The Brew: Screwtape Cordially Invites Us to Join Him in the Inferno by the Left Entrance … or the Right

We must support the good people in our government right now who are waging an uneven struggle: They are fighting principalities and powers using mostly human means. (Though it was very encouraging to see an explicitly Christian prayer begin Trump’s first cabinet meeting. More of that, please!)

President Trump’s first cabinet meeting opens in prayer. Amen.

Generations of America’s leaders have leaned on the leading and providence of God. We need God to lead us now.

Thank you @SecretaryTurner pic.twitter.com/n1nFzwGiQY

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 26, 2025

Our leaders must employ rational, prudent human measures — but insofar as they trust in them alone, they’re outgunned. So of course they’re going to make mistakes. We can and should speak out when people we generally support cross bright red moral lines, but the most important contribution we can offer is to pray. Let’s invoke our better angels and the Holy Spirit Himself to move in Caesar’s precincts, because the sheer darkness of the forces that grabbed control of our country, its institutions, churches, and political parties is impossible to exaggerate.

Let’s not forget the grimmest news of the week: the “National Security Agency’s secret sex chatroom, which was filled with salacious discussions of genital surgeries, trans fetishes, and sexual activities,” on which City Journal reported.

Now City Journal has more to tell. Christopher Rufo reports:

[A]ccording to our whistleblower, these sex chats were just the tip of the iceberg. This longtime NSA insider tells me that the ideological capture of the NSA began a decade ago. Trans activists have entrenched themselves in positions of power, pressured employees to undergo reeducation trainings, and compromised national security in the name of ideology.

The whistleblower told Rufo:

About ten years ago, they started doing the “employee resource groups”: African-American, veterans, Pride. It was just a meeting here and there, almost like a potluck–culture, food, a speech. Then it started to get more and more. Instead of just one day a month, it was one week a month, or the whole month. You could be hired as a mathematician, a staff officer, or system engineer, but you would spend your time going to these events and having meetings all day about it. They got themselves into position to help craft policy and started pushing the idea that if you want to get promoted, you have to participate in these events.

And then everything became Pride. You would go to a training, and it would be about “privilege” and “how to be a better ally.” A lady would give classes on how to talk “gender-neutral” to people. You had analysts that didn’t want to do the reporting they were supposed to be doing because they were going to have to report on somebody’s “dead name.” They were having this crisis of conscience about reporting the adversary’s actual name because they thought it was their “dead name,” and they didn’t want to disrespect the person. It was like a cult that was hellbent on pushing gender ideology.

All this took up the time that we thought the NSA was spending on fighting terrorism and drug cartels. Knowing, as we do, that the FBI was infiltrating traditional churches, raiding pro-lifers, and surveilling PTA moms, we now realize that the Deep State’s only real target is us — just as President Donald Trump said years ago.

Do you believe him now?

The Baffling Saga of the Jeffrey Epstein Files

If you’re confused about why the long-promised Jeffrey Epstein files haven’t been fully released, or why the limited information actually emerging is going to online influencers instead of a public database, join the club.

[Neither] I nor the task force were given or reviewed the Epstein documents being released today… A NY Post story just revealed that the documents will simply be Epstein’s phonebook.

THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR and a complete disappointment.

GET US THE…

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) February 27, 2025

It looks like a House committee Rick-rolled the American people:

#BREAKING: EPSTEIN FILES RELEASED: https://t.co/aHw5fDDuur

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) February 27, 2025

So, here’s what I can glean:

— AG Bondi & team thought they’d have Epstein info to release by now. They don’t yet have it thanks to stonewalling holdovers;

— Influencers invited into WH were given binders of Epstein phone book logs, most of which is already public;

— Everyone…

— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) February 27, 2025

There are countless unanswered questions about the machinations surrounding that particular trafficker of underage girls, who supposedly killed himself in federal custody. But I think the pieces begin to fall into place when you consider this: A facility like Epstein’s Island that catered to the illegal sexual tastes of very rich, powerful men would prove very useful to government intelligence agencies. They’re always looking for leverage over well-connected people, and they’re not above stooping to blackmail, via “honeypots” that use sexual bait to entrap and then control their targets. The New York Post just reported on a honeypot operation the FBI apparently tried on the 2016 Trump campaign. (Go read Mark Judge’s account here at The Stream of an apparent Deep State honeypot he escaped during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation fight.)

Keep in mind some undisputed facts: Jeffrey Epstein’s first real job was as a teacher at the elite Dalton School in New York City (ironically the setting for Woody Allen’s creepiest underage-girl romance movie, Manhattan). Epstein got hired to teach there despite having no credentials — not even a bachelor’s degree.

Who hired him? Donald Barr, formerly of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) — the spy agency that became our CIA. (His son, William Barr, would end up as Donald Trump’s disloyal Attorney General during his first administration.)

Shortly after his recruitment by Deep State veteran Barr, Epstein began to connect with very high-dollar investors, who then hired him to manage their money — again with no apparent qualifications for the job. Who introduced this obscure, unqualified high school teacher to some of the world’s richest men, some of them with a taste for underage girls? It might be worth subpoening William Barr, to see what he knows. 

Next consider Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted of being Epstein’s co-conspirator in trafficking underage girls. She’s the daughter of disgraced newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell, whom credible journalists have maintained was an asset not of U.S. but Israeli intelligence. That might explain why a fallen media mogul who’d lived in Britain was given a state funeral in Israel.

In the middle of a global manhunt, Ghislaine Maxwell gets her photo taken at a hamburger joint in Los Angeles in 2019.

She makes sure the @nypost reports on the book she’s reading: “The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives & Deaths of CIA Operatives”https://t.co/80AKWnYPDJ

— Emerald Robinson (@EmeraldRobinson) February 27, 2025

The point is simple: Don’t imagine that things are what they seem. And don’t expect the full truth to emerge, at least not for some time (if ever) because too many U.S. intelligence officials have way too much to hide. But with people of genuine integrity now in place, such as Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi, and Kash Patel, we have good reason to hope that our government going forward will not collude in the sexual exploitation of young girls in order to blackmail and control billionaires. That really doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

What’s Behind the Return of the Thuggish Tate Brothers?

Screwtape is thrilled to lead us into Hell via the left door such as Marxist-tainted antiracism, pro-abortion feminism, or transgender “inclusion.” He’s equally happy, though, if we follow him “home” through the right door: antisemitism, chest-thumping religious pride, or other spastic reactions against one type of evil that embrace as its remedy an equal, if opposite, evil.

I wrote here back in January about the phenomenon of the Tate brothers, Tristan and Andrew:

Millions of disaffected, rudderless young men follow him avidly. Candace Owen, Tucker Carlson, and Benny Johnson, all social media giants, have featured Tate on their shows. Russell Brand defends him. Tate vogues as a leader of young males rebelling against feminism and the emasculating effects of woke, post-Christian culture. …

By his own admission, Tate is not just an apostate from Christianity to Islam, but a pimp. Not just any old pimp, but an evangelist for pimping, who teaches young men online to psychologically control their girlfriends and prostitute them for profit — and who has been arrested for human trafficking.

Now the Tates, long held in Romania on sex trafficking charges, have flown back to the U.S. on a private jet. (They are U.S. citizens.) Rumors are flying that the Trump administration pressured Romania to let these putatively conservative influencers go. Trusted Stream contributor Jules Gomes is investigating that claim, and we’ll report his findings soon. At yesterday’s press event with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump emphatically denied any involvement in the deal.

At the very least, on the level of optics, it’s not a win for the good guys that the same day we get a disappointing trickle of documents about Jeffrey Epstein, the Tates jet in to Florida posing as conquering heroes. It’s good to know that they still face the same charges in Romania, which haven’t been dropped:

This Tate thing is really being blown out of proportion

The Tates are still being prosecuted, they still have to show up back in Romanian court in less than four weeks, they just had pre-trial travel restrictions loosened, and not at the request of the Trump admin pic.twitter.com/ewMo6xXiFE

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) February 27, 2025

Keep praying, people!

Does British White Guilt Threaten a U.S. Military Base?

Yesterday, The Stream reported:

Patrick Robinson, a Jamaican judge and veteran of international courts, voted in 2019 for the U.K. to hand the Chagos Islands back to the people. Now, Robinson claims that Britain owes the people this staggering sum for its role in the transatlantic slave trade.”

Today it emerged that Britain’s Prime Minister Starmer apparently favors giving the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. That’s a problem for the U.S., as one senator explained:

PM Starmer wants to give the Chagos Islands away to Mauritius, but we’ve got an American military base there.

The U.K. can feel guilty about their history–but NOT at the expense of U.S. and global security. pic.twitter.com/oEOGHOPXOg

— John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) February 27, 2025

Along The Stream…

Later this morning, make time to watch the great John West of the Discovery Institute explain the problem of “Stockholm Syndrome Christianity” and its impact on evangelical leaders.

Wondering what to think about in vitro fertilization and the Trump administration’s embrace of it? Later today, we’ll publish an explainer that puts the moral issues in context — the context of the Atlantic slave trade, which also once seemed like an obvious practical answer to current problems.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.

The post The Brew: Screwtape Cordially Invites Us to Join Him in the Inferno by the Left Entrance … or the Right appeared first on The Stream.

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