Chutzpah

Chutzpah: (Definition) When one of the most liberal justices in the history of the Supreme Court complains about the Court overturning centuries of established law and precedent to create a hitherto unknown constitutional right by judicial fiat.

Congress’s “One Spending Bill to Rule Them All” is a Debt-Fueled Disgrace

The latest federal budget puts the lie once and for all to Republican promises of fiscal restraint.

The “one bill to rule them all,” 2,232-page, gargantuan, swamp-beast omnibus emerged from the smoke-filled bowels of congressional leadership earlier this week and passed both House and Senate mere hours after it was unveiled. The legislation spends $1.3 trillion in taxpayer dollars, busts the budget caps imposed back in 2011, and will lead to trillions of spending each and every year, ad infinitum, with interest payments on the massive federal debt to outpace the cost of the military and the cost of Medicaid in just eight short years. But at least we don’t have to worry about a government shutdown—in 2018, that is.

For nearly two decades now, we’ve watched this charade. Despite Republican promises of fiscal responsibility, they continue to spend like drunken sailors on holiday. That our elected leaders chose to blow this much money without even the pretense of having read the bill is both shocking and disgusting. And yet most of us remain complacent and continue about our daily routines. We barely blink as Congress binges on $1.3 trillion in unpaid-for federal spending. Not that long ago, a bill hammered out in secret caused the House to revolt against then-speaker John Boehner. Yet today’s secretly negotiated package fails to crack even the front page, as we’re treated instead to the minute details of Trump’s alleged affair with a Playboy model. This is our American version of bread and circuses, paid for on credit.

Read the rest here.

Ruins of previously unknown monastery accidentally found in Georgian forest

Story with lots of cool photos. They don't even know it's name.

If you absolutely must have a war...

This, or something very similar, is how it should be done.

The second-most dangerous American

Because John Bolton is five things President Trump is not — intelligent, educated, principled, articulate and experienced — and because of Bolton’s West Wing proximity to a president responsive to the most recent thought he has heard emanating from cable television or an employee, Bolton will soon be the second-most dangerous American. On April 9, he will be the first national security adviser who, upon taking up residence down the hall from the Oval Office, will be suggesting that the United States should seriously consider embarking on war crimes. 

The first two charges against the major Nazi war criminals in the 1945-1946 Nuremberg trials concerned waging aggressive war. Emboldened by the success, as he still sees it, of America’s Iraq adventure that began 15 years ago this month, Bolton, for whom a trade war with many friends and foes is insufficiently stimulating, favors real wars against North Korea and Iran. Both have odious regimes, but neither can credibly be said to be threatening an imminent attack against the United States.

Nevertheless, Bolton thinks bombing both might make the world safer. What could go wrong?

Much is made of the fact that Bolton is implacably hostile to strongman Vladimir Putin, whom the U.S. president, a weak person’s idea of a strong person, admires. And of the fact that the president has repeatedly execrated the invasion of Iraq that Bolton advocated. So, today among the uneducable, furrowed brows express puzzlement: How can the president square his convictions with Bolton’s? Let’s say this one more time: Trump. Has. No. Convictions. 

Read the rest here.

Facebook

Long time readers of this blog will know that the only form of social media that I use, is this blog. That means I am not, and have never been on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. I have always viewed them as an engraved invitation to invasion of privacy and I consider Facebook in particular to be quite sinister. Recent events have certainly done nothing to alter that view.

For those who might want to leave Facebook, the process is actually not easy. However there are a number of tutorial videos that are available on YouTube.

A word of caution... I understand that some people store a lot of stuff on their Facebook account, some of which may be important or hold sentimental value etc. You should download a copy of all your data from Facebook before deleting your account. Once your account is actually deleted, as opposed to deactivated, everything that was on it will be gone and you won't be able to get it back. Also be aware that Facebook changed the procedures for account deletion in late 2017, so you will want to use a recent tutorial.

Good luck.

Take me out to the ballgame, take me out to the crowd...

Yankees vs Red Sox April 14th, 1931 starring Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Mayor Jimmy "Beau James" Walker and thousands of people dressed better than most people are today for church. Appx 15 minutes with original sound.

'Christianity as default is gone': the rise of a non-Christian Europe

So says The Guardian with a certain amount of barely concealed glee. But what they are willfully ignoring is the rise of Islam. Whatever future may be in store for Europe, it is not going to be liberal secularism.

California's population decline continues despite strong economy

The state ranks near the top in cost of living which is driving out lower and middle class families. And with the highest taxes in the country even those who can afford to live there are looking for greener pastures, or at least a state that doesn't treat them as human ATMs for politicians constantly looking for more money.

Details.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Romanian court tells man he is not alive

In a case reminiscent of a Kafka novel, a Romanian court has ruled that a 63-year-old man is dead despite what would appear to be convincing evidence to the contrary: the man himself appearing alive and well in court.

Constantin Reliu asked the court in the town of Barlad to overturn a death certificate obtained by his wife after he had spent more than a decade in Turkey, during which time he was out of contact with his family. The court told him he was too late, and would have to remain officially deceased.

“I am officially dead, although I’m alive,” a bemused Reliu told local media outlets. “I have no income and because I am listed dead, I can’t do anything.”
Reliu left Romania for Turkey in 1992, apparently to seek employment. He last returned to the country in 1999, and appears to have cut off all contact with his family. After years of silence from her estranged husband, Reliu’s wife obtained a backdated death certificate for him.

The Romanian daily Adevarul said Reliu’s wife had argued in court that having heard nothing from her husband since 1999, she had assumed he had died in an earthquake while in Turkey. The paper said Reliu believes she sought the death certificate in order to annul the marriage and allow her to remarry.

Read the rest here.

The Attempted Murder of Sergei Skripal: How do we stop an out of control Putin?

By now, it really should not come as much of a surprise that yet another Russian has been attacked in Britain. Opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin have been showing up dead in and around London for more than a decade. In some cases, the trail clearly leads back to Moscow, as with the use of such gruesome chemical agents as polonium (Alexander Litvinenko in 2006) or, in the most recent incident, a nerve agent (Sergei Skripal and his daughter, who both survived the poisoning but remain in serious condition). In other cases, the evidence is subtler (e.g., Boris Berezovsky, found dead under suspicious circumstances in 2013).

While Britain is not the only place where those who have run afoul of Putin have died, a troublingly high number of such deaths have happened there. We can quickly dispense with the blathering of Russian officials about the latest case as just that: blathering. Putin’s public policy plan for this type of thing can be summed up as, “Lie bigger, lie harder. Sooner or later, the West will forget.”

It’s a plan that often works.

Read the rest here.

There was a time when this sort of thing would have been treated as an act of war. Alas, in an age where the perpetrator of what looks like a campaign of targeted assassinations has his finger on the launch button for a lot of nukes that is probably not a realistic course of action. But this really cannot be tolerated. The question is, does the West have the intestinal fortitude to collectively stand up to this murderous thug? I hope I am wrong, but my gut tells me not to hold my breath.

Now broadcasting on station KULT

Scientology has its own TV channel.

The Feds are suing California over their sanctuary laws

And about time. There has not been a lot that this administration has given me cause to cheer over, but they do seem to be serious about getting a handle on illegal immigration. And of course the open border advocates have all suddenly discovered states rights. Except they really haven't.

Here's the deal. California is part of a union governed by a contract between members. Members have broad discretion in most things, but there are areas where everybody agreed to cede authority to the central government in order to ensure mutual protection and avoid chaos. One of those areas is immigration. If a state (hello California) wants to set a statewide maximum speed limit of 30 mph, tax every gallon of gas and every cup of soda at $5 a pop and outlaw smoking statewide, well that's their business. I think they would be nuts. But again it's their call. But passing laws clearly aimed at obstructing Federal laws, is not.

California is in breach of its obligations to the other 49 states. Worse they are deliberating acting in a way that might endanger not only their own people and property, but the people and property of the other states as well as the economic well being of the union as a whole. And this needs to stop.

Quote of the day...

Tradition is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.

-G.K. Chesterton

For whom does this bell toll?

 A village church in Germany recently discovered that one of its three bells has a dark past. It is inscribed with a swastika and an inscription that roughly translates as "Everything for the Fatherland  Adolf Hitler."

The church is described as Protestant which I am sort of assuming means Lutheran. After a rather heated debate that has drawn global interest (and commentary) they appear to have decided to leave the bell alone for now although there are plans to add some kind of plaque.

I am not unsympathetic to the conflicting views. After the war, first the Allies and then both East (Communist) and West Germany went on something of a campaign to eradicate monuments and buildings that it was feared might serve as some kind of rallying point for Nazi sympathizers. Laws were passed that forbade the public display of Nazi symbols and salutes. While a few structures with ties to the Third Reich survive, most were demolished or at least had any symbols stripped away.

But it has been almost three quarters of a century since the end of the war and many Germans are wondering if it isn't time to approach their past with out the kind of fear that, justifiably IMO, motivated their parents and grandparents to eradicate almost all physical reminders of that evil regime.

The options considered in this case were to leave the bell alone, move it to some kind of museum or simply melt it down. While I understand the emotional argument in favor of destroying the bell, I think its historical value would make some kind of preservation desirable. But as a Christian (forget Orthodox for the moment), I cannot conceive worshiping in a church with a Nazi bell ringing. It just beggars the imagination. The swastika along with the hammer and sickle are the two political symbols that I most closely associate with the demonic. To me it simply has no place in a church.

Three words...

Oddly Democrats have shown a great fondness for them over the last year or so.

Obstruction of justice

Wilbur Ross wants to turn the moon into a gas station

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC on Thursday the future of commercial space projects depends on colonizing the moon.

"I think a lot depends upon how successful we are in turning the moon into a kind of gas station for outer space," Ross told "Squawk Box." "The plan is to break down the ice [there] into hydrogen and oxygen, use those as the fuel propellant."

Rockets would not need as much thrust leaving Earth if they only had to get to the moon, he said. "Then at the moon, you have very low gravity so you don't need so much thrust to go from the moon to Mars, for example, or another asteroid."

Ross, a former private-equity investor with more than 55 years experience, has emerged as the point man for promoting commercial space projects. President Donald Trump has previously emphasized federal efforts to spur private space projects.

The Trump administration is also pushing to get Americans back to the moon. Additionally, the administration announced plans earlier this month to have private entities take over operations in low Earth orbit from the International Space Station.

Read the rest here.

Uh oh...

From here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

Fr. Hunwicke asks...

How to respond to a Pope who is demanding assent to something clearly contrary to the Catholic Faith.

See here for the discussion.

Here is my answer... If I were a convicted Roman Catholic and confronted with a Pope who was, at the least, a material heretic intent on subverting the Deposit of the Faith my answer would be that you resist. You follow the lead of the great French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. That is to say you commemorate him at mass, you pray for him ceaselessly, you obey him in all matters not contrary to the faith (also excluding changes to immemorial discipline intended to undermine Catholic Faith), and in all other matters you ignore him until he either repents or God calls him to judgement.That may in some instances require some adjustment in your relationship with your local ordinary. Consider Byzantine Rite parishes or the SSPX. The bottom line is you do what you need to do.

As an Orthodox Christian obviously my answer is in fact different, but that's my advice to Catholics who aren't ready to consider other possibilities. And for the record, I also agree with Fr. H in his rejection of sedevacantism. A Catholic cannot logically subscribe to that without accepting that Rome has fallen. Once you cross that bridge the game is over.