set of policy issues and regularly meet to discuss and vote on relevant pieces of legislation as determined by the Speaker of the House.
1.2. Select Committees: Permanent committees of the House wherein the members focus on oversight of a particular group, meet as needed to discuss disputes and/or the need for investigations into a particular matter, and, as needed, meet to discuss and vote on pieces of legislation that pertain to the committee’s jurisdiction as determined by the Speaker of the House.
1.3. Conference Committees: A temporary joint committee of the House and Senate wherein the members address conflicting versions of the same piece of legislation passing both chambers and determine the final language of said piece of legislation.

SECTION VI: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VI

(1) Rule VI, section 5 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

Committee Chairs shall have comparable powers to the Speaker of the House as it pertains to the leadership of their committee and its regular scheduling.

5.1. This shall not be taken to mean that a Committee Chair may unilaterally move legislation into their committee, as per Rule VIII, section 7 that power falls to the Speaker of the House.

(2) Rule VI, section 6 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

In the event of temporary leave of absence of a particular Committee Chair, the Speaker of the House shall appoint a Chair Pro-Tempore for a period of no longer than 10 days.

6.1. A Committee Chair must notify the Speaker of the House in writing with no less than 24 hours notice if they intend to take a temporary leave of absence.

6.1.1. The Speaker of the House may wave this provision in the event of an emergency at their discretion.

SECTION VII: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VIII

2.3. Any resolution sponsored by the Speaker of the House and the House Majority Leader which seeks to amend these Rules shall supersede the standard procedures of the House and be automatically rushed to a Floor Vote.

(3) Noting the freshly renumbered sections of Rule VIII, the following is inserted following section 9.:

A quorum, as used throughout these Rules, refers to 50% plus 1 of all members present and voting.

SECTION VIII: PLAIN ENGLISH EXPLANATIONS

SECTION IX. ADOPTION

(1) This resolution shall come into force immediately upon its adoption by the House of Representatives.

H.Res.160 - Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution - COMMITTEE VOTE

H. Res. 160

The Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution

IN THE HOUSE
6/29/2020 Speaker of the House Ninjjadragon (D-CH-2) authored and introduced the following piece of legislation.

A RESOLUTION

Be it enacted by the House of Representatives here assembled,

SECTION I. SHORT TITLE

(1) This legislation shall be known as the “Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution.”

SECTION II. HOUSE FINDINGS

(1) The House of Representatives here assembled does find that:

(a) on June 25th, 2020 there was a clear effort made by members of the House to disrupt the legislative process through the proposal of bad faith and dilatory amendments;
(b) in this show of discontent, there was a record number of over 1,500 statements entered into the record between proposed amendments, rulings of the Speaker, and votes cast by the membership;
(c) behavior such as this is detrimental to the normal order of the fundamental operations of the House of Representatives;
(d) clarification is necessary for some portions of the Rules of the House of Representatives to promote proper discourse; and
(e) American democracy is, by design, built in a manner that allows for the minority caucus to have a voice but not in such a manner whereby they can prevent the majority caucus from governing effectively.

SECTION III. REFERENCES

(1) The Rules, for the purposes of this piece of legislation, shall refer to H. Res. 158: The Rules of the 123rd House of Representatives.

SECTION IV. AMENDMENTS TO RULE XII

(1) Rule XII of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

Rule XII
Disorderly Amendments

No member shall submit an amendment which seeks to:

1.1. strike significant portions of a piece of legislation;

1.1.1. A significant portion shall be taken to refer to multiple sections of a piece of legislation or a singular section wherein the Speaker of the House believes is a major portion of the pice of legislation.
1.1.2. Multiple amendments proposed by the same member or members of the same caucus that seek to strike individual sections may be deemed paired by the Speaker of the House and considered a violation of Rule XII, section 1.1.

1.2. strike the enactment clause of a piece of legislation, amends the enactment date to be further than five years after the original enactment clause, or otherwise attempts to significantly delay the enactment of a piece of legislation beyond what could be considered fair or reasonable;
1.3. strike particular tenses, letters, or other grammatical functions to make the legislation incoherent;
1.4. add non-germane or otherwise absurd sections to a piece of legislation that would likely ensure its failure; OR
1.5. alter the language of a piece of legislation to be unduly severe or contrary to its original purpose.

The Speaker of the House, should they determine a member has submitted an amendment contrary to the regulations stipulated by Rule XII, section 1.1., shall have the right to unilaterally rule an amendment to be in bad and strike it out of order until the end of the amendment voting period.

The Minority Leader, should they disagree with the assessment of the Speaker of the House as it pertains to Rule XII, section 1.1., shall solely have the right to object to a ruling issued by the Speaker. In such a case, the Speaker of the House shall be required to cite specifically which portion of Rule XII, section 1.1. the amendment is in violation of.

3.1. Should the Speaker of the House state which portion of Rule XII, section 1.1. the amendment is in violation of in their initial ruling then the Minority Leader’s right to object shall be null.

The Speaker of the House shall have the right to unilateral rule an amendment dilatory and strike it out of order until the end of the amendment voting period.

4.1. For the Speaker of the House to deem an amendment dilatory, it must clearly be proposed with the sole intention of delaying the legislation process.

Members shall permit no more than 2 amendments for consideration on the House Floor and no more than 3 amendments for consideration whilst it is being considered in Committee.

It shall be the sole duty of the Speaker of the House to enforce the provisions of Rule XII once a piece of legislation reaches the House Floor.

While a piece of legislation is in Committee, Rule XII shall still stand with the only alterations being that all references to the Speaker of the House shall be swapped for Committee Chair and all references to the Minority Leader shall be swapped for Ranking Member.

SECTION V: CLARIFICATION OF RULE IV

(1) Rule IV, section 1 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

There shall be three types of committees, those being:

1.1. Standing Committees: Permanent committees of the House wherein the members address a particular set of policy issues and regularly meet to discuss and vote on relevant pieces of legislation as determined by the Speaker of the House.
1.2. Select Committees: Permanent committees of the House wherein the members focus on oversight of a particular group, meet as needed to discuss disputes and/or the need for investigations into a particular matter, and, as needed, meet to discuss and vote on pieces of legislation that pertain to the committee’s jurisdiction as determined by the Speaker of the House.
1.3. Conference Committees: A temporary joint committee of the House and Senate wherein the members address conflicting versions of the same piece of legislation passing both chambers and determine the final language of said piece of legislation.

SECTION VI: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VI

(1) Rule VI, section 5 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

Committee Chairs shall have comparable powers to the Speaker of the House as it pertains to the leadership of their committee and its regular scheduling.

5.1. This shall not be taken to mean that a Committee Chair may unilaterally move legislation into their committee, as per Rule VIII, section 7 that power falls to the Speaker of the House.

(2) Rule VI, section 6 of the Rules is struck in its entirety and replaced with the following:

In the event of temporary leave of absence of a particular Committee Chair, the Speaker of the House shall appoint a Chair Pro-Tempore for a period of no longer than 10 days.

6.1. A Committee Chair must notify the Speaker of the House in writing with no less than 24 hours notice if they intend to take a temporary leave of absence.

6.1.1. The Speaker of the House may wave this provision in the event of an emergency at their discretion.

SECTION VII: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VIII

2.3. Any resolution sponsored by the Speaker of the House and the House Majority Leader which seeks to amend these Rules shall supersede the standard procedures of the House and be automatically rushed to a Floor Vote.

(3) Noting the freshly renumbered sections of Rule VIII, the following is inserted following section 9.:

A quorum, as used throughout these Rules, refers to 50% plus 1 of all members present and voting.

SECTION VIII: PLAIN ENGLISH EXPLANATIONS

SECTION IX. ADOPTION

(1) This resolution shall come into force immediately upon its adoption by the House of Representatives.

European federal constitution building: (Pt 3) Thoughts concerning parliamentary supremacy/sovereignty

In this instalment of the current series on authoring a federal European constitution, I am going to deal with the controversial question how far a written constitution should bind the sovereign, and whether the state as an instrument of the sovereign should be indefinitely bound at all. I contrast parliamentary sovereignty with popular sovereignty. Ideally, this part should be read in conjunction with the following part that will deal with questions of judicial review that are inextricably linked to questions of sovereignty.
Parts to this series
Pt 0: Subsidiarity, decentralisation, and the importance of municipal autonomy
Pt 1: Revisions regarding the government of a federal EU
Pt 2: Of the administrative and the electoral branches
Pt 3: Thoughts concerning parliamentary supremacy/sovereignty
Pt 4: Judicial pre-view rather than re-view?
Pt 5: State of emergency: ideas regarding emergency powers
Pt 6: The presidential veto‘s significance
This article contrasts our current understanding of democracy with how democracy was more classically understood, and whether there are areas where the demos should proceed to reclaim its power from putative “elites”. As I became a member of DiEM25 only a short while ago, this question has sparked some interest with me because, while DiEM25 is a federalist movement, there is some talk going on about including in the eventual constitution a “sovereign parliament”. As we shall see, federalism and parliamentary sovereignty are contradictory.
Natural law against positive law
The controversy of natural law against positive law has been going on since the Enlightenment. Understanding this controversy is central to understanding why “rigid constitutionalism” (the presence of entrenched constitutional law) has become more widespread within Europe rather than its opposite, parliamentary sovereignty.
Proponents of natural law posit that law comes from sources higher than humans because law is (or ought to be) based on morals and morals come from higher sources. Such higher sources of law may be deities, holy scripture, other kinds of revelation, or “values”, among others. The problem with natural law is that what is considered natural law is contingent upon what the observer considers “natural”. In other words, the conflict over natural law circles around the question how “natural” it really is.
Positive law, on the other hand, is law that is made by humans:

In its strictest sense, positive law is law that is made by humans. Specifically, Black’s Law Dictionary defines positive law as “Law actually and specifically enacted or adopted by proper authority for the government of an organized jural society.” In a more complex sense, the term positive law refers to a legal philosophy of positivism.

Positive law proponents have a different view of the relation between morality and law. I am partial towards Austrian lawyer Hans Kelsen’s pure theory of law. Next to having been the Austrian constitution’s principal author, he is regarded as the 20th century’s most prominent exponent of legal positivism. In his pure theory of law, Kelsen attempts to strip law of all metaphysical baggage:

The main challenge for a theory of law, as Kelsen saw it, is to provide an explanation of legality and the normativity of law, without an attempt to reduce jurisprudence, or “legal science”, to other domains. The law, Kelsen maintained, is basically a scheme of interpretation. Its reality, or objectivity, resides in the sphere of meaning; we attach a legal-normative meaning to certain actions and events in the world (PT1, 10). …
… But then, of course, the question is why certain acts or events have such a legal meaning and others don’t? Kelsen’s answer to this question is surprisingly simple: an act or an event gains its legal-normative meaning by another legal norm that confers this normative meaning on it. An act can create or modify the law if it is created in accordance with another, “higher” legal norm that authorizes its creation in that way. And the “higher” legal norm, in turn, is legally valid if and only if it has been created in accord with yet another, “higher” norm that authorizes its enactment in that way. The problem that obviously arises here is the “infinite regress”. That is, the chain of presupposed higher laws goes on without end. While this is often considered a problem mainly for positive law, I do not see how this is much different from proponents of natural law positing that there is some sort of higher source of law. In either case, the existence of such a higher source can only be assumed. Kelsen approached this issue pragmatically by presupposing the existence of a “basic norm”:
At this point, Kelsen famously argued, one must presuppose the legal validity of the Constitution. At some stage, in every legal system, we get to an authorizing norm that has not been authorized by any other legal norm, and thus it has to be presupposed to be legally valid. The normative content of this presupposition is what Kelsen has called the basic norm. The basic norm is the content of the presupposition of the legal validity of the (first, historical) constitution of the relevant legal system (GT, 110–111).
As Kelsen saw it, there is simply no alternative. More precisely, any alternative would violate David Hume’s injunction against deriving an “ought” from an “is”. Hume famously argued that any practical argument that concludes with some prescriptive statement, a statement of the kind that one ought to do this or that, would have to contain at least one prescriptive statement in its premises. If all the premises of an argument are descriptive, telling us what this or that is the case, then there is no prescriptive conclusion that can logically follow. Kelsen took this argument very seriously. He observed that the actions and events that constitute, say, the enactment of a law, are all within the sphere of what “is” the case, they are all within the sphere of actions and events that take place in the world. The law, or legal norms, are within the sphere of “ought”, they are norms that purport to guide conduct. Thus, to get an “ought” type of conclusion from a set of “is” premises, one must point to some “ought” premise in the background, an “ought” that confers the normative meaning on the relevant type of “is”. Since the actual, legal, chain of validity comes to an end, we inevitably reach a point where the “ought” has to be presupposed, and this is the presupposition of the basic norm.

To my mind, Kelsen’s has found a more elegant solution to the problem of the origin of law than natural law proponents, at least as long as we primarily consider their pragmatism. Proponents of rigid constitutionalism frequently have a higher view of natural law than of positive law, at least to the extent that they assume that basic human rights ought to be afforded special protection by the constitution, lest they cannot be abolished by majority decision. This begs the question where such basic human rights originate from if they are deemed so paramount that they may not be abolished? If we entertain Kelsen’s idea of the basic norm, it is, to my mind, a moot point that the basic norm cannot be there without any meaning other than a legal fiction. The basic norm needs to be “filled” with values over which the demos has come to an understanding about what is worthy of protection. This is practically similar to natural law but not theoretically as the laws may only partially originate from higher sources. During deliberation, values derived from higher sources may be incorporated into law together with values derived from secular sources. The separation of law (the ‘is’) and morality (the ‘ought’) is maintained, albeit the line between the two becomes somewhat fuzzy.
As Austrian lawyer Peter Pernthaler lays out:

Nicht in diesen Formeln, sondern in der damit vorausgesetzten Begrenzung der Volkssouveränität durch Menschenrechte, Verantwortlichkeit der Staatsgewalt und andere überpositive Rechtsgrundsätze, die auch die demokratische Verfassungsgebung beschränken, liegt die Bedeutung des Transzendenzbezugs der modernen Staatsverfassung: Nach den Erfahrungen plebiszitär verbrämter totalitärer Staatsgewalt in Diktaturen und autoritären Regimen ist die Grundvorstellung des Verfassungsstaates, dass auch die verfassungsgebende Gewalt des Volkes keine schrankenlose Gewalt des Staats über Menschen begründet, ein besonders wichtiges Element der Freiheitlichkeit dieser Ordnung.
It is not in these formulas, but in the limitation of popular sovereignty by human rights, responsibility of the state authority and other over-positive legal principles, which also limit democratic constitutionalism, that the significance of the transcendence reference of the modern state constitution lies: After the experience of totalitarian state power dressed up in plebiscitary fashion in dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, the basic idea of the constitutional state, that the constitutional power of the people does not establish an unlimited power of the state over people, is a particularly important element of the freedom of this order.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
In contrast, Hans Kelsen:

Die Frage, die auf das Naturrecht zielt, ist die ewige Frage, was hinter dem positiven Recht steckt. Und wer die Antwort sucht, der findet, fürchte ich, nicht die absolute Wahrheit einer Metaphysik noch die absolute Gerechtigkeit eines Naturrechts. Wer den Schleier hebt und sein Auge nicht schliesst, dem starrt das Gorgonenhaupt der Macht entgegen.
The question that aims at natural law is the eternal question of what is behind positive law. And he who seeks the answer will find, I fear, neither the absolute truth of a metaphysics nor the absolute justice of a natural law. He who lifts the veil and does not close his eye, the Gorgon head of power stares at him.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
At the end of the day, we must ask ourselves: what do we value more – the power of the demos to make or unmake any law (strict legal positivism), or the supremacy of god-given rights by which all other law is bound (strict natural law)? Two of the most well-known federal constitutions in the world – the US Constitution and the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany – both take strict natural law approaches. They extensively protect basic rights and this protection is upheld through judicial review by powerful supreme courts.
What is parliamentary sovereignty?
As A. V. Dicey put it for the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty#History) – a country without a definitively codified constitution – in 1885,

Parliament means, in the mouth of a lawyer (though the word has often a different sense in conversation) the King, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons: these three bodies acting together may be aptly described as the "King in Parliament", and constitute Parliament. The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely that Parliament thus defined has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever: and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.

This means that Parliament can make and unmake any law it wants. It cannot, by definition, bind itself indefinitely to a law higher than itself. In other words, it cannot entrench laws. R. Elliot, in his essay Rethinking Manner and Form: From ParliamentarySovereignty to Constitutional Values published at York University in Canada, points out how this presents a contradiction, funnily rendering Parliament un-sovereign, with a quote by Professor Hamish Gray (PDF page 3):

[I]f Parliament is sovereign, there is nothing it cannot do by legislation; if there is nothing Parliament cannot do by legislation, it may bind itself hard and fast by legislation; if Parliament so binds itself by legislation there are things it cannot do by legislation; and if there are such things Parliament is not sovereign.

This is a problem that applies not just to parliamentary sovereignty but to sovereignty in general and cannot be reasonably solved. I, on the other hand, think that there could be a way in which not a solution but at the very least a reasonable reconciliation might be found. However, that way is not found within British constitutionalism but within continental European constitutionalism. More specifically, we have to differentiate between British-style parliamentary sovereignty and continental-style popular sovereignty.
Parliamentary sovereignty and codified constitutions
There are currently six countries in the northern part of Europe where the principle of parliamentary sovereignty still applies, despite all of these countries having codified constitutions as opposed to the UK with its non-codified one. These countries are the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. This is in contrast to continental Europe, in general, where it is not parliamentary sovereignty that applies but popular sovereignty.
The Dutch constitution – published in 1815, it is the oldest constitution still in existence within the EU – explicitly forbids the courts from practising judicial review. In the other mentioned countries, the courts overturning laws is likewise seen as a no-go and there have been instances where courts declaring laws to be in contravention of higher law caused some resentment.
Within the environment of a codified constitution, parliamentary sovereignty means that the constitution establishes the organs of state but that it is, really, positive law-making that does all the rest. Parts of the constitution that concern themselves with things that are meant to protect the citizenry against state overreach – such as basic rights – under parliamentary sovereignty, necessarily have to be understood as mere statements of intent to which the legislature binds itself voluntarily. One such case was Germany’s constitution from 1919 to 1933 that included a section on basic rights that were mere statements of intent. The Weimar Constitution also included a part concerned with amending it but it was accepted practice that requirements named therein could be circumvented by passing an ordinary law by a constitutional majority of two thirds. A law passed in this manner was not literally considered to be in breach of the constitution but merely adding to it, despite the original provision remaining in place. According to the principle “lex posterior derogat legi priori” (new law derogates old law), the new added quasi-constitutional law overwrote the constitution itself. A similar approach is practised to this day in Austria, where Hans Kelsen’s constitution allows parliament to pass laws in breach of it as long as such laws are designated constitutional by the legislature with two thirds supermajority (with the exception of the basic constitutional principles that require referenda to be amended)#Entrenchment). This is a very radical application of both positivism and majoritarianism, to the point that not even basic rights are protected if there is a majority to override them. In both countries, this led to the establishment of dictatorships: the Nazi regime in Germany and the Austro-fascist regime in Austria were well-aware that the veneer of legality was of great use to legitimising their rule.
Parliamentary sovereignty and federalism
There is currently no country known to me that features both parliamentary sovereignty and federalism. This should not be surprising, for federalism relies on a rigid constitution to delineate the competencies within the remit of the constituent states and those competencies within the remit of the federation. Albeit there are two well-known federations that developed under the supremacy of the British Parliament – Australia and Canada – commencing with the patriation of either country’s constitution in the 1980s and the removal of the last vestiges of British colonial rule, parliamentary decision-making has definitively come under the courts’ review there.
In federations where (federal) parliament is de facto supreme (Austria and Weimar Germany), this led to lasting undermining of, mostly legislative, competencies by the federation. Austria today is in practice more a unitary state than a federation, and Weimar Germany was on a similar trajectory. Indeed, unitarisation was equated with democratisation during the Weimar Republic era because federalism was inextricably associated with the authoritarian, monarchical predecessor state that was the German Empire. In the Imperial German Constitution, federalism was instituted as a means to satisfy traditional ruling elites – the state monarchies and their bureaucracies – while at the same time uniting the country under a common ruler, a behemoth by the name of Prussia. Hence, the executive was mostly left to the states whereas the legislative branch was transferred to the federation. The continuing existence of Prussia was viewed as unsatisfying by the authors of the Weimar Constitution, due to its enormous size covering more than two thirds of Germany that inevitably put it in a competing position to the federal government. In Austria, federalism was likewise a means of ensuring the continued influence of traditional ruling elites. Under the Habsburgs, German-speaking Austria was divided into “crownlands” with devolved competencies. The conservatives and reactionaries wanted to massively extend their powers and make them autonomous within Austria, whereas the progressive social democrats sought to unitarise Austria. As a compromise, the crownlands were reconstituted as states of a federal republic but without increased competencies. The few residual competencies left with the states were further eroded in the second half of the 20th century by use of federal parliament’s effective supremacy.
What I want to illustrate with the above paragraph is that intent matters. If it is our intent to preserve far-reaching state level political, financial, and cultural autonomy for the foreseeable future in the Union, we need to institute a system that precludes sweeping transfers of competencies from the state to the Union level. I remain convinced that we will not achieve this while adhering to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, not least because in federations sovereignty is supposed to be shared between the levels of government.
Kompetenz-Kompetenz
“Kompetenz-Kompetenz” is a term originating within German constitutionalism. Constitutional lawyers in Germany use this term to point out which level within a system of multilevel governance has the competency to decide over the delineation of competencies. It has since found its way into EU terminology, although in the EU the states remain “Masters of the Treaties”. In Germany and Austria, “Kompetenz-Kompetenz” rests with the respective federation.
What is important to keep in mind here is that awarding the federal level with Kompetenz-Kompetenz may be a recipe for the kind of sweeping unitarisation and centralisation that I warn against in the paragraph above. It is also unclear why, in a system that is constructed towards separating state and federal level political parties from each other, the party system at the centre of the federation should decide over which level may do this or that. At the very least, both state and federal level should be involved in enumerating each other’s powers. In Germany, the state level may be legally involved through a required two-thirds majority in the upper house, the Federal Council, but the Council is firmly in the hands of a centralised party system. This comes in addition to the fact that, thanks to being in the hands of the party system, it is the executive that initiates constitutional amendment procedures and not the people.
When we look at federations such as Australia, Canada, Switzerland, or the United States, it becomes clear that in these countries amendments to the constitutions need the approval not only of the federal level but also of the state level. In Australia, amendments need to pass both the Commonwealth Parliament and a referendum with a majority of all voters overall and in each state separately. In Canada, amendments to certain entrenched provisions need the approval of the federal parliament and a supermajority of provincial legislatures. In Switzerland, not only the Federal Assembly needs to approve constitutional amendments but so does a majority of validly cast votes across the country and in a majority of cantons. In the United States, constitutional amendments need to be approved both by Congress and by three quarters of state legislatures; alternatively a Convention can be summoned. But, as in Germany and in Austria, with the exception of Switzerland, in these countries constitutional amendments are initiated by politicians, not the people as a whole.
It is clear that a European federal constitution needs to provide for the inclusion of both the people as a whole and the states in constitutional amendments.
The Swiss example, to my mind, is of great importance here. The Swiss Federal Court does not possess powers of judicial review as far as federal legislation is concerned. As such, the Federal Assembly was de facto sovereign until the introduction of the popular initiative. A popular initiative meant to allow the demos to directly introduce proposals of law to the Assembly in Switzerland may only concern itself with amending the constitution. Another direct democratic instrument at the disposal of the Swiss is the optional referendum by which voters may vote to stop a law passed by the Assembly before it comes into force. These two instruments allow Switzerland to have both effective popular sovereignty and a rigid (within limits) constitution. Parliamentary sovereignty transformed into popular sovereignty, so to say. I shall explain how this arrangement could be transported into a European federal context in the next paragraph.
Entrenchment and the constitutional meaning of eternity clauses
One very popular way in which constitutions have been entrenched since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 has been the inclusion of so-called “eternity clauses” in the document. An eternity clause is a provision that bars the legislature – the pouvoir constitué – from amending certain sections of the constitution. The most prominent example of the inclusion of eternity clauses is the German Basic Law. Article 79 of the Basic Law protects, among others, the existence of the federation, its subdivision into states, the welfare state, democracy, rule of law, the separation of powers, and the basic rights – among which are human dignity and the abolishment of the death penalty. I remain very much in favour of keeping it that way in Germany, for we have done very well thanks to it. However, I do understand that Europe is not Germany and that what is considered politically acceptable here is not necessarily politically acceptable in Denmark, for example, where constitutionally baring parliament from making certain decisions is frowned upon as undemocratic.
Before I continue, I need to introduce further terminology. Specifically, this paragraph is going to deal with the distinction between the pouvoir constituant and the pouvoir constitué. These two terms designate the position of popular sovereignty before and after a constitution is put in place. The pouvoir constituant denotes the constitution-“giving” power, and may be split up into the pouvoir constituant originaire (that originally put the constitution in place) and the pouvoir constituant derivé (that revises the constitution in whole or in part). On the other hand, the pouvoir constitué means the power of the established state, deriving its powers from the aforementioned pouvoir constituant, as it exists within its institutions. I prefer to call the former “demos”, so as to make clear that the latter is built upon the former. The demos is where all sovereignty emanates from.
Up to now, I only spoke of parliamentary sovereignty in exactly these two terms - “parliament” and “sovereignty”. However, the sovereignty of parliament is sometimes referred to as parliamentary supremacy. I think at this point it makes sense to go one step further and separate the two into (popular) sovereignty, as described above, on the one hand, and explicit supremacy on the other.
In this sense, sovereignty rests exclusively with the demos. It is the demos and only the demos that may author constitutions; it, by definition, cannot bind itself indefinitely, however contradictory this may in fact be. It is the master of all laws within the borders of the state and has the last word over all decisions. According to Martin Heckel:

Die verfassunggebende Gewalt ist aus Normen nicht ableitbar, aber enthält eine Normenentscheidung, die Normen schafft. Sie ist die Frucht eines historischen Augenblicks, die doch Konstanz über den Augenblick hinaus beansprucht. […] Sie verlangt Unverbrüchlichkeit, obwohl sie aus dem Bruch des bisher geltenden Verfassungsrechts entstammt und auch die geltende Verfassungsordnung im Umbruch hinwegfegen kann. Sie äußert sich in der – oft gewalttätig eruptiven – Revolution des Volkes, das aber dann kraft seiner Verfassungsgebenden Gewalt die verfassten Organe des Staates auf die strikte Durchsetzung der Verfassung gegen jeglichen Revolutionsversuch, Staatsstreich und Verfassungsbruch verpflichtet – solange es [das Volk] die Verfassung trägt.
The constituent power cannot be derived from norms, but contains a normative decision that creates norms. It is the fruit of a historical moment, which nevertheless claims constancy beyond the moment. ...] It demands unbreakability, even though it stems from the breach of the previously valid constitutional law and can also sweep away the current constitutional order in upheaval. It expresses itself in the - often violently eruptive - revolution of the people, who then, however, by virtue of their constitutional power, oblige the constitutional organs of the state to strictly enforce the constitution against any attempt at revolution, coup d'état and breach of the constitution - as long as they [the people] bear the constitution.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Within the Union’s constitutional order, however, it is Parliament that is supreme; that is to say, Parliament is at the centre of the entire political system and all competencies not assigned to other bodies (the Senate, the executive, the judiciary, the states etc.) rest with Parliament. The constitution distributes competencies among the federal, state, and local levels in such a fashion that it includes for Necessary and Proper clauses that the courts have to interpret in a way that allocate to each level not just the enumerated powers but also those powers that are necessary and proper to exercise the enumerated powers.
Eternity clauses should be avoided. Including them may only lead to resentment in those states that do not have a political culture that values such clauses over the supremacy of parliament. Instead, procedures should be included that enable the demos to be directly involved in resolving central constitutional matters. We ought to embrace a “weak constitutionalism” as Joel Colón-Ríos puts it in his book “Weak Constitutionalism: Democratic Legitimacy and the Question of Constituent Power“
Central matters can include basic rights, the federal distribution of powers, or certain state principles such as the rule of law In my recent reply to u/NombreGracioso, who is at unease with eternity clauses, I sketched out an amendment procedure:

1) Plebiscite - a non-binding, consultative popular vote for the public to test the waters about rewriting the constitution. The quorum is at 50 percent of validly cast ballots.
1.1) Alternatively to 1), a popular initiative may circumvent the plebiscite if a minimum number of signatures signifies sufficient interest in amending the constitution.
2) Initial referendum - after the consultation, if the public turned out to be in favour, a referendum is held to determine whether the assembly should be elected. The quorum: at least 50 percent of validly cast ballots in two thirds of the states.
3) Assembly elections - according to a special electoral law, the constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution is elected.
4) Consultative popular votes - the assembly puts the amendments to a popular vote in order to determine their popularity and, by extension, the likelihood of the proposed constitution going through in step 5. In order to be deemed representative, the quorum is the same as in step 2.
5) Final referendum - the revised constitution is adopted by another referendum. The required quorum is increased to 50 percent of validly cast ballots in three quarters of the states.
As you can see, the quorum gradually increases to the point that, at the end, the people of all states have to be in favour. This is a greater hurdle than the normal constitutional amendments procedure I laid out in my previous reply. The danger of an emotionalised voting public is reduced by the long, multi-step process. If people don't even give a damn, usurpation by a small but loud minority is prevented by the quorum at step 1 already.
An alternative process of amending entrenched provisions could be done by corresponding votes of the legislature in joint sessions, so 1) you have a plebiscite, 2) a first two-thirds majority vote by the joint legislative bodies, 3) special elections, 4) consultative popular votes concerning the detailed amendments, and 5) a confirming two-thirds majority vote by the joint legislative bodies. Special elections also take place in Switzerland after a resolution in favour of the total revision of the federal constitution has been adopted.

The demos should at any time have the opportunity to call for a constituent assembly in order to review the constitution and the laws. There ought to be a way for the demos to be able to include its ever-changing preferences and ideas in the it without being subject to the same limitations as Parliament. At no point in time may any of the pouvoirs constituées bind the constituent assembly to any law or set up any requirements that it must meet, for it is the demos in the constituent assembly that possesses ultimate power to make or unmake the constitution.
This approach should ensure democratic legitimacy while at the same time protecting the constitution from being modified by elected officials with the intention of gutting it.
Building on this article, the next article will show ways of dealing with the problems that come with judicial review.

protopia/carbon/language

Nostalgic Frags of Old for Men 40+

Be careful with RaiBlocks. It's a coin with a lack of notion of confirmations/finality. Your coins are never really confirmed.

Bug Thread for CA

I think we should have a thread collecting all the bugs and strange stuff people have found with ME. I'm loving the campaign, but there have been some reported issues and I think for Visibility we should collect them into one thread.
When the community and the Devs work together, the game is that much stronger for it.
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE ADD A VIDEO OF THE INACTIVE UNITS BUG. IT WOULD REALLY HELP. JUST PM ME THE VIDEO LINK AND I'LL ADD IT UP TOP.
RESPONSE FROM CA ON AI TURN TIME DEFUALTING TO NORMAL SPEED

u/Pete_CA "This is working as intended. The fast forward button is a temporary "end this turn as quickly as possible" button. You can make permanent changes to the movement speed, and camera follow heights, in the camera settings menu located in the top left of the UI. You can have the game fast forward permanently by setting the options in the camera settings to maximum movement speed and to not follow character movement. It can be a lot more fine grain as you can have settings for; enemies/allies/neutral factions, an individual faction, for yourself and for agents/generals within all of those groups."

RESPONSE FROM CA ON CHAOS INVASION ACTING LIKE INTERVENTION ARMY

u/Matthew_CA "This is something I've brought up internally. We're looking at steps we might be able to take to resolve it. The Chaos AI for the Warhammer 1 invasion is tied to Norsca, the Foundation Update and the Regiments of Renown, something that will be deployed into Warhammer II at a later date. This equally affects other things like Kemmler missing Krell specific skills, but having Krell as the ability. The ability to summon is the DLC, however based on community feedback the skills were introduced as part of the Foundation Update. We detailed this in our FAQ on the "Why aren’t Norsca in it?" point. https://www.totalwar.com/blog/mortal-empires-faq"

HOTLY DISCUSSED ISSUES

As pointed out in the thread by u/TatianaKat (Thread) In Co-Op after winning a battle vs an army out in the field, at least a battle that you have fought manually, you are forced to "Ransom captives" and this will happen no matter what option you choose.
As pointed out by u/Ramjjam and several others, There is strange lighting effects in the ME campaign. u/JoeayIV "i think the bug with everything looking washed out is best shown with the red duke between his 3D portrait and the 2D one, comparing the two ingame makes 3D look so bad" PROOF PROOF PROOF
Several people, myself included, noticed that Chaos is behaving like an intervention army; ignoring other races and coming straight for you. I don't know if that a bug, but if you are on Ulthuan then you should be able to watch the world burn so to speak. FORUM THREAD
As pointed out by u/SBFms, The Shield of Civilisation diplomacy buff, which causes all human and dwarf factions to ally with eachother against Chaos, does not apply at all to High Elves or Lizardmen.
Also pointed out by u/SBFms, Chaos does not declare war on you and instead starts at war with you, making ally's useless.
Unfortunately, the Inactive units bug is still present. Myself and several others have still noticed our soldiers fail to follow enemy routing troops, or just stop moving altogether. - Adding to the Inactive Units bug, as pointed out by u/CompatriotCube "a unit of dreadspears couldn't pass through my missile units, but instead just blobbed together with them and didn't move. " Here is a video posted by u/Zerak-Tul VIDEO The moment is at 14:20. Note how he had just ordered the soldiers to attack, but they blob up and do not follow the routing troops.
As pointed out by u/horizOnsCSGO the Two lords one army bug is still present (this time with Grimgor) PROOF. As pointed out by u/NordicHeathen and several other users, "During my Clan Mors campaign i was attacked by a Mutinous Gits Waaagh that contained Grimgor and Azhag as agents in the army." It seems LL are spawning in Hero slots.
As pointed out by u/Saevax, "Artillery is fussy on where it should be positioned when firing at towers, if the situation doesn't feel just right the artillery will pretend it's infantry and charge the tower. Reproducible by taking multiple (4+) grudge throwers and attacking leftmost tower in Black Crag. The majority of the grudge throwers will walk towards the tower."
As pointed out by u/Ludose, When confederating Wurzag as Grimgor start, instead of getting a debuff on savage Orcs in Wurzag's army, they actually cost 30% more than other orc Lords. As pointed out by u/Taarg, "This has been around since WH1, it is caused by the [HIDDEN] trait in Wurrzag's trait list. I am not sure if CA has ever commented on whether it is a bug or not but I have seen it consistently brought up since Wurrzag came out and has never been fixed."

BUGS WITH IMAGES OR VIDEO EVIDENCE

As pointed out by u/Girkmeister "I attacked the settlement "Numas" which is a province capitol. when I clicked to preview the map I saw that it was an open field map and no walls. It also had no desert texture and I'm pretty sure this map layout is the exat same as a map from the bretonnia region. You can see in the picture linked that most units have the ladders option for sieges. PROOF"
As pointed out by u/AexraelDex, "Vampires Strigoi Ghoul King Lord has the old skill tree for spells. he has the old setup with one point to unlock and the second for 50% Cooldown Reduction, instead of the new 2-3 point system employed in TWW2/ME. PROOF
As pointed out by u/boarlizard "can you add the fact that SSAO is still bugged in game for a large amount of users? White auras and shadow glitches are still occuring for many people. see here and here
As pointed out by u/nimdull, "Got wierd bug with Clan Angrund . Every single character got a empty ability. I don't use mods.PROOF
As pointed out by u/Chack321 "I would like to add that when playing as vampire count my necromancer does not give me any bonuses to income or reduce the cost of buildings even though he has a trait for it. I don't know if the agents of other factions also don't apply their effects. PROOF
As pointed out by u/thesecretofshadow, "Hi, I wanna report some strange animation bugs and blood effects from terradons melee attack and missing its "special attack" since the last update. I uploaded a video to show this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxAJZhrHWVo I already tested multiple times and didn't see it's special synced kill animation shown here: https://youtu.be/MZFiuwrGiSI?t=1m3s (and even before, that animation also was strange since the "ragdoll" was falling too fast) I know that from many bugs that people are reporting here, these are the most "whatever" for many people, but I love this game and I'm mainly concerned about polished it feels, and by polished I mean, for example, the great eagles synced kills, that if you compare to this, seems much better. Thanks for the attention. Btw: No, I'm not using any mods and english is not my main language, so I'm sorry for any mistakes here."
As pointed out by u/OrkfaellerX "Encountering a bug in my Clan Mors, Vortex campaign. Renamed Skaven characters are refered to by their original names in Loyalty related messages." PROOF

BUGS WITH NO IMAGES OR VIDEO EVIDENCE

As pointed out by u/Orkfaeller Gorfang Rotgut, faction leader of the Red Fangs uses Wurrzag's voice lines on the diplomacy screen. The Rogue army Vashnaar's Conquest ( Dark Elves + Chaos Warriors ) use Bretonnian rams and towers during sieges. Not sure if thats an issue with other Rogue armies aswell.
As pointed out by u/Goliath-55, "Point I noticed today. Ambushed a Skarsnik army as Belegar, in wissenland - the battle map was a Dark Elf one complete with their architecture...bizarre!"
As pointed out by a few people, the sync animation for Great Eagles, Eagles and Phoenix does not trigger.
As pointed out by u/Blergh_1 "if you siege VC and they sally on their turn and get completely wiped (empty settlement now) other factions can cap the settlement before your turn comes while you allegedly siege it.... "
As pointed out by u/BlobDaBuilder "there are no end-turn camera controls available in our campaigns. We've started new campaigns to check if it was just a bugged save, done it both in ME and vortex campaigns, with mods and completed unmodded, but no matter what we try, it seems like the camera features just weren't implemented into multiplayer campaigns. "
As pointed out by u/QuorumOf4 "if you Gift your last unit before reinforcements arrive on scene, you lose access to the UI and unit cards. We had a single lord unit (that he gifted to me), which broke his UI before the reinforcing army arrived. Tried gifting it back, but it didn't fix the issue"
As pointed out by u/Bambino106 "Definitely an odd one, but when I gave Thorgrim a ring that allows him to cast fireball, he couldn't use it. He'd stand around and try and try but the fireball wouldn't come out. Moved it over to the runesmith who can use it just fine."
As pointed out by u/Rabmando "I’m not sure if this intended behavior, but when playing as Chaos, I no longer have a replenishment option post battle. It showed up in the early game, and occasionally I would beat a full 20 stack and the replenishment would be zero. Now it’s completely disappeared. This is with no mods running and all official DLC’s installed."
As pointed out by u/Paran0idAndr0id_ The tooltip for VSync and SSAO are the same in the graphics menu.
As pointed out by u/ereso Confederating resets the garrisons in new settlements for the AI as if they were occupied.
As pointed out by u/MajorMesser "My buddy and I were playing co-op as Lizardmen/Greenskins. Grimgor spawned a Waaagh army and it started helping him lay siege to Karaz-a-Karak. One turn before the Dwarves started starving out the Waaagh army declared independence from Grimgor and started attacking him. "
As pointed out by u/shadycharacter2 "I'm get constant CTDs when I press alt+tab on the loading screen, fullscreen mode only also got the old shadow bug back along with a heavy performance decrease after the patch"
As pointed out by u/-the_golden_god- "Possible bug: hand of the gods sort of just phases through kholek dealing no damage. Happens quite a lot and I've had to restart my custom battle testing a few times because both uses of hand of the gods did this thing."
As pointed out by u/bananenbaron " was sieging a city (Lahmia) with one army and an additional army as support. My sieging army got attacked by an enemy army (belonging to Lahmia and consisting only of a Master Necromancer). The army got the city garrison as support in battle. After i defeated the army and completly wiped out all troops (all undead were desintigrated) my siege was broken and i lost all progress on the siege. Further more, when i then attacked the city in my turn the whole garrison was full again. This happened three times in a row, so its not a one off."
As pointed out by u/cyrusaki "I dont know if this was mentioned before, and i'll also make a thread about it in case this doesnt get read in this one. But im playing as vampire counts and i occupied Mount Gunbad, and theres no goldmine in it."
As pointed out by u/lance61297 "I have a bug where my game freezes any time a ritual is finished. I can hear a cutscene happening, but the screen is completely frozen and once the cutscene is over, it stays frozen."
As pointed out by u/Elich "New Change to Empire technology Volley Fire which is now supposed to buff reload for Pistoliers and Outriders as well. It doesnt apply to Outriders."

I'll be adding the bugs you guys post up top here for visibility. So please post yours, and hopefully u/Grace_CA or someone else from CA can pass some of these along.
CA, you guys have been doing a great job, and I don't want this to come across as complaining. So lets work together to make this the TW game we all want to see!

Foreigner

[Previous]

Xanadu
"TEARS!" I screamed, half turning to look. She was just coming back through the open airlock connecting our storage bay to the ziking corvette. "Trauma Kit! Galley! Go! Go! Go!" I didn't hear her response.
I knelt over Yyz, rifle slung around on my back. He was coming back to consciousness as I moved and ripped open the blood soaked overalls to inspect the gut wound. "Hey? what are you doing to my clothes?" Disorientation. Its not a good sign. I felt around the lower ribs and pelvis, and found no broken bones. Turning him slightly to look at the exit wound, it was the size of my open hand. And an absolute mess of shredded flesh, intestines, and blood. I set him back as he was and began tearing clothes as fast as possible to stuff in the wounds and staunch the blood. I was numb to everything but the determination to keep him alive. I was still stuffing the wound cavity when Tears bowled in, kit in hand. With deft skill she began filling the wound with absorbent gauze while I applied pressure. "Hey, whats going on?" his speech was a little slurred. "Hi Yizz, we just finished taking care of that ziking ship. We're gonna get you patched up, and head back home." "That's good." ... "Can you pronounce it Yyz?" "Sorry about that buddy. I'll work harder at it." "What happened to that other ship? Did you shoot them all?" "Yeah, we got'em. It's a ghost ship now." "Oh, that's good." He seemed to be finding a little focus again. I think we were stabilizing his blood pressure. Tears slowed down with the stuffing and began to focus on pressure and taping up the wound. "I can manage the rest of this" she said. "Get this ship moving to civilization." I backed out of the scene, turned and headed to the cockpit, thought better of it, and went to the intercom. "Clotho, whats the closest civilization of any kind that we can find?" "Clotho!" My impatience was getting the better of me. "I'm here, I'm here. Just a second, I got to look through the right chart book." "Yyz is injured, we need to move, now!" ... "Captain, we are way out in the middle of nowhere, and our engines are still hot from that run." "Just spit it out" frustration at the time wasted was building
"The closest anything I can find is an Essene monastery. Seven days out if we try to fly as is. Four if you can help me dump water for cooling." Four days?! Yyz doesn't have four days like this. "I'm coming up." Four days? Four days!? I began hoping it was just a mistake. A rookie astronavigator, happened to miss an adjacent chart. Something an experienced eye would catch. We have a lot of reserve drinking water left in the big storage decks, she probably doesn't realize we can pick up some time by flushing that through too, and dump heat even faster. I was thinking of all the things the inexperienced might miss on a ship like this. But four days is not an option. . I climbed into the cockpit from the deck below. "By the gods Captain! You're covered in blood!" Clotho was horrified. I looked down, I had tracked blood on my boots all way from storage, my pants were soaked at the knees, my hands were stained orangish red, and my sleeves were soaked to the elbow. I still had my carbine on my back. "That's not important right now. I need you to show me where we are, and what charts and options we have." Clotho pointed me over to the charts she had open. "While you were below, I figured out where we are pretty accurately. Here are our coordinates. These are the charts listed nearby, but there is nothing around here" I clenched my teeth when I saw she was right all along. There was no mistake. The closest port was that Essene monastery, in this remote location for isolation from distraction. "Ok, then we head towards that monastery and hope they have some medical supplies. Let's get her turned to bear. We'll worry about the coolant dump after we get going." "Yes sir." "Xan" Tears called over the intercom. "We're heading to a monastery, I need you to close off that airlock" I answered. "Xan, I... Xan..." I could hear heavy breathing, "Yyz is dead." I didn't know what to say to that. "I'm sorry Xan" Tears finished. I couldn't accept it. I wouldn't accept it. I had kept such control, but now my anger was knocking at the door to get in. I got down to the cabins deck, anger knocked at the door. 'Why didn't Clotho just get this ship moving when I told her its an emergency?' I got down to the galley deck, rage pounded at the door. 'Why couldn't Tears keep him alive? When I left we were getting him stabilized.' I got down to the storage deck, and I was beginning to open the door to blind fury. 'Why did I give him a gun to protect that stupid airlock. Stupid, stupid stupid. He didn't know how to shoot the thing. I should have just told him to close the damn door behind us, and hide behind one of the pallets. What was I thinking with such a stupid plan?' I turned the corner, and the door of emotion was open, but when I saw Tears, it wasn't anger that came through but sorrow and guilt that flooded in. She came to me, and we just held each other without a word. We stood there clinging to life among the dead. "Tell me its all worth it Tears. Tell me its worth this misery to find a home world of barbarians fighting each other with sticks." I whispered. She looked up at me, "Its worth it Xan. Its worth it, for everyone of our ancestors who toiled and died under Anadarran control but dreamed of peace and home. For all of our people's children who need to understand their place in this galaxy and be able to look any other species in the eye and not feel like a lesser being. For us the living, to know who we are when not warped by our old slave cultures. Its all worth it." ... Slowly, the passion of the moment drained out with the tears, and I came to myself. Despite the solemness, there was a lot of work to do. Dead ziking to get off my ship. And... and Yyz needed to be bagged and moved to the freezer, his body to be returned to next of kin on Sebring. Tears and I worked together moving out the ziking bodies onto their ship. Clotho joined us as we worked Yyz into a bag, and moved him up to the galley freezer. We've been out on mission so long, most of the freezer food was gone and there was plenty of storage, these morbid flippant thoughts always intrude on me in these times. With that solemn work complete, we took showers and went to bed. We were all drained physically and emotionally, no watch was set. If another ship had followed all of that, they deserved to have us for dinner. ... The next day we ransacked the ziking ship for valuables and equipment and finished cleaning up any blood and feathers on the Harper. Clotho noted that the ZNS Kappa began emitting a distress beacon. It must have been activated when no controls were touched for a day cycle. It didn't bother us none, we were 72 lightyears from the closest monastery outpost. That broadcast would dissipate to nothing before it reached that far. But while listening to the broadcast, Clotho noticed something else on another frequency. Something she couldn't quite make out, but it didn't stop. It was a language she didn't know, set to fragmented music she couldn't recognize. But it kinda sounded like a foreigner speaking. .
"Captain, take a listen to this, do you know what it is?" "~~Neve... g...na... up... ver...let...you..d...n...run.......d..sert you.~~" "I can't make heads or tails of it. Do you have a direction?" "I have a general direction, not too precise. Its at the limit of what our equipment can pick up." "Tears, what do you think?" "It can't be too far away, even for a very powerful transmitter. I'm not sure if now is the time to investigate." I am stuck with a choice. Return home, honor our dead crewman, or pursue the most promising chance in generations. Return home and face an inquiry that could last years. An Anadarran shot dead on a foreigner's ship, I can just imagine the political uproar and threats. Or avoid that delay and chase my life's mission with singular purpose while the opportunity was still within my grasp. "Lets turn and burn ten light years."
... "I got contact on the radio signals again, much stronger now." "Now what you have to understand is that the democrats are running around saying 'the religious right have taken over the republican party and are going to establish a theocracy'. Well for one, the democrats have been saying that for years, and is it true? Not one bit. But second when you look at the sweeping victory the GOP had last year, one thing that should not be overlooked is the assault weapons bill that was rammed through congress by senator feinstein and president clinton. Now that unconstitutional bill awakened millions of freedom loving Americans to what was going on in Washington..." "Its, its definitely a foreigner's voice. But I don't understand a word of it, its not dialect of Anadarran I have ever heard." Xanadu's hairs began to stand up on his arm and neck. "I am getting broadcasts on other frequencies too, sir!" Clotho added "Play another!" I was excited to hear it all. "~~...this is Money Talk with Bob Brinker"~~ music played in an interlude, "Its America's money program, Money Talk, where you can learn to build your own financial independence. We have a caller on the line, Gary from Spokane, go ahead Gary. Hi Bob, long time listener calling from the land of critical mass. I wanted to ask you about moving some of my IRA investments out of spider funds and in to municipal bonds over the next few years..." "What about direction? Have you got a better fix?" "Yes sir, definitely a strong signal and direction. Our first hop was off, but we got it now. Do you think this is it? Do you think its your homeworld?" "Maybe, maybe... Is it pointing to one the of four stars we had left to check?" "No sir, we are way off track for those we had mapped. And we are outside the region the research had pointed to." We never would have found it... "I guess getting it wrong shouldn't surprise us very much." "Any estimate on distance?" "Nothing useful, it seems they have been reducing their power output over the years. The signal strength is much weaker than what I would have expected for the distance we covered." ... I pushed the Harper another short 10 light years towards the radio sources. More and more languages were distinguished, all foreigner voices. The excitement was palpable, but the bewilderment equally so. Of all the things the Anadarrans said about foreigners, it was their ancient barbarism that I never unquestioned. But when we arrived at a blue, white, brown, and green planet, the source of the radio transmissions, it was absolutely awash with electronic radio communication, shore to shore, ground to space. Some signals were open and plain, but now, most were low power and digitally encoded so that we couldn't decipher it. The planet was blanketed in low orbit satellites, and a network of very high orbit geostationary satellites. Unfortunately, none looked to be occupied. It was glorious to see, and deeply frustrating. The logical conclusion is that they had mastered radar and rocketry, which means landing would be a dangerous proposition. But little actual deep space traffic means they didn't have grav wave tech for a safe orbital meeting. ...
"Its all digitally encoded, everything is encoded, except for these coastal regions. We can pick up a lot of open traffic here, here and here. But this one seems to speak consistently the same two languages, with a lot of night light." Clotho pointed at a specific bright continental peninsula with a collection of large and small islands. We surveyed the marvelous sight from space. We didn't bother maintaining an actual orbit as our grav wave power allows us to quickly criss-cross the planet, and hover where we desire. ... "Captain, have you seen such digital communication in your military service?" Clotho asked "Not like this, the equipment is too expensive for all the common soldiers to use." "I mean, sir, have you seen the rate of data? Our equipment can't log it. I can only analyze snapshots with the oscilloscope. I think some of the satellites are keying amplitude, frequency, and phase changes all at the same time at an incredible rate and gigahertz frequencies. Even in the research institutes, they weren't trying something like this. The digital computing power to decode it is unbelievably advanced." . It was time to make contact. We tuned to the most active, open channel, 156.800 MHz, cranked up the broadcast to full power 10kW, and blasted the whole region... "Hello? This is Harper's Hope calling from orbit. Do you hear me?" No reply. This was an entirely awkward way to make contact with a new world. But the alternative of forcing a landing is too dangerous, and we don't have the ability to decode their digital comms. What else is there to do, but plow ahead? "This is Harper's Hope, please respond." As if they could understand what I was saying anyway. "This is Harper's Hope, hello from our world to yours." "~~This is sailing vessel the wanderer g' day mate we are reading you loud and clear in hope town but your gonna have to speak english or spanish to get a response mate.~~" Well its a start. "~~This is HMBS Rolly Gray conducting search and rescue on the foreign ship. Clear all channels~~" Came another reply near the same chain of islands. "~~This is USS Tornado conducting search and rescue for the foreign distress signal. Silence on all channels~~" broadcasted another reply offshore from an island chain 1300km away. At first I was encouraged by the chain of obvious responses to my broadcast. But instead after this, no ship responded again despite repeated calls. Eventually I gave up. ... "Xan, I've just picked up a ship in low orbit! Its about as big as we are." Tears gave me a new option to pursue. Her excitement matched my own. "Lets match course and take a look from a good safe distance." It was a simple craft, no obvious weapons mounted. A bit ungainly, no grav rings for travel, and large flat arrays branching off from the structure. It was time to pull up and say "hi". ... "Houston, Station on space to ground one" "Station, this is Houston, go ahead." "We have visual contact with Echo Tango" "Roger visual with Echo Tango, over" "Echo Tango is maintaining relative position. Vessel is mostly cylindrical, estimated 125 meter length and 15 meter diameter, over" "Station, copy description. Will you be able to get us video feed or photos?" "Negative on video feed, ship is in the wrong position. We are working on uploading some photos, over." There she was, intelligent life from outer space! A metal cylinder with giant rings bookending each tip like a trailer axle with hula hoops for wheels. Large fins covering one half of the main body, and an array of antennas, radar arrays, and remote telescopes attached to the other half. The sublime experience was what every space geek dreamed it would be. ... Contact with the station was near comical and so serious at the same time. We saddled up to a nearby position and held by. I began calling out numbers, "1" , "2", "3" while giving them a radio squelch count for each number. They responded the same. Our first real understanding was reached. Step by step we built trust, to where I was able to maneuver the Harper to dock with the primitive ship. Well, I found out later that they called it a space station. You should have seen the look of surprise on their face when the airlock door opened and none other than a fellow foreigner stepped through. It was a real WTF moment for them. But when we got to visit and saw their electronic technology, we were blown away. They have chips half the size of a pinky nail that can store 512GB of data! They were recording everything we were saying and sending it to their engineers and computers on the planet to begin developing a translation software. I began learning their English the hard way, but they were picking up Anadarran the computer way. And it wasn't long until we were communicating with meaning aided by the computer translators. ...
First hard thing they asked was where we came from. I told them about the Anadarran Empire, how it had 1000 years ago stolen us from "earth". It was so weird to have a name to call our homeworld. But they used us as slave soldiers, to pacify their own people or other species like the Ziking and Essenes. If we failed to pacify the people into paying tribute, they would destroy us along with the Ziking or Essene populations. It was up to us to organize and train our own people, to protect our children, and to extract the food and shelter we needed from the populations we were to control and extort. The Anadarrans didn't care, they just wanted the products and free resources. The subjugated peoples would be required to pay tribute. All so the empire could try and catch up to the power and advances of the Hellenes and Quorum. It didn't really work economically, but it was very stable politically. After a millenia of stable power, a civil war of dynastic succession occurred. A few decades ago the war destroyed the capital city and Imperial family. The secret records of "earth" were lost forever. We don't know really know our origins, who they took or where. But we were too worried about gaining our freedom, and the chaos of the civil war brought that opportunity. We might have only started as a few hundred foreigners captured from the remote earth, but we were 100 million strong foreigners now. Tears and I are some of the first generation to get out and make it on our own. Then, I told them about Yyz, the sacrifice that was made to find our home. And that he still remained in our freezer, waiting to return to his home too. The homeworlders listened in rapt silence as we stumbled through the translation of our tale. They said they understood. They didn't look down us for our past, but that is such a hard thing for me to accept. ...
When they visited our ship, they took one look at our stuff and said it belonged in the "early 90s". Well apparently 30 year old technology is too outdated for them. I said the Anadarran empire switched from analog to digital over 500 years ago. They were shocked. They told me they had been doubling transistor density and other performance every two yeras for nearly 50 years! We were shocked. They had gone further in 50 years than the Anadarran empire was able to steal or develop in 500. Clotho was convinced it was the most advanced computer tech in all of Hellene or Quorum space, and they were far superior to Anadarran junk. Apparently they also had on the planet computer controlled 3d printers, computer controlled mills and lathes, and massive electronic data transfer rates. They were video streaming all of our ship and parts documents and equipment. They had engineers and scientists on standby developing rapid prototypes as we spoke aboard our ship! These people, they are gonna do just fine in the galaxy. ...
But there was more than just English to learn. There was Chinese and Russian, French and Spanish, Japanese and Korean, Portuguese, Hindi, German, Laotian, Vietnamese, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Bantu, and many other smaller ones. I asked, what do you...we... call ourselves? First they told me ,"American or Brittish or Russian." No, I insisted, we've always been called foreigners, as a whole people. But we aren't 'foreigners' here, are we?" "No, you are not foreigners. You... we are all human. Welcome back to humanity." We were home, a home we didn't truly understand how much we needed. But we were back and ready to shake this galaxy to the core. "I am not a foreigner, I am human. And I belong to humanity, fuck yeah."
the end.

Hapax Translation

the female Illuminati and other secret societies

The Female Illuminati and Other Secret Societies A Brief Introduction

There are numbers of these mystic Brotherhoods which have naught to do with "civilized" countries, and it is in their unknown communities that are concealed the skeletons of the past.

These "adepts" could, if they chose, lay claim to strange ancestry. H. P. Blavatsky
People establish and join secret societies because they seek power.
Once they've achieved great power as well as wealth, they sometimes want to brag about it and let others know about their special status. To further this desire, members of secret societies - from Jesuits to Satanists - make use of the media. Highly financed movies are made to communicate to us on a non-verbal level.
These movies are often ostensibly based on the books of commissioned writers, themselves lower-level agents of powerful secret societies.
Hollywood movies occasionally provide us with keyhole visions into what's going on behind the scenes; although not enough for laymen and symbolically illiterate people to decipher and understand. That's why so many people remain ignorant about secret societies and their ways. However if we do a little serious research, it becomes easier to see what is going on.
This process is occasionally helped by whistle-blowing movies from Hollywood and other media orgs, movies such as,

Brotherhood of the Bell To the Devil a Daughter The Devil Rides Out The Omen Bladerunner Freejack Judge Dread Fifth Element Tombraider The Formula James Bond The Da Vinci Code National Treasure Skulls Eyes Wide Shut Ninth Gate,

...and so on.
As I said, perhaps we are deliberately BEING TOLD what is going on by the elites themselves. It's an intriguing thought.
Of course the serious researcher does not simply base his work on media extravaganzas. My own work on secret societies is based on sources, and I strengthen my ideas with numerous statements and quotes from insiders and those who have made a deep study of secret society symbolism.
In other words, the existence of secret fraternities is documented fact. Happily, if paradoxically, secret societies publish their own works which provide us with key insights into their origins and agendas.
After reading and studying material of this kind I eventually gained greater knowledge about the workings of the world's major secret societies,

the Freemasons Knights Templar Rosicrucians Knights of Malta Jesuits Illuminati, etc.

Additionally, the artwork I decipher is that which hangs in their own clubs and lodges, and in famous shrines such as the House of the Temple in Washington DC.
Interesting artwork is to be found in plenty throughout the world's many Masonic halls that stand in almost every major town and city casually passed and ignored by most people as they go about their business.
A study of the friezes and reliefs outside Masonic structures also furnished me with insight into the subtle manner in which insiders nonverbally communicate with us.
I learned to go even further, and observe the many clock towers, statues, fountains, murals, floors and obelisks, etc, which exist in major towns and cities. I discovered that most cities are ritually laid out and have a more esoteric purpose than one might guess.
As to the power of secret societies, we must accept that it is considerable. After doing nearly thirty years of research into these matters, I realized the extent of their sociopolitical power. I also realized that most of their operations would not receive public approval. This is partly why they prefer anonymity.
Although their identities may not be secret, their rites, behavior and designs for world control are kept in the dark and out of sight to ordinary men and women.
They make good use of hierarchies and fixed degree ceremonies to ensure that only the "right" kind of person gets to be an insider. Their recruiting fraternities are found in every major university and college. Their lower and higher members surround us in every school, university, corporation, livery company and charity.
To uncover their existence you must not wait for them to come out into the open.
You must go into your streets with open eyes and ask yourself,

Who built Bath? Who built London? Who built Washington DC, Cologne and Paris?

You might not understand completely all the secrets of these fraternities, but you can eventually realize that something strange has been going from the year dot.
You'll realize the tremendous financial power that exists, out of reach of the common man. And you'll realize the time it took to attain such power. In the end you'll be more aware of the presence and prestige of the equestrian and chivalric orders that infest our world.
You'll understand how their many lower-level branches and fraternities work to filter out moral men and promote immoral and amoral ones.
Ask questions such as:

How can a small country like England, since the 16th century, successfully get its predatory talons into so many other far off lands, conquering, colonizing and "ruling the waves?"

How did a predatory exploitative organization like the Vatican (which is more than the center of the Roman Catholic religion) gain so much power?
Why does it still exist after the heinous historical crimes of which it is guilty - more than 500 years of the persecution of so called "witches," who were just ordinary women doing their thing - healing, learning about nature's ways, knowing the secrets of herbalism and agriculture?,
...etc.
We are talking about nearly nine million victims of total deliberate slaughter.
And that series of atrocities is just a single instance of the pestilence of this Roman branch of the ancient Atonist "Black Lodge" that I expose throughout my works.
To get away with it, and remain above the law, takes considerable power doesn't it? Right! So what's different when it comes to the existence of even more elusive and deadly orders?
The Vatican is allied with numerous secret orders, such as the Knights of Malta, Knights of Columbus, Order of Christ, Knights of St. John, Opus Dei, and of course the Knights Templar - one of the most powerful organizations in the world.
Some of the top degrees of what we know to be Freemasonry are Templar degrees.
This is because agents of pro-Templar factions within the College of Cardinals have long taken over most Freemasonic orders throughout the world. Warnings about this surreptitious takeover went out from men in the know during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Observant insiders, such as Nicolas de Bonneville, Samuel Pritchard, Abbe Barruel and others, believed that ostensibly Protestant orders of Masonry had been completely undermined by Templar factions within the Italian Ring.
There is no doubt in my mind that the same is the case for the ostensibly Protestant Rosicrucian Order created in the seventeenth century. Suggestively, some chief Rosicrucian symbols, such as the cross and rose, are to be found on earlier Templar (Catholic) architecture and in their traditions.
Moreover, in Catholic dominated lodges, such as those of Grand Orient Masonry, degrees known as "Rose Cross" exist, clearly an impossibility if the Rosicrucians were truly a Protestant breakaway sect.

Around 1530, more than eighty years before the publication of the first manifesto, the association of cross and rose already existed in Portugal in the Convent of the Order of Christ, home of the Knights Templar, later renamed Order of Christ.

Three bocetes were, and still are, on the vault of the initiation room. The rose can clearly be seen at the center of the cross. Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia (Entry on Roscicrucianism) Documents available in France today contend that an Order of the Rosy Cross was founded in 1188 by a pre-Masonic Templar named Jean de Gisors, vassal of English King Henry II and the first independent grand master of the Order of Sion. Jim Marrs (Rule by Secrecy)
The Order of the Illuminati appears as an accessory to Freemasonry. It is in the Lodges of Freemasons that the Minervals are found, and there they are prepared for Illumination. They must have previously obtained the three English degrees. The founder says more.
He says that his doctrines are the only true Freemasonry. He was the chief promoter of the Eclectic System.
This he urged as the best method of getting information of all the explanations which have been given of the Masonic Mysteries. He was also a Strict Observance and an adept Rosicrucian. John Robinson (Born in Blood) The Rosy Cross derived from the Red Cross of the Templars.
Mirabeau, who as a Freemason and an Illuminatus, was in a position to discover many facts about the secret societies of Germany during his stay in the country, definitely asserts that, "the Rose Croix Masons of the seventeenth century were only the ancient Order of the Templars secretly perpetuated". Nesta Webster (quoting from Count Mirabeau's Histoire de la Monarchie Prussienne)
In France the Knights [Templar] who left the Order, henceforth hidden, and so to speak unknown, formed the Order of the Flaming Star and of the Rose-Croix, which in the fifteenth century spread itself in Bohemia and Silesia. Lecouteulx de Canteleu Templar graves have been found in several sites in Palestine which contain a carved effigy of a warrior's sword, which itself is a cruciform shape, around which are entwined roses. Alan Butler and Stephen Dafoe (The Warriors and the Bankers)
Clearly the Rosicrucians served as yet one more cover society behind which cunning, far-seeing Templars managed to conceal themselves.
The symbol of the red cross was bestowed on the Templars by Pope Eugenius III, but the symbol predates modern times. It was originally employed by the Arya. It is a goddess symbol par excellence. In Greek mythology the god of beauty, Adonis, was transformed into a rose by the goddess Venus.
The red color of the flower was thereby caused by his blood.
Venus is the tutelary deity of the Sisterhood. In this instance the rose symbolizes the power of the female goddess over the male acolyte who sacrificially offers his phallus (and sometimes his life) to her. It was in twelfth century, during the reign of King Stephen, that the Templar red cross first appeared as the chief heraldic emblem of England.
These largely Templaresque chivalric or equestrian orders own immense wealth and command titanic power.
They are the Alpha Lodges that don't accept you and I or any common man.
They are headed by extremely privileged individuals such as,

King Juan Carlos of Spain the Duke of Kent Queen Beatrix of Holland Queen Elizabeth of England,

...as well as those she appoints to her so-called Privy Council,

Order of St. Michael and St. George Knights of the Garter

Men from these illustrious bodies commission other important societies around the world, both secret and open, for the recruitment of loyal members whose job it is to interface with the "unwashed" masses.
These recruits come from the Catholic world as much as from the Protestant, which should have alerted interested parties long ago.
The various British, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese elite counsels serve even higher, more elusive concerns which I refer to as the "Black Lodge." This term refers to the superior counsel of Atonists whose own origins trace back to the time of Pharaoh Akhenaton, the Biblical Moses.
The all-powerful Atonist Black Lodge in turn authorizes the various societies and counsels mentioned above to vet and select the many other less-informed lieutenants who get to run the governments, institutes and think-tanks of countries throughout the world. These lower-level pawns are the common duplicitous politicians and functionaries we are all too familiar with.
These "opposames" certainly do not serve you or I. Nowadays, because of the unceasing work of researchers such as myself, many intelligent people realize this fact.
Indeed, the main reason why we tend to doubt the existence and power of secret societies is simply because we are not members of the club. It all goes on in the shadows and periphery of vision. You have to make a detailed lifelong study to uncover the roots of this pestilence.
You must learn to endure the ridicule of almost everyone you attempt to awaken on these controversial matters. You must also be able to keep track of the seismic changes and dynastic rivalries that have occurred within the world of secret societies.
Some of these feuds and purges are known to the public while others have been kept secret for centuries.
The role of women in regards the world's most powerful secret societies is one area neglected by mainstream historians, and for good reason. The Female Illuminati is second to none in authority, and their senior members have seen to it that knowledge of their existence does not leak out.
Most people are inclined to believe that women play no part whatsoever in Masonry or Templarism.
As I show in my Female Illuminati program, nothing could be further from the truth.
Not only did women birth, raise and marry male demagogues the world over, those who apparently established infamous secret societies, but women were in many cases top members of these societies.

Dudley Wright said in his book Women and Freemasonry, that, "there is evidence in days gone by that women were admitted into the Order of the Knights Templar," substantiated by the recent discovery of Templar gravestones for women. Tony Bushby (Secret in the Bible)

As to the origin of the Illuminati, you can look to two interesting men to gain understanding.
One is Ignatius Loyola of Spain and the other Adam Weishaupt of Germany.
Ignatius Loyola was the founder of the infamous Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuit Order. He was their first "General" or "Black Pope."
Curiously, the Jesuit Order (the only Catholic order ever to be officially suppressed and penalized) was temporarily abolished in the year 1773. Pope Clement XIV finally, with some reluctance, issued a Papal Brief (order) completely abolishing the Jesuit Order, supposedly for all time.
Now we ask,

are we to accept it as a coincidence that the Illuminati (under Weishaupt) come online, as it were, in the year 1776?

The Jesuits had been in trouble with numerous powerful monarchs in Europe and South America for over ten years before the ban was issued.
So they were well and truly aware of what was in store for them and their nefarious order.
Before the hammer came down in 1773, the Jesuits anticipated their dire predicament and fomented plans for a clandestine resurgence. In fact the Jesuits were already experienced at creating satellite orders throughout the world for their members to conceal themselves behind during times when local suppression occurred.
So it was easy for them to resurface under a new guise when the situation demanded it. After their worldwide ban, their new organ of concealment, infiltration and destruction, was in my opinion undoubtedly the Bavarian Illuminati.
But what further proof do we have other than the coinciding dates?
Well, the name "Illuminati" itself takes us straight to the door of Ignatius Loyola. As a young man in Spain he had been arrested and charged with membership and support of the notorious sect known as the Alumbrados, which may have originated in the 1490s.
Loyola was arrested, charged with heresy and imprisoned due to his affiliation with the sect. He lost his university position and was under strict surveillance for some time because of his open affiliation with the secretive illegal society. Suggestively, the Alumbrados were also known as "The Illuminati."
They referred to themselves as the Brothers of Light or Shining Ones.
So do we take it as a coincidence that the later Bavarian Illuminists just happened to adopt this title from the selfsame order favored by the founder and head of the Jesuits?
The rhetoric and propaganda released by the Illuminati and their agents, concocted to distance themselves from the Jesuits - and to give the appearance of being anti-monarchist - does not change the facts.
Adam Weishaupt was himself a Jesuit and in our opinion he remained so until the end. He was not anti-monarchy because some of his closest compatriots, such as Baron von Knigge, were nobles related to illustrious dynasties such as Stuart, Hesse, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Hapsburg, Bourbon, Lorraine, and others.
Moreover, Weishaupt languished in the homes of the nobility for the last forty years of his life, even receiving a lifelong pension from Ernest II, the Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, himself an Illuminati member.
Apparently the Lutheran Duke did not mind working alongside Catholic members such as the Count de Mirabeau and Duc d'Orleans, etc.
Another confederate and co-creator of the Bavarian Illuminati was Prince William of Hesse-Kassel, from the family which employed the Rothschilds as treasurers and investors.
Prince William's brother Karl was both an elite Mason and an Illuminist.
The merger of the Illuminati and the Masons occurred at the Congress of Wilhelmsbad, in 1777, at a cozy retreat owned by Prince William.

The Weishaupt documents are incontestably authentic; the Bavarian government unwittingly forestalled any attempt to cry "Forgery" (in the manner made familiar in our century) by inviting any who were interested to inspect the original documents in the archives at Munich. Douglas Reed (Controversy of Zion)

The Duke of Brunswick (Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand), himself a senior Mason, sounded a worldwide warning about the subversive agenda of the Templar-Jesuit-Illuminati.
His address of 1794 informed the world as to the danger of the Illuminist infiltration of Masonry.
During his speech, the Duke warned:

A great sect arose, which taking for its motto the good and the happiness of man, worked in the darkness of the conspiracy to make the happiness of humanity a prey for itself.

This sect is known to everyone; its brothers are known no less than its name.
The Duke referred to the infiltrators and corrupters as a "Sun Order."
In our opinion this intriguing reference describes and leads us to the door of the ancient Atonist Order of Zadok or Melchizedek, that is of Pharaoh Akhenaton and his ideological descendants, i.e.,

the Knights Templar Strict Observance Grand Orient Jesuits,

...and other clandestine orders.

Freemasonry is a fraternity within a fraternity - an outer organization concealing an inner brotherhood of the elect... the one visible and the other invisible.

The visible society is a splendid camaraderie of 'free and accepted' men enjoined to devote themselves to ethical, educational, fraternal, patriotic and humanitarian concerns.
The invisible society is a secret and most august fraternity whose members are dedicated to the service of an... Arcanum Arcandrum (sacred secret) M. P. Hall
Weishaupt's order was partly financed by the Jewish Rothschild dynasty, but all is revealed when we remember that the Rothschilds were, and still are, Papal Knights.
In other words they are Templar-Luciferian-Masons directed by the Templar factions of the Vatican, such as the Knights of Malta, a super-wealthy order directly descended from the Templars and Hospitallers of old.
Indeed the Templars and Jesuits indulged in banking and tax-collecting before the Jews.
The Rothschilds began banking enterprises in the eighteenth century, whereas the Templars were involved in banking in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

...the Templars became bankers to every throne in Europe.

They lent money to hard-up monarchs at low interest rates and transferred money for merchant bankers.
Through a system of promissory notes they allowed money deposited in one city to be drawn in another. They became money-changers and powerful capitalists who conducted diplomacy between monarchs.
In England the Master of the Temple was soon given precedence over all other priors and abbots. Nicholas Hagger (Secret History of the West)
The Templars eventually became so rich that the monarchs of some of the kingdoms within which they operated were wholly dependent on their support.
Several kings of England actually lodged the treasury of the realm at the Templar headquarters in London, as surety against the massive debts they ran up with the order. This gave the Templars great power to influence decision-making, and they regularly acted as arbiters for warring monarchs. Alan Butler and Stephen Dafoe (The Knights Templar Revealed)
By the beginning of the thirteenth century the Templars had become the international bankers of Europe and were appointed treasurers to the French royal family and the Vatican. Michael Howard (Occult Conspiracy)
The Rothschilds, for all their colossal power and wealth, were and are servants of the more secretive and illustrious Gaonim or Order of Melchizedek that merely expanded its ancient order into what we know as the Templars and Bavarian Illuminati.
Once this is understood a lot of missing pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

The Jews have historically been used as a hidden order of the Catholic Church. They do the things that the Catholic Church does not like to be seen doing. Jews are perfect for the job…

As long as people rail at the Jews, and as long as they rail back at their attackers, no one will look beyond the Jews - and that is where the body is buried. Richard Kelley Hoskins (In the Beginning: The Story of the International Trade Cartel)
The Jews appear as abject servants of the Catholic Church...
To the 'Alpha Jews' the door of the Church corporation stands wide open. There are countless Jewish priests, scores of Jewish cardinals and bishops, and some like Anaclet II, Gregory VI and Gregory VII became Popes. ibid
...you hear of the Rothschilds in the world of finance.
They are not the originators of the control over finance and the practices therein. But they have been given a franchise to control the money aspect of the people of the world.
In return for their exercising this control and keeping their mouth shut they are given handsome privileges of money manipulation and of course increase their money wealth by leaps and bounds. Norman Dodd (Reese Commission Research Director)
📷

The Jewish Illuminists not only included members of the infamous Rothschild family - agents of the Templar-Luciferians - but also Moses Mendelssohn, one of the five original members of the Illuminati.

Loyola, Francis Xavier, and other early Jesuits wrote that they were intentionally organizing their fledgling society along the lines of the Knights Templar, the renegade once Catholic order suppressed by the Church in the fourteen century.
So why would the situation have been different in the eighteenth century when the curtain was temporarily brought down on the Jesuits by higher authority?
I do not think it was different. I think the Jesuits simply adopted the structure of their parent order - the Templars.
I also believe it was Templar agents within the Vatican who, during the reign of Pope Pius VII, worked to overturn Pope Clement's ban and restore the Jesuits legally to their original prominent station.
📷

Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) and Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830).

Both men were Jesuits and "Illuminists."
Loyola and his order were obsessively dedicated to the Virgin Mary while the members of the Illuminati referred to themselves as "Minervals," after the goddess Minerva.
One of Minerva's mascots was the owl, the bird that hunts at night and sees what is invisible to those who dwell in the light of day.
Mary and Minerva are both "virginal" icons. This is a reference not to sex but to the female Dragon Court behind the more conspicuous male orders.
Minerva is a "rebel" goddess who assisted Prometheus to steal the heavenly fire. Her origin lies with the most ancient Egyptian goddess Neith, the "Red Queen."
The red shield and arrows that appear on the Rothschild family crest allude to Neith, who was transmogrified into Pallas-Athena or Minerva.
The single eye is also a prime goddess symbol.
The Frankfurt branch of the Illuminati was entitled the "All Seeing Eye" lodge, once headed by the notorious Jacob Frank, head of the dionysian order of Frankists.
It is interesting and suggestive that both Loyola and Weishaupt were Jesuits. They may also have had Jewish ancestry. In any case, it is significant that they were Roman Catholics before they founded their secretive cabals.
This tells us that, after becoming Masons in their younger days, they were later recruited and indoctrinated by Templar agents.

As never before since our alienation, this battle for freedom can now be fought by all Germans, and virtuously ended in the clear perception of our enemies: Jews, Freemasons, Jesuits and the Roman Pope. General Erich Ludendorff (Destruction of Freemasonry)

Not only does the fraternity (Freemasonry) owe its existence to Templarism, the fraternity seems to loudly proclaim it in a number of ways. Alan Butler and Stephen Dafoe
I have shown from authentic documents that, from its introduction into France by monks until the advent of the reign of James I of England, British Masonry was purely Roman Catholic, and that its Grand Masters, of whom I have provided the official list, were drawn exclusively from the Court, the Nobility or the Prelacy…
Despite the birth of the distinctive Masonry of William of Orange in 1694, the ancient British Masonry preserved its ancient statutes under the Protestant King and remained Roman Catholic: proof of this is to be found in the precious Masonic documents which I propose to publish, and which escaped the mad orgy of destruction at the hands of the innovators of modern Masonry in 1747. Brother Teder (L'irregularite du Grand Orient de France, 1909)
It is claimed that before his execution the last Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, assigned Hugo von Salm, a canon of Mainz, the mission of smuggling important Templar documents into Scotland.
De Molay's hope was that the Templars could be reactivated there under another name. That name, according to the tradition, is Freemasonry. Strict Observance Masonry incorporated references to the Templars into its rites and degrees. Glenn Magee (Hegel & the Hermetic Tradition)
As your study continues you'll find that there are many lies told about these men and their orgs.
Adam Weishaupt's group is erroneously considered to have been anti-royalist. This assertion is blatantly false. Adam Weishaupt received additional support and funding from various nobles and royals, such as Baron von Knigge, and more significantly from Charles de Lorraine and the Duke de Orleans, that is by members of the Stuart, Hapsburg, Bourbon, Lorraine, Capet, and other powerful European dynasties.
Members of these royal families were seniors within other powerful secret societies such as the Rosicrucians, Strict Observance and Scottish Rite, etc.
Some sources believe it was Charles de Lorraine (working under the pseudonym Kolmer) who divulged esoteric secrets to Weishaupt and commissioned him to establish the Illuminati.
And the elusive Charles was no commoner. He was a true blue blood. So the idea that the Illuminati were against monarchy is laughable.
The only monarchs and nobles they were against were those not under their control and not members of their perfidious Brotherhood. Interestingly the highest grade attainable within the Illuminati bore the title REX meaning "King."
A strange title to bestow upon the highest initiate of a supposedly anti-royalist cabal, right?
It makes sense if your order is based on the Templar tradition, in which case the "King" in question is Lucifer, Lord of Light.

The man who is good for nothing better remains a Scottish Knight. If he is, however, a particularly industrious coordinator, observer, worker, he becomes a Priest...

If there are among these (Priests) high speculative intellects, they become Magi. These collect and put in order the higher philosophical system and work at the People's Religion, which the Order will next give to the world.
Should these high geniuses also be able to rule the world, they will become regents. Adam Weishaupt
Yes, by Weishaupt's own words we see that it is a matter of "ruling" the world, not "helping" the world. Nice that he was so explicit.
The Templar-Illuminists merely adopted an anti-royalist stance because it was an expedient ruse. It got them where they wanted to go. Societies of this kind are very chameleon-like. They know their enemies and how to subvert them. They know how to lure and win favor.
They know how to create and sustain faux rival groups to prevent authentic rival groups from moving against them.
This tactic has served the powers-that-be no end. The propaganda they dished out in the eighteenth century was cunningly designed to attract rebellious young men of wealth and intelligence from all over the world. After all, you don't want your secret society full of idiots.
The idea was to attract such men in order to prevent them forming or joining authentic opposition movements which were sprouting up throughout Europe and the Middle East.
In order to seduce the young idealistic freedom-loving sons of wealthy royals and nobles, the Illuminati cunningly professed to be politically progressive and morally libertine. New recruits inevitably fell under the control of their puppeteers. Susceptible types were successfully indoctrinated, whereas overly suspicious radicals who sensed they were being misled were professionally or even physically assassinated.
After generations of Machiavellian scheming, the Illuminati's agents ensconced themselves in every religious, political and corporate organization and institution, intent on changing the direction of world events to suit their sinister agendas.
It is only in relatively recent times that humanity has been made aware of these machinations, and there's still a ways to go before we can successfully subvert these blood-soaked crime lords and architects of control.
One of the biggest lies told about the Jesuits is that they are indelibly liberal. Nothing could be further from the truth. They adopted a liberal facade in the twentieth century to fool moderns. A study of their vile history shows how ultra-conservative or ultramontanist they are beneath the surface.
One reason for the facade has to do with their intention of moving the governments of Europe and America toward the creation of multinational organizations such as the United Nations, an impossible task until they adopted a more humanitarian and benign guise.
In any case, regardless of the Templar-Jesuit connection, it is not right to think that the perfidious Order of the Illuminati began in the 1700s. Nor is it correct to think of Masonry starting in the 17th and 18th centuries.
As we said, the Alumbrados date from the fifteenth century, and there are other orders that preceded them, such as the Templars, Hospitallers and Rosicrucians, etc.
Churches and monuments in France dating to the 5th century display Masonic emblems, and scholars have found Masonic symbols in the artwork and architecture of ancient Egypt.
Masonic-style aprons were certainly worn by early pharaohs and Phoenicians. Templar-like crosses can be seen on the regalia of Sumerian and Babylonian kings.
Moreover, there are many eminent Masonic writers who have emphasized their society's antiquity.
More importantly, the multifaceted symbolism employed by these societies - the coffin, triangle, pyramid, pentagram, hexagram, twin pillars, checked floor, compass, letter G, etc - is undoubtedly ancient.
This idiosyncratic symbolism conceals the "mysteries" to be uncovered and understood, mysteries that lead back to ancient Egypt and beyond.

Smith, in his chapter on the antiquity of Masonry in Britain, says that "notwithstanding the obscurity which envelopes Masonic history in that country, various circumstances contribute to prove that Freemasonry was introduced into Britain about 1030 years before Christ". Thomas Paine (The Origins of Freemasonry)

...it is seen that Freemasonry also existed in the 1300s, as shown by documents that are still in existence. These include the Regius and Cooke documents. Sanford Holst (Sworn in Secret)
The symbols of Freemasonry reflect much of its heritage, and reach back far into antiquity. ibid
...any person who has looked at the issues carefully must first come to the conclusions that not only did the Knights Templar, in one form or another, very definitely survive beyond 1307, but that Freemasonry, on one form or another, significantly predates the 18th century. Butler and Dafoe (The Knights Templar Revealed)
It is also important to realize that the Illuminati is not an exclusively Western phenomenon.
Some researchers believe the Templars were heavily influenced by Middle-Eastern and Oriental occult societies and traditions, so much so that they willingly, if secretly, renounced Christianity.
According to some sources this accounts for why their parent order, the Priory de Sion, excommunicated the Templars in the year 1188.
It is also the reason the Templars were officially suppressed in 1314 by the reigning Pope and King of France. I prefer to believe that it was after their coffers were seized and their leaders arrested and tortured that the Templars became apostates.
The Eastern Illuminati include societies such as the,

Druze Ishmalis Assassins Sabbateans Seveners,

...themselves branches of the super-secret Order of Melchizedek (discussed in Chapter 6 of The Stargate Conspiracy) or Atonist Black Lodge that goes back to ancient Egypt.
Although the Sabbateans and Seveners (like later Frankists) were officially founded by Jewish and crypto-Jewish occultists, their true origins lie in ancient times with the elusive Gaonim or Gaonate.
Significantly, the Gaonim - themselves high-degree Atonists - referred to themselves as Exilarchs or Princes of Light. They and their many agents constitute the male family tree of the all too real Illumined Ones or Illuminati.
The famous letter "G" seen on Masonic emblems (and several corporate logos) signifies not only this illustrious patriarchal cadre, but the even more elusive and peculiar quorum they serve, those I refer to as the Serpent or Dragon Sisterhood, or Female Illuminati. (The lower case "g" signifies the serpent or dragon.)

quorum definition in english video

[Middle English, quorum of justices of the peace, from Latin quōrum, of whom (from the wording of a commission naming certain persons as members of a body), genitive pl. of quī, who; see k w o- in Indo-European roots.] American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. the smallest number of people who must be at a meeting for official decisions to be made by voting: The quorum for meetings of the committee is two. (Definition of quorum from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press) Definition of quorum written for English Language Learners from the Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary with audio pronunciations, usage examples, and count/noncount noun labels. Quorum definition, the number of members of a group or organization required to be present to transact business legally, usually a majority. See more. A quorum is the minimum number of people who must be present to pass a law, make a judgment, or conduct business. Quorum requirements typically are found in a court, legislative assembly, or corporation (where those attending might be directors or stockholders). In some cases, the law requires more people than a simple majority to form a quorum. In Latin, quorum means "of whom" and is itself the genitive plural of qui, meaning "who." At one time, Latin quorum was used in the wording of the commissions issued to justices of the peace in England. In English, quorum initially referred to the number of justices of the peace who had to be present to constitute a legally sufficient bench. the smallest number of people who must be at a meeting before it can begin or decisions can be made If a quorum is not present, the meeting must be adjourned. I’m afraid we don’t have a quorum. The number of representatives attending was too small to constitute a quorum.

quorum definition in english top

QUORUM FOR MEETING

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Quorum - Definition for English-Language Learners from

quorum definition in english

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2020 Year in Review -- As If You Wanted to Look Back At This One

H. Res. 160: Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution - Floor Vote

H. Res. 160

The Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution

A RESOLUTION

SECTION I. SHORT TITLE

SECTION II. HOUSE FINDINGS

SECTION III. REFERENCES

SECTION IV. AMENDMENTS TO RULE XII

SECTION V: CLARIFICATION OF RULE IV

SECTION VI: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VI

SECTION VII: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VIII

SECTION VIII: PLAIN ENGLISH EXPLANATIONS

SECTION IX. ADOPTION

H.Res.160 - Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution -- Committee Amendments

H. Res. 160

The Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution

A RESOLUTION

SECTION I. SHORT TITLE

SECTION II. HOUSE FINDINGS

SECTION III. REFERENCES

SECTION IV. AMENDMENTS TO RULE XII

SECTION V: CLARIFICATION OF RULE IV

SECTION VI: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VI

SECTION VII: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VIII

SECTION VIII: PLAIN ENGLISH EXPLANATIONS

SECTION IX. ADOPTION

H. Res. 160: The Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution

H. Res. 160

The Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution

A RESOLUTION

SECTION I. SHORT TITLE

SECTION II. HOUSE FINDINGS

SECTION III. REFERENCES

SECTION IV. AMENDMENTS TO RULE XII

SECTION V: CLARIFICATION OF RULE IV

SECTION VI: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VI

SECTION VII: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VIII

SECTION VIII: PLAIN ENGLISH EXPLANATIONS

SECTION IX. ADOPTION

H.Res.160 - Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution - COMMITTEE VOTE

H. Res. 160

The Correcting Disorder in the House Resolution

A RESOLUTION

SECTION I. SHORT TITLE

SECTION II. HOUSE FINDINGS

SECTION III. REFERENCES

SECTION IV. AMENDMENTS TO RULE XII

SECTION V: CLARIFICATION OF RULE IV

SECTION VI: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VI

SECTION VII: AMENDMENTS TO RULE VIII

SECTION VIII: PLAIN ENGLISH EXPLANATIONS

SECTION IX. ADOPTION

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