Did Trump Create Chaos or Reveal It?

I think that’s still the main sticking point at which reasonable people can disagree. Did Trump “make” the Left insane? Would a Republican appeasement policy have worked with Democrats in 2016 had Hillary been elected?  Would the country be better off if she had been elected?  If discretion is the better part of valor, was it wise to start a war we can’t win (given the spy agencies control the Congress via blackmail and thus the US)? Trump’s election was an affront to them and they had tools they immediately put in motion: first, divide America based on race. Make “white supremacist terrorism” the biggest threat to the country, as the FBI asserted in 2019. Allow 2020 BLM riots to escalate without repercussion. Create chaos by entrapping people to think about kidnapping the Michigan governor, and then create more by orchestrating the J6 riot. Make Trump into the chaos candidate and the white supremacist. Could Trump have sent the National Guard into U.S. cities during the ’20 riots and not look like a racist, given he’d already been painted as such? Not to mention he had worked very hard to win black voters. 

I think this exchange between two conservative journalists encapsulates the issue - does the Democrat party hate Republicans, or just Trump? Is the effort to appease Democrats like trying to appease Hitler, or is it like trying to appease an unruly neighbor?:

Andy McCarthy of National Review says in regard to the latest court case: “As much as you may believe Trump has been wronged here — and I think the damage award of over $83 million is ridiculously inflated — this is what it is going to be like for the next nine months, every day, if Republicans nominate Trump.” 

Julie Kelly responded: “Yes. If only Republicans didn’t nominate Trump all the lawfare aimed at him, his family, his advisors, and his supporters—which NR continues to ignore—would all go away. DOJ and other partisan prosecutors would just stop going after Republicans. Problems solved! Never forget that National Review defended FISAgate, supported Trump’s impeachment over the Zelensky call, opposed his efforts to use emergency funds to build the wall, and believe J6 was an insurrection. They’ve ignored all the emerging evidence about J6 inside job and selective prosecution of Americans for the Capitol protest.”

Of course the Left would still go after Trump, try to destroy him regardless whether he was nominated. They hate him. But would they do so against a DeSantis had he won? Would they have been a well-behaved party had Hillary won in ’16? 

Pre-Trump, the Obama administration targeted conservative organizations using the IRS and Lois Lerner.  And the administration sued the Little Sisters of the Poor, trying to limit their religious liberty.  Operation Fast and Furious was Obama’s program to use American gun dealer to arm Mexican drug lords so the administration could complain about lax regulations on American gun sales to restrict American Second Amendment rights (Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress during the investigation but of course was not punished for it.) Obama knew that Hillary was guilty of sending classified email on her home-brew server. The U.S. Department of Justice secretly obtained telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press wire service. 

Illegal immigration under Obama was about 6 million over 8 years. Under Trump, 1.5 million over 4. Under Biden, the numbers vary widely since it’s pretty hard to track now, anywhere from 7 million to 14 million in just 4 years.  So there is mixed data on whether things would’ve gone better or worse under Hillary.  She probably would’ve stuck to Obama’s 3 million illegal immigrants average for her 4-year term, but she also would’ve certainly kept Republicans in check by illegal means, including using the IRS and DoJ as tools. 

The positive case for Trump is simply that the system is corrupt and needed to change and a bandaids didn’t work. You needed the radical “surgery’ of a Trump (not that that surgery is sufficient). In 2016 there was certainly no one running for president in the GOP primary, except for Trump, who would’ve done anything than affixed new bandaids. 

Red-pills and Black-pills oh my

The kids today ask what red-pilled you or black-pilled you, terms from the movie The Matrix. My red pill moment was probably the Mueller probe ending without a bang. The Russia hoax was sort of like the Iraq War: you better find WMDs or it was a tremendously destructive exercise. Similarly, you’d better find that Trump was working for Russia or the three year investigation was a tremendously destructive exercise.  The line about Iraq is: “you break it, you bought it”. With Trump and the DoJ, “you break him, you bought him”. Or maybe you have built him into something he wouldn’t have otherwise been. 

My political black pill moment was the months following Jan 6 when we began learning it was a Fed set-up. This showed us two things: 

1. The forces of destruction were not backing down but doubling down. 

2. Congress did nothing, showing that the FBI obviously must have blackmail on leaders.  They are the people’s voice, or supposed to be, so that’s about as black-pilled as you can get. 

The interesting question is always one of line-drawing. Every Republican voter and all Independents would vote for Trump if Biden started summarily executing political opponents. That’s the easy case.  But how much corruption of the justice system is too much? 

Similarly very few people would vote for Trump now if he had been given his first term unmolested by the FBI/DOJ.  He would’ve experienced a lot more push-back from people on how he handled covid, the lockdowns, vaccine, poor hires like Fauci, etc... The focus would be on him rather than his much more lethal enemies. There's a reason Trump got 11 million more votes in '20 than '16.  The 11 million realized they weren't voting for Trump v Biden, but Trump v the Deep State. 

Chart Shows Local Discontent Linked to Being US Ally?

I did a little more look at that fascinating trust index (how much different nations trust their leaders) and tried to come up with a common denominator for what helps determine the level of trust. It's not democracy versus autocracy, or free press versus locked down press. 

My initial hunch was level of immigration. The thinking being, if a government can't be trusted to limit foreign immigration then it likely can't be trusted period. But the fit was imperfect. The curves not fully inverse. I looked then at the possibility of "globalism", seeing how that creates a lot of discontents. But it's hard to quantify: is the globalism economic, political or social? All three? And how do you define the level of globalism in a place like the Netherlands, where they are globalists generally (in terms of the climate change scam) but not in terms of immigration. 

If we look at the big picture: that we are in period of time, after the fall of the Soviet Union, in which the sole superpower is the USA.  

How much discontent is driven simply by a country's leadership kowtowing to foreign interest (the US) rather than putting their country first?

It turns out it's surprisingly clear inverse relationship. The less you are entwined with the United States, the more your people seem to trust you. 

Here's the chart. The values range from 1 (i.e like Russia) to 10 (US obviously is the biggest ally/influence on US is the US).  European countries generally range from UK being the high, to Germany/France being 6-7 on the scale. The green line shows the level of US influence on a country, the blue line the level of trust its citizens have in their government. (Click to enlarge.) 

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/12/05/u-s-is-seen-as-a-top-ally-in-many-countries-but-others-view-it-as-a-threat/

https://today.yougov.com/international/articles/34566-united-kingdom-seen-united-states-greatest-ally

https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2024-01/2024 Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report_0.pdf

Obviously the caveat is it's not an exact science in determining the degree of US influence. I used mostly a survey of countries linked above by the perceived influence, both by foreigners and Americans. 

Countries of the World Ranked By Trust

Interesting to see a list of countries and level of governmental trust. There’s a pretty direct relationship (correlation, not causation of course) between countries who put their country first, versus countries who put a global agenda (climate change, green energy, engaging in foreign wars, etc..) first. 

Similarly, countries who limit immigration do much better than countries who don’t. Which is probably why USA is among the least trusted governments by its own citizenry. 

The highest countries are: Saudi Arabia, India, China, Malaysia - all with greater than 2/3rds of citizens reporting trust. All have very strict limits on immigration and have no global fetishes. (Other than China’s, which is to rule the world, ha, but I suppose that will benefit the Chinese. It helps that their standard of living has quintupled over past couple decades.) None of the aforementioned have ambition to put their troops or money behind proxy wars or actual wars. 

The lowest countries are Argentina (the poster child of the globalist International Monetary Fund), South Africa, and UK; France, Germany and US are the next laggards, with low 39-42% trust levels. 

The highest European country, the only one with greater than 50% rating, is the Netherlands. 

The Netherlands have cut immigration sharply: “Since 2007 the Netherlands is currently the only country in the world to demand knowledge of language and society from its inhabitants (with a non-Western immigrant background) before allowing them to stay permanently.”

**

Speaking of reasons not to trust our government, a recent Tucker Carlson episode shows that the government likely planted and “discovered” the pipe bombs found on January 6th. Not surprising, as we’d had a lot of hints toward that end for a long while, but what is interesting is if it made any difference to anyone not already disposed to voting for Trump. 

Naive me, the scariest thing about J6 at the time were the pipe bombs. I was like, “whoa! That’s chilling.”  The protestors didn’t seem to have weapons and so would, presumably, be removed (as they were after a long enough period of time had elapsed to ensure the narrative). 

It’s pretty amazing that the government so hated Trump that they would act recklessly enough to incite and encourage J6 trespassers.  They “helpfully” cut down wire fencing surrounding the Capitol (that guy was never caught, surprise, surprise, despite being on camera) and they had a guy up on scaffolding with a bullhorn saying “go forward! Into the Capitol!” (He was never caught, surprise, despite his high visibility.) And of course there’s Ray Epps who got probation only despite being on the front lines, whispering sweet nothings into the ear of a guy who just afterward, as if on Epps’ say-so, broke down a barrier. 

One thing seems reasonably certain: elections, no matter how dubious they may seem, are apparently not easily rigged. The ’16 election would seem to be proof of that although many claim that that’s because the riggers were caught by surprise. But the lengths the elites are going to kill Trump’s movement suggests they were/are/will be panicky. January 6th was, it seemed at the time, the perfect vehicle to not only discredit Trump but also his movement. A win-win for the bad guys. So there’s a boatload of satisfaction in the knowing that their plan failed and that Trump is back in the driver’s seat despite it all. I’m pretty proud of my country, proud that so many people are going to vote for Trump despite his many flaws. Given the unbelievably biased press thrown at Trump it’s a miracle he’s even a political force at all. 

But I still wonder. Do any Democrats or even political centrists care that their government encouraged J6?  Would they not believe it simply because it’s not on CBS or CNN? If they believed it, would they simply say Trump and his crowd deserved it?  

In other words, how much is due to ignorance and how much is due to a realization that we're past the rule-of-law stuff?

S.W.A.T TV Show Propaganda

Been watching S.W.A.T. television show and it’s well-crafted from an action flick point of view, but is propagandistic enough to make me wonder if it’s a CIA vehicle.  It’s pro-cop and anti-white, which is a mirror of our Deep State FBI and other agencies. A hard sell is to minorities, hence the need to get them onboard the fascist train. 

The other hilarious incident is it tries to normalize three person relationships. Apparently having a gay character is way too passe'. 

I checked out the Wiki entries of the shows creators,  Aaron Rahsaan Thomas and Shawn Ryan (as if Wikipedia was going to say, “they collaborated with the CIA and DHS in order to help shape public opinion during the Trump years.” Ha.) It’s probably impossible to tell generic Leftism from generic corporatism since both have the same goals. 

On Twitter, there are a variety of similar expressions: 

TV shows [like] SWAT, Fire Country, FBI, East New York, New Amsterdam … they are all social conditioning propaganda designed to make our institutions palatable. Do you see it?! You should.

I love how every cop show on network TV now has an FBI/SWAT/CIA/NSA/DEA/ICE spinoff show it's a great time for propaganda.

I know every tv cop show is propaganda but I watched a few clips of SWAT and it is absolutely insane how mask off that show is. 

Hopefully, they’ll take off that liberal propaganda machine TV show they call SWAT!

Ok so as far as I can tell it was a 1990 narrative TV series that was essentially propaganda to humanize SWAT teams, produced by Dick Wolf, and starring Rufio and bunch of other guys. 

Big % of TV shows present cardboard image of reality. Quality suffers huge from political agendas. Boycott brainwash shows Greys Anatomy, FBI, Swat.

Have u seen the military shit on free-to-air? CSI, 911, SWAT and on and on and on...All the military agencies gotta have their own propaganda series.

All tv is some measure of propaganda but @CBS is King of it. half they shows bout police, or fbi, or swat....The Government "Manufactures Consent" (Chomsky) for it's institutions through such shows.

Michael Novick: LAPD on SWAT TV show is propaganda... feels it is propaganda used to promote weaponized drone use. 

Hadn't watch S.W.A.T (tv show) in a long time, but tonight episode was about mainstream store looting...and get this...all white perps. Hollywood is an evil propaganda machine.

I’ve been watching S.W.A.T the series for a long time and  it’s been a brilliant cop show but series four is just a massive anti white propaganda fest! This Hollywood shite is getting so boring now! White man bad!

Imagining what Trump Would Say on Potential VPs

Kari Lake: Love Kari, but too much like me, too polarizing to be on ticket. 

Tulsi Gabbard: Hot-looking, good energy. I could see her as VP. Got enough gray in her hair to add gravitas.

Tucker Carlson: No one casts a TV star as VP.  Only one alpha dog on a ticket. 

Dr Ben Carson: Good guy, if a bit low energy. Jeb with dark skin? 

Vivek R.: I like Vivek. He’s said good things about me. Not quite seasoned enough. 

Kristi Noem: Kristi is a definite possibility. We’d make a nice couple, I mean ticket.  

Sarah Huckabee Sanders: I’ve worked with Sarah in the past. I’m looking for more pizazz though. 

Nikki Haley: My base would never forgive me.  

Daughters of St Paul Scandal

Sad story in the Pillar Catholic site of an experience of sisters in a religious community being groomed by a spiritual director. The conclusions one of them came to - that the world and the Church is a dangerous place - is one we’ve all sort of woken up to in light of the evil of our once seemingly “dependable” institutions like our judicial and medical systems. 


The money quotes: 

“I think we don’t realize the ways in which modernism has become a part of the Church’s infrastructure. It can come in traditional forms, traditional clothing, but it’s very modern to hold this idea that we can be sanitized from sin — and that prevents us from confronting the real truth, of sin, and evil.”

“When you’ve been wounded, it gives you eyes to see and ears to hear, where the danger is. And when you choose to remain in the Church, you realize it’s sometimes a dangerous place, but you choose to be there, and Christ is there.”

“The real danger is to walk around like it’s not a dangerous place ... as if, as human beings we don’t always have the power to build up and destroy. We do. Everybody does,” she added. 

“I believe that bishops, and anybody involved in these decisions, will be judged. And, look, I’ll be judged too. But I don’t want to stand next to them when they’re being judged, because God is going to be very angry,” she said.

“What I discovered in all of this is that when we hit ground zero, or the devastation of having all of the framework of life be decimated, and then when we discover that actually God is there — not in some kind of fluffy way, not in a platitudinous way like a pious platitude — but when we discover that God is there with us, I think we discover how fierce his love is, and that's God's humility. That's the Blessed Mother's humility.”

“The Blessed Mother was so present to me that she was willing to be hidden. She sustained me and she heard my prayers — desperate prayers, where I would be praying and sobbing … those prayers of desperation just trying to survive.”

“God is more real to me now…. Fr. Dave was so smart, he could quote Scripture, and quote the saints … But God is bigger than he was. He’s more faithful.”

“And even if a sociopathic man waits for five years to prey upon somebody …God's patience is greater and more tenacious. That's why the Church is going to endure it. It's not because seriously misguided and evil people are in charge of things … But it's the people in the pews, the ones who feel like they're hanging on by the tips of their fingernails, but those are the people who are holy.”

Ask Not How the Roman Empire Fell, It Falls for Thee

 Good summary found in a tweet: 

How God prepared the world for Christ: 

Greek reason + Hebrew faith + Roman order

This is what Providence used to prepare the world to receive Jesus Christ. 

These cultures, due to the Incarnation, have a unique, unrepeatable effect on humanity. 

Greek reason and Hebrew faith began a dialogue hundreds of years prior to Christ.

In sum, Greek reason coupled with Hebrew faith under Roman order tilled the earth for the coming of Jesus Christ. As St. Paul teaches, our Lord came in the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4).

**

Yep, from Christopher Caldwell:

"Both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush were conservatives confident enough in the loyalty (or gullibility) of their conservative base to govern as liberals— domestically at least. Bill Clinton, similarly, held onto lunchpail Democrats while governing on behalf of investors. Barack Obama held onto blacks while governing for billionaires. It was at best a paradox, at worst a trick: why appeal to your own people by pursuing the policy they elected you to pursue if they'll vote for you anyway out of loyalty? Better to pursue the policies of your adversaries and win a few of them by persuasion. In America, it worked for individual politicians, who— except for the first President Bush —were out of power by the time the public caught on. But eventually it cost the entire political class the trust of the electorate. That happened to the United States in 2016. It is happening to Germany now."

**

Provocative quote found elsewhere: 

“The purpose of illegal immigration is to facilitate a transfer of wealth from labor to capital.By increasing the supply of labor, wages fall. The crucial part of this dynamic to understand is that all of the economic gains go to the top (ie, capital). They are NOT evenly distributed among the native population, and in fact, illegal immigration actually harms the native population, both economically and socially.”

**

Interesting to read Jim Rickards, who teaches financial warfare at US Army College in Pennsylvania, give a short history of how England lost her empire (beginning with the worldwide general reserve currency, the pound sterling). 

All was well until November 1914 when the sterling started going down. WWI had started in August.  Britain had been selling stocks to acquire gold, since they knew they needed gold to fight the war.

Keynes said, “We’re not going to win the war with money, we’re not going to win the war with gold, we’re going to win the war with credit. Your ability to borrow will determine the ability to win the war. And by staying on the gold standard we can secure credit.” 

But they needed lots of stuff - agricultural supplies, clothing, weapons, metals - so they bought them from United States, causing the gold to start flowing to US and while it took awhile - some 30 years - the sterling was no longer the reserve currency as of July 1944. 

He said that the world cannot destroy the US dollar but the U.S. can, and that’s what we’re doing and Ukraine is a part of it thanks to our sanctions. If you keep hitting countries with economic sanctions and using your reserve currency as a weapon, eventually countries will leave the room rather than risk being punched. 

He was prescient in Jan 2022: He said the U.S. will throw everything at Russia and the Russia economy will do just fine. “Any oil not sold to Europe will be sold to China and India. They’ll ramp up their industrial base and the sanctions will mean almost nothing to them. The ruble is strong, they have labor shortages from growth, don’t need to import weapons by building them themselves, and have expanded the BRICs.” 

He says the good news is it’s not too late to reverse the move away from dollar as a reserve asset.

**

Part of the difficulty of Christian churches highlighting injustice is it’s a large playing field. The easy cases are lethal attacks on humans (abortion) or what it means to be human (transsexual idiocy). The lawlessness of our “justice” system seems to get a pass. 

I get that the Constitution is not a religious document but the shredding of it will lead to more direct attacks on civil liberties, freedom of speech and religion. 

The church can’t fight every injustice and you can’t really highlight the J6rs and the weaponization of government against them when we didn’t highlight the injustices against Muslims involving human right abuses at Gitmo, the Patriot Act, and the no fly lists targeting innocent Muslims. 

**

I amuse myself. The chaos in the Church that Francis promised (he did, after all, say he wanted to “make a mess”) led me to borrow from Trump when after Muslim terrorists killed fourteen in California he said he was going to call for a shutdown of Muslims entering the country until they could figure out what’s going on. I commented, “God’s going to call for a total and complete shutdown of the Catholic Church until bishops can figure out what the hell is going on.” The great Zmirak, no less, “liked” it.

**

I watched a video that makes our life in the West seem even more precarious: we literally ride along on God’s providence. Tucker Carlson and Dennis Quaid recently talked about the power grid and how a simple sun flare, as happened in 1859 (that wiped out telegraphs), would be lethal in a modern electrical environment. 

There are plenty of reasons both manmade and of the "God chastisement” variety that augur not smooth sailing ahead. The combination of our elites actively working for our destruction along with the people abandoning God is not a good one. You wonder how long we can dance along the precipice without falling over into wars, depression, and chaos. It’s been a pretty miraculous run, from the end of WW2 till now, given the presence of nuclear weapons. But the big problem is faith has eroded since the 1970s and quickly since around 2004, which cannot go unanswered by either God or natural consequences. Congress members are swearing their oath of office not on a Bible but on comic strips or worse. How can there be an oath before God without God?  

So we’re all hanging on a precipice, and so “to work or not to work” is far less important than listening to what work God has for us, not what work man has for us.  And the challenge is to never slight the work of prayer and liturgy. 

**

To paraphrase a famous quote, ask not how the Roman Empire fell, it falls for thee today. The things that seemed puzzling to me as a kid - how could a fabulous wealthy and militarily successful nation like Rome fall to a bunch of half-naked barbarians? Well, we see an image of that in our own time when a bunch of cave-dwelling Taliban folks kicked us out of Afghanistan.  

Or another small example:  experts say that to strengthen our electrical grid would cost about $100 billion. Which is about what we sent to Ukraine. I suppose empires fall due to neglect and misplaced priorities. 

Eric Metaxas linked to a study showing that serious Christians in Germany in 1930 voted against Hitler and shallow Christians voted for him. Which is another way of saying fix religious devotion and you’ll fix politics. Eric thinks we need to be involved in politics but that study shows, to some extent, that it probably won’t work. Were strong Christians going to be able to “persuade” weak Christians to vote against Hitler in 1930? Admittedly, they didn’t try very hard but still… And Eric would probably argue strong Christians could’ve made it infinitely harder for Nazis to accrue power had they acted in a more political manner, ala Bonhoeffer. 

The problem with focusing on politics is it doesn’t feel too much in the early Christian tradition. Jesus, after all, seemed entirely uninterested in the goings on of the Romans and their empire. And he taught that very small things, like the widow’s mite, the mustard seed, and the five loaves and two fish have far greater impacts that world historical events. 

**

Today’s first reading trimmed some of the more interesting parts. The sin of Eli’s sons was disrespect concerning the sin offerings to God, i.e.  proper worship. A verse from 1 Samuel goes, “sins can be mediated when committed against people, but if committed against God?”.  Blasphemy as the unforgivable sin. A commentary: 

“The Ark of the Covenant's disappearance happens in the context of wars against the Philistines. Here we see that the death of Eli and his sons, the capture of the ark, and the defeat of the people—all this is due to the sins of the sons of Eli. God just could not let their sin go unpunished, and he imposed a punishment so severe that Phinehas’ wife had good reason to exclaim, ‘The glory has departed from Israel’ .

Covid and Pachamama

Eric Sammons makes a case linking covid and a veneration of the idol at the Vatican in 2019. 

There are suggestions that the if homosexual couples are blessed in the Vatican, similar dire results will occur. 

I compared the timeline of the pagan idol introduced to the Vatican in 2019 and covid:

Timeline of idol: 

• October 4, 2019 a Pachamama statue (a South American idol) was placed in Vatican gardens, was blessed and knelt before.

• On October 7, the idol of Pachamama was placed in front of the main altar at St. Peter’s and then carried in procession to the Vatican’s Synod Hall.

• Bishop Athanasius Schneider condemned the open veneration of the pagan “Pachamama” deity in the Vatican, calling it today’s “golden calf”.

 Timeline of covid beginnings: 

• The Wall Street Journal reported in 2021 that Wuhan lab research staff sought medical treatment for an unknown virus in November 2019. 

• From Newsweek magazine:  “Experts have reacted to a study suggesting that the first case of COVID-19 arose between early October and mid-November 2019 in China. The authors of the study—published on Thursday in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens—repurposed a mathematical model that was originally developed for conservationists to determine the date of extinction of a species, based on recorded sightings.” 

When Did Smoke of Satan Enter?

Rabbit hole of rabbit holes is the papacy of Francis and the state of the Church. It started when my wife sent this post about some seemingly targeted lightning strikes. “Press releases from Heaven” is a memorable phrase. 

The same author is convinced that Pope Francis is not the legit pope due to Benedict leaving another duress, an “impeded See”. I’m sketchy on the details and terminology but the gist seems to be that Benedict was playing 3d chess (far more believable in his case than The Donald’s). He makes that case here.

Somewhere along the rabbit trail I came across the famous “smoke of Satan” line by Pope Paul VI - which makes credible just about anything with regard to church irregularities, just the rich vein of government lies and censorship suddenly makes conspiracy theories well worth our attention. 

The smoke of Satan line was said on June 29th, 1972 but Malachi Martin places the smoke coming on June 29th, 1963. Which fits neatly into the general theory that 1963 was some sort of inflection point given the deaths of JFK, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. It was also the year when sex was begun in Britain, according to Philip Larkin's best-known poem. Bob Dylan’s "Blowin' in the Wind” was popular and “The End of the World" by Skeeter Davis.

Liturgy is the linchpin of the spiritual world, and thus the world in general, we might wonder if anything smoky came in the immediate aftermath of that June 29th event? 

Well here we read that seminal books of essays were given imprimaturs before the huge game changing December release of Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Both Sunday Morning Crisis and The Revival of the Liturgy have imprimaturs dating from the summer of 1963, before the second session of Vatican II had even begun. So these essays interpreted Sacrosanctum Concilium before it was eventually promulgated on December 4, 1963, or even fully discussed at the Council. 

These imprimaturs came just post-smoke of Satan, in July and August.  I report, you decide. 

On Parents Who Did Everything Right

Interesting and frank homily from a local priest on the gospel of Zechariah and Elizabeth having their son John the Baptist despite their advanced age: 

“A question I get from parents a million times is, ‘but we did everything right - what happened?’ Or they frame it as, ‘our kids don’t go to Mass..what did we do wrong?” 

When they say they did everything right they add, ‘we sent them to Catholic schools and a Catholic college’ and I’m always tempted to say - but thank God have always resisted - ‘the answer is implicit in what you said...you sent them to Catholic schools’.  

The gospel says Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous, that they did everything right and still he had no child. Ironically, Zechariah only did something wrong after he received the grace of a child, by his doubting of the angel. 

The core of our faith is ‘grace’, a blessing, an unmerited gift. Grace means that not everything we do, whether right or wrong, matters. God has His plans. It was only after Zechariah gave up his plan for his son and accepted God’s plan for John (by writing, ‘his name is John’ instead of after himself) that he got his speech back. 

Back in the day the church only had masses on Sunday. It was decided that we would add the Saturday vigil since many Catholics who worked on Sundays, like taxi drivers and restaurant workers, would be able to therefore attend mass. The expectation was that mass attendance would go up. But it was immediately shown that there was no increase whatsoever, that some people who previously went on Sundays just changed when they went to mass. The church did the right thing but it bore no fruit, and didn’t achieve the intended result. Zechariah was faithful for many decades but still received no child.  

St Paul wrote that he planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God makes it grow.”

Rep. Mike Carey's Constitutional Bah Humbug

Donald Trump is a famously bad judge of character (Fauci, anyone?) and his endorsement of our local congressman was no exception. Mike Carey has moved easily from Ohio swamp creature to D.C. swamp creature with hardly a ripple. 

He promised he'd vote like Jim Jordan but has voted nothing like him on anything besides "naming a post office" votes. 

It all started with the curious case of his Ukraine funding fetish. This would not seem to be a natural fit for an outside, first term congressman. But he came to D.C. with his Raytheon-issued boots on. He came ready to fill the swamp.  

His latest outrage was to vote for the NDAA (national defense act). As he surely knows, warrantless queries, also known as “backdoor searches,” are inconsistent with a free society and violate our Fourth Amendment rights.  

On paper this would seem to be an easy vote since it's bipartisan. Every fair-minded American wants the FISA process limited since it can be used against Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. It's not an economic or social issue where there can be honest disagreement (if not much on the latter). 

By its own admission, the FBI and CIA are less fearful of foreign terrorists than Trump supporters so why should Carey be so protective of backdoor searches given that foreign terrorists are such a benign threat? 

Carey is in a "purple" district, which means presumably he has to take some tough votes. But NDAA, really? Are Democrats and Independents in his district dying to continue jack up the military industrial complex and continue the war on American citizens? 

Whatever blackmail the deep state has on Carey, it certainly appears to be working. 

Pope Pius on Christ & Politics

About a hundred years ago Pope Pius XI wrote of the feast of Christ the King and it feels as if it could’ve been written yesterday. A few excerpts: 

It would be a grave error to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in his power.  Nevertheless, during his life on earth he refrained from the exercise of such authority, and although he himself disdained to possess or to care for earthly goods, he did not, nor does he today, interfere with those who possess them.

If, therefore, the rulers of nations wish to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ. What we said at the beginning of our pontificate concerning the decline of public authority, and the lack of respect for the same, is equally true at the present day. "With God and Jesus Christ," we said, "excluded from political life, with authority derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation."

Our Lord's regal office invests the human authority of princes and rulers with a religious significance; it ennobles the citizen's duty of obedience. It is for this reason that St. Paul, while bidding wives revere Christ in their husbands, and slaves respect Christ in their masters, warns them to give obedience to them not as men, but as the vicegerents of Christ; for it is not by chance that men redeemed by Christ should serve their fellow-men. 

If princes and magistrates duly elected are filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the mandate and in the place of the Divine King, they will exercise their authority piously and wisely, and they will make laws and administer them, having in view the common good and also the human dignity of their subjects. The result will be a stable peace and tranquillity, for there will be no longer any cause of discontent. Men will see in their king or in their rulers men like themselves, perhaps unworthy or open to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see reflected in them the authority of Christ God and Man. Peace and harmony, too, will result; for with the spread and the universal extent of the kingdom of Christ men will become more and more conscious of the link that binds them together, and thus many conflicts will be either prevented entirely or at least their bitterness will be diminished.

It is necessary that the kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and understood, and to the end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast. For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year - in fact, forever. The church's teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man's nature. Man is composed of body and soul, and he needs these external festivities so that the sacred rites, in all their beauty and variety, may stimulate him to drink more deeply of the fountain of God's teaching, that he may make it a part of himself, and use it with profit for his spiritual life.

History, in fact, tells us that in the course of ages these festivals have been instituted one after another according as the needs or the advantage of the people of Christ seemed to demand: as when they needed strength to face a common danger, when they were attacked by insidious heresies, when they needed to be urged to the pious consideration of some mystery of faith or of some divine blessing. Thus in the earliest days of the Christian era, when the people of Christ were suffering cruel persecution, the cult of the martyrs was begun in order, says St. Augustine, "that the feasts of the martyrs might incite men to martyrdom." The liturgical honors paid to confessors, virgins and widows produced wonderful results in an increased zest for virtue, necessary even in times of peace. But more fruitful still were the feasts instituted in honor of the Blessed Virgin. As a result of these men grew not only in their devotion to the Mother of God as an ever-present advocate, but also in their love of her as a mother bequeathed to them by their Redeemer.

When reverence and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament had grown cold, the feast of Corpus Christi was instituted, so that by means of solemn processions and prayer of eight days' duration, men might be brought once more to render public homage to Christ. So, too, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was instituted at a time when men were oppressed by the sad and gloomy severity of Jansenism, which had made their hearts grow cold, and shut them out from the love of God and the hope of salvation.

The feast of the Kingship of Christ, which in future will be yearly observed, may hasten the return of society to our loving Savior. It would be the duty of Catholics to do all they can to bring about this happy result. Many of these, however, have neither the station in society nor the authority which should belong to those who bear the torch of truth. This state of things may perhaps be attributed to a certain slowness and timidity in good people, who are reluctant to engage in conflict or oppose but a weak resistance; thus the enemies of the Church become bolder in their attacks. But if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his rights.

While nations insult the beloved name of our Redeemer by suppressing all mention of it in their conferences and parliaments, we must all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights.

Numerical Significance in the Cancelling of Catholic Masses During Covid

I looked back at my journal during the covid period of ten weeks (ten Sundays) of no public masses. It was about 3/16 to 5/31, or 70 days. 

The suppression of public masses across the world seems an epochal event, something I can't imagine has ever happened in church history. 

So I checked out some of the biblical symbolism of 10 and 70. I found this on a non-Catholic site about the number 10: 

“As 10 represented God’s governmental rule, so does the number 10 represent the rule of mankind but also the Evil One behind man’s government (as we see in the 10 toes of Daniel 2 and in Revelation chapter’s 13 and 17 of the beast with the 10 horns). ...Throughout the Bible horns are representative of strength and great power.  In Revelation 2:10 Jesus tells the church as Smyrna, “The Devil will keep on throwing some of you into prison that you may be fully put to the test, and that you may have tribulation ten days.”

There were also ten plagues on the Egyptians, and exactly ten generations that lived up to the flood of Noah’s day when the flood of God’s judgment came. 

On 70, the Egyptians mourned the death of Joseph for 70 days and the years Israel was in exile in Babylon was 70 years. 

Book Review: Naomi Klein's Latest

The intriguing conceit of the book "Doppelgänger" is how the accident of their same first names, ethnic background, occupations and oppositional political positions led Klein to become obsessed with the “other” Naomi: Naomi Wolf. 

Reading Klein is like a voyeur reading a voyeur and it’s interesting to see the funhouse mirror world that Klein inhabits. But what makes it more interesting is she’s not blind to all of her side’s idiocies.  Her mix of credulity (when it comes to the government and Pharma during Covid) and sophisticated self-awareness makes for a compelling read, such as when she writes: “…when something becomes an issue in [conservative world] it automatically ceases to matter everywhere else. This has happened on so many issues that I sometimes feel as if we are tethered to each other as reverse marionettes…” 

Similarly she makes a cogent point about the dangers of what she calls “progressive-cloaked capitalism”, saying it leads to a “war on meaning”, and that what unites the far left and far right is hyper-individualism.

She sees Leftists who have gone to the dark side as unprincipled grifters, but it’s telling she never mentions someone like a Dr Peter Mccullough or a Glenn Greenwald. Klein prefers to “punch down”. 

It’s interesting to see how seriously she takes her legacy and brand and while she’s hardly alone in that it’s a cautionary tale. It's the story of modern journalism in which what elites think of you is far more important than the truth. She seems crushed by Philip Roth’s tarnished legacy, wondering what hope there is for her if his wealth and contrivances failed to protect him. Perhaps that’s the point and lesson: wealth and herculean efforts at self-salvation fail.

The Leftist tendency towards totalitarianism is reflected in her desire for a monopoly on language. She sees, apparently, no debasement in Leftist use of terms like “racist” or “white nationalist” (and, in fact, invokes them spuriously in the book) but also finds it painful when populists use the Left’s proprietary terms like “fake news” and “othering”. She “others” Bannon in this book while accusing him of appropriating the term. (Apparently only leftists are allowed to be among the “other”.)

Her religious bigotry or ignorance is noticeable also in saying that religious people think faith is a defense against disease when actually religious people believe there is an afterlife, which means they aren’t as deathly afraid of disease as she. 

All that said, she is a fine writer and a better one than her doppelgänger. She is wise in saying that the censorship of covid discussion gave fuel to conspiracy theorists and even faults herself for not questioning the narrative, due to not wanting to be conflated with conspiracy theorists. In other words, the truth is not something to be sought for its own sake but strategically deployed which leads to all sorts of negative second order effects.  

One suspects that without the angst over her reputation and legacy she would be freer to seek veracity in directions that do not align with the world’s opinion and may even occasionally align, heaven forfend, with her doppelgänger’s.