One Father, One Humanity
23 hours ago
Friday, October 31, 2025
Thursday, October 30, 2025
The New York City Mayoral Race
It's all but over. Now comes the fun part. A socialist mayor in charge of the beating heart of global capitalism, in a country with a far right authoritarian president who is almost certain to suggest Manhattan as the first site for his planned revival of nuclear weapons testing.
US-China Summit: Tactical draw (strategic win for China?)
When Donald Trump launched his trade war against China in April, threatening tariffs as high as 145%, the Chinese government said it would never bow to blackmail and vowed to “fight to the end”.
The question now is whether the consensus reached between Trump and Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on Thursday means that the fight really has come to an end, and if so on whose terms.
Trump rated it as a 12 out of 10 meeting.
Both sides have taken some of their biggest guns off the table, but this appears closer to a truce than a durable peace setting stable boundaries for China’s relations with the US. Nevertheless the outline of a broader long-term diplomatic relationship is visible, with announced reciprocal visits by each leader within a year. That is very different to what China hawks in Congress were hoping when Trump came to power, and will set alarm bells off on both sides of the aisle.
One of the difficulties has been that Trump’s strategic objectives in launching the trade war were not articulated – the balance between protecting traditional US manufacturing, ring-fencing modern technology-based industries critical to US national security, punishing Chinese trade practices, or more broadly generally overpowering China as a competitive threat, were fudged. Gradually the battle morphed in some US administration minds from a trade war into a geopolitical trial of strength between the two world’s superpowers, a trial that left the whole world awaiting its outcome.
As a result it has been a turbulent six months, involving undulating tariffs, export curbs, threats, counter-threats, deferral and monopolies inquiries, interspersed with five rounds of trade talks ranging though Madrid, London, Geneva, Stockholm and Kuala Lumpur, culminating in two hours of direct talks between Trump and Xi, the first meeting between the two men since 2019.
Read the rest here.
Donald Trump Ponders His Place in the Hereafter
A few weeks ago, President Trump momentarily dropped the bombast and the playground insults and the self-congratulation to muse about his eternal soul. “I want to try and get to heaven, if possible,” he said. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole.”
Prodded by a reporter this month to elaborate, he repeated the lament without much more explanation. “I’m being a little cute,” he said. But he went on: “I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me into heaven. I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound.”
Mr. Trump is hardly the first 79-year-old to dwell on what may come after he departs this mortal coil — or to wonder whether he has earned entry into the pearly gates. But it is so unlike Mr. Trump to express self-doubt that his public rumination has raised questions. What is on his mind lately that makes him fear his fate in the hereafter? What sins might he be regretting?
He has not clarified his thinking, at least not on camera, nor for that matter has he shown any public signs of repentance for scandals that he may believe hold him back from grace. And yet the president’s curious contemplation comes at a time when Mr. Trump seems to be seeking a form of immortality. If absolution is out of reach, perhaps there are more achievable ways of living beyond his natural time on this earth.
And so, the man who over a long career in business slapped his name on buildings around the world now seems intent on leaving his mark in even more grandiose fashion. He demolished the East Wing of the White House last week to make way for a vast, gilded Trumpian ballroom. He wants to erect an arch at the entrance to Washington that resembles Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe. He is even considering having the government issue a new $1 coin with his own face on it, something no president has done in nearly a century.
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Trump fires board that oversees changes to White House
President Trump on Tuesday fired all six sitting members of a board that oversees architecture in Washington, D.C., CBS News has confirmed, as the president plans a slate of major building projects in the capital city — including a massive White House ballroom.
"We are preparing to appoint a new slate of members to the commission that are more aligned with President Trump's America First Policies," a White House official told CBS News.
Read the rest here.
Juvenile insults are standard replies for White House reporter
Journalists court criticism when they fail to ask subjects of their reporting for comment. Shirish Dáte, a White House reporter for the progressive news site HuffPost, appears to have the opposite problem: He gets clobbered when he does reach out.
Top Trump officials, Mr. Dáte said, tend to reply with insults, often bundled with praise for their boss. Never were they more newsworthy than a recent back-and-forth that spread across the internet.
After President Trump said he would meet with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, in Budapest, Mr. Dáte (pronounced dah-tay) asked who had recommended the Hungarian capital for a high-stakes meeting.
“Your mom did,” texted Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, in an exchange that she later posted online. “Your mom,” Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, texted moments later, invoking a well-worn maternal insult that, according to the Urban Dictionary, is the “most versatile dis/comeback ever created in the history of your mom.”
“I was kind of like, this is a serious war that’s going on that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians in their homes,” Mr. Dáte, 61 — who worked at several mainstream outlets before joining HuffPost in 2016 — said in an interview. “And then your response is, ‘Your mom’?”
Mr. Trump and his aides have regularly bad-mouthed the press and many journalists over the years, turning to disparaging terms like nasty, dying, disgusting and fake. They show less restraint in their pushback against Mr. Dáte, accentuating his somewhat lonely professional existence — reporting for a progressive publication in a building increasingly populated by right-wing outlets supportive of the current administration.
HuffPost has a seat in the White House briefing room and participates in a rotation of journalists covering Mr. Trump’s events. Invective from officialdom seems to come with those privileges. After the flare-up over the Budapest question, for example, Ms. Leavitt told Mr. Dáte via text that he was a “far left hack who nobody takes seriously, including your colleagues in the media, they just don’t tell you that to your face.”
As he reported on a story this fall about Stephen Miller, one of Mr. Trump’s top aides, Mr. Dáte received an expletive-laden text from Mr. Cheung chiding his physical stature and his masculinity, according to a text chain Mr. Dáte provided.
“In nine years, have I ever insulted you?” Mr. Dáte responded. Mr. Cheung then wrote that Mr. Dáte was “being a moron.”
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Argentina: Libertarians score decisive legislative election win
BUENOS AIRES — Argentines woke up to a politically emboldened President Javier Milei after a dramatic victory in midterm elections on Sunday.
The libertarian president and staunch Donald Trump ally secured more than 40% of the popular vote, and solidified his hold on power in the National Congress, where he had previously struggled to push parts of his agenda through.
The scope of the victory surprised even Milei. His La Libertad Avanza party earned roughly 9 points more than the left-leaning Peronist opposition, and also eked out a victory in the powerful province of Buenos Aires, where Peronists usually dominate. Just over one month ago, the president's party had lost badly in legislative elections in the province of Buenos Aires.
But the story Sunday was very different, and sent a clear message following two years of austerity measures that drastically cut public spending, and helped drive down chronically high inflation. Corruption scandals, and a wild few weeks of economic instability did not dampen the support that he maintains among a sizable part of the population.
The value of the Argentine peso also strengthened considerably on Monday, a show of confidence from the markets after Milei's victory.
Read the rest here.
Sunday, October 26, 2025
Review: A House of Dynamite (Spoilers)
So I watched the Netflix movie A House of Dynamite yesterday, and here are some quick thoughts on the film which has been getting a lot of buzz. Scroll down to the final thoughts if you want to skip the spoilers.
The movie is the latest in the long tradition of the Hollywood nuclear apocalypse genre and some of the plot follows a predictable course. A lone nuclear missile is launched at the United States. No one knows who launched it or why and the government has about 15 minutes before it's going to hit a major US city. The film is part procedural drama and part morality play.
What I liked...
* The acting was generally solid and believable. There were some very sobering and emotional scenes that I thought were pretty realistic. This is not one of those Hallmark Christmas movies mom loved.
* Most of the people that would be involved in something like this are trained professionals. But they are also human with families. If it looks like it's really happening and the end may be imminent, folks are going to handle that in different ways. I thought the film did a good job showing that.
* For the most part, they got the procedural stuff right. Several news stories reported that people with personal knowledge even claimed the sets used for the the White House Situation Room and the command center at STRATCOM were so dead on, they are assuming one or more people who have been in those rooms helped with the film.
* The steps that would be taken in the event of a nuclear emergency were about right and mostly in the right order.
* The bagman and the nuclear football were also more or less correct.
* The organized chaos and stress that would be going on once you trigger C.O.G. (continuity of government) protocols and start evacuating critical persons was again, likely close to what would be going on. If anything, I think it would probably happen a lot faster and more brutally. Senior people in the line of succession would not be politely asked to come along with short delays to finish conversations or phone calls. It would be closer to the very realistic scene where POTUS is just grabbed and rushed by Secret Service out of a public engagement.
Where I think the movie fell short...
* The likelihood of anyone being able to launch a ballistic missile at the US and our not knowing who did it, either instantly or within minutes is in the same range as a lottery ticket. I realize they needed this for the plot, but their explanation is not realistic. We have multiple ways of identifying who was behind any launch. Even if it somehow happened, we would be able to identify the origin of a nuclear blast fairly quickly from various types of evidence related to the blast, types of radioactive material and so on. Think of it as nuclear fingerprints. The idea of someone being able to successfully carry out an anonymous nuclear strike on the US is Hollywood fantasy.
* In the film a couple of interceptor missiles are launched. One malfunctions and the other misses. The procedure here is pretty accurate. But they are wrong in suggesting we would only fire two missiles and hold the rest in reserve for a possible second wave attack. If a lone missile was launched at the US, the assumption would be that it was either an accident, a rogue, or (spectacularly improbable) a false positive in our computers and satellites. Knowing that millions of Americans faced imminent death and that a bomb going off would push the world to the edge of oblivion, they would throw whatever was needed to take that missile out.
* In line with the above, the scenes where the military are pressing POTUS to launch a massive retaliatory strike without knowing all the facts was unrealistic. They, perhaps more than anyone, would know that such an act would mean the end of civilization as we know it. The logic behind their arguments was also not credible. The launch now or we will loose all our nukes did not make sense in the face of a single inbound missile. A single missile was not going to take out our defenses or decapitate the government. Most likely, the military leadership would be urging restraint until we know for sure who did what and if the damned missile even explodes. The nightmare scenario is where the computers and satellites are telling us we have a wall of inbound ICBS and ~15 minutes to make a decision. Then we really would be in a bad spot because about a third of our nuclear defenses are in the form of land based ICBMs. Both Russia and China know where they are. So yeah...
* The US would almost certainly have given emphatic assurances to both Moscow and Beijing that we would not launch any attack until we knew who was behind it. And if it turned out to be North Korea, we would not need to overfly either Russian or Chinese airspace to turn that country into a glow-in-the-dark parking lot. Although not publicly discussed, it is well known that we have multiple nuclear ballistic missile subs on patrol in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean 24/7/365. They are more than capable of dealing with the Hermit Kingdom if needed.
* Word would have gotten out. For the same reasons some people would almost certainly break protocols and make calls to loved ones, someone would alert the press. Also you can't carry out emergency evacuation of top government leadership without the press taking notice. If the POTUS suddenly gets rushed out of a public event by Secret Service, that by itself is going to be the cause for special news bulletins. There would be widespread public panic.
* This would be made worse by a likely total lack of official communication from the government. Two reasons would be behind this. First, in that 15 minute window there isn't going to be time for a news conference. Secondly, there isn't much the government could do or say that would be terribly helpful. Here is a dirty little secret. There is no national Civil Defense program in the United States. It was quietly done away with in the 1990s when everyone assumed that history had stopped, there would be no more major wars, and the US would never actually be attacked. FEMA (created in 1979 to replace the Office for Civil Defense) still exists. But it's focus is now entirely on natural and non-military disasters. There are no more public fallout shelters. No evacuation plans. No functional air raid sirens. Except in Hawaii. Alone of the 50 states, Hawaii launched a major civil defense program in the wake of explicit threats from North Korea. They actually have plans, public shelters and warning systems in place. The rest of us are pretty much screwed.
Final thoughts...
All in all this is one of the better films in its genre. It's well acted and directed, highly suspenseful, at times depressingly emotional, and probably the most realistic film in terms of showing the procedural aspects of our nuclear defenses and how it all works. If at times, the plot strays a bit from the otherwise high levels of realism, it can be excused in the name of dramatic license. Bottom line, I don't see this getting an Academy Award nomination, but on balance it's a good movie
Friday, October 24, 2025
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Trump Pardons a Crypto Billionaire
President Donald Trump signed a pardon Wednesday for convicted crypto executive Changpeng Zhao, who founded the Binance crypto exchange, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
"President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency," Leavitt said. "In their desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry, the Biden Administration pursued Mr. Zhao despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims."
Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison after reaching a deal with the Justice Department to plead guilty to charges of enabling money laundering at Binance, which he ran at the time.
The United States also ordered Binance to pay more than $4 billion in fines and forfeiture, while Zhao agreed to pay $50 million in fines.
Read the rest here.
The war on the rule of law continues.
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Trump is demolishing entire East Wing of the White House to add his ballroom
The entire East Wing of the White House will be demolished “within days,” according to two Trump administration officials.
The demolition marks a significant expansion of the ballroom construction project from what President Trump said earlier this summer.
“It won’t interfere with the current building,” Trump said on July 31.. “It’ll be near it, but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”
The extent of the demolition was first reported by The New York Times.
A White House official told NBC News the “entirety” of the East Wing would eventually be “modernized and rebuilt,” while acknowledging the process is fluid.
“The scope and the size of the ballroom project have always been subject to vary as the process develops,” the official told NBC News.
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Trump Demands Justice Dept. Pay Him $230 Million
President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit.
The situation has no parallel in American history, as Mr. Trump, a presidential candidate, was pursued by federal law enforcement and eventually won the election, taking over the very government that must now review his claims. It is also the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts created by installing the president’s former lawyers atop the Justice Department.
Mr. Trump submitted complaints through an administrative claim process that often is the precursor to lawsuits. The first claim, lodged in late 2023, seeks damages for a number of purported violations of his rights, including the F.B.I. and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the claim has not been made public.
The second complaint, filed in the summer of 2024, accuses the F.B.I. of violating Mr. Trump’s privacy by searching Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence in Florida, in 2022 for classified documents. It also accuses the Justice Department of malicious prosecution in charging him with mishandling sensitive records after he left office.
Asked about the issue at the White House after this article published, the president said, “I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get, I would give to charity.”
He added, “I’m the one that makes the decision and that decision would have to go across my desk and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.”
Read the rest here.
Monday, October 20, 2025
A Bishop Scribbles
This title may surprise many. This article was written to convey the suffering of the bishop who seeks the face of God and the sanctification of his people. It aims to shed light on the suffering of the Church in the East—a Church that, together with her people, lives under harsh conditions, leading the faithful to look upon the Church as a lifeline of salvation. Yet, amid this suffering, they have come to demand from the Church more than she can bear. The article is, in essence, an indirect call for us to intensify our prayers for our Church.
Most believers are used to relating to their pastor in only one direction — he gives and they receive. They expect his hand to remain always extended toward them, carrying whatever they think they need or desire. To them, he exists to fulfill their requests. They often treat him like a "superhuman" or someone who must not make mistakes, get tired, or need rest! Why, they think, should he even have to worry about food or drink? They forget that he is a human being, and that he too needs to feel a living spiritual and emotional connection with his flock and with others. In fact, such connection is not a luxury, it is essential for him to continue his ministry and fruitful service.
For a pastor to endure being forgotten by his people, he would have to be an angel in a body without human limits. But if he is a man with a sensitive conscience and a tender heart, living his priestly calling in sincerity and truth, then he can only accept carrying his cross daily, fixing his eyes on the Lord and seeking from Him alone true comfort and consolation.
The needs of God's people are many and varied — spiritual, social, material, psychological. That is why the role of faithful believers, who are conscious of their responsibility, is indispensable. How can a pastor meet all these needs when so many expect only to be embraced, but few ever embrace him?
I sometimes wonder: what image do believers really have of their pastor? Many are astonished to discover that he is, in fact, human — that he needs human connection, if not also spiritual companionship. In their minds, they place him on a very high pedestal — yet they leave him there alone, excusing themselves from striving for that same holiness to which he and they are equally called.
At the same time, they show him little mercy for any action, behavior, or even word that displeases them. Their measure is not whether his ministry aligns with the Gospel. What matters to them is that he didn't fulfill their request, even if he tried his best and went beyond his strength.
Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk described this painful reality from his own experience:
"If a priest guards himself from sin, they call him rigid;
if he grieves over his sin, they call him gloomy;
if he gives alms, they call him a hypocrite;
if he prays much, they call him an extremist;
if he is insulted and forgives, they call him weak;
if he gives generously to the poor, they call him a fool."
Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe
Sunday, October 19, 2025
Trump Orders Ukraine to Surrender
Donald Trump demanded that Ukraine submit to Vladimir Putin’s peace terms or face destruction in an angry meeting at the White House last week, it has emerged.
The US president, who spoke with his Russian counterpart shortly before hosting Volodymyr Zelensky, warned that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine unless a peace deal was in place.
Shouting and swearing, Mr Trump threw aside Ukrainian maps of the battlefield and pressured Mr Zelensky to surrender the Donetsk region to Russia.
Putin is demanding the withdrawal of Ukraine’s army from the crucial eastern territory as a precondition for peace.
However, the surrender of Donetsk is a red line for Ukraine, which has long refused to cede the territory, which Russia has failed to capture despite fighting since 2014.
Kyiv still holds about a quarter of Donetsk province. The land makes up part of the so-called “fortress belt”, a string of heavily defended towns that blocks Russia from making rapid westward advances towards the capital.
In the White House meeting, Mr Trump echoed Putin’s talking points, despite them contradicting his own recent assessment that Moscow was a “paper tiger”, European officials briefed on the meeting told the Financial Times.
Read the rest here.
Trump is far too stupid to be a Russian spy. But I honestly can't fault people for suspecting otherwise.
Saturday, October 18, 2025
Vindictive Prosecution
"The Federal Prosecutor" an address by Robert Jackson US Attorney General (later Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court) April 1, 1940
Friday, October 17, 2025
The Most Corrupt President in US History
If you were an authoritarian seeking to influence another head of state, you might offer him a luxuriously appointed Boeing 747 airplane. You might spend big at his hotels or invest in one of the many companies owned by him and his children. You might buy his sneakers, NFTs and other branded products. In the case of President Trump, a potential influence peddler has a vast menu of choices.
But why bother with all that? While campaigning, Mr. Trump announced his cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial, and, just days before his inauguration, his namesake memecoin. Anyone can indirectly deliver money to a Trump family entity simply by buying World Liberty’s tokens. Mr. Trump and his family have accrued billions of dollars in paper wealth through crypto ventures owned by the president, his sons and family friends.
With World Liberty, Trump has created a powerful vehicle for those seeking influence. Anyone — you, me, an Emirati prince — can put money in his pocket by simply buying the tokens the company issues. The key is the convenience factor. For influence peddlers, bags of cash and Swiss bank accounts have been replaced by crypto tokens that can be quickly shuttled between digital wallets and cryptocurrency exchanges. Savvier crypto users — nation-states, hacker groups, money launderers — can use digital “mixers” and other tools to obfuscate their trail.
It’s precisely these conveniences that have also made crypto a favored tool of criminal organizations and sanctions evaders.
We’ve never seen anything like this before. You can tick off notorious executive branch scandals — President Ulysses S. Grant’s rogues’ gallery of corrupt advisers, Teapot Dome’s bribes for oil leases in the Harding administration, Watergate and the downfall of Richard Nixon — but none of them featured this scale of mixing of personal and government interests, much less the sheer accumulation of profit, of Mr. Trump’s multibillion-dollar crypto windfall.
Read the rest here.
And Trump ordered convicted fraudster George Santos immediately released from prison on the grounds he was "horribly mistreated."
Words fail.
GAFCON Severs Ties with Canterbury and Liberal Churches in Major Anglican Schism
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Trump: Now I am getting drug prices down 500, 600, 800%, in some cases even more than that, hard to believe.
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 16, 2025
The dumbest president in American history, by far.
pic.twitter.com/WtToFmz0Iv
Military Restricts Press Reporting
Wednesday was a major moment for the coverage of the United States military. Scores of journalists with access to the Pentagon handed in their press passes rather than sign on to new rules laid out by Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense.
The news organizations that have refused to agree to the rules include large organizations such as The New York Times, NBC News and Fox News, as well as many smaller publications that focus entirely on the military. At least one news organization, the conservative cable network One America News, has agreed to the new terms.
The new rules codify sharp limitations on access and raise the prospect of punishment — including revocation of credentials — for simply requesting information on matters of public interest. Lawyers representing national news organizations have been negotiating for weeks with Pentagon officials over the strictures.
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
The Young Republican Chat Scandal
NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
Read the rest here.
Giving credit where it is due
Trump got Israel to stop the horror show in Gaza and forced Hamas to release their hostages. We will see what follows.
Friday, October 10, 2025
How Trump’s message to ‘Pam’ got exactly the results he wanted
All it took was a personal message to “Pam.”
A Sept. 20 tirade from President Donald Trump on Truth Social set off an extraordinary rush that has turned a once-hypothetical fear into reality: a president personally directing criminal charges against people he sees as his enemies.
Trump’s public instructions to Attorney General Pam Bondi (which he may have intended as a private DM) were not subtle. The president named three public figures he has long detested and urged the Justice Department to prosecute them immediately.
Now, less than three weeks later, two of them are under indictment: former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Both have denied wrongdoing. And the many other targets Trump wants to see in jail are bracing for who will be next.
The third person Trump named in his message to Bondi — Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — decried the new reality Thursday, shortly after James was indicted on two counts stemming from allegations of mortgage fraud.
Read the rest here.
Thursday, October 09, 2025
Trump DOJ Indicts NY Attorney General
New York Attorney General Letitia James was indicted Thursday in Alexandria, Virginia, as President Donald Trump’s Justice Department continues to pursue charges against his political opponents.
James has been under investigation since May over a 2023 mortgage she took out to help her niece buy a home in Norfolk, Virginia.
The grand jury returned two felony charges: bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. James’ first court appearance is scheduled for October 24 in Norfolk.
According to the indictment, James claimed on mortgage paperwork that a home she purchased in Norfolk would be her second residence. That claim allowed her to get favorable loan terms not available for investment properties, prosecutors say.
But, prosecutors allege, James did not use the house and instead rented the property to a family of three. They allege she falsely stated in loan applications that the residence would be a secondary home when they allege James knew she would use it as an investment property.
The charges come as Trump continues to call for his enemies to be prosecuted in court. Former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty Wednesday to allegedly making a false statement in a congressional proceeding. The Justice Department has also opened investigation into former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, and others.
Read the rest here.
Sunday, October 05, 2025
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