WELL SOME ARE JUST LAUGHABLY CRAZY, LIKE THE UN BEING A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. UNLESS THE GOAL IS HELL, OF COURSE: Liberal or conservative?
Archive for 2018
August 28, 2018
AS LONG AS WE HAVE EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW: The Myth of Equality
EVERYWHERE AND EVERYWHEN: Socialism, the Great Destroyer.
GOOD: ESPN sacks Jemele Hill.
I’M SHOCKED, SHOCKED: Lanny Davis, CNN’s Source For Trump Tower Story Backpedals.
ARE THEY SERIOUS: CNN Is Sad About New Mexico Terrorists Difficult Life Off The Grid.
AH, BUT THE RULING CLASS THINKS IT’S SO SWEET: Poisoned Fruit of the Poisoned Tree.
August 27, 2018
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED. Andrew Klavan: Why Are We in Media Hell?
AT AMAZON, end of summer savings on Appliances.
SOHRAB AMARI: The Catholic abuse scandal now leads all the to way the Vatican.
The Viganò testimony bears the mark of a man seething with anger and perhaps facing the mystery of death. “It is in moments of great trial that the Lord’s grace is revealed in abundance and makes His limitless mercy available to all,” the 77-year-old churchman writes near the end. “But it is granted only to those who are truly repentant.”
For American and global Catholicism, Viganò’s dark night of the soul presents a bright clarifying moment. The document portrays a church whose highest echelons are dominated by old men who apparently don’t believe, or at least don’t take all that seriously, what she has taught about human sexuality for two millennia. And others who are willing to cut corners to protect their decadent brethren.
Either Viganò’s core claims hold water, or they don’t. Either the Vatican was informed of McCarrick’s predations as early as 2000 only to turn a blind eye, or it wasn’t.
Either Pope Benedict XVI imposed private sanctions against McCarrick in 2009-10, barring him from celebrating public Masses and cavorting with seminarians, or he didn’t. Either McCarrick’s successor as cardinal-archbishop of Washington, Donald Wuerl, was aware of the sanctions, or he wasn’t.
Either Pope Francis rehabilitated McCarrick upon taking the Petrine office, despite being warned of the abuse “dossier,” or he didn’t.
If Viganò is telling the truth about these things, then the moral catastrophe he describes is horrifyingly real.
Everything else is noise.
The response I’ve seen seems more about his motives than his accuracy.
THINK OF THEM AS DEMOCRATIC PARTY OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES, AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG: Byron York: New York Times profile of Bruce Ohr looks a lot like a well timed defense brief.
It’s like in The Verdict, where James Mason’s “Prince of Darkness” character arranges favorable newspaper and TV profiles for the doctors who basically killed Paul Newman’s client, just before the case goes to trial.
VIDEO FLASHBACK: Obama Campaign Mocks McCain’s Disability.
CONCERN TROLLING, DEFINED: MSNBC’s Katy Tur mourns the bipartisan Republicanism embodied by Sen. John McCain.
Yes, MSNBC treated McCain with such genteel civility that one of their anchors insinuated that his running mate should be shot.
OPEN THREAD: Give your all.
MEN ARE ON THE INTERNET TALKING ABOUT FITNESS and the New York Times is ON IT!
ROGER KIMBALL: The New York Times’ slathering praise for John McCain rings false.
It is instructive, then, to compare The New York Times’s coverage of McCain circa 2018 with what it had to say in 2008, when it actually mattered in more than a rhetorical sense. The Times was happy to support McCain during the primary season, doubtless understanding that he was the weaker candidate. But when it came down to it, the Times wrote that McCain was ‘aggressive,’ ‘erratic,’ possibly a bit touched in the head, to mention, old, old. In a piece titled ‘The Real John McCain,’ published in September 2008, as the campaign was approaching its white-hot finale, the Times wondered whether, as McCain took the stage, ‘there would be any sign of the senator we long respected.’
There were a few sops of the old McCain, the Times admitted. But no one will be surprised that the Times came down firmly on the other side. The evening, they said, was full of ‘chilling glimpses of the new John McCain, who questioned the patriotism of his opponents as the ‘me first, country second’ crowd.’
The Times continued in a musing mood: ‘In the end, we couldn’t explain the huge difference between the John McCain of Thursday night and the one who ran such an angry and derisive campaign and convention.’ Angry!
September of 2008 was a big month for the Gray Lady: As Byron York wrote on September 24th of that year, “Today is a red-letter day for the New York Times. For the first time, the paper has reported in its news section that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright once uttered the phrase ‘God damn America,’” speaking of angry and derisive fellas.
SUNLIGHT IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT: Credit Card Companies Restore Donations To The David Horowitz Freedom Center After Backlash.
PRIORITIES: Pope Francis Concerned With Climate Change Over Sexual Predator Clergy.
Victor Davis Hanson’s Bloomberg Syndrome gets metaphysical: “Quite simply, the next time your elected local or state official holds a press conference about global warming, the Middle East, or the national political climate, expect to experience poor county law enforcement, bad municipal services, or regional insolvency.”
Related: The Catholic Cold War Turns Hot.
YES, NEXT QUESTION? Given all the suffering it has caused, is socialism a hate crime?
THE NEW U.S.-MEXICO TRADE DEAL: Bloomberg text and video report. In the first video Trump gives his views on the deal.
UNSURPRISING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Cardio exercise and strength training affect hormones differently. Though the main news is that researchers really don’t know much about how all this stuff works.
AT AMAZON, save in Arts Crafts and Sewing.
Plus, deals on DVDs.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Tufts University Stands by New ‘Colonizing Palestine’ Course.