In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

As a relatively new Catholic convert, I've been reluctant to say anything about the synod recently completed in Rome, except to note what Fr James Martin himself has concludeed about it : One of these issues was L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics, particularly since this community was explicitly mentioned in the Instrumentum Laboris twice. It was also mentioned in half of the reports submitted by episcopal conferences from around the world. Many hoped that the synod would find ways to speak explicitly about reaching out to this community in new ways. Also there were unreasonably high expectations that the synod would, for example, somehow ratify the blessings of same-sex unions. But that second option was never going to happen on that or any other issue; the synod is consultative, not deliberative. The synod does not have the power to change any church practice; it can only suggest. Still, the lack of any mention of the term “L.G.B.T.Q.” in the final synthesis, called “A Synodal Church ...

\ As I've been pointing out, Trump's strategy in at least two of his trials, the Washington January 6 case under Judge Chutkan and the New York civil fraud case under Judge Engoron, has been to irritate and bait the judges into overreacting, imposing gag orders and making reversible errors. As of yesterday, A three-judge appeals court panel paused the federal gag order that partially limited former president Donald Trump's speech ahead of his federal 2020 election interference trial in Washington, D.C., according to a court ruling filed Friday. The ruling administratively and temporarily stays Judge Tanya Chutkan's decision to bar Trump from publicly targeting court staff, potential witnesses and members of special counsel Jack Smith's prosecutorial team, a ruling Trump asked the higher court to put on hold. Friday's order is not a decision on the merits of the gag order Chutkan issued last month, but is meant to give the appeals court more time ...

Why did Hunter Biden take this video? it screams drug-induced paranoia. pic.twitter.com/Fk6ejyqWcd — Evan Mahoney (@EvanMahoney_) October 31, 2023 Hunter Biden resurfaced twice in the news this week, first in a video that was posted on X Tuesday, linked above, and then in a USA Today op-ed yesterday, where he claims that he is in recovery and sober, but his enemies keep dredging up old videos to make fun of him. But as far as anyone can tell, this is a new video that appears to have been taken as a selfie from his own phone, the release of which would have been entirely under his control. Somehow it got from his phone to X. On the other hand, I suspect the USA Today piece was written for him, or was at best heavily revised from notes he provided, probably by his Hollywood lawyer friend Kevin Morris, who likely placed it via his or his wife's media network. The video could possibly support his claim that The weaponization of my addiction by partisan and craven fact...

Jim Biden has operated under the radar, as I commented yesterday, largely because no trove of documents equivalent to Hunter's laptop has surfaced over his own business dealings. Instead, so far, the best we've had is a series of anecdotes. The earliest was covered in 2019 by Politico as Joe's initial 2020 campaign began to falter -- once he gained momentum, though, corporate media dropped these stories. But before then, they covered Jim's and Hunter's acquisition of Paradigm Global Advisers: In the late summer of 2006 Joe Biden’s son Hunter and Joe’s younger brother, James, purchased the firm. On their first day on the job, they showed up with Joe’s other son, Beau, and two large men and ordered the hedge fund’s chief of compliance to fire its president, according to a Paradigm executive who was present. After the firing, the two large men escorted the fund’s president out of the firm’s midtown Manhattan office, and James Biden laid out his vision f...

It's generally acknowledged that Joe was designated Barack Obama's "point man" for Ukraine. For instance, per Axios , True: Joe Biden was the Obama administration's point man on Ukraine while his son was working for Burisma, visiting the country several times from 2014 to 2016. On the other hand, I have yet to see any sort of job description for "point man", except that as Axios implies, it seemed to involve whirlwind visits on Air Force Two and meetings with top people. But just recently, poking around for background on Joe's bother Jim, I found this at NBC News from April 2016 : Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Iraq Thursday for a visit intended to help resolve a political crisis that's hindering efforts to defeat the Islamic State group. Biden flew overnight from Washington to the Iraqi capital. The White House isn't publicly disclosing his itinerary due to security concerns, but Biden is expected to meet with Iraqi lea...

A Breitbart story gives an account of two Biden experts from Conservative Inc trading scuttlebutt: Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow said that his new New York Times bestselling book Breaking Biden includes a number of forgotten biographical details about Joe Biden, including the fact that he was tapped as former President Barack Obama’s running mate “specifically for being bad with money.” Marlow recounted this detail during an interview about Breaking Biden on the Drill Down Podcast with seven-time New York Times bestselling investigative author Peter Schweizer. . . . “One of the reasons why Barack Obama picked Joe Biden was specifically because he was poor,” Marlow continued. “[Obama] actually liked the optics of having one of the poorest guys in the Senate. And this is so crazy to me because we were just in an era recently where if someone made money and someone made it in America, we pointed to those people as the example—like, ‘Wow, that person really has what it ...

Yesterday I suggested Trump is following a Chicago Seven strategy of baiting his trial judges into overreacting, committing reversible errors, and allowing themselves to be characterized as political hacks in the public narrative. This strategy is succeeding. A federal judge on Sunday reinstated a gag order she imposed on Donald Trump in the Washington case accusing him of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, denying his bid for a stay pending appeal. The order prohibited Trump from targeting the special counsel prosecuting his case or witnesses who might be called to testify about his efforts to upend his election loss. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed the gag order at the Justice Department’s request. She temporarily lifted it on Oct. 20 after Trump’s lawyers appealed. And she reversed that decision on Sunday evening, according to the court’s docket. A member of the former Obama administration outlined the thinking that likely drove Judge Chutkan's cha...