In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

More than a few observers are beginning to look past the conventional wisdom in the disagreements between President Trump and Pope Leo. Just at random, I ran across the YouTube remarks embedded above from Pesach Wolicki, an Orthodox rabbi born in the US who emigrated to Israel. He begins his remarks by pointing pout that Pope Leo misrepresents scripture when he says (as he did in a tweet I embedded yesterday), "God does not bless any conflict". At 1:23, Rabbi Wolicki says, Take a look at the Bible. For example. in the song at the sea, in Exodus 15, where it says that the Lord is a man of war, Adonai ish Milchamah , OK? This is Exodus 15:3, which in the CatholiC New American Bible says "The LORD is a warrior; LORD is his name!" Back when I was in RCIA (now OCIA), the catechist frequently said, "Scripture without context is pretext." When I looked this up, AI helpfully added, This verse is part of the "Song of Moses" (or S...

From CBS News : President Trump on Monday defended his decision to post an AI-generated image appearing to depict him in the likeness of Jesus, insisting the image shows him as a "doctor." . . . "I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor," the president told reporters in an impromptu press conference outside the Oval Office. "And it had to do with Red Cross. There's a Red Cross worker there, which we support. And only the fake news could come up with that one." He continued: "So I — I just heard about it. And I said, 'How did they come up with that?' It's supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better, and I do make people better." His tongue, of course, is firmly planted in his cheek -- but in his defense, there's no specifically Christian symbology in the image. Trump is depicted holding some sort of shimmering crystal in his hand, which is more New Age than Christian. While he wears some sort ...

So the stanmdard take on Congressman Eric Swalwell dropping out of the California governor primary race is that it was cooked up by the Democrat establishment to avoid having two Republicans win the top two positions in the state's jungle primary . Under California’s voting system, the top two vote-getters in the primary will proceed to a general election in November, no matter what party they’re from. If the primary were held today, according to the most recent polling, that would mean two Republican candidates, each pulling in just 14 percent of the primary vote, battling it out for the governor’s office in the fall. A lot could change before primary day, but the Democratic Party is increasingly nervous. The two Republicans are Chad Bianco, Riverside County Sheriff, and Steve Hilton, a Fox News host. The top Democrat until he pulled out of the race was Swalwell, who had been polling at 12%, compared to Bianco and Hilton, who each polled at 14%. So the story goes th...

It's been quite an Easter octave. A week ago, Trump threatened to nuke a whole civiliation, with an effenheimer no less, following which Iran asked for negotiations. This set me to watching for signs of what was really going on. Let's keep in mind that ever since the Viet Nam War, the conventional wisdom has been that "negotiations" have nothing to do with ending a war, they're a tactic for the weaker side to get an extended pause in the bombing so they can recover, rehuild, and resume hostilities at a time of their choosing. Let's also keep in mind that modern Islamists simply never "negotiate" in good faith. They use "negotiations" like the North Vietnamese did, with the added feature that following extended delay, as soon as the "negotiations" conclude, they violate any "agreements" and simply resume fighting. But let's add a third factor. Trump is no dummy, and he prides himself on his ability as a...

Apparently in the wake of Trump's post calling out Tucker, Megyn, Candace, and Alex, commentators are beginning to weigh in on what those people are actually saying. Rich Lowry at The National Review, which has never been especially favorable to Trump, has the following to say in the video embedded above: I think first factor is the isolationist Right, overlap with a lot of these people, thought they controlled Donald Trump. They thought Trump was an isolationist the way they are isolationists. And it was never true, he was never an isolationist, and also, in his second term, he's actually been hyperactive in terms of foreign policy. So this led to extreme disappointment, which led on the one hand to a massive reevaluation of Donald Trump. Now yes, Donald Trump made wild threats in the runup to the cease fire with Iran. Are we really shocked by that? Do we not remember fire and fury with North Korea in the first term? And also, he dropped an f-bomb in that post on East...

I made Trump's takedown of podcasters he doesn't like into the opening credits of Star Wars... because it fit perfectly. This is pretty incredible. 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/dxvtWBjltP — Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) April 10, 2026 Last night : President Trump lashed out at four right-wing critics of the Iran war Thursday, describing them as “NUT JOBS” and “losers” who will say anything for attention. “I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the Number One State Sponsor of Terror, to have a Nuclear Weapon — Because they have one thing in common, Low IQs,” Trump wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post. “They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!” the president raged. “Look at their past, look at their record. They don’t have what it takes, and they never did! Tucker Carlson and Megyn K...

Real Clear Politics is a creature of big investment money and legacy media, although the conventional wisdom says it's pro-Trump : In November 2020, The New York Times published an article alleging that since 2017, when many of its "straight-news" reporting journalists were laid off, RealClearPolitics showed a pro-Trump turn with donations to its affiliated nonprofit increasing from entities supported by wealthy conservatives. RCP executive editor Carl Cannon disputed the newspaper's allegations of a rightward turn. . . . Cannon stated that RCP regularly publishes perspectives from both liberal and conservative publications, saying that "the simple fact is that the amount of liberal material published in RCP every week dwarfs the annual conservative content in The New York Times". But the circumstance on the ground is that RCP gets its reputation from polling averages, when polls wouldn't exist if they weren't financed by legacy media, and l...