In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I've already noted here the potential crisis the US Catholic bishops face in taking a public stance against the Trump administration's desire at minimum to cut back on funding to NGOs, including nominally Catholic programs, that have woke objectives. On January 28, immediately after Trump's imitial announcemnt of that policy, Catholic Charities, a major recipient of this funding, urged the Trump administration to “rethink” its pause on federal funding for executive departments, noting the “millions of Americans who rely on this life-giving support.” . . . “For more than a century, the Catholic Charities network has worked with the government to care for poor and vulnerable people in every community in the U.S., and we continue to be eager to work with government to care for our neighbors in need,” [Catholic Charities CEO Kerry Alys] Robinson said. “We strongly urge the administration to rethink this decision.” On the other hand, there's some question a...

Sen Lindsey Graham announces he's been red-pilled over USAID. and at 1:51 above, he says, Samantha [Power] has been texting me morning, noon, and night, Samantha, look in the mirror! The reason USAID is going to cease to exist as it did before is because it should! Sundance at Conservative Treehouse says "We can officially say this moment achieves ‘peak Graham.’" Graham has in fact been a chief advcocate of USAID up to this point, when Elon Musk has suddenly exposed the grift and Graham realizes he'd better get on the right side of the issue. Sounds very fishy https://t.co/68ToeBRN6d — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 9, 2025 I've looked at Samantha Power's career now and then, and irrespective of the latest allegations of her net worth, she's always struck me as among the privileged for being special. According to Wikipedia , Samantha Jane Power (born September 21, 1970) is an Irish-American journalist, diplomat, and government official ...

A while ago, there was a saying about people like Paris Hilton. whom nobody could understand what they had done to make themselves famous, that they were "famous for being well known". What I've been noticing in recent years is a phenomenon of people who are, or were, privileged for being special. Nobody can quite figure out what made, or makes, them privileged. Take the example of Rebecca Lobach, the pilot of the helicopter that by current general consensus was at fault for flying into a regional jet on January 29. The jet was following the controller's instructions, at the precise altitude and course it should have been. The helicopter appears to have been above its authorized altitude and even slightly off course. The initial news the morning after the crash had to do with the loss of 14 prominent figure skaters on the jet : U.S. Figure Skating, the organization that serves as the sport's national governing body, confirmed the plane's passeng...

Yesterday I posted about indications that very powerful influences were able to insert themselves into the Army's press releases about the Reagan National collision January 29, especially that the family was able to override Army policy and delay release of the pilot's name an additional two days, as well as to include a family-written eulogy of the pilot in the Army's own press release, despite the strong likelihood that that pilot played a major role in the collision. It's hard to avoid thinking similar influences have been delaying the release of other key information about the crash. As of Janary 31, over a week ago , The National Transportation Safety Board has recovered the flight “black box” from the downed Black Hawk helicopter, that appears to be undamaged, board member Todd Inman said. Yesterday, the NTSB has recovered a flight data recorder “in good condition” from the accident, he said, though it will not be releasing information from that device ...

As soon as I heard the news last week that the Army was withholding the name of the Black Hawk helicopter pilot involved in the Reagan National collision, my antennae went up. There had to be family money involved. Here's the problem: On Saturday the U.S. Army released the name of the second pilot—reported to have been pilot in command—of the Blackhawk helicopter that collided with American Airlines flight 5342 over the Potomac River, killing 67 people. This was a marked departure from Army policy that states “Names, city, and state of deceased will be withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification.” This was the standard process used to identify the other two members of the Army’s flight crew, Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves, and Staff Sgt. Ryan O'Hara. . . . Yet, in an unusual deviation, the Army selectively withheld Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach’s identity for an additional two days. When her name was finally released over the weekend, the Army included a family...

This is a job for Big Balls 😂 https://t.co/vqYD0XyCfB — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2025 On Thursday, I asked of DOGE, "Who are these guys?", and yesterday, I began to get an answer: one of them is named Big Balls. The doxing campaign was immediate. Per Wired : A young technologist known online as “Big Balls,” who works for Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has access to sensitive US government systems. But his professional and online history call into question whether he would pass the background check typically required to obtain security clearances, security experts tell WIRED. Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old high school graduate, established at least five different companies in the last four years, with entities registered in Connecticut, Delaware, and the United Kingdom, most of which were not listed on his now-deleted LinkedIn profile. Coristine also briefly worked in 2022 at Path Network, a network monitoring firm kno...

pic.twitter.com/obbnlw6CxZ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2025 I'm not sure if the New York Post writer fully understands the story here : A federal judge temporarily limited members of the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the Treasury Department’s payment system the day before a DOGE employee who was linked to offensive social media posts quit. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued the order Wednesday after three union groups — the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union — filed a lawsuit against Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, accusing him of illegally sharing their members’ information with Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team. Kollar-Kotelly, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, limited access to the payment records system to two DOGE employees — one of whom resigned Thursday — and Treasury officials. The judge ordered that the two DOGE workers —...