Gay billionaire, 39, can't understand why Muslims just won't be libertarians, you know, like everyone else

 Mike Solana is the protege of Republican Peter Thiel, another gay billionaire.

 

We've gone from The Devil Made Me Do It to The Church Made Me Do It

 Oh right, the Church made me eat the donuts.

What a stupid, unserious thing to say.

If you want to know why England is now ruled by its insane Labour Party, you are looking at it.

 

In the real world abortion is the leading cause of death, 73 million, but in France that is prohibited information

 

 The French media regulator has fined the conservative channel CNews €100,000 for, during a Catholic programme, saying that abortion is the world’s leading cause of death. The episode reveals the extent to which the debate on abortion is deadlocked in France.

In February 2024, presenter Aymeric Pourbaix, during the Catholic programme “En quête d’esprit,” broadcast every Sunday on the conservative channel CNews, showed an infographic on the causes of death, ranking abortion as the leading cause, with 73 million deaths each year worldwide. That translates to 52% of annual deaths, far ahead of cancer (10 million) and smoking (6.2 million).

The journalist’s comments sparked a wave of indignation in the mainstream press, on the grounds that abortion cannot be considered a “cause of death” because the foetus should not be considered a living being. ...

Reported here.

See current year for yourself under Health.

This is the absolute state of conservatism today under Donald Trump, who has nominated this man to run The Department of Defense

 

The perplexed losers of politics

 One or two rules, on which their conclusions depend, in most men have governed all their thoughts; take these from them and they are at a loss, and their understanding is perfectly at a non-plus.

-- John Locke

Exit polling indicates that Catholics turned out decisively for Donald Trump

 

An NBC News exit poll shows that Catholics preferred Trump-Vance over Harris-Walz by a whopping 58%-40% (with Catholics representing 22% of all voters). Among white Catholics, the margin was 61%-35%. The Washington Post exit poll shows a 56%-41% margin.

The state-by-state margins in pivotal swing states are likewise extraordinary. 

According to data collected and posted by the organization Catholic Vote, Catholics in Michigan voted Trump-Vance over Harris-Walz by an astounding 20%. In Pennsylvania, Catholics were likewise decisive for Trump, by 14%. In Wisconsin, it was 16%. In North Carolina, 17%. In Florida, the margin was astounding: 29%. 

More.

 

A prophet without honor in his own country

The New York Times religion columnist Ross Douthat accurately predicted the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election. 

The commenters on election day, for the most part, weren't having it, notably the ones who thought it was invalid simply because it hadn't changed over time even though the Democrat candidate did.

Some people just don't get it that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

People are credulous

 

 Wise judges have prescribed, that men may not rashly believe the confessions of witches, nor the evidence against them. For the witches themselves are imaginative; and people are credulous, and ready to impute accidents to witchcraft.

-- Francis Bacon

Rick Steves and his new bishop girlfriend are emblematic of what's gone wrong with Tim Walz' Lutheran denomination and with politics in the Pacific Northwest

 Rick is a board member on the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

NORML, get it?

He identifies with liberalism and progressivism.

His Wikipedia entry says he divorced his wife in 2010 and is a fan of liberation theology lol, a 1971 invention of the recently deceased Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Peruvian Catholic Theologian.

LINO. Lutheran in name only.

Of true charity

  

 It is no great matter to live lovingly with good-natured and meek persons; but he that can do so with the froward and perverse, he only hath true charity.

-- Jeremy Taylor

All foods are clean

And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat. But I said, Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth.  But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. 

-- Acts 11:7ff. 

Clueless Rod Dreher: If young people demand a sign, by golly Christians should give it to them (buy my new book all about it!)

 

 The number of ex-Christians continues to grow, especially among the young, but there has been a significant and unexpected change. Atheism is mostly dead among the young — but they aren’t coming back to Christianity. They are going to various forms of the occult, as well as taking up using psychedelic drugs.

Why? Because they are desperate to have an experience of transcendence, of mysticism. They need to have an experience that tells them that there is more to life than mere materialism. As concerned as we should be about this development, it also offers us Christians an opportunity. It will continue to be hard — harder than ever, maybe — to convert people by using reason. But [we can make inroads] if we talk about the miracles of Padre Pio and others, if we talk about approved Marian apparitions, if we talk about the reality of spiritual warfare in the stories of people like the late exorcist Gabriele Amorth, and Father Carlos Martins, the popular American exorcist whose podcast The Exorcist Files is not only entertaining, but has lots of strong practical advice. 

-- The shameless grifter, quoted here

 

And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation. ... Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

-- Mark 8:11-12, 38      

An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it ...

-- Matthew 12:39

A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it ...

-- Matthew 16:4

This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it ...

-- Luke 11:29

 

Like Melania Trump, Kamala Harris sees no room for compromise on abortion

 

I don’t think we should be making concessions when we are talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body.

-- Kamala Harris 

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 

-- I Corinthians 6:19

Perhaps Trump's funniest joke at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner for Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of New York

 

Signs and wonders and miracles, oh my: When you've seen one, you've seen them all

 

  No wonder to us, who have conversed with too many strange actions, now to wonder at any thing: wonder is from surprise, and surprise ceases upon experience.

-- Robert South

Religion Unplugged story about how politics influences US Protestant pastors' perceptions of church budgets completely misses two data outliers in 2018

 

 Pastors Paint Poor Picture Of Economic Impact On Churches

“Overall, pastors’ perceptions of the economy’s impact on their churches are statistically related to the pastor’s own politics. Since both politics and economics are external factors to a local church, it is not surprising that the influences become combined for some,” said McConnell. “More surprising is that pastors report actual offerings which fit these differences in political leanings.”

In 2018, under Donald Trump, an astounding 45% (green), a record high in the data going back to The Great Recession, said the economy was having a positive impact on church budgets, and an equally astounding 14% (blue), a record low in the data, said the economy was having a negative impact. 

It's right there in the graph, but it goes completely unremarked.

Political differences in any other year notwithstanding, 2018 looks like an amazing year of consensus among US Protestant church pastors from both sides of the political aisle, agreeing that things were pretty damn good. 

2018 had marked a notable shift for the Trump presidency, which wasted its first year in office trying to repeal Obamacare and quickly pivoted to the economy, which Larry Kudlow famously wanted front-loaded in 2017 instead of the healthcare issue. Almost immediately in 2018 the Trump administration began talking about an economic boom in the wake of the passage of its tax cut package late in 2017. And if you paid attention to the conservative media, the narrative built into a crescendo in 2018 so that by September of that year even Noah Smith, no right winger, for Bloomberg was talking about it as an actual fact.

Was it? 

If you and your kin had suffered under the effects of the 2009 crisis, which just went on and on and on under Barack Obama, it sure seemed like it. The end of the drought for these people, who were dying of thirst, was deeply felt, and explains why the memory of what happened to them continues to exert such a powerful influence on support for Donald Trump in 2024. Barack Obama and the Democrats did little for them. That is how we got here.

In relative terms in comparison with past booms, however, there were many indicators which were improving but were not really stellar, and some not really improving at all, including on both fronts full time jobs, wage growth, GDP growth, new home sales, housing starts, average age of vehicles on the road, road travel, growth of not in labor force, inventories, and industrial production. To critical thinkers, the economic boom narrative seemed exaggerated.

But perception is everything, and it's NOT surprising that the story missed that. Elites specialize in overlooking the little people.

No one understands the appeal of Donald Trump except all the millions he has helped, clinging to their guns and their religion.

 

   

The idea that Christopher Columbus was a Jew is based on a preposterous chain of evidence

 

 The chain of custody of the body is hopelessly broken. We know nothing about its integrity over almost 400 years before the 20th century.

"there are traits compatible with Jewish origin" ... The DNA-driven results are “almost absolutely reliable" ... Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain, in 1506 but had wished to be buried on the island of Hispaniola ... His remains were taken there in 1542, then at least some of them moved to Cuba in 1795 and then to Seville in 1898."

Story here.

Buon Giorno Di Cristoforo Colombo!

 

We peevish Protestants, the angry Lutherans

 

  What though I know her virtuous,

And well deserving; yet I know her for

A spleeny Lutheran, and not wholesome to

Our cause.

-- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act 3, scene 2

Melania Trump is the October Surprise, throws Hail Mary for abortion 33 days before the election

 Either she really, really, really does not want to go back to DC, hoping conservatives will abandon Trump over this and cause him to lose.

Or her husband thinks this will help him with pro-abortion women, who are 64% of all women, many of whom believe, incorrectly, that Trump would sign a national abortion ban.

Donald Trump officially supports the status quo ante to which the overturning of Roe v Wade has returned the nation, in which the individual states decide whether and to what extent abortion should be allowed.

His position is incompatible with Melania's uncompromising views, suggesting her timing of her announcement is designed to sabotage his campaign.