Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing everyone a blessed feast in what for so many has been an extraordinarily difficult year.

Fifty-seven years ago

New York mass wedding organized in secret

A Hasidic synagogue in Brooklyn planned the wedding of a chief rabbi’s grandson with such secrecy it was able to host thousands of maskless celebrants without the city catching on.

Despite a surge in COVID-19 cases, guests crammed shoulder-to-shoulder inside the Yetev Lev temple in Williamsburg for the Nov. 8 nuptials — stomping, dancing and singing at the top of their lungs without a mask in sight, videos obtained by The Post show.

Organizers schemed to hide the wedding of Yoel Teitelbaum, grandson of Satmar Grand Rabbi Aaron Teitelman, from “the ravenous press and government officials,” says a detailed account in the Yiddish newspaper Der Blatt, the publication of the Satmar sect.

Read the rest here.

The arrogant and callous disregard for the public safety on display here is simply breathtaking. It is clear that these people believe they are somehow special and above the law, and free to endanger their neighbors and fellow citizens at will. If I were a New Yorker I would be furious. This is not a minor infraction of indoor accommodation limits or failure to space adequately between tables in a restaurant. Criminal charges should be filed. And if somebody dies as a result of being infected via this event, those charges should include negligent manslaughter.

Memory eternal!

Patriarch Irinej is seriously ill

Word from the Serbian Orthodox Church that H.H. Patriarch Irinej's condition has deteriorated as a consequence of Covid 19. Details.

Reversing years of cuts, Britain announces sharp increase in defense spending

The U.K. government announced its biggest increase in defense spending since the Cold War in a bid to secure its position as the U.S.’s main military ally in Europe after Brexit.

The U.K. will spend an additional 24.1 billion pounds, equivalent to $32 billion, over the next four years compared with last year’s budget. That is £16.5 billion more than the government had already pledged, securing the U.K.’s rank as the second-highest spender on defense in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization behind the U.S.

“I have done this in the teeth of the pandemic amid every other demand on our resources because the defense of the realm and the safety of the British people must come first,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament on Thursday.

The U.K. shouldn’t be “content to curl up on our island and leave the task to our friends,” he said.

“Britain must be true to our history, to stand alongside our allies,” he said. “To achieve this, we need to upgrade our capabilities across the board.”

Read the rest here.

Worries are rising over COVID deniers and anti-vaxxers

Story here.

This could be a problem, but I think it's manageable. There are some people who subscribe to pseudoscientific beliefs and or conspiracy theories regarding vaccines and others who simply deny that Covid exists at all or if they concede its existence, they claim it is being overblown and that the reports of mass infections and deaths are false. Happily those subscribing to these delusional views are not huge in numbers. But there are enough that in some situations they could pose a serious health risk if you get a bunch of unvaccinated people in large groups.

On the one hand I dislike direct coercion in matters of conscience. So I would be opposed to laws mandating vaccination under pain of fine or jail. But on the other hand it is a well established principle of law that society does have the right to impose reasonable regulations to protect the public health. So my response would be to take steps to limit the ability of vaccine resisters to pose such a threat.

* Require all persons booking commercial airplane flights anywhere in the US, or overseas if bound for the US, to affirm under penalty of perjury that all those booking have been vaccinated. No vaccination... no plane trip.

* Ditto interstate bus and train tickets and all cruise ships/ocean liners.

* Require affirmation of vaccination as a condition for applying for or renewing a US passport.

* Hotels should be encouraged to require registering guests to affirm that they have been vaccinated.

* States should require students registering for schools and university to provide evidence of vaccination.

None of these measures are unreasonable as a public health response to a dangerous pandemic. People will still be able to refuse vaccination, but there will be consequences that for many will be inconvenient. They could still travel by private vehicle and children could be home schooled. Obviously, any such regulations should not be imposed until a vaccine has been available to the general public for a sufficient amount of time that anyone wanting one will have had the opportunity to get the jab.

The Most Corrupt President in the History of the United States Strikes Again

President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired the director of the federal agency that vouched for the reliability of the 2020 election.

Trump fired Christopher Krebs in a tweet, saying his recent statement defending the security of the election was “highly inaccurate.”

Read the rest here.

It is time to state something very plainly. Donald Trump is a liar. By which I mean he is a congenital liar. Some with more qualifications might call him a pathological liar. If Harry Truman were still alive, he'd just call Trump a lying son of a bitch. I'm comfortable with any of those characterizations. 

But however you choose to frame it, any claim of fact that might emanate from Donald Trump's mouth or Twitter feed should be treated as a presumptive lie until verified by an independent reliable source. That includes the correct time of day and the weather. Speaking of which, he has actually lied about the weather. He lies with an ease and frequency that most people would associate with breathing.

Never, in the 54 years of my life, did I expect to have to write such things about a sitting President of the United States. God save us.

Armenians torch their homes on land ceded to Azerbaijan

 KALBAJAR, Azerbaijan (AP) — In a bitter farewell to his home of 21 years, Garo Dadevusyan wrenched off its metal roof and prepared to set the stone house on fire. Thick smoke poured from houses that his neighbors had already torched before fleeing this ethnic Armenian village about to come under Azerbaijani control.

The village is to be turned over to Azerbaijan on Sunday as part of territorial concessions in an agreement to end six weeks of intense fighting with Armenian forces. The move gripped its 600 people with fear and anger so deep that they destroyed the homes they once loved.

The settlement — called Karvachar in Armenian — is legally part of Azerbaijan, but it has been under the control of ethnic Armenians since the 1994 end of a war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. That war left not only Nagorno-Karabakh itself but substantial surrounding territory in Armenian hands.

After years in which sporadic clashes broke out between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces, full-scale fighting began in late September this year. Azerbaijan made relentless military advances, culminating in the seizure of the city of Shusha, a strategically key city and one of strong emotional significance as a longtime center of Azeri culture.

Two days after Azerbaijan announced it had taken Shusha, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a Russia-brokered cease-fire under which territory that Armenia occupies outside the formal borders of Nagorno-Karabakh will be gradually ceded.

Read the rest here.

Minneapolis violence surges as cops quit in droves

A longish article worth the read. There are real world consequences when you use the people of your city as guinea pigs in left wing sociological experiments.

Read it here. (If you don't have a subscription you may need to open the page in an anonymous browser.)

It's Over

WASHINGTON — Hours after President Trump repeated a baseless report that a voting machine system “deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide,” he was directly contradicted by a group of federal, state and local election officials, who issued a statement on Thursday declaring flatly that the election “was the most secure in American history” and that “there is no evidence” any voting systems were compromised.

The rebuke, in a statement by a coordinating council overseeing the voting systems used around the country, never mentioned Mr. Trump by name. But it amounted to a remarkable corrective to a wave of disinformation that Mr. Trump has been pushing across his Twitter feed.

The statement was distributed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is responsible for helping states secure the voting process. Coming directly from one of Mr. Trump’s own cabinet agencies, it further isolated the president in his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the election.

Read the rest here. 

Donald Trump, being Donald Trump, is unlikely to ever admit that he lost the election. But he did. The lying and the crying will continue. But the farcical claims of a stolen election have been indulged for long enough.

It is somewhat ironic that a few posts below this, I had thrown out a few presidential trivia questions, one of which was to name the handful of presidents who did not attend the inauguration of their successor. I am guessing that the answer to that will need to be expanded in the near future.

Rod Dreher on the Vatican's McCarrick Report

No surprise really. It's a whitewash.

Read his commentary here and here. 

Quote of the day...

 "A lawsuit claiming statutory or constitutional violations without evidence, is just a tweet with a filing fee." -Original author unknown, but currently enjoying widespread circulation

Mr. Trump and his supporters are certainly entitled to ask questions and challenge any possible irregularities in the election. However, to date no credible evidence supporting these allegations has been produced and Mr. Trump is batting zero in the courts. Further, the right to ask pointed questions and insist on a close look at the results does not extend to making incendiary claims aimed at undermining public confidence in the integrity of a national election, merely to assuage the wounded ego of a narcissist, who for months has made it abundantly clear that he would never accept any election results that did not name him as the winner.

It is difficult not to conclude that Mr. Trump is determined to go out the way he came in, with no class. 

The Blue Ripple; some thoughts on the election

 So much for the blue wave.

* The election has not yet been called but realistically Biden has won. Based on his behavior, President Trump seems to realize this as well. As of the moment Biden needs only one more state to put him over the top.

* But... his victory is going to be a very narrow one.

* The Democrats had hoped to substantially pad their majority in the House. Instead it looks like they will actually lose seats, albeit only a few.

* Democrats had hoped to take control of the Senate. As of right now they are going to pick up just one. There are still a few opportunities for some pick ups, but realistically the majority is no longer within reach. 

* Once again, most of the 'reputable' polls blew it. The vast majority were well off the mark. In many cases their performance was worse than in 2016. Trump's supporters who have been shaking their heads at the polls for the last six months have by and large been vindicated. Yeah, Biden is probably going to win. But by a popular vote margin of around 2%. That's a long ways from the 8-9% that was averaged out from the major polls on election eve. And some of the polls weren't just off; they were not even in the same plane of reality. To cite just two; there was the Washington Post/ABC News poll from Oct 28 that put Biden ahead by 17% in Wisconsin. And then there was the election eve poll of the same state from the NY Times that put Biden up by a more reasonable 11%. Holy crap! The final result has Biden carrying the state by just a tick over .5%. (Note the decimal point.) The major polling entities and news orgs have some serious egg on their face today, especially after their failures in 2016 and the repeated assurances that they had learned from the experience and made adjustments. Tonight there are more than a few Trumpists and conspiracy theorists who are suggesting that the polling errors were deliberate. I'm not buying it. But I don't blame people for wondering when you look at the error margin. These were by and large not near misses. They were epic failures. The lonely exception was Rasmussen which consistently defied all the major news orgs and more reputable pollsters by publishing data showing a very close election, with Biden holding a super thin majority nationally and most of the battleground states being basically a coin toss that would be decided by turnout in what they predicted would be a long election night. As for the others; they need to take this seriously and offer some sort of public explanation. Because right now their reputation, already poor among right leaning voters, is, or should be, in serious question among people of every political persuasion. 

In conclusion, the firm rejection of Donald Trump and what he stands for has not materialized. He has probably lost the election, but by a margin that can hardly be called a national repudiation. The GOP is unlikely to see any reason to distance itself from him. In fact, and assuming his health permits it, I would not be at all surprised if Trump attempted a Clevelandesque comeback in four years. 

Lord Save Thy People

Oh Canada? Your guy just lost. Should you be looking north?

Memory Eternal

Metropolitan Amfilohije (Radović), the primate of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro has reposed.

Marxism, Cultural Marxism, and Orthodoxy

Why I’m Not A Universalist

 Well worth a read.

Presidential Trivia

 In the spirit of the moment here are a few questions for history enthusiasts. See how many you can answer before looking them up or checking the comments. I will post the answers tomorrow.

* Who was the last president elected by the US House of Representatives?

* Excluding those who died in office, which presidents did not attend the inauguration of their successors?

* Two men ran against each other for the office of Vice President. The Republican won and the Democrat lost. Both would go on to become President of the United States. Who were they?

* Who was the last third party candidate to actually win one or more states in the Electoral College?

* Who was the only president to formally join a church while in office, being baptized, confirmed, and receiving Communion all in the same day? 

Memory eternal

On Monday, October 19, 2020, His Beatitude Metropolitan Theodosius (Lazor), former Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All-America and Canada, fell asleep in his Lord in Canonsburg, after an extended illness. He was the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America from 1977 until his retirement in 2002.

Read the rest here.

Funeral services here.

Pagan rituals used in Catholic bishop's consecration

The consecration of San Marcos de Arica Bishop Moisés Atisha, 51, Chile, in January 2015 included worshipping Inca idols like Pachamama (earth), Tata Inti (sun) and Malkus (mountain spirits).

A carpet with coca leaves, seeds and bottles served as “altar”. Many bishops participated in the pagan ritual in chasubles and miter.

Among them was the Apostolic Nuncio to Chile, Archbishop Ivo Scapolo, who is now Nuncio to Portugal.

Also present was modernist Santiago Cardinal Ezzati, 78, whom Francis first left in place but then abandoned in March 2019 due to the abuse hoax.

Source (with photos)

Unbelievable. The Catholic Church is rapidly sliding into open apostasy. 

Rome now supports same sex unions

ROME — In a documentary that premiered Wednesday in Rome, Pope Francis called for the passage of civil union laws for same-sex couples, departing from the position of the Vatican’s doctrinal office and the pope’s predecessors on the issue.

The remarks came amid a portion of the documentary that reflected on pastoral care for those who identify as LGBT. 

“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it,” Pope Francis said in the film, of his approach to pastoral care.

Read the rest here.

HT: Dr Tighe and a couple of blog readers who kindly alerted me to this shocking development.

Concerns over the Catholic Church in Germany grow

VATICAN CITY — As reports emerged recently of Pope Francis’ “dramatic concern” about the state of the Catholic Church in Germany and news that he received Germany’s apostolic nuncio for private talks on Monday, the country’s bishops pressed ahead on their goal of shared Communion with Protestants despite strong objections from the Vatican.

The leaders of both churches said their intercommunion proposal “still needs to be clarified” even though the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said last month that differences in the Catholic and Protestant understanding of the Eucharist were “still so grave” that they ruled out attendance at each other’s services.

The increasing divergence between Rome and the German bishops, amplified by the ongoing Synodal Path — a two-year reform program of German bishops and laity that questions some of the Church’s established teaching on faith and morals — demonstrates the real dangers of the Church in Germany one day breaking with Rome. 

In September, a leading German prelate raised the possibility of schism for the first time. 

Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne warned that the “worst outcome would be if the Synodal Path leads to schism” and that the “worst thing” would be if a “German national church were to be created here.”

Such a prospect is something Pope Francis appears increasingly concerned about, despite his own efforts to grant more autonomy to bishops’ conferences on doctrinal matters which critics have warned has sowed the seeds of a kind of “doctrinal anarchy” in the Church. 

Read the rest here.

A last look at summer

Full Sized Image may be found here.

Bank of England hints at negative interest rates

Negative interest rates could spell the end of free bank accounts, experts warned after the Bank of England gave its clearest indication yet that the controversial policy could be introduced.

The Bank has written to UK lenders' chief executives asking them to set out their readiness for negative rates, raising the prospect of an unprecedented move below zero as the recovery begins to slow.

It could trigger massive losses for lenders. According to analysts and grandees, in an extreme scenario banks could be forced to start charging millions of customers a monthly fee. 

Sir Philip Hampton, who was chairman of taxpayer-backed Royal Bank of Scotland at the height of the financial crisis, said: "In the case where negative rates are significant and prolonged, and are charged on current accounts of ordinary earners, I think there’s likely to be a strong customer reaction and pressure to make the revenues fit the costs with more transparency. That probably means fees.

"The alternative could be negative interest rates on bigger deposits. That mainly hits the better off who can usually afford it but also pensioners and other savers. But these events often lead to something fairly radical."    

Threadneedle Street has already slashed rates to an all-time low of 0.1pc, wrecking banks' profits and landing savers with a return of close to zero on their deposits.

Read the rest here. (Paywalled)

Something is going on among the Greeks

Not sure what it's all about. But what is being publicly reported can be found here. 

Supreme Court judges say Obergefell a 'problem' for religious liberty

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on Monday said that the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling is already posing problems for religious freedom.

“By choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right [to same-sex marriage] over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment, and by doing so undemocratically, the Court has created a problem that only it can fix,” the justices wrote in an opinion published Monday. 

“Until then, Obergefell will continue to have ‘ruinous consequences for religious liberty,’” they warned. 

In their opinion, which accompanied the Court’s denial of a writ of certiorari in the case Davis v. Ermold, Thomas and Alito said that the 2015 landmark decision pitted same-sex marrriage against religious liberty.

In the case of former county clerk Kim Davis of Kentucky, who in 2015 made headlines for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Thomas and Alito joined the court in denying her petition for a writ of certiorari, or a review of her case, on the first day of the court’s fall term.

Davis was sued for not issuing marriage licenses after the Obergefell ruling declared a right to same-sex marriage. The Sixth Circuit appeals court in 2019 ruled that she was not protected from qualified immunity, and thus could be held personally liable for infringing on the constitutional rights to marriage of same-sex couples.

In a statement accompanying the denial of certiorari, Alito and Thomas said Davis’ petition “does not cleanly present” the issues at hand in the Obergefell ruling. However, they sharply criticized the 2015 ruling for posing serious and unnecessary challenges to those religiously believing marriage is between one man and one woman.

Read the rest here. 

HT: Dr. Tighe

Trump's support is collapsing

Multiple and highly reputable polls are showing Biden leading Trump by double digits nationally and by numbers outside the margin of error in most swing states. The most conservative polls show a lead of around 8% for Biden with others showing leads of 12-16%. We are now within the four week window of the election and team Trump is running out of time to climb out of their hole. No presidential candidate has enjoyed this kind of lead at this stage of an election since 1984 and no incumbent president trailing this badly has ever been reelected for as long as we have had reliable polling data.

The President's Health

Obviously this is very close to the only topic in the news right now and I have little to add to the endless analysis. I wish Mr. Trump a speedy recovery. 

Beyond which, far from being surprised by his illness, I think it remarkable that he avoided infection for as long as he did, given his open disdain for most of the medical community's advice intended to reduce risk of contracting or spreading the virus. It was all but inevitable that this would end badly, and so it has. The irony is that the president's determination to attend and host events where masks and social distancing were not only not required, but discouraged, has now resulted in a wave of infections among prominent Republicans. 

I noticed on a somewhat fringy rightwing forum last night, that conspiracy theories were spreading that this was some kind of biological warfare attack by Democrats on the GOP. Given the level of damage inflicted one could almost forgive such lunacy. But as is so often the case; the fault here rests entirely with  President Trump's reckless behavior.

And so it begins

Barrett tied to faith group ex-members say subjugates women
HT: Brian

The NY Times has Trump's tax returns

Not surprisingly, this is likely to prove embarrassing to the president. It appears the Times is being intentionally vague on some details, almost certainly to protect their source(s). On which note, somebody, maybe multiple somebodies, have broken some pretty serious Federal laws. Long time readers of this blog will know that I am a fierce critic of this president. But somebody, obviously for political reasons, just violated the rights of an American citizen to basic privacy with respect to their finances. Reasonable people can disagree with a law that allows presidential candidates and persons who occupy high office to shield their finances from public scrutiny. But the law is what it is, until it is changed. In this country, even villainous scoundrels have rights. And Donald Trump's rights have just been violated. This is an outrageous abuse and whoever is responsible needs to be identified and named as the winner of an all expense paid vacation in the Federal cross barred hotel. 

The Times' story can be found here.

Luke Gromen discusses macroeconomic trends

On this date 1941

US intelligence intercepts a coded message from Tokyo to the Imperial Japanese Consulate in Hawaii. However, the interceptors do not have any decryption capabilities as MAGIC (the American military code breaking operation) is a closely guarded secret. Accordingly, the message along with others, is marked for dispatch by air courier to Washington. Unfortunately, the weather is dreadful and the weekly flight scheduled for the 26th is cancelled. So the still coded message, along with the others, is placed on a ship bound for the West Coast. It eventually arrives in DC on October 6, 1941 and is placed in que for decoding. Several days later, the message is decoded.

It directs the consulate to divide Pearl Harbor into zones and report the number and types of ships in each zone, with names where possible. This is referred up the chain of command as possibly significant. But the intelligence brass conclude it is routine. Diplomats are always keeping an eye on the military activities of their host countries. Other intercepted messages show that similar orders have been sent to Japanese diplomatic outposts in the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Australia, and the British colonies at Singapore and Hong Kong. 

Nothing to worry about here. 

Woke toys

 EAST AURORA, NY—The toy geniuses at Fisher-Price have announced a brand new toy made just for leftist parents and their kids: the My First Peaceful Protest playset. The kid-size clubhouse will come with several varieties of spray paint so kids can tag the tiny building with their own empowering slogans. It will also be made out of cardboard, allowing the cute little tikes to burn the whole thing down if their demands are not met. 

"Here at Fisher-Price, we are steadfastly committed to social justice," said toy designer Camden Flufferton. "We need to teach our kids what democracy looks like, and there's no better example of democracy in action than violent vandalism and arson. We hope this new playset will serve as an inspiration for parents wanting to teach their kids how to threaten citizens with violence whenever their demands are not met."

The set will also come with toy televisions, cell phones, jewelry, and clothing, allowing kids to simulate looting before they torch the entire set. The set will be available in stores for $399 because of capitalism.

Experts are questioning the wisdom of this move by Fisher-Price, mainly because people in the target market don't typically have any kids. "We know we'll probably only sell, like, 3 of these," said Flufferton, "but selling them isn't the point. We just need you to know we're on the right side of history."

Source

Court Packing: A few quick thoughts

This is getting interesting. The Democrats, realizing they may not be able to stop the GOP from filling Ginsburg's seat have trotted out the threat to pack the court by adding seats, presumably at least four. A few quick thoughts...

* Mitch McConnell is the smoothest political operator to head the Senate since Lyndon Johnson in the 1950s. If he is moving to fill the vacancy he has probably judged the risk of court packing in retaliation to be low.

* For the Democrats to pack the court they need Biden to win the general election and probably more than the razor thin majority they are looking at in a best case scenario in the Senate.

* By my count there are around six GOP senators who are in tight races this year. The GOP currently has a majority of three. If the Democrats run the board they would essentially flip that and hold a majority of three. Except that the Democrats are all but certain to loose a seat in Alabama. So that means their best case is now a majority of two.

* Expanding the SCOTUS is a matter of law, so it is in theory subject to the filibuster. But that has been on life support ever since Harry Reid ended it to allow Obama to appoint lower court judges that the Republicans were blocking. Mitch further rolled back the filibuster to get Trump's two SCOTUS nominees through. So there is no reason to believe the Democrats won't end what's left of it. But...

* They would not be able to change the SCOTUS if they lost three votes. (A 50/50 tie would likely be broken by a Vice President Harris in their favor.)  The Democrats are not as ideologically homogeneous as the GOP. Which is to say they have a few fairly centrist senators. It is not at all certain every Democrat would vote for such a radical act that would inevitably be countered the next time the GOP regained the levers of power in DC.

* The Democrats may be playing into Trump's hands. They are dangerously close to making the election a referendum on whether or not to pack the Supreme Court instead of a vote of no confidence in Donald Trump. That is not likely to be a winner for them. I can see Trump's campaign slogan now; "A vote for a Democrat is a vote to pack the Supreme Court."

The bottom line is that if the GOP wants to fill the seat before the end of the year, they might be able to do it and the risks of retaliation may be lower than some want to believe. The main obstacle is that the GOP, with a majority of three, cannot afford to lose four votes.  And they have probably already lost one vote from Alaska. 

The GOP is all but certain to lose seats in Arizona and Maine where the incumbents are behind by margins that do not appear to be surmountable. McSally in AZ, who appears to be electoral toast, is a strong Trump supporter and with nothing to lose is unlikely to vote against a nominee. Susan Collins of ME is also on her way out, but she is the last New England moderate Republican in the Senate. Her vote is dicey at best. The other Senate races are tight enough that my guess is no sitting GOP Senator hoping to be re-elected will risk ticking off Trump's base. One further complication is a quirk of law in Arizona. Barring a miracle the Democrats will win that seat, and under state law the new Senator elect can take office as early as November 30. If the new justice has not already been confirmed that will cut the GOP's margin down by a vote. 

So yeah, this is going to be damned close.

But if someone put a gun to my head and said "place your bet," I'd put my money on the turtle. Where most folks go to bed at night counting sheep, Mitch McConnell nods off counting votes and reciting long memorized arcane parliamentary rules of procedure. If something is doable in the Senate, and Mitch wants it done, I would take a very very deep breath before betting against him.

Supreme Court Historical Trivia: Dying in office

With the passing of Justice Ginsburg there has been much discussion about her refusal to resign, presumably in an effort to deny President Trump the opportunity to appoint her successor. And it has been noted that since 1953 Ginsburg is just the fourth Supreme Court justice to die on the bench. The others being Justice Scalia in 2016, Chief Justice Rehnquist in 2005, and Justice Robert Jackson all the way back in 1954.

But a look at the history of the court suggests retirement as the norm for justices is fairly new. Prior to the 1950s and especially in the 19th century, it was extremely common, arguably normative, for justices to remain on the job for life. To date there have been 114 Justices of the Supreme Court. What follows is a list of the 52 who died in office in the order they were appointed to the high court.

William Cushing

James Wilson

James Iredell

William Paterson

John Rutledge

Samuel Chase

Bushrod Washington

John Marshall

William Johnson

Henry Brockholst Livingston

Thomas Todd

Joseph Story

Smith Thompson

Robert Trimble

John McLean

Henry Baldwin

James Moore Wayne

Roger B. Taney

Philip Pendleton Barbour

John Catron

John McKinley

Peter Vivian Daniel

Levi Woodbury

Nathan Clifford

Samuel Freeman Miller

Salmon P. Chase

Joseph P. Bradley

Morrison Waite

John Marshall Harlan

William Burnham Woods

Stanley Matthews

Horace Gray

Samuel Blatchford

Lucius Quintus
Cincinnatus Lamar II

Melville Fuller

David Josiah Brewer

Howell Edmunds Jackson

Rufus W. Peckham

Horace Harmon Lurton

Edward Douglass White

Joseph Rucker Lamar

Pierce Butler

Edward Terry Sanford

Benjamin N. Cardozo

Frank Murphy

Harlan F. Stone

Robert H. Jackson

Wiley Blount Rutledge

Fred M. Vinson

William Rehnquist

Antonin Scalia

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Justice Ginsburg has died

Prayers for her family and the country. 

This election just got even more serious. I don't think Trump/McConnell have the votes to ram a nominee through the Senate before the election. Too many GOP Senators are fighting for their political lives. If Trump is reelected then obviously he will have an uncontroversial right to nominate Ginsburg's replacement. But things could get very ugly if he loses and Trump tries to push through a nominee before the next president takes office and the next Senate is seated. That kind of bare knuckled power play would likely provoke the Democrats, assuming they have a majority in the new Senate, to pack the court in retaliation. 

It's far too soon to get a handle on how this is going to play out. But one possible scenario is the GOP and the Democrats may cut a deal along the following lines... no new nominee until after the next inauguration in exchange for a pledge from Democrats not to pack the court if they win both the presidency and the Senate. Unfortunately the political atmosphere, both in DC and the country more broadly, is so acrimonious right now that I am not sure there is a sufficient level of trust to cut a deal of that magnitude. There will be heavy pressure from the far wings of both parties to stake out extreme positions. 

If this isn't handled right, we could be on the cusp of a serious constitutional crisis. 

The sun sets on the Wilpon era

Multiple sources are reporting that Steve Cohen is set to buy the New York Mets for roughly $2.4 billion. That makes the Mets the most expensive sports franchise sale in US history. Beyond which it will mark the end of an era likely to be remembered for tight payrolls and lackluster performance by the club. In fairness the Wilpons suffered some serious financial reversals in their investments which were hammered by the 2008-09 panic and also the loss of a significant amount of money invested with Bernie Madoff. But Cohen, assuming his purchase gets the green light from 23 of the other clubs, is a man with comparatively deep pockets. 

The Russian Orthodox Church does not rule out the creation of a religious object on the site of Lenin's mausoleum

The Russian Orthodox Church does not exclude the possibility of creating a new religious object in Moscow, which will take the place of the mausoleum of Vladimir Lenin. The building is located on Red Square.

Details.

This guy gets it

I don't care what your politics are. That's your business. But when I turn on the TV to watch a ballgame, I am not interested in a political lecture, political slogans, flags, or displays of how woke (or conservative) you are. If the price of watching a ballgame now includes being subjected to political propaganda for causes I am not interested in, I will go elsewhere for my entertainment. And I am going to take my money with me. 

RIP: Diana Rigg

Schismatic Patriarch Filaret is hospitalized with COVID-19

Patriarch [sic] Filaret, 91, who leads the large Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate, contracted COVID-19 and was subsequently hospitalized, the church confirmed Friday in a statement shared on its website and on Facebook. In a follow-up statement shared Tuesday, the church said its leader’s health is “stable” as “treatment continues...”

Read the rest here.

Navy cancels Catholic Masses at area (San Diego) bases- other religious services continue

 SAN DIEGO —  Catholic Masses at San Diego-area Navy bases have ended because the Navy, in what it says is a cost-cutting move, has declined to renew its contracts with Catholic priests, and there are not enough Catholic chaplains on active duty to fill the void.

Protestant services on bases, which are led by active duty chaplains, will continue, said Brian O’Rourke, a Navy Region Southwest spokesman.

The changes to the Navy’s religious ministries are part of a national realignment announced on Aug. 20. It is unclear how many priests this will affect.

“The Navy’s religious ministries priority is reaching and ministering to our largest demographic — active duty Sailors and Marines in the 18-25 year-old range,” O’Rourke wrote in an email. “To meet that mission, the Navy has had to make the difficult decision to discontinue most contracted ministry services.”

In the Navy message announcing the change, Vice Adm. Yancey Lindsey, the commander of Naval Installations Command, said it differently.

“We have a responsibility to use our limited resources wisely in meeting the needs of our personnel,” wrote Lindsey. “Therefore, we will reduce redundancies and capture efficiencies by realigning resources,” noting that religious services will be cut at bases where those services are readily available in the surrounding community outside the base.

Read the rest here. 

HT: The Deacon's Bench

LA launches retaliatory eviction against church lead by John MacArthur

 Outrageous. The church should sue LA and seek punitive damages for what is a naked abuse of power.

Post-Convention Polls Suggest Trump Has Narrowed Biden's Lead

Lots of polling data out over the last few days with some still showing Biden holding a commanding lead. But others from very highly regarded entities like Emmerson College and Suffolk University show Trump gaining ground. 

Details.

Report: Trump could appear to win on election night, and still lose

 A top Democratic data and analytics firm told "Axios on HBO" it's highly likely that President Trump will appear to have won — potentially in a landslide — on election night, even if he ultimately loses when all the votes are counted. 

Why this matters: Way more Democrats will vote by mail than Republicans, due to fears of the coronavirus, and it will take days if not weeks to tally these. This means Trump, thanks to Republicans doing almost all of their voting in person, could hold big electoral college and popular vote leads on election night.

Imagine America, with its polarization and misinformation, if the vote tally swings wildly toward Joe Biden and Trump loses days later as the mail ballots are counted.

That is what this group, Hawkfish, which is funded by Michael Bloomberg and also does work for the Democratic National Committee and pro-Biden Super PACs, is warning is a very real, if not foreordained, outcome.

What they're saying: Hawkfish CEO Josh Mendelsohn calls the scenario a "red mirage."

"We are sounding an alarm and saying that this is a very real possibility, that the data is going to show on election night an incredible victory for Donald Trump," he said.

"When every legitimate vote is tallied and we get to that final day, which will be some day after Election Day, it will in fact show that what happened on election night was exactly that, a mirage," Mendelsohn said. "It looked like Donald Trump was in the lead and he fundamentally was not when every ballot gets counted."

Read the rest here.

‘My Fellow Liberals, I’m Tired Of You’

 Not going to excerpt this. It's worth reading in its entirety over at Rod Dreher's. 

In Japan; the end of an era

 TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan will resign because of ill health, the country’s national broadcaster reported on Friday, just four days after he exceeded the record for the longest consecutive run as leader in Japanese history.

Mr. Abe, 65, had been prime minister for nearly eight years, a significant feat in a country accustomed to high turnover in the top job. During his tenure, he oversaw Japan’s recovery from a devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, restored a semblance of economic health and curried favor with an unpredictable American president, Donald J. Trump.

Yet despite his long hold on power — his second stint as prime minister, having held the post in 2006-7 — Mr. Abe failed to reach some of his signature goals. He was unable to revise the pacifist Constitution installed by postwar American occupiers, or to secure the return of contested islands claimed by both Japan and Russia so that the two countries could sign a peace treaty to officially end World War II.

The governing Liberal Democratic Party will appoint an interim leader who will serve until the party can hold a leadership election. Mr. Abe’s term was set to expire in September 2021.

The Japanese news media had been speculating about Mr. Abe’s health for weeks, particularly after he significantly dialed back public appearances as a new wave of coronavirus infections erupted in clusters throughout the country. When Mr. Abe visited a hospital twice in the span of a week, the rumor mill went into overdrive.

Read the rest here. 

Some good news you may have missed

Africa has been certified as free of wild Polio-virus.

Details.

Black Ribbon Day

The anniversary of the infamous Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (August 23, 1939) is recognized in most of the EU and many other countries as a day for commemoration of the victims of Communist and Fascist oppression.

Metal, Money and the Measurable Value of Gold

Buried in an otherwise mind-numbingly boring regulatory filing released recently was a seemingly innocuous line item that most people would not give a second thought. Sometime in the second quarter, Berkshire Hathaway invested a comparatively tiny 0.3% of their total portfolio into just a single new company. No big deal, right?

But it wasn’t just any company. After spending decades as perhaps the most respected and widely-cited critic of gold as an investment, Warren Buffett bought 21 million shares of Barrick Gold — one of the largest gold mining companies in the world. It was so out of character that the financial world immediately did a huge double-take. The headline from Bloomberg pretty much speaks for itself:

Berkshire Makes a Bet on Gold Market That Buffett Once Mocked

As one might expect, investors on both extremes of the gold-appreciating spectrum are furiously debating what this all means. Buffett’s closest gold-averse followers are circling the wagons and dealing with a lot of cognitive dissonance, while gold bugs are enjoying dishing out some playful jabs after years of being on the receiving end. Lost in the middle is a vast sea of normal investors watching the news and searching for actionable information.

This article is for that last group just wanting to know the truth about gold and what it can (and can’t) do for their own portfolios.

For some reason gold often becomes a strangely emotionally-charged topic, and frankly both the gold lovers and haters spread lots of objectively false and misleading information in support of their preferred positions. Unfortunately those flawed arguments are sticky, and gold is so commonly misunderstood that even smart, educated, and otherwise level-headed investors have no idea what they’re talking about. So in honor of the shiny metal again making headlines, I thought I’d consolidate some of the most common questions about gold to help sort the truth from the fiction.

Read the rest here.

Feds: "Lottery Lawyer" ripped off $107 million from winners

 He called himself the “Lottery Lawyer,” developing a national reputation for helping high-profile lottery winners with their investments.

He promised to secure their wealth for generations and to protect them from scam artists.

But on Tuesday, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused the lawyer, Jason M. Kurland, of working with a mob associate to steal millions of dollars from his clients.

Mr. Kurland, 46, was arrested on Tuesday morning at his home on Long Island alongside three other men — including Christopher Chierchio, 52, who prosecutors said was a reputed soldier for the Genovese crime family.

As part of the scheme, Mr. Kurland tricked three lottery winners who had hired him into putting $107 million into various investments, prosecutors said. The lottery winners lost a total of more than $80 million.

One of them was the winner of last year’s $1.5 billion Mega Millions jackpot in South Carolina.

Read the rest here.

North Korea: Owners Ordered to Hand Over Pet Dogs Amidst Growing Food Shortages

Kim Jong-un has declared that pet dogs are a symbol of capitalist 'decadence' and ordered that dogs in Pyongyang be rounded up - and owners are fearful that their beloved pets are being used to solve the nation's food shortages.

Dictator Kim announced in July that owning a pet is now against the law, denouncing having a dog at home as 'a tainted trend of bourgeois ideology'.

'Authorities have identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to give them up or forcefully confiscating them and putting them down', a source told South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

A recent UN report stated that as many as 60 percent of North Korea's 25.5 million people are facing 'widespread food shortages' that have been worsened by international sanctions imposed on the regime for its nuclear missile programmes. 

Dog meat has long been considered a delicacy on the Korean Peninsula, although the tradition of eating dogs is gradually fading out in South Korea. 

Still, an estimated 1 million dogs are reared on farms to be consumed every year in the South.

Man's best friend is still a staple on the menu in the North, however, with a number of dedicated dog restaurants in Pyongyang.

 Read the rest here.

9th Circuit ends California ban on high-capacity magazines

 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday threw out California’s ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines, saying the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s protection of the right to bear firearms.

“Even well-intentioned laws must pass constitutional muster,” appellate Judge Kenneth Lee wrote for the panel’s majority. California’s ban on magazines holding more than 10 bullets “strikes at the core of the Second Amendment — the right to armed self-defense.”

He noted that California passed the law “in the wake of heart-wrenching and highly publicized mass shootings,” but said that isn’t enough to justify a ban whose scope “is so sweeping that half of all magazines in America are now unlawful to own in California.”

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office said it is reviewing the decision.

“Until further proceedings in the courts, the stay on the injunction issued by the district court remains in place,” his office said in a statement. “The Attorney General remains committed to using every tool possible to defend California’s gun safety laws and keep our communities safe.”

Becerra did not immediately say if he would ask a larger 11-judge appellate panel to reconsider the ruling by the three judges, or if he would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

He also did not immediately say if the state would seek a delay of the ruling to prevent an immediate buying spree if the lower court lifts its stay.

 Read the rest here.

Trump Announces Historic Peace Agreement Between Israel and the UAE

President Trump on Thursday announced what he called a “Historic Peace Agreement” between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, saying they agreed to “full normalization of relations.”

“HUGE breakthrough today! Historic Peace Agreement between our two GREAT friends, Israel and the United Arab Emirates!” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

The president, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed released a joint statement Thursday, after the three spoke “and agreed to the full normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.” The statement said that the “diplomatic breakthrough” was at “the request of President Trump,” and that Israel will “suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined in the President’s Vision for Peace and focus its efforts now on expanding ties with other countries in the Arab and Muslim world.”

Read the rest here.

Greek military put on high alert as tensions with Turkey rise

Greece has placed its military forces on high alert, recalling its naval and air force officers from holiday, as tensions with Turkey over exploration of potentially lucrative offshore energy reserves escalate in the eastern Mediterranean.

With Ankara dispatching the Oruç Reis, a drillship escorted by gunboats, to conduct seismic research in contested waters, Athens stepped up calls for Turkey to stop the “illegal” activities, intensifying a diplomatic offensive that has prompted the US, EU, France and Israel to express growing anxiety over the situation.

“Our country does not threaten [anyone], but nor can it be blackmailed,” the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, told the country on Wednesday night. “Let it be known to all: the risk of an accident lies in wait when so many military forces gather in a limited area.”

Amid the mounting international concern, Mitsotakis on Thursday thanked Emmanuel Macron, calling him a “true friend of Greece and fervent protector of European values and international law” after the French president demanded Turkey halt its explorations and said he would reinforce France’s military presence in the area

Read the rest here.

New York Sues the NRA for fraud

Obviously this is a politically motivated lawsuit. But that doesn't automatically mean it is w/o merit. The NRA has had some well publicized issues involving money and high living on the part of its leadership for a while now. It will be interesting to watch this play out in the courts. Someone pass the popcorn.

Story.

Manhattan real estate gets hammered

• The number of signed contracts for co-ops and condos in Manhattan dropped 57% in July compared with a year ago, according to a report from Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman.
• The high-end of the market is getting especially hard hit, with co-ops priced at $4 million to $10 million down over 75%.
• The number of unsold apartments is now at the highest level in almost a decade, according to Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel.

Read the rest here.

Report: The Federal Reserve to adopt multi-year pro-inflation policy

In the next few months, the Federal Reserve will be solidifying a policy outline that would commit it to low rates for years as it pursues an agenda of higher inflation and a return to the full employment picture that vanished as the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Recent statements from Fed officials and analysis from market veterans and economists point to a move to “average inflation” targeting in which inflation above the central bank’s usual 2% target would be tolerated and even desired.

To achieve that goal, officials would pledge not to raise interest rates until both the inflation and employment targets are hit. With inflation now closer to 1% and the jobless rate higher than it’s been since the Great Depression, the likelihood is that the Fed could need years to hit its targets.

The policy initiatives could be announced as soon as September. Addressing the issue last week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said only that a year-long examination of policy communication and implementation would be wrapped “in the near future.” The culmination of that process, which included public meetings and extensive discussions among Fed officials, is expected to be announced at or around the Federal Open Market Committee’s meeting.

Read the rest here.

Meanwhile gold hit a new record high today, closing up more than 2% at $2036/oz.

Manhattan DA filing suggests Trump investigation involves fraud

The Manhattan district attorney’s office suggested on Monday that it had been investigating President Trump and his company for possible bank and insurance fraud, a significantly broader inquiry than the prosecutors have acknowledged in the past.

The suggestion by the office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., came in a new federal court filing arguing that Mr. Trump’s accountants should have to comply with a grand jury subpoena seeking eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns. Mr. Trump has asked a judge to declare the subpoena invalid.

Until now, the district attorney’s inquiry had appeared largely focused on hush-money payments made in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election to two women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump.

In the new filing, the prosecutors did not directly identify the matters under scrutiny in the grand jury inquiry, which by law is conducted in secret. But they said that “undisputed” assertions in earlier court papers and several news reports about Mr. Trump’s business practices showed that the office had a wide legal basis for the subpoena.

Read the rest here.

Former King Juan Carlos of Spain to go into exile

The former King of Spain has announced that he will move abroad after a series of embarrassing revelations regarding his personal life and finances. In an official statement, the former King is said to have made the decision so as not to be a distraction from his son's duties as the current sovereign.

Details.

Report: Pope (E) Benedict XVI in poor health

Details here.

Benedict, 93, has been widely reported to be frail and in generally declining health. His brother recently reposed and the former pope is now said to be suffering from shingles.

TDS?

A lot of people have been warning that with his back to the wall Trump would try to delay or subvert the election. And they were dismissed by Trumpists as hysterics suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

 With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? -

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

Daniel Turner: Goodbye, Washington DC.(Must read)

Mayor Bowser broke her contract with residents like me. So we’re leaving...

Read the rest here.
HT: MCJ

This is one of the best pieces I've read in a while.

RIP Olivia De Havilland

The last of the stars from Hollywood's Golden Age has reposed at 104.

Requiem

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese: July 24 to be day of mourning

Again and most fervently, the Members of the Holy Eparchial Synod of Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, under the presidency of His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, write to you with urgency, determination, and great faith; for we have heard your cries of anguish and pain over the seizure of the Great Church of Holy Wisdom, our Ἁγία Σοφία. We know that your hearts are broken and, for you as well as our Ἁγία Σοφία, we have spoken out and will continue to do so “in season and out of season,” (εὐκαίρως ἀκαίρως, II Timothy 4:2), and we will not relent in our pursuit of justice and righteousness.

Therefore, knowing that on Friday, July 24^th, there will be an ‘inauguration’ of this program of cultural and spiritual misappropriation and a violation of all standards of religious harmony and mutual respect, we call upon all the beloved faithful of our Holy Archdiocese to observe this day as a day of mourning and of manifest grief. We urge you to invite your fellow Orthodox Christians and indeed all Christians and people of goodwill to share in the following observances.

We ask that every Church toll its bells in lamentation on this day. We call for every flag of every kind that is raised on the Church property be lowered to half-mast on this day. And we enjoin every Church in our Holy Archdiocese to chant the Akathist Hymn in the evening of this day, just as we chant it on the Fifth Friday of the Great and Holy Fast.

Let us, in this time of grief and mourning, appeal to the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. She is the “only Hope of the hopeless” (Ἡ τῶν ἀπελπισμένων μόνη Ἐλπίς), and as we chant to Her in the Akathist, “the Repository of the Wisdom of God, the Treasury of His Foreknowledge” (Σοφίας Θεοῦ Δοχεῖον, Προνοίας Αὐτοῦ Ταμεῖον, οἶκος Ρ).

Read the rest here.

Could Vatican II be repudiated?

July 16, 2020 (Rorate Caeli) — On his blog Settimo Cielo of July 13, the Vatican reporter Sandro Magister was highly critical of Bishops Carlo Maria Viganò and Athanasius Schneider, hurling an accusation at them for spreading “fake news”. *

The term “fake news” was used also in reference to Monsignor Schneider’s theses, whereby the Church, in Her history, has corrected doctrinal errors committed by precedent ecumenical councils, without, in this manner, “undermining the foundations of the Catholic faith.” Magister accuses Schneider of historical incompetence, citing, as evidence, a brief intervention by Cardinal Walter Brandmüller on the Council of Constance, which in reality refutes nothing of what was affirmed by Monsignor Schneider.

The facts are these. On April 6, 1415, the Council of Constance issued a decree known as Haec Sancta 1, wherein it was stated solemnly that the Council, assisted by the Holy Spirit, received its power directly from God: hence every Christian, including the Pope, was required to obey it. Haec Sancta is a revolutionary document which raised many questions as it was first interpreted in continuity with Tradition and, subsequently, reprobated by the Pontifical Magisterium. It had its coherent application in the decree Frequens, of October 9, 1417, which called for a Council five years later, after seven years another one and then one every ten years, de facto attributing to the Council the function of a permanent collegial body, alongside the Pope and de facto superior to him.

Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

It's also worth noting that Rome accepted, and then two centuries later repudiated the Eighth OEcumenical Council  (Constantinople 879-880).

In China Xi and Mao to Replace God

Multiple sources are reporting that impoverished Christians have been ordered to renounce their faith as a condition of receiving public welfare. Reports are circulating of Communist Party thugs entering homes and tearing down religious symbols and replacing them with pictures of Mao and Xi.

Bari Weiss Resigns from the New York Times

Dear A.G.,

It is with sadness that I write to tell you that I am resigning from The New York Times.

I joined the paper with gratitude and optimism three years ago. I was hired with the goal of bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your pages: first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others who would not naturally think of The Times as their home. The reason for this effort was clear: The paper’s failure to anticipate the outcome of the 2016 election meant that it didn’t have a firm grasp of the country it covers. Dean Baquet and others have admitted as much on various occasions. The priority in Opinion was to help redress that critical shortcoming.

I was honored to be part of that effort, led by James Bennet. I am proud of my work as a writer and as an editor. Among those I helped bring to our pages: the Venezuelan dissident Wuilly Arteaga; the Iranian chess champion Dorsa Derakhshani; and the Hong Kong Christian democrat Derek Lam. Also: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Masih Alinejad, Zaina Arafat, Elna Baker, Rachael Denhollander, Matti Friedman, Nick Gillespie, Heather Heying, Randall Kennedy, Julius Krein, Monica Lewinsky, Glenn Loury, Jesse Singal, Ali Soufan, Chloe Valdary, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Wesley Yang, and many others.

But the lessons that ought to have followed the election—lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned. Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.

Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.

My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again.” Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.

There are terms for all of this: unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge. I’m no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong.

Read the rest here.

This is well worth reading in its entirety.

Priest Photographed Giving Last Rites at Traffic Crash

A picture of a lone priest walking along Highway 81 piqued the interest of thousands of Catholics this week.

Drenched with so much rain, the image appears as a Norman Rockwell work of art; the black of his cassock, heavy with water, could be streaks of oil paint. The priest, now identified as Father John Killackey, was stuck in a line of cars along the highway after six vehicles were involved in a crash on Interstate 81 South in East Hanover Township in Lebanon, Pennsylvania on July 8, 2020.

Traffic apparently had come to a stop due to heavy rain. One car, not noticing the stand-still traffic, ran into the stream of cars and the driver was seriously injured. Father Killackey went to work, walking between the cars and semi-trucks, offering help to those suffering. Father Killackey was able to administer last rites to one person, just before the driver died.

We now have learned quite a bit about Father Killackey. A native of Wayne, N.J., he just celebrated his first-year anniversary of entering the priesthood. Serving as assistant priest at the Mater Dei Community in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he is a member of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter.

Read the rest here.

Vote for the Tomato Can

Anglican Clergy in the Late Georgian Era

For a somewhat satirical look at the clergy of the Church of England in the late 18th / early 19th centuries go here.

For the record

It's been widely reported, but in case you missed it...

ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree Friday ordering Hagia Sophia to be opened for Muslim prayers, an action likely to provoke international furor around a World Heritage Site cherished by Christians and Muslims alike for its religious significance, stunning structure and as a symbol of conquest.

 

The presidential decree came minutes after a Turkish court announced that it had revoked Hagia Sophia’s status as a museum, which for the last 80 years had made it a monument of relative harmony and a symbol of the secularism that was part of the foundation of the modern Turkish state.

Read the rest here.

Happy Birthday

Calvin Coolidge born July 4, 1872 in Plymouth Notch Vermont.

Happy Bobby Bonilla Day

Yep, it's that day again. July 1... when each and every year until 2035, the NY Mets drop another $1.19 million into Bobby Bonilla's bank account. The man is proof that not every professional athlete manages their money like an 18 year old who just won the lottery.