Wisconsin native.
"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."--GKC
"Liberalism is the modern and morbid habit of always sacrificing the normal to the abnormal" --G K Chesterton
"The only objective of Liberty is Life" --G K Chesterton
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
The headline on this HotAir post asks the wrong question: "McCain once almost left the GOP. What about now?"
Here's some text:
...a sitting Democratic senator, speaking on condition of anonymity for
fear of upsetting Schumer on such a sensitive issue, said, “I’m just
certain Chuck is already thinking about this – reaching out to McCain
and Collins and Murkowski and others and asking if they really want to
stand with the GOP....Politico, quoted at HotAir
What you see in the Politico/HotAir piece is a take on politics which is fading fast in the rear-view mirror. The "R vs. D" simple-math stuff began its fade before Reagan, and one could argue that that division was no longer a useful analytic tool as early as 1960 or so--the year JFK got elected.
Because ever since then, the US has had three--maybe FOUR--political "parties." There were the mainstream Democrats and Republicans, which are really the Same Party. Then there were the hard-Left (anarchists, socialists, Communists) who broke through at the 1968 Democrat convention and have taken over a large part of the (D) Party. Finally, there is the hard-Right (constitutional conservatives, Birchers, "alt-right" of various stripes) who are a growing force in the (R) party and are probably at break-through in the next year or so.
You can say that Reagan was a "hard-right" guy--except he didn't govern that way, either in California, or in Washington. Granted, he was ham-strung by Congress. You cannot really say that Bill Clinton was a "hard-Left" guy--and neither is Hillary, really; she dirtballed her hard-Left opponent into submission, but Bernie and Fauxcahontas are within an inch of taking over the Party, and anyone who can't see that is blind.
The Hard-Left/Hard-Right war is happening in Congress and in lots of the several States, right in front of Politico's noses--and they haven't figured it out yet.
Anyhow, to get back to McPain: whether he wears the (R) or (D) label is irrelevant--like Manchin, Collins, and a number of other old farts in Congress (including young farts like Paul Ryan), he's a Member in Good Standing of the Uni-Party. Think Boehner, Cantor, and even Madison's own Tammy. Ciphers with no agenda other than Mo'D.C.!! Mo'Gummint!!! Mo'Pension-for-MEEE!!
Want to make it only three parties: Left, Right, and Center? Go ahead. But now the Left and Right have a lot of traction that they never had in the late 20th Century.
Trump? He's another "Center" party guy but a lot more obnoxious. Has a few "right" leanings, has a few "left" leanings, and is going to sink his own ship trying to run DC like he runs real-estate development. What counts, long-term, in that office?
...Lt. Col. Shaffer doubled down on his explosive claim that the Awan brothers sent sensitive intel to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer revealed to Laura Ingraham, who filled in for
Tucker Carlson Thursday evening, the Pakistani IT staffers were sending
sensitive information to the Muslim Brotherhood....
Now as we all know, Barack Obama was and is a "fellow" in the Muzzie Brotherhood.
Very strange that this Paki was a bedfellow with Debbie Blabbermouth-Shultz, who, as a female of the Jewish persuasion, is high on the list of Muzzie Brotherhood Enemies.
...In recent years, lawyers for liberal activist groups shifted from
their perennial efforts to amend federal civil rights laws to declare
sexual orientation and gender identity to be specially protected
categories like race, arguing now that legislative changes are not
needed, because current laws against sex discrimination already cover
those newer social disputes. Under President Barack Obama and Attorneys
General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Department of Justice
(DOJ) adopted those positions over the past several years.
On July 26, the Trump-Sessions DOJ reversed course, arguing that the
words of Title VII have the same dictionary meanings today that they had
in 1964, and thus that homosexuality and transgenderism are not
specially protected legal categories....
I suppose Bruce Jenner will be unhappy, too, but maybe Sessions will work on folks with mental diseases next.
Haven't subscribed to a hard-copy for a couple of decades, haven't subscribed to the pixel-edition, either. But I do read the headlines every day, just in case. And, just in case, I also check the death notices to see if I should appear at the office.
Anyhow...
Ever since the Milwaukee Bucks wrenched $$Umpty-Millions from the taxpayers for a Thoroughly Modern Dance Hall (or whatever that thing is), the Local Litterbox-Liner has published an essay about every three days on the progress of said ripoff. With pictures!!
Very few people in the greater metro area give a rat's ass about this building, its owners, or its occupants. Maybe that's why the paper is fixated on covering it. Either that, or it's real close to a favorite bar or two.
...Activists including Heritage Action, the political arm of the
conservative Heritage Foundation, have proposed that Mr. Trump’s
administration change a rule promulgated by the Office of Personnel
Management during the Obama administration that allows members of
Congress and their staff to obtain subsidized insurance alongside other
Washington, D.C., small businesses....
Let THOSE bastards and their staffs pay $1,000.00/month or more in premiums, and pay $12-15,000.00/year in deductibles, like at least one blogger I know. They may never blow off ObozoCare, but they may have to sell off their overpriced houses in the DC area.
*snif* *snif* And Paul Ryan may have to move from his walled-in compound.
Perhaps this young fellow thinks that he speaks for 'all Catholics' in the US. If so, he would be the very first person to do so in over 225 years. Fantasy-world starts there.
...my favorite president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, quoted papal
encyclicals and entertained princes of the church at the White House....
Oh, really. That makes Roosevelt......what, exactly? Let me help you, Matthew! He was a Protestant Statist who was well-read and who happened to be NOT Republican. (Who besides the good guys can quote Scripture to his advantage, Matthew??) And "NOT Republican" was just fine with Catholics--at that time. What was that time.....again?.....about 75 years ago, no?
One more thing--and this is the important one: FDR was the first President to ram Federal money into Catholic charities. So, Matthew, 30 pieces of silver......
...the libertarian economics championed by the Republican Party are
absolutely at odds with a plain reading of the documents that together
comprise the church's social teaching....
"The Republican Party" "champions" "libertarian economics"?? Not judging by the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. (Let's not quibble about whether he's a (R) or not. Takes too much time.) And not judging by the current Speaker of the House, either. Nor the entirely (R) government of the State of Wisconsin. And--Matthew--have you read Leo XIII's 'social doctrine' encyclicals?? No?? Better get busy. Read up on the part about "intact families" and report back to us.
....single-payer, for example, is only one possible
(though probably, I think, the most straightforward and workable)
response to the question of how to ensure that people receive medical
care...,.
Why sure!! Ask Charlie Gard. Or his parents. Go ahead, Matthew. We'll wait.
Just one more!!
... But to deny that these rights exist in keeping with libertarian
principles about positive liberty is to pretend that the church has no
right to inform the consciences of the faithful.....
1) Straw man; and 2) Does not follow.
Matthew is probably a very pleasant young fellow. His mom is probably proud of him. It would be nice if he'd get a job and read the entirety of Catholic social doctrine. It's probably too much to ask if we ask him to understand that Republicans are not Conservatives are not Libertarians.
And, like Charlie Gard, we will all die at the behest of the State, and at the place and time the State directs.
It reminds me. I have something for John McCain. It was written about Julius Caesar, by the man who killed him. This is a bit premature, of course.
Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.
There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition.
Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
I pause for a reply.
Yes, well. Who here is so base.....so rude....so vile....? I pause for a reply.
There's a mythology that the Catholic Church's "social teachings" have to do with giving away money to the indigent.
Not even close.
The Church's "social teachings", which were summarized and iterated by Pp. Leo XIII, actually begin with the family--and really don't stray far from that "family" thing. Ever.
...Asked by Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., what Washington D.C. can do to help
stand up for free speech, Carolla described the root of our free speech
and intolerance problems and said intact families are the best guarantor
of a peaceful and happy civil society....
At one time, Carolla hosted a call-in show whose audience and participants were troubled kids.
...“And I learned that all of these problems that we’re talking about –
free speech, discrimination, hatred toward other people, and drug
addiction, violence, crime – it all stems from the family. And when the
family is intact, much of this stuff just goes away, you don’t have to
legislate it away. It just goes away because people are brought up in
intact families with decent caring parents, whatever their color,
whatever their background is, and then they produce little decent
individuals who go off to college or a job, place of work, and they
don’t need to be coached up, and they don’t need to be legislated, and
they don’t need bloviated by people like us. They grew up in an intact
family.”...
So RoJo was chatting with Vicki today and the topic of the 'vote-a-rama' on ObozoCare came up.
Seems that the Pubbies introduced an amendment for single-payer. That amendment was the work of John Conyers (D-MI), now out of the House--but it was his very own single-payer bill.
Naturally, the Republicans voted it down.
But several (D) Senators voted FOR it, as you might expect.
MORE (D) Senators, however, voted "present" on the bill.
Gutless hypocrites, just like Mitch McConnell. Yes, it's a pattern, dear readers.
In behavior which was predictable, The Donald has gone wacko-nutbag vis-a-vis Jeff Sessions.
Predictable? Yes; that's from his real-estate-developer and TV producer background. These are occupations very friendly to a "my way or the highway" business approach, because they are small businesses which depend on the talent and wits of the principal to survive and prosper. IOW, megalomaniacs are just fine,.
But the Gummint ain't a small business dependent on the President's persona. And--much as most of us would like to see it happen--the Gummint ain't going to turn around and behave, or wither away, just because The Donald waves his magic red hat and chants "MAGA MAGA MAGA."
Further, The Donald has to share a spotlight with other players, whether he likes it or not. And he does NOT like it. Megalomaniacs don't share.
So he "acts out," and--to no one's surprise--"acts out" like a spoiled child.
It is probably true that if one wants a friend in DC one should buy a dog. But it does not help if one starts machine-gunning allies, too. So now we'll get to see Teh Stupid in action.
The benefit? We won't pay as much attention to McConnell, who is slime-bagging as his nature demands.
Charlie, who like Erickson, can NOT get over Trump's election, tries to nail it all down here:
...A year ago, many conservatives rationalized their support for Trump
because the “ends justified means — and that the end was the
implementation of conservative policies.”...
He's wrong, on two counts.
1) Many Conservatives rationalized voting for Trump because HE IS NOT HILLARY.
2) Many Trump voters ARE NOT CONSERVATIVES, and never have been Conservatives. A favorite trick of the Upper Crust Journalists--of any persuasion--has been to conflate "Trump voters" and "Conservatives." That's a serious fallacy. Lots of Trump voters were voting Democrat only 4 years ago, and still may be doing that on lower levels of Gummint (see Paul Ryan, e.g.)
'K, Charlie? Try again and try to be a little more...ahhh....accurate. And stop your whining.
McConnell is offering the Senate two bad choices, sorta like CN vs. CS chemical weapons. Note well: the Senate will choose one of two horrible bills and attempt to shove the CN (or CS) down YOUR throat. Nice, eh?
This is what The Donald wants, too. It's "New York values", ya'know.
...One of the bills being considered, the Better Care Reconciliation Act,
would offer provisions to immediately replace parts of Obamacare, but it
is controversial among centrists because it contains changes to
Medicaid that would result in long-term spending cuts and is
controversial among conservatives who say it does not go far enough in
repealing Obamacare and driving down the cost of premiums...
"Medicaid spending cuts" is bullshit, of course. The rate of increase diminishes--but there are no "cuts." The important part: ".....does not ....repeal Obamacare and drive down....premiums."
So that's Horrible Choice Number One.
...The other bill, the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act, would repeal
Obamacare's taxes, mandates and spending but leave in place regulations
on insurers and give lawmakers two years to come up with a new plan.
Conservatives favor this route and point out that senators supported the
same bill in 2015 when Barack Obama was president and vetoed it....
Those "regulations" actually prevent reduction of premiums because they force men to cover their own pregnancy and 24-year-olds to pay what Old Farts pay--that is, identical premiums.
That's Horrible Choice Number Two.
RoJo figured out that McConnell is a slimebucket liar and let on to it a week ago. Trump is a pure buffoon on this topic (he's not too bad on some others.) Let's hope both Horrible Choices go down in flames.
I guess it's no surprise that someone is putting up these signs around the Twin Cities.
A little nostalgia there--back in the late 1960's I visited a friend on the Macalester College campus. It's one of the two times that my car battery failed. DAMN it was cold there in January....
Let's get this out of the way: Paul Ryan was, in fact, NOT elected to save The Donald's ass.
Thanks for that info, Paul.
Now--from behind your walled-in-castle grounds, could you explain why the House of Representatives, under your "leadership" has not showed a scintilla of interest in Hillary Clinton's serial, egregious, and deliberate violations of the ESPIONAGE ACT????
There are those who think that you, Paul, are a danger to the country because you, Paul, are a member-first-class of the City Class and have forgotten the country-class from which you came.
Or were you elected to shovel Hillary's crimes under your bed, Paul??
There are a few things which we used to take for granted in this country, among which was the maxim that "NO ONE is above the law."
That's something that Erick Erickson wants to bury in the same memory-hole in which we have buried "regular order" and the 9th and 10th Amendments, not to mention common sense and the laws of nature and nature's God (thank you, SCOTUS.)
...the Trump Administration has been wise to avoid going after Clinton and others from the Obama Administration...
Oh, really? So egregious, willful, blatant, and wholesale violations of the Espionage Act are to be forgiven through benign neglect?
REALLY, Erick? From you, who postures as "Mr. Military Backer"??
Bullshit, Erick.
Erickson blathers on and on about something like 'comity,' because after all, the Other Guys will eventually get back in charge, and Ohhhh!!!!, it would be Awwwwwwful!! if they actually prosecuted Our Guys for CRIMINAL ACTIVITY.
Bullshit, Erick. It would be absolutely correct for them to do so. And they (and Trump) would be derelict of duty if such prosecutions did not happen. Please note that I said "criminal activity," not "political activity," Erick.
Some animals are more equal than other animals, Erick--but not in any country us dirt-people want to live in.
We note that the Democrats are reverting to form--that is, sucking up to Russia.
That's because Russia has had the form of Government that Democrats prefer: atheist, violent, authoritarian, but mostly atheist. And, of course, Russia has a Government which rewards Government apparatchiks like Franken!
I'm sure there's a dacha with your name on it, Al. Why don't you go there now?
"I always wondered why the
Democrats were such mollycoddlers of the criminal class, and then the
obvious answer dawned on me: crooks, grifters, rapists, thieves, con
men, welfare cheats, burglars, wife beaters, flim flam artists, antifa
scum, homicidal maniacs, gang bangers, terrorists, and child molesters
are all natural Democratic constituencies, so they're just pandering to
their voter base."
Unmentioned: those are the elected Democrats. How do I know that? Read the linked piece.
While it's safe to say that Dean Inge never trod the campus of Marquette University, and perhaps never even heard of Marquette University, nor its "Warriors," Mr. Inge did emit a sentence which describes that institution.
“Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.”
Marquette, having married the 1960's at Land'O'Lakes, remains in the '60's today. Not because the '60's are the Permanent Things; but because they are permanently Last Century. Thus today, instead of championing the sexual revolution, MU champions the Mohammedan revolution. In between there was the revolution against Nature having to do with homosexuality, and the revolution against Nature having to do with "warming/cooling/change."
The fact that USAToday is the Big Daddy newspaper of Gannett, which also owns the Milwaukee rag, tells you about the future JS: idiocy in print.
...[T]he fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way....--quoted at MoonBattery
Yes, well. In the early 1900's, the British Army--and for that matter, the German Army--had zero "of color" enlistees.
The next time Gannett pubishes a review of the Bible, the reviewer will probably complain that 'there are no prophets of color' mentioned. Grimm, too, is a failure; neither Hansel nor Gretel, nor their parents, are of color.
It is unfortunate that some occupants of Vatican offices are ...ahhh....dogmatic, but wrong. That reduces their credibility on the occasions when they are right.
On the other hand, 'Vatican credibility' has been in short supply for the last 2-3 years, anyway.
Being polite, I didn't re-tune the office TV set at noon, and was subjected to about 20 minutes of hysteria on MSNBC.
TRUMP talked to PUTIN!! Without his guard-puppies from State!! Without permission from ANYONE!! It was ANIMATED!!
There were three guests, all posing as men; one from WaPo, one from Atlantic, and one who was a Foggy Bottom mouthpiece during Sad Sack's administration.
It was so dreadful that it was actually comic. But it was mainly dreadful.
...The proposal would reach a surplus of $9 billion by 2027. Over 10 years,
it would reduce total federal spending by $6.8 trillion compared to the
Congressional Budget Office’s latest projections. In total, federal debt held by the public would be over 30 percent less than CBO estimates as a share of the economy....
There's more at the link, but let's stop here for this blogpost.
"By 2027." That means it is guar-an-f*&^%-teed not to reach a surplus. Ever. The first biggest lie is always the one which says "by XXXX years out there."
"Over 10 years." That means that MAYBE the first 4 years' spending reductions will actually happen. MAYBE. The rest is bullshit.
"Debt...30% less." That means nothing at all, because--like the "2027" line of malarkey, it is contingent on a whole lotta good economy (no recessions) and a whole lotta peace on Earth (no wars.)
Believe what you like, folks. Don't believe the Republicans or Democrats, though.
Not only Blue Cross/Anthem, of course. Also United Health Care, and any OTHER health insurance entity.
...Reflecting on his party's newly failed legislative attempt to repeal
and replace the Affordable Care Act, Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., said the
bill had "K Street's fingerprints on it."
"A lot of the lobbyists knew what was in both the House and Senate
bill before members of Congress knew what was in the bill,"...
"In the healthcare bill, it was clear that there was a lot of work
with the insurance companies on this bill, and the insurance companies
have benefited from Obamacare," DeSantis explained. "They really support
a government-centered system where government is keeping competition
out of their marketplace."...
That's why Cruz/Lee became Cruz-only, and was likely to get blown out on some pretext having to do with "reconciliation."
While we're at it: it's about time McConnell gets deposed.
Think Bill and Hill are nasty? They could take lessons.
At least 547 young members of the
Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir in Germany were subjected to physical
and in some instances sexual abuse over a period of 60 years, a new
report says.
The report accuses 49 members of the Catholic Church of carrying out the abuse between 1945 and the early 1990s....
Ummmmnnnnhhhh....
Among those singled out for criticism in the report was former
choirmaster Georg Ratzinger, elder brother of retired Pope Benedict XVI.
Mr Weber said that while Mr [sic] Ratzinger, now 93, had no knowledge
of sexual abuse, "one can accuse him of looking the other way and
failing to intervene".
He was head of the choir from 1964 to 1994 and
denies any knowledge of what went on. It was "never discussed" while he
ran the choir, he has said.
He has in the past admitted to occasionally slapping boys but insisted he never beat them until they were "black and blue"....
Think timing. Just a few days ago, B-16 spoke of 'the foundering' Catholic church. Then this report is issued. Hmmmmm. And 'one can accuse' Fr. Ratzinger of a lot of things, but one must PROVE those things, no?
No. This thing was all in the timing--placing the name "Ratzinger" at front and center in a mud-slinging spree. No charges will be filed, no one will be convicted, most of the perps (if any) are dead....
And there's another target, almost as prominent, a man who does not toe Pp Francis' line entirely:
...It also cited criticism by victims of the Regensburg diocese’s
initial efforts to investigate past abuse. It said that the bishop at
the time the allegations surfaced, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, bears “clear
responsibility for the strategic, organizational and communicative
weaknesses” of those efforts. Müller, later made a cardinal, became the head of the Vatican’s
doctrine office in 2012. Pope Francis recently did not renew his mandate
at the beginning of this month...
Get the picture?
...The translator who attended the June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr.,
Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, and lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin is a
former State Department contractor, CBS News’ Kylie Atwood has learned....quoted at Zippers
Seems that the Russki lawyer speaks and writes English very well, indeed. So why a State-connected and (D) partisan "translator" at the meeting with Trump, Jr.?
The Environmental Protection Agency has sent out more than 1,000 buy-out notices to its employees...
EPA has around 14,000 employees.
So there are 13,000 left to cut.
But "not nearly enough" cuts is the GOP Establishment's goal. In case you haven't noticed, the Establishment Boyzzzz' Club actually loves bureaucrats on the payroll. Makes for excellent fund-raising SCARY LETTERS!!
About 10 years ago, one of my children's pals looked into working at the Dells in order to pay at least some of her college tuition.
Fuggedaboutit. The pay rates were so low that she could not assemble savings AND pay (minimal) living expenses.
This is the sort of economy that Paul Ryan wants to preserve: import thousands of low-wage/non-skilled people so that college kids (or non-college kids) can't earn their way out of a hole. That way, college kids can borrow umpty-thousands of dollars and pay interest which funds ObozoCare! (Bet you forgot about that, eh?)
Maybe some of those imported laborers will be tending the vines growing on the walls surrounding his home, eh?
So you're trashing your sister-in-law, or discussing what to do with a problem-child, or formulating a plan to leave your employer and start a new business--about a year from now.
Why would you PAY for a machine which records all your conversations and then publishes them to complete strangers?
You already run that risk with your car's telemetry system, ya'know.
Mitch McConnell, arguably the lyingest liar in all of D.C. (and that's saying something) has suddenly decided to kill his Frankenstein monstrosity and go for 'clean repeal.'
Trump, another notorious liar, agrees that a 'clean repeal' is better.
This follows RoJo's declaration that McConnell is a lying liar, and Mike Lee's pronouncement that McConnell's lying lie about 'choice in plans' is merely another lying lie.
Wonder why Putin laughs himself to sleep at night?
I get that this is the NYSlimes, and Douthat is kinda shaky when yapping about matters Catholic and the Vatican.
But this graf, buried in the middle of an essay on the changing of the guard in Rome, is sorta interesting:
...And so too in liturgical issues, where there is talk
that Francis’s outreach to the Society of Saint Pius X, the
semi-schismatic group that celebrates the Latin Mass, could lead first
to the S.S.P.X.’s reintegration and then the suppression of the
pre-Vatican II liturgy for everyone else — effectively using the
S.S.P.X. to quarantine traditionalism....
Well, that might slow the funding river flowing from the US to the HQ of the Institute of Christ the King, ain'a?
We've never failed to criticize Sen. Ron Johnson when he failed to make good on his promise to repeal ObozoCare.
It now appears that RoJo has had enough of Mitch McConnell's slippery half-truth games.
McConnell still thinks that he and The Establishment are entitled, and destined to rule. That will not end well. Happy to note that RoJo finally sees the light.
So there was this 80-ish dude who was hot on the trail of some Hillary scandal, who committed "suicide" in Minnesota. (Rumors that he fired three shots to his own head are not true.)
The mainstream media’s silence over Klaus Eberwein’s death is deafening. Eberwein was a former Haitian government official who was expected to
expose the extent of Clinton Foundation corruption and malpractice next
week.
He has been found dead in Miami at the age of 50.
The circumstances surrounding Eberwein’s death are also nothing less than unpalatable. According to Miami-Dade’s medical examiner records supervisor, the official cause of death is “gunshot to the head.“ Eberwein’s death has been registered as “suicide” by the government.
To know the Clintons is to commit suicide, I guess.
In case you need a good shot of schadenfreude, the vid linked at the link below is outstanding.
Some Lt.Col. (it's clear why he never made Bird) and another hapless moron--both Badge-Wearing Neo-Con warmongers-no-matter-what--are disassembled and left on the side of the highway by Tucker Carlson.
The latter sputters with flamboyance at his fate, for extra jollies!
The U.S. is facing the largest, most predictable crisis in American history, and almost nobody is talking about it.
That
was one takeaway Wednesday during a discussion at the Heritage
Foundation on the national debt, which is currently $20 trillion and
mounting. Just before the July 4 recess, the Congressional Budget Office
altered its projections for this year, estimating that $700 billion
will be added to the debt in 2017, which is $130 billion more than the
CBO estimated in January....
By the way, none of the adults in Congress is in any sort of 'leadership' position.
Following the announcement that "Last Man Standing" will not be renewed after 6 seasons, I DVR'd as much of the series as possible and have been watching them along with my long-suffering spouse.
Want to know why it's been cancelled?
Mature themes and content.
Yup. You have to be mature to appreciate the marital banter, child-raising challenges, and workplace realities that the show accurately depicts.
You also have to be mature to appreciate the faith-inspired references to God, the Church, and the Bible. Nah--it's not Catholic; it's closer to Conservative Methodist. But it's straight-up Judaeo-Christian stuff.
And don't even bring up "gay", or worse disorders. The Toolman will slap it down. Hard.
If you're mature, you will watch the show and laugh, laugh, laugh. It's heartwarming, too. Best medicine after a day at work. Stunted-emotional-growth perverts, God-haters, and self-idolizing twits (see, e.g., Lena Dunham) need not apply.
Melinda Gates said it's "very troubling" that President Trump reinstated
a policy banning U.S. funding of abortion and abortion-promoting
organizations overseas....
Well, Melinda, write a check and cover it yourself. And please turn in your "Catholic girl" card at the Gates of Hell.
Because of Congress-Slime like these, who belong in a Hall of Fame for Pandering Prostitutes. Because of the disordered "thinking" of these individuals, YOU will be paying for tranny-surgeries. They want you to pay for the disordered nutcases' self-glamorizations.
Some high-school graduate at Vox mag-a-rag tells us that the proposed Medicaid cuts (Senate version) will kill about 208,000 Americans. In the proposal, Medicaid spend will drop from a projected $4.6 TRILLION to a paltry $3.9 TRILLION over the next 8 years or so.
With the $700 billion in savings, the Gummint will purchase backhoes and pine boxes.
...scaling back ObamaCare spending would mean loss of insurance for some 22 million Americans. Vox also claims that every 830 people covered means one life saved, hence, presto, the GOP plan will mean killing 208,500 people....
That's according to a CBO analysis. Hmmmm.
But like a lot of other things that high-school graduates know, this is simply not true.
...Medicaid is perhaps the civilized world's worst program. It costs just
as much as private plans — about $7,000 per patient — but produces worse
outcomes, including higher mortality, than private coverage. So given
that one of ObamaCare's dirty little secrets is that many of its
Medicaid enrollees are folks kicked off their private plans due to the Medicaid expansion, [ObozoCare] may have actually cost — rather than saved — lives in this cohort....
Well, so what? When have the Democrats actually cared about lives? Ted Kennedy's Oldsmobile was more caring than the current crop of jackasses.
As to covering the UN-insured with Medicaid:
...A 2010 study
by the University of Virginia of 893,658 patients in the university
hospital found that individuals on Medicaid had the worst post-surgery
survival rate of any patients, including the uninsured...
...then there is the famous 2013 Oregon study
— the closest thing to a lab experiment in the real world — co-authored
by ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber. It contrasted uninsured
patients who were randomly assigned to Medicaid with those who remained
uninsured and found that the Medicaid patients did not have
significantly better outcomes for diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood
pressure, and even mortality....
What did I tell you? The Democrats (and Vox high-school interns) simply don't give a rat's ass about lives. From the above studies, it is clear that putting people ONTO Medicaid will kill them faster.
We already knew that Scott Walker's budget will spend lots and lots and lots and lots more money on the public schools.
It's his "buy off the teachers" thing; there's an election coming up.
Aside from the fact that spending increases are not necessary (money does NOT make better schools, nor better students, nor better teachers), that money has to come from someplace. And if you feel a pain in your.......wallet.......well, yes.
...In crafting his election year budget, Walker blew off longtime
supporters in the school choice community. Figuring their support is
“baked in,” he rejected overtures aimed at increasing the number of high
quality choice options and giving more choice to working class
families....
He (and Alberta Darling, who clearly should be replaced soon) have decided that the parental income-limits for Choice students will be reduced (except in Milwaukee and Racine). So Alberta turns into a Progressive-Tax gal, and Walker stiffs his supporters.
G K Chesterton is a perceptive guy who had some things to to say about Luther & Co. Here, those things are repeated along with some other observations--those of Dale Ahlquist.
...St. Augustine, a true saint and a giant among converts,
was limited in one respect. The only philosophy he knew was that of
Plato. St. Thomas Aquinas introduced Aristotle into Christian
philosophy, and the Augustinian Platonists never really accepted it.
They had a different approach to objective reality. One of those
Augustinians was a monk named Martin Luther. Chesterton argues that the
Reformation was really the revenge of the Platonists. You could say it
started with a difference in emphasis, you could say it started as a
quarrel among monks, but Luther’s emphasis on emotion rather than
reason, on subjective truth rather than objective truth, and most
unfortunately, on Determinism rather than Free Will, opened the door for
an attack not just on Scholasticism but on all philosophy.
Lutheranism, says Chesterton, “had one theory that was the
destruction of all theories; in fact it had its own theology which was
itself the death of theology. Man could say nothing to God, nothing from
God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and
for the supernatural help of
Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless.
Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch
any more than a stone. Man could not trust what was in his head any
more than a turnip. Nothing remained in earth or heaven, but the name of
Christ lifted in that lonely imprecation; awful as the cry of a beast
in pain.”
St. Thomas and Luther are “the hinges of history,” and
Luther managed to loom large enough to block out the huge figure of
Aquinas. “Luther did begin the modern mood of depending on things not
merely intellectual.” He was a forceful personality. He was a bully. He
claimed Scripture as his authority and then altered Scripture itself,
adding a word here and there in his own translation to accommodate his
own theology. When confronted with the act,”he was content to shout back
at all hecklers: ‘Tell them that Dr. Martin Luther will have it so!’
That is what we now call Personality… He destroyed Reason; and
substituted Suggestion.”...
Well, then--there's 500 years of water under that bridge and at least 3 Lutheran branches to show for it, not to mention the Zwinglians, Episcopalians, Wesley-ites....
Oh--one more thing: besides joining the Federal Election Commission, you have to be a DEMOCRAT to travel to Moldova, Indonesia, Honduras, (etc., etc., etc.) Republicans on the Commission do not suck the tit of taxpayers in the same way.
Apparently those are the places where someone can learn about US elections. And the trips are free!!
Well, yah, Bloomberg is a lefty rag. So you expect lefty editorial remarks in their 'news' stories.
And what you get, besides, is the Lefty world-view, like in this graf:
...Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will take another run at an
Obamacare repeal plan Thursday, and this time he’s got leverage: more
than $230 billion he can spend over 10 years to sweeten the bill for
Republican holdouts....
Really???
That is NOT "McConnell's money." It is YOUR money that that gelatinous slimeball is spending to purchase votes from NOT-you.
Thanks to Bloomberg for making the stench a little more obvious.
Go ahead. Read Tom Clancy's stuff. If you learn nothing else, learn this: there is NO SUCH THING as "co-incidence."
Then come back here.
...Prevezon, which is a Russian group, hires Fusion GPS and Rinat
Akhmetshin to generate negative press coverage on a British citizen.
Prevezon also hires as legal counsel both Baker Hostetler and Natalia
Veselnitskaya.
Rinat Akhmetshin also puts Natalia Veselnitskaya on the payroll.
Rinat Akhmetshin, who works in collaboration with Fusion GPS at the time
it is preparing the Trump dossier, is an admitted "Soviet
counterintelligence officer" who specializes in "subversive political
influence operations often involving disinformation and propaganda."
While all of this is going on, Fusion GPS is working on the opposition
research dossier on Donald Trump using a foreign agent....
...Are we really supposed to believe that it is completely coincidental
that Natalia Veselnitskaya just so happens to be the Russian lawyer who
got access to Donald Trump, Jr.? Are we to believe that there is no
direct relationship between Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS?
It is remarkable how she gets a PR agent to urge Trump, Jr. to meet with
her by promising Russian information about Hillary Clinton's emails as
the server story is blowing up. And then it is remarkable how she gives a
perfect performance to NBC News two days ago claiming she only talked
with Trump about the Magnitsky Act, but assured the press that the Trump
team was hoping for dirt on Hillary....
First: note that the honey-pot Russki is a lawyer. Note also that there's another bunch of lawyers, Baker Hostetler, involved here. That should serve as fair warning all by itself. But if you still don't get it, then you are as stupid as CNN.
Or as malevolent as WaPo, Schumer, the NYSlimes, and McConnell.
We are "reliably" informed that the new glacier which just left its mommy, the South Pole, is a signal of TEOTWAWKI. The End of the World As We Know It.
The seas will rise, perhaps covering Los Angeles, New York, and D.C. (Stop sniggling and hoping! THIS IS SERIOUS!!)
Or not.
As it turns out, this is not the first really big chunk of ice to depart the South Pole.
...The new Larsen berg is probably in the top 10 biggest ever recorded.
The
largest observed in the satellite era was an object called B-15. It
came away from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000 and measured some 11,000 sq
km. Six years later, fragments of this super-berg still persisted and
passed by New Zealand.
In 1956, it was reported that a US Navy
icebreaker had encountered an object of roughly 32,000 sq km. That is
bigger than Belgium. Unfortunately, there were no satellites at the time
to follow up and verify the observation.
It has been known also
for the Larsen C Ice Shelf itself to spawn bigger bergs. An object
measuring some 9,000 sq km came away in 1986. Many of Larsen's progeny
can get wound up in a gyre in the Weddell sea or can be despatched north
on currents into the Southern Ocean, and even into the South Atlantic....
1956?? NINETEEN FIFTY-SIX??
That was during Global Cooling. Or was it 1986 that was Cooling? We know that 2000 was Warming. And of course, this year is Doing Nothing For the Time Being.
Maybe the Hockey Stick guy will straighten this all out.
Two things: clearly, the Russians told Trump to cancel the $1.4BN project. CNN will have this story, and WaPo will follow shortly.
Second: a building built in 1973 is "crumbling" around its occupants? OK, then, so let me ask this question: which bunch of incompetent BOOBS approved the building's design and materials?
Oh, yah. The same bunch of folks who want to spend A $$BILLION FOUR for a new one.
If you haven't read Fr. Geoge Rutler's take on Trump's speech, well.....you haven't read anything on the topic. A few excerpts:
...the poet and playwright Adam Mickiewicz dramatized the theme of his
suffering Poland as the “Christ of Nations” and, deprived of its
national identity for two centuries, the agony worsened when, in an
image borrowed by many, Poland was crucified between the two thieves of
Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. It was not the West’s proudest moment
when President Roosevelt complained to Stalin at the Yalta Conference
that “Poland has been a source of trouble for over five hundred years.”...
Which should pretty much put to rest any thoughts that FDR was a good guy. He was not.
Moving on...
...On July 6 in Warsaw, in Krasinski Square, the president spoke of a
culture with which a generation of “millennials” have be unfamiliar:
“Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom
and sovereignty. We must work together to confront forces, whether they
come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over
time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith,
and tradition that make us who we are.”
Armchair journalists, for whom the “Christ of Nations” is an enigma,
resented “a tiny speech, a perfunctory racist speech,” “xenophobic” and
“a catalogue of effrontery” and a comparison was made with Mussolini. In
1978, Solzhenitsyn once was pilloried for similar themes during a
commencement address in Cambridge, Massachusetts: First Lady Rosalynn
Carter, with limited experience of Gulags, said he did not know what he
was talking about....
Rosalynn was--unlike FDR--a good person. Stupid, but good.
The comparison to Solzhenitsyn is striking, no? Betcha youse guys never thought of ol'Donald that way! Well, neither did I.
...The Warsaw speech mentioned three priests: Copernicus, John Paul II and
Michael Kozal. The latter was the bishop of Wloclawek who was martyred
by the Nazis in Dachau along with 220 of his priests in 1943. After
lengthy torture, the Nazi doctor Joseph Sneiss injected him with a dose
of phenol “to make easier” his way to eternity. St. John Paul II
beatified Bishop Kojal two days after Reagan’s Berlin speech. Dr. Sneiss
has his disciples now in much of Europe and he would have a busy
practice today on our own Golden Shores, in California, Colorado,
Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the nation’s very capital....
So, yah, many of us live--literally--in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. That's why Fr. Rutler brings up Charlie Gard in the next graf.
Rutler quotes Stawrowski:
...The fundamental cleavage is not the West v. Islam or the West v. the
rest, but within the West itself: between those who recognize the values
of Judaeo-Christian Graeco-Roman culture and those who use terms like
“democracy,” “values,” “rights” but pervert the latter. So it means
democracy of the elites, values of secularism, rights to kill Charlie
Gard, marriage that has nothing to do with sex, sex that … is a
“private” matter to be funded by the confiscatory state and your duty to
support this incoherence…
Oh, yes, it's our duty. Until we decide that it is not.
Finally, the good Father says, ever so gently, what most of us have said in far more strident terms:
...There is latitude of opinion and taste for assessing the “timeless
eloquence” of any modern oratory, of which our nation has been bereft
during the last administration despite all sorts of efforts to convince
us that Demosthenes haunted the Potomac, even if the presidential
speeches were inchoate in logic and blighted in diction. But it would be
much in the order of natural virtue, let alone Christian justice, to
ask an apology from those numerous savants who said in 2016 that the man
who spoke with lasting significance in Warsaw on July 6, 2017 is
“manifestly unfit to be president of the United States.”...
Yes, well. I'm not any more a "neverTrump" kinda guy and am having serious difficulty with the straw-clutcher/pearl-clutcher gang at Red State, who are echoed by now-irrelevant airwave-pundits. We're sorta waiting for them to acknowledge that Trump puts Bush 43 to shame, too.
This guy is setting himself up as a problem for that NYC/DC/LA/SFO bunch.
Let me throw down this marker: The West is superior to the rest of the
world in every significant way, we should aggressively back our allies
over our enemies, and the guiding principle of our foreign policy should
always be America’s interests. No apologies. No equivocation. No doubt.
What are your questions?
If you have questions, ask them respectfully. We have guns.
After he delivered all sorts of lectures on Proper Behavior With Classified Information, indicting Hillary Clinton (who will NEVER be President except of the Rotten Girls' Club at Leavenworth we hope) and attempting to indict Donald Trump and everyone associated with his campaign.....
We find that "St Jim" was just as criminally responsible for mis-handling classified documents and stealing stuff that did NOT belong to him from the US Government.
Screw him.
Every day it is more and more clear that Mordor on the Potomac should join Carthage in delenda est....
Not only did Ted Cruz introduce the idea that ObozoCare plan should be one of MANY health-insurance plan offerings, he also introduced the idea that premiums could be paid with pre-tax dollars.
Yes, there's a problem with the second: it's another tangled mess, like anything involving IRS.
But given that McPain has not shuffled off this mortal coil yet, it may be a necessary evil. For a while.
So happens that it is the birthday of my forever-sweetie. And I've learned something which I'll pass on to you grasshoppers. (Fortunately, AOSHQ also learned it an put it into a picture for you!!)
....the McYertle/Ryno carney act reopens with a supposed push to get a
healthcare bill going. They have no intention of doing anything; they
swore to preserve, protect and defend the Bureaucracy and their graft
machine and by G-d that's what they're gonna do. In any case, they're
only 3/3rds of 100% of 3 branches of government so cut them some slack,
you filthy serfs....
...At 75, Monsignor John McSweeney will soon leave affluent Ballantyne –
where this parish named for the patron saint of bankers was built – and
move to Jamaica or Haiti, where he hopes to spend his retirement years
living with and ministering to the poorest of the poor....
That's good news for two groups of people: the poorest of the poor who will receive a lot of graces (and perhaps some food and clothing) from this man's work, and for the parishioners he is leaving, who will now have the opportunity to hear about Catholicism pure, rather than this fellow's ....ummnnhhh....twisted..... take.
...he’d like the church and the diocese to be more about hospitality and
less about judgment. That means, he said, being more welcoming: Of
divorced-and-remarried Catholics, of LGBTQ persons, and of others who
have long felt excluded by the church....
We all know that he does not mean "welcoming of the sinners"; he means "welcoming their sins, too."
...McSweeney said he’d also support the church re-opening the door to
married priests by making celibacy optional – as it was the first 1,000
years of Roman Catholicism....
No, it was not. Or--more accurately--yes, there were married priests. They simply had to live as brother-and-sister with their wives. And yes, later there was a brief time during which men could receive both Orders and Matrimony, but it was quashed NOT in the year 1000, but around 350-400 AD.
...McSweeney said he’s also “very concerned” that many of the priests
graduating from seminaries these days are too conservative and could
spur a revolt by Catholics in the pews against the priests’ efforts to
stifle the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Also known as Vatican
II, this council in the 1960s embraced church reform, including
expanding the role for lay Catholics and celebrating the Mass in the
local language more so than in Latin.
“The population that is the worshiping Catholic community have no
understanding or history of pre-Vatican II,” he said. “They weren’t born
(yet). The same with these young priests.”...
"...stifle the reforms of VatII...such as....local language more so than in Latin..."? Really? There's more than a little irony in this man's yapping about "history" when it is clear that he has not read--nor understood--Sacrosanctum Consilium, which was VatII's blueprint on the liturgy. He doesn't have to read too far into it, either. Just through #36. Or #54.
I always laugh out loud when someone his age (only a few years past mine) flaps disapproving jaw about 'the olden days.' I was there, then, Father. And modern times are just as awful as 'the olden days' ever were, mostly due to yutzes like you.
...Lay people, particularly women, are not being permitted, for example, to
dispense Communion as Eucharistic ministers. Altar boys are allowed,
but not altar girls....
Neither of which has ANYTHING to do with "Vatican II". And both of which are serious counter-signals to the Church's 'alter Christus' teaching; that is, that as Christ was a man, so His priests are men, as are all the altar-ministers. Consider the charge Christ gave Peter and the Apostles: "Feed My lambs....feed My sheep." He did not say that to His mother, nor to Magdalen, did He? That wasn't an oversight, nor a mistake, on His part--no matter what the Monsignor may think.
Not too surprisingly:
...McSweeney does favor letting women become deacons, which would give them
the authority to preach at Mass, baptize and perform weddings....
Thanks, Father, for proving my point immediately above. Next thing you know, he'll be serving up The Pill to those faux-deaconettes so they can continue 'ministry' rather than be encumbered with diapers.
...the monsignor said about 95 percent of his 63 staffers at St. Matthew
are women, including the church’s chief financial officer, its chief of
facilities and most of its clinical counselors....
To which we say: So what?
(Wanna take a hard look at his compensation schedule?? Hmmmm?? Would the father of a family of, say, 8, secure a 'living wage' from Fr. McSweeney's parish? Hmmmmmm??? Oh, nevermind. That stuff is so pre-Vatican II, ya'know. All those children? "Living wage?" Neanderthal-grade Deplorable.)
Thank you, Father, for taking your retirement midst the poor. The good news for you? They won't really give a fig about your imaginative theories of 'justice.' They'll be happy with sandwiches.
Expecting demand for ethanol-free gasoline to dwindle last year,
officers with the Environmental Protection Agency instead found that
usage came in at more than double their estimates, as reported in the
agency’s proposal to cut total ethanol volumes in fuel for the first
time.
“For the 2016 and 2017 standards, we based the total
renewable fuel volume requirement in part on the expectation that the
RFS program would result in all but a tiny portion – estimated at 200
million gallons – of gasoline to contain at least 10 percent ethanol,”
according to the proposal. “We now estimate that the volume of E0 used in 2016 was about 500 million gallons.”...
Woopsie!!
Part of the problem (as you probably know already) is that EPA employees are stupid twits. They estimated 200 million gallons based ONLY on 'recreational boaters.' They didn't count on people who drive old cars, nor people who use small engines for snowblowers, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, rototillers, (we can go on....) ALL of whom prefer real gasoline.
Best reason why? Simple. Real gas does not lose its flavor while in storage. So I use it in my seasonal devices and NEVER have a problem starting them after a long seasonal rest.
The head of the Office of Government Ethics announced his resignation
today after months of disagreements with the White House over ethics
waivers for appointees and Walter Shaub's insistence that President
Trump divest from his businesses....
He will be taking money from private sources, which is a good thing! Here's his parting shot:
“In working with the current administration, it has become clear to me
that we need improvements to the existing ethics program...."
No.
What we need is a fully-drained swamp, and if that means 535 new prostitutes in Congress, well, then, that's what it means.
And while Robin Vos and Scott Walker argue about spending MORE money, you, dear Wisconsin sucker, get to pony up a very large portion of your earnings so that they can burn them.
Nice.
...Badger State residents still pay a mother lode of taxes — way more,
given how little the average Wisconsinite makes, than almost anyone else
in America. That is not hyperbole. Our total state-local tax burden per
capita as a percentage of income, 11 percent, is the fourth-highest in
the United States, according to the Tax Foundation’s 2017 Facts & Figures report....
IOW, Wisconsin is not a high-earnings State, but it sure as Hell (apt, eh??) is a high-tax-per-earnings State. ELEVEN PERCENT!!
And Walker ran for President as a "conservative"? That takes balls.
This speech was a humdinger; not hard to tell why the MSM doesn't tell us too much about it.
...This was a speech filled with remarkably apt references to Polish
history, a subject surely few people suspected the president came to
office familiar with. There were multiple references to Pulaski and
Kosciusko, the Poles who crossed the Atlantic to fight for American
independence...
...There were plenty of barbs directed at the former Soviet Union, whose
downfall Vladimir Putin once called the great tragedy of the 20th
century....
And in a portion which HAS been noted by many:
..."Our defense is not just a commitment of money; it is a commitment of
will," he said. "The fundamental question of our time is whether the
West has the will to survive."...
Indeed. That was directed at Germany, Italy, and France--and perhaps England, too.
Very important, given all the "Russians" bullcrap, is this:
...Trump announced that the United States will sell the most advanced
Patriot missile defense systems to Poland. This is a reversal of the
policy of the Obama administration, which in 2009 abruptly abandoned the
American commitment to station missile defense batteries in Poland and
the Czech Republic...
And Putin 'wanted THIS guy' to defeat She-Who-Should-Be-Imprisoned? What morons CNN really employs....
..."We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere
on Earth. But if we do not have strong families and strong values,
then we will be weak. And we will not survive."...
Why is that the most significant? Because, as Esolen will be happy to tell you, the Catholic Church's social doctrine begins with--is founded upon--the family. Western society, also known as Judaeo-Christian, depends on the family's strength for its survival. That's not because Trump says so; it's because the Church, particularly Pp. Leo XIII, says so.
Yes, that's the essence of an essay on liturgy from Professor K, who is rapidly emerging as a serious force in the ongoing discussion.
In liturgical discussions, a major premise of the progressivist side is,
ironically, what might be called neoscholastic reductionism, which
defines the “essence” of the Mass as having a valid consecration....
(Which 'reductionism' is analogically identical to celebrating "The 4th of July" instead of "Independence Day," by the way...)
...No one would dream of defining the Byzantine rite as “essentially” a
valid consecration, with which a lot of florid prayers and hymns are
accidentally associated. Nor should anyone with a modicum of sense try
to define the Roman rite of Mass apart from the Roman Canon, which is
its defining feature, or attempt to import an epiclesis into the Roman
Canon, when, properly speaking, it has none and needs none....
Perfesser K is a lot more direct and brutal than was Pp. B-16 in describing the "reforms."
...What is it that makes a liturgy a Christian liturgy? Even more importantly, what makes this liturgical rite to be itself (Roman, Ambrosian, Byzantine, Syro-Malabar, etc.) and no other? When these are
the questions we pursue, we find rich answers that show us the
fittingness, the beautiful complexity and sufficiency, of each rite in
itself, and therefore, shows us the dramatically anti-liturgical,
anti-ritual, anti-historical, and ultimately anti-Catholic nature of the
reforms....
Other than that, hey! They were just fine.
Should I bring up HYMN-SINGING here? Especially when the hymns supplant the Propers and/or are noise for noise's sake? Nope: the Professor mentions it next, in his bullet- list of reductionisms, awkward-isms, and manglement-isms.
But here's another interesting little item:
...The damage wrought by neoscholastic reductionism is all too real and very
extensive. It is the only atmosphere in which the outrageous enterprise
of creating a Modern Rite in the late 1960s could have sprung up. The
same mentality has, over time, propagated itself to other aspects of
Catholic life as well. For example, that there are people today who are
seriously asking the question of whether public sinners may receive Holy
Communion shows that the Eucharist has been reduced, in the minds of
many, to a mere sign of belonging or of table fellowship — not a
supernatural mystery that requires the full commitment of one’s mind,
heart, soul, and strength to Jesus Christ really present, against whom
one mortally sins by unworthily receiving Him....
Yah. What's that old meme....lex orandi, lex credendi....yah, that's it.
The President addressed the "Freedom Rally" in D.C. There are a few choice quotes here which--curiously--never surfaced in CNN "coverage" of the speech.
...President Donald Trump said that ever since 1776, America has always
affirmed “that liberty comes from Our Creator.” He also told the
evangelical community that his administration will “support and defend
your religious liberty.”...
...He said, “For too long politicians have tried -- oh have they tried
-- to centralize authority among the hands of a small few in our
nation’s capital. I see them all the time. Bureaucrats think they can
run over your lives, overrule your values, meddle in your faith, and
tell you how to live, what to say, and where to pray.”
“But we
know that parents, not bureaucrats, know best how to raise their
children and create a thriving society,” said the president. “And we
know that families and churches, not government officials, know best how
to create a strong, loving community.”...
One would suggest that the courts have also done their damndest to demolish family and community, but that's another debate (see below for longer treatment.)
He even threw in a shout-out to Charlie Sykes!!!
“I remind you,” he added, “that we’re going to start saying Merry Christmas again.”
...“We don’t want to see God forced out of the public square, driven out of
our schools, or pushed out of our civic life. We want to see prayers
before football games, if they want to give prayers.”...
Which reminds us that the Madistan Bunch is attacking Oconomowoc. More on that later (and it's good news.)
Anyhow, if that sort of speech is speech which terrifies CNN, they can always find another country to work from, no?
So the Fourth again, when we are called to watch parades, grill burgers, suck on beer, and reflect on fireworks.
Or maybe reconcile the Declaration with Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle.
We'll skip the 'right to life' portion of this excellent essay for the sake of time--you want to get to the grilling and drinking part of the day, right?
Here's that 'pursuit of happiness' thing, explained:
...But humans live so that they may attain happiness. Thus, humans have a
right to act in that most human way, to grow in wisdom and love. That
is, since the goal of human existence lies in the exercise of reason and
will, we have a right to be able to develop our intellect by growing in
knowledge of truth and to perfect the will’s love of the good by
delighting in the goodness of creation. It is clear, though, that for
man to flourish in this way there needs to be more specific rights
enabling the use of reason and will. Since knowledge grows through
conversing with others, and love grows through friendship, these other
rights focus on the necessary relations man has to others. Unlike so
many of our contemporaries, however, who demand rights that reflect our
random preferences, we can look to the Decalogue for guidance to know
what humans really need. So, for example, there is a right to freedom of
religion so we can know that God is in whom our ultimate happiness
lies. Also, one needs a stable society in which peace is secured and
justice protected, so there are authorities who have the right to be
obeyed when deciding for the common good. In addition, a person has a
right to a private family life as the first school of virtue, and so the
sanctity of marriage must be protected. There are also rights to
private property, so that one can attain maturity and independence by
exercising stewardship. And if we are to grow in wisdom, there is a
right to truthful communication with other people. In this way, as St.
John Paul argued in Veritatis Splendor, the Decalogue indicates those rules that must be observed if we are to gain the happiness we all desire....
The imminent retirement of "Justice" Kennedy leaps to mind.
Moving on, we have this "liberty" thing...
...the peculiar power by which a human being attains his end is through
proper use of his reason and free will; it is through this potential
that we achieve happiness. But reason and will are the source of human
freedom, because we can know reality objectively and judge what ought to
be done. So, while animals act on instinct alone, human beings have to
exercise deliberative judgment. This choice is “right” if it conforms to
the reality of human nature by maximizing wisdom and love, and wrong
inasmuch as it departs from attaining wisdom and love. Liberty, then, is
an ordered freedom, an exercise of choice for the sake of an objective
notion of happiness....
So. After all that....
...If we take up the public argument required of every civilized people, we
can restore the true meaning of these rights. To do so, we need only
remember the most basic axiom of Thomistic philosophy: action follows
from being. By attending to this, we can protect life in its entirety,
and define liberty and happiness according to the truth of human nature,
thereby securing the common good longed for by those who first founded
the United States in the name of universal human rights.
Another perspective which re-inforces the above was given us by Coolidge (courtesy PowerLine):
...It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress
since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have
given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may
therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern.
But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men
are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable
rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be
made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or
their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically
is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no
equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who
wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They
are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than
those of the Revolutionary fathers....
Why do I keep thinking of SCOTUS' malefactions when I read that sort of stuff??
It is not yet necessary to 'argue' the case by schmeissing those who favor disordered liberties. We are not Venezuela. Yet.
Z-Man writes edgy stuff. Since he's civilized, it's just 'edgy.' If someone less erudite would write it, it would be inflammatory. Not Trump-ean, which....well....you know....
So Z wrote a column on the Jews, but from a far different perspective than the usual ones. (Yes, there are at least two perspectives.) As part of it, he has this graf:
...The example of Brutus is not simply that sacrifice, often terrible
sacrifice, is the price of power. It’s that sacrifice in support of the
culture, in support of the common beliefs of the people, is the price of
power. The unwritten contract between the rulers and the ruled is that
the rulers will do what is required to uphold the cultural structures
that define the people, as they are the foundation upon which the elite
stand. Brutus could not be Brutus, unless he and his blood were subject
to the rules of the Republic.....
We think that the Judiciary should pay very close attention to that graf, especially the red-highlighted part. See, that "...elite stand" text has an implication: the "elite" may also "fall" if they fail to uphold the cultural structures which define the people.
Specifically, the structures of marriage and the primacy of the family. And--oh, yeah--that part about "under God" Who, incidentally, did not write positive law.
...Aidan Nichols, in his Looking at Liturgy, in 1996, explains how
a desire to increase the understanding and participation of the laity
in the Mass did so on faulty sociological theories. Citing Dominican
liturgiologist Irenee-Henri Dalmais, Nichols shows that, contrary to
many of the Fathers of Vatican II’s experts, liturgy “belongs in the
order of doing (ergon), not of knowing (logos). Logical thought cannot
get far with it; liturgical actions yield their intelligibility in their
performance, and this performance takes place at the level of sensible
realities … capable of awakening the mind and heart to acceptance of
realities belonging to a different order.” The theme of noble simplicity,
one of the principle axioms of Vatican II’s liturgical reforms, in this
light appears somewhat naïve, excluding as it does methods of
perception proper to the human person that are wider than Enlightenment
epistemology can obtain or even account for....
Thus the failure of didacticism, the 'everything is explained' or, more currently, 'everything is self-explanatory.' It's why Chant works and why today's Mares-Eat-Oats hymnody, derived from Broadway fails.
Would you--COULD you--be delighted if a magician explained the trick as he went along?
SUPER-STRAIGHT. Old. Nasty. Likes Chesterton, Gregorian Chant and other real music. Calvin & Hobbes is Great!.
Varmint-shooter, and have trained ALL my children in the art.
