In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

A sort of sub-debate over "just war" doctrine has emerged between Vice President Vance and Bishop James Massa, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine. This past Tuesday (April 14), Vance gave an ex tempore response to Pope Leo's criticisms of the war at a Turning Point USA event in Athens, GA. His full remarks are in the video embedded above. I'll start, though, with Bishop Massa's response, posted on the USCCB site: “For over a thousand years, the Catholic Church has taught just war theory and it is that long tradition the Holy Father carefully references in his comments on war. A constant tenet of that thousand-year tradition is a nation can only legitimately take up the sword ‘in self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2308). That is, to be a just war it must be a defense against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy Father actually said: ‘He do...

The brouhaha over Trump's Truth Social post criticizing Pope Leo seems to be settling into a pattern that's established itself since Trump entered presidential politics: Trump says something blunt and on the face of it wildly out of line. Several days of hysteria follow, until other voices provide a reluctant acknowledgement that however clumsily he may have expressed it, Trump has a point. For instance. in July 2019, he told far-left members of congress in "the squad" to "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came," which led the House of Representatives to formally censure him for "racist comments". Nevertheless, this led to an overall reassessment of their role, and two of them, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, lost their seats in the 2024 primary cycle. In January 2018, he trolled North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying his own "Nuclear Button" was "much bigger & more powerful...

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...