. . . the Mouth From South L.A., says that if Democrats take the U.S. House of Representatives next week, she will become the new chairman of its important Financial Services Committee.
And that means Mad Maxine can exact revenge against banks and insurance companies and other any other financial institution she thinks have shafted black people.
Go for it, Maxine. If you can match Trump on improving lives of black people, I’m all for you.
Now, as Ben Franklin said on his way out of the Constitutional convention, asked what we had, a republic or a monarchy, replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
What do we have? An economy to beat all, if we can keep it.
Go Repubs in midterms.
via US created 250,000 jobs in Oct, vs 190,000 jobs expected
Well. Privately, of course. Moore’s account has a down-home flavor. His business is to present plausible, left-heartwarming episodes. But he’s a trickster for all that.
But this is quite plausible. Very much so.
Repent, ye capitalists. Don’t cry for Venezuela and other Latin American countries, those earthly paradises, including Cuba. Oh to be in either country, where anti-capitalism is blooming.
Michael and Francis, a partnership made in heaven.
From the place to go for news and views, Wall Street Journal (And elsewhere, including CNN)
Notable &Quotable: StewartChristiane Amanpour interviewing Jon Stewart, CNN, Oct. 30:
Amanpour: We are all caught up in this sort of daily Trump-fest. . . . We the journalists—we, I think, believe that our job is to navigate the truth and to do the fact checking and all the rest of it. . . .
Stewart: But I think the journalists have taken it personally. . . . They are personally wounded and offended by this man. He baits them. And they dive in. And what he’s done well, I thought, is appeal to their own narcissism, to their own ego. . . . The journalists stand up and say, “We are noble. We are honorable. How dare you, sir?” . . . And now he has changed the conversation to not that his policies are silly or not working or any of those other things, it’s all about the fight. He is able to tune out everything else and get people just focused on the fight. And he’s going to win that fight.
Many newsies embrace an idealistic notion of their profession — and themselves. How dare he? they say when Trump gets under their too often thin skin?
The long arm of the Vatican reaches out to an online publication suspiciously calling itself The American Catholic.
Message: You have to be certified — or (presumably) you will have to ditch the Catholic part.
To adapt a 1935 Sinclair Lewis title, It can’t happen in the 21st-century church.
When 60 Minutes producer Guy Campanile first approached [Siobhan] O’Connor about appearing on 60 Minutes to explain why she had leaked the documents, he told her to consider the consequences of becoming a whistleblower.
Once she comes forward publicly, he told her, life will change. She spent a few days thinking about it, then arrived at her decision.
“The reality of what I saw really left me with no other option because at the end of my life, I’m not going to answer to Bishop Malone. I’m going to answer to God,” O’Connor tells Whitaker on the broadcast.
This is what you call the laity speaking out. A model for us all.
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For the whole low-key but stunning 60 Minutes interview, go here.
Vatican toadies? Culpably ignorant?
So eager to please their leader, who probably likes it that way.
In a children’s book in 2016, he gives a flippant version of how to look at the old mass:
Francis’ Vulgar Comments on the Latin Mass
It appears that a children’s book titled Dear Pope Francis is to be released on March 1.
[The blog] “Rorate Caeli” obtained and posted a section of the book that is not only disturbing, but provides a snapshot into the mind of Francis concerning the ancient Mass of the Church.
The excerpt:
“Dear Pope Francis, Were you ever [an] altar boy? Greetings from Alessio (Italy, age 9)”
His response:
“Dear Alessio, yes, I was an altar boy. And you? What part among the altar boys do you have? It’s easier to do now, you know: You might know that, when I was a kid, Mass was celebrated different than today. Back then, the priest faced the altar, which was next to the wall, and not the people. Then the book with which he said the Mass, the missal, was placed on the right side of the altar. But before reading of the Gospel it always had to be moved to the left side. That was my job: to carry it from right to left. It was exhausting! The book was heavy! I picked it up with all my energy but I wasn’t so strong; I picked it up once and fell down, so the priest had to help me. Some job I did!
The Mass wasn’t in Italian then. The priest spoke but I didn’t understand anything. and neither did my friends. So for fun we’d do imitations of the priest, messing up the words a bit to make up weird sayings in Spanish. We had fun, and we really enjoyed serving Mass.”
The blog’s commentary:
What, then, has Francis effectively taught this nine-year-old altar boy, and any youngster who reads the book?
1) The protestantized Novus Ordo [new
mass] is superior to the old, stodgy,”other-worldly” Tridentine [16th-century Council of Trent] Mass, where the priest faced the altar and not the people, and where the faithful allegedly could not understand what the priest said.2) The Mass and things pertaining to the Mass can be the object of cheap amusement even by altar boys while they are serving. How contrary this is to the spirit of Catholicism.
Explaining the latter, i.e. old-time religion, using terms and expressions seldom heard in 2018:
The Gifts of Piety and Fear of the Lord, two of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost, instill in us a reverential fear of God, which recognizes God’s greatness and our littleness, and a deep respect for those things that pertain to God, which must be treated in a reverential manner. These Gifts do not appear to be manifest in Francis. There is also no sense of the supernatural when Francis speaks of the Mass.
There is little or no such sense in the whole world, in which the supernatural gets little respect, other than when applied to goblins and witches. Otherwise, doesn’t sell.
Francis, the modernist Jesuit [the worst
kind {heh}], boasts to a nine-year-old youngster, and thousands of other youngsters who will be given a copy of this book, that, “messing up the words a bit to make up weird sayings” is an acceptable practice for an altar server. What really matters, “We had fun…”.The excerpt from the book reminds us of the episode – captured on video – where Francis poked fun at the little altar boy properly folding his hands in prayer. “Are your hands stuck together?” asked Francis, grabbing the boys hands and moving apart and back.
Case for prosecution:
For Francis, some of the most sacred aspects of Catholic practice can be the object of sport: “We messed up the words” of the Mass, “We had fun,” “Are your hands stuck together?”
Who is this vulgar little man that our contemporary Cardinals elected in 2013?
He’s our churchly constitutional monarch, not always in sync with that role — crucial, unique, and limited, though it be.
Blithe Spirit 