In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Cardinal Wilton Gregory has been widely characterized as a liberal at least since he was named Archbishop of Washington, DC . The good news is the next archbishop of Washington, D.C., is not Cardinal Cupich, Cardinal Tobin or Bishop McElroy. The bad news is, according to Catholic News Agency, the new archbishop will be Wilton Gregory. A disciple of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Gregory is not just liberal on some things; rather, he is liberal on everything. On abortion. On natural law and the traditional family. On dissident priests. On the translations of the novus ordo. Even on dressing for the beach at Mass. I'm not sure if this impression was ever completely accurate; as far as I can see, he's never been on board with the idea that Joe Biden is a "devout Catholic", for instance. As of 2021, The spiritual leader of Washington, DC’s archdiocese says President Biden is “not demonstrating Catholic teaching” when it comes to abortion rights. . . ...

On Good Friday, the White House issued this proclamation : NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility. I call upon all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our Nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity. On one hand, OK, this isn't anything new : Republicans are taking aim at President Joe Biden for proclaiming Easter Sunday as the Transgender Day of Visibility, though the two days only coincided this year by chance. The Transgender Day of Visibility, which was started in 2009 as a day of awareness to celebrate the successes of transgender and gender-nonconforming people, is held annually on March 31. The date of Easter, meanwhile, changes from year to year. But sever...

I mused briefly yesterday on why the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse seems to have captured media attention well beyond similar episodes like the Sunshine Skyway bridge collapse of 1980, in which 35 were killed, amd the 2007 Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse, in which 13 were killed. In contraast, only 6 are missing and presumed dead in Baltimore, while a potential story of competence by law enforcement, which was able to close the bridge to traffic within minutes' notice of the runaway container ship, is lost in the shuffle. Instead, the story from Tuesday is still trending today, and not only that , Even before most Americans woke up Tuesday morning to news of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, wild conspiracy theories about what supposedly had “really” happened were running rampant online. The claims ranged from a cyber-attack or a ship captain impaired by side effects from Covid-19 vaccines being responsible for the crash – to claims that Israel...

A new Fox poll is out, which this analysis sums up : If the new Fox News poll is accurate, it should be sending off warning bells to Joe Biden because there are multiple elements that indicate big trouble for him. The first is that former President Donald Trump has extended his lead over Biden in their survey. He's now up by five points in the head-to-head numbers, as well as five points ahead of Biden even when adding in the other party candidates. According to Interactive Polls this is the largest lead ever for Trump in Fox polling. Nobody seems to have pointed this out, but the answer is in two words: Fani Willis. Trump's slow but steady rise in the polls is continuing, but the big thing that's been driving it since last fall has been the lawfare cases against him, which are continuing to backfire. I've noted here that Alan Dershowitz, one of the people who invented the Chicago Seven strategy for turning trials into street theater, has recognized that thi...

One feature of all the Trump criminal trials so far has been that as the date for each approaches, new and often lurid details surface that throw their credibility into doubt. This certainly happened in Fulton County, and it looks like something similar may occur in New York as well. I think this is an inevitable result of the slapdash nature of all the cases, thrown together for indictments in the middle of 2023 in hopes of securing convictions in one or more of them, first by the 2024 primary season, and then by the November election. So far, this isn't working out as planned. We probably have some vague recollection of Michael Avenatti , pictured with his onetime client, the porn actress Stormy Daniels, above: Michael John Avenatti (born February 16, 1971) is an American former attorney and convicted felon, currently incarcerated in federal prison at FCI Terminal Island. He is best known for his legal representation of adult film actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against ...

I've made a couple of recent posts on Alan Dershowitz's red line from a YouTube broadcast last week : If you stop supplying ammunition and arms to Israel and deny them the right to defend themselves, you have crossed my red line. I hope that doesn't happen. I now have a more open mind than I ever thought I would have about whom I will vote for in this election. The Democratic Party cannot take me, the people who listen to me, the people who vote the way I do, they can't take us for granted, sorry. As of yesterday, there was a sorta-kinda answer from a "senior defense official" via Breitbart: Regarding the question about security assistance, you know, security assistance, which is a longstanding feature of the U.S. Israel relationship and the U.S. Commitment Israel security, it has flowed more rapidly than ever since the attacks of October 7th. And the secretary ensures — said very clearly that we will continue to stand up for Israel’s right to d...

There's a consensus that the Biden administration is shfting its policy away from supporting Israel. Via Politico on Kamala's threats of "consequences" over the weekend : [I]n the interview this weekend, she didn’t dismiss a possible backlash as the administration continues to warn Israel against a major invasion of Rafah. The West Wing has supported Harris’ willingness to nudge out slightly ahead of Biden, who spent decades as one of the Senate’s foremost supporters of Israel and has been loath to appear like he is turning his back on the country even amid his growing disdain for its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Indeed, two administration officials not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions said Harris’ remarks have created more space for Biden to slowly — and privately — offer his own rebukes of Netanyahu and his conduct of the war. But the prevailing stance inside the administration is that Biden and Harris are reading from the s...