Archive for April 13, 2023

Some Praise for Rebekah Jones (Yes you read that right) UPDATE CORRECTION or not

Posted: April 13, 2023 by datechguy in oddities
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Always look at the Bright Side of Life

Eric Idle

For some reason last night at work Rebekah Jones popped into my head.

You might remember he as the false whistleblower who tried to target the DeSantis administration during COVID and lately for trying to blame DeSantis for the arrest of her son who had been showing indications that he might like to shoot up a school.

But let’s ignore the false blame game and consider something for a sec. For all her mendacity  Rebekah Jones did a very hard thing that like most hard things turned out to be the right thing.

She saw what her child was doing and recognized it for what it was.

How many parents might have remained in denial? How many parents might have convinced themselves it was no big deal. Howe many parents, particularly ones who have a, shall we say, less than flattering public persona both in social media and beyond and might have decided they didn’t want to go there.

She didn’t do those things, she took the initiative and had her child placed in custody. It was likely a very painful action but by doing so she showed responsibility both as a mother to protect her child and as a citizen by acting to protect the community as a whole.

Now granted as I’ve already noted she tried to spin this all falsely for political gain which in fairness in completely in character for her so she deserves all the grief she gets over that.

But as we do so lets not ignore the fact that before she reverted to form she made a hard choice for the sake of all. Let’s give her a small tip of the fedora for that and pray not only that her child gets the help needed to return to normalcy .but that other parents given a similar situation make the right call for both their community and their child.

Update: Well I guess I had the wrong info there:

Police documents and warrant service reports, however, suggest that multiple students at her son’s former middle school reported him to teachers because they were worried he would shoot up the school. (Jones’ son is now homeschooled.) Snapchat messages obtained by the police as part of a search warrant do indeed return memes that joke about school shootings sent by her son. But they also show legitimately concerning messages he allegedly sent that appear to be specific threats against a specific middle school. The police report also shows in detail how the investigation was carried out, and the timeline of the investigation. The Snapchat messages in question were sent roughly six weeks ago, but police only became aware of them after students reported them to teachers on March 20. The documents show that police began questioning students immediately and attempted to question Jones’s son within a day of being alerted.

This is from Vice which is not known as a conservative powerhouse

Adapt or die: Lessons for Republicans to be learned from Chicago’s mayoral election

Posted: April 13, 2023 by John Ruberry in Uncategorized
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By John Ruberry

“I heard my momma cry, I heard her pray the night Chicago died.” The Night Chicago Died, Paper Lace, 1974. 

Any doubt in my mind that Chicago would be the next Detroit evaporated last Tuesday night as election results came in showing that far-left Democrat Brandon Johnson would replace the disastrous Lori Lightfoot as mayor of Chicago. 

It was the night Chicago died.

There are serious lessons from this Democrat battle for Republicans. 

Moderate Democrat Paul Vallas, a policy wonk who can produce a white paper as easily as quickly as a Kardashian can upload skanky pics on Instagram, offered a commonsense solution to Chicago’s crime epidemic: hire more cops.

Woke triumphed over wonk.

Johnson, whose political career is a creation of the neo-Marxist Chicago’s Teacher Union, has a “roots cause” outlook in regard taking back Chicago. He favors sending social workers to domestic disturbances instead of police officers. And almost as if on cue on the day after the first round of voting for mayor, Andres Vasquez-Lasso, a 32-year-old cop, was shot to death responding to a domestic disturbance call.

Living just five miles north of Chicago, I agree with Johnson on one thing–there are many mentally disturbed people living in America’s third-largest city. Of course, there is one root cause leftists never speak of, the dominance of fatherless households in Chicago’s most-crime ridden neighborhoods. 

Six months ago, few Chicagoans had heard of Johnson. He’s been a Cook County commissioner since 2019, a rubber stamp body, for the most part, is controlled by Toni “Taxwinkle” Preckwinkle. She is also the chairman of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, aka, the Chicago Machine. 

Well, it was Chicago’s Machine.

The new machine in the city is the Chicago Teachers Union, which is aided by a couple of key allies, two other public-sector unions, SEIU and AFSCME. 

Johnson, after a few years as a teacher, where he admitted he never assigned homework, moved on to be a CTU organizer. In fact, he kept collecting about $100,000 a year from the union even though he was an elected official. 

And despite Johnson’s “defund the police” rhetoric from 2020, which be backed off of as his campaign gained traction before the February runoff, Johnson is Chicago’s mayor-elect.

With crime soaring in Chicago, how did that happen? 

That’s easy, it was that new machine, CTU and friends, that got Johnson elected. 

“They were brilliant,” former ABC Chicago political analyst Clarence Thomas told Chicago’s Morning Answer Dan Proft last week of CTU. “They did it, they went door to door, they knocked on doors, they found those vote by mail ballots, and said, ‘Hey, let’s fill this out, let’s send this in.'”

Vallas, meanwhile, ran a conventional political campaign, heavy on collecting corporate campaign contributions, big-name endorsements including Dick Durbin, former governor Pat Quinn, recently retired six-term Illinois secretary of state Jesse White, and many Chicago alderpersons. Illinois’ most-read newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, endorsed Vallas.

That was a wonderful strategy–that is, if Vallas was a candidate for mayor of Chicago in 1991. 

How many doors did Dick Durbin knock for Vallas? Or Quinn? How many voters did the Chicago Tribune reach out by way of text messaging, reminding them when, where, and how to vote? How many voters did Jesse White contact in regard to receiving a mail-in ballot? How many social media private messages did those pro-Vallas alderpersons send? How many people got rides to polling places from those corporate megadonors? 

The answer to those questions is the same: almost certainly zero.

The Chicago Teachers Union game plan that got Brandon Johnson elected will be replicated by leftists nationwide in 2024. Listen, I hate early voting and I despise mail-in ballots, but until the rules are changed–and that is, if they are changed–Republicans have to adapt to the new ballgame. 

The CTU looked for voters, found them, and they made sure they voted for Johnson last week–as well as the two weeks prior to Election Day. A low turnout–about 35 percent—clearly upped the odds for CTU/Johnson.

As for that abysmal turnout, shame on you, Chicago.

One more thing about Vallas. When he conceded on election night, he trailed Johnson about 10,000 votes. But that evening there were still around 50,000 outstanding mail-in ballots, and yes, they are still trickling in and being counted. Vallas learned too late that the game had changed. He knew the great majority of those mail-in ballots were from Johnson voters. 

Get to work, Republicans. Find out who your voters are, connect with them, stay in touch with them, and get them to vote.

And yes, knock on doors. More people can be found at home now, many people work from there. Times have changed. 

Adapt or die.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The Biden Regime’s war on the Free Exercise of Religion accelerates

Posted: April 13, 2023 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Progressives, and other Leftists, have long detested all forms of Christianity.  This is because all ideologies of the political left are religions in themselves.  Unlike the different denominations of Christianity, the ideologies of the left are political religions. This makes them more akin to Islam.  Because progressivism is a political religion, it cannot exist peacefully with other religions.

Joe Biden, and those pulling his marionette strings, are all hardcore leftists.  Because of this they seek to banish all forms of Christianity from the public square.  Soon after being installed in the White House, the Biden regime began waging a war against the religions they detest.  The latest major battle in this war began at the beginning of Holy Week when, under the direction of the Biden Regime, Walter Reed National Military Medical center jettisoned Catholic Priests serving as chaplains.

In a move that has stunned Catholics and religious freedom advocates, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. issued a “cease and desist order” just before Holy Week to a community of Franciscan Catholic priests from Holy Name College that had been serving servicemembers and their families at the center for almost two decades.

On April 7, the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS) announced that Walter Reed issued the order on March 31, just as the most sacred week of the year for Christians was beginning. AMS noted that the contract for providing Catholic Pastoral Care was instead awarded to a secular defense contracting firm that does not have the capacity to offer Catholic pastoral services such as Mass and confession, which can only be administered by an ordained priest. AMS further pointed out that without the services of the Franciscan priests, there would be only one other Catholic priest assigned to Walter Reed, an Army chaplain who is currently “in the process of separating from the Army.”

This unprecedented move sparked outrage amongst the Catholic hierarchy.

Archbishop for the Military Services Timothy P. Broglio was perplexed by Walter Reed’s decision and expressed concern that it would infringe on the ability of Catholic servicemembers and their families to freely exercise their faith while at the center.

“It is incomprehensible that essential pastoral care is taken away from the sick and the aged when it was so readily available,” he said. “This is a classic case where the adage ‘if it is not broken, do not fix it’ applies. I fear that giving a contract to the lowest bidder overlooked the fact that the bidder cannot provide the necessary service. I earnestly hope that this disdain for the sick will be remedied at once and their First Amendment rights will be respected.”

The Archbishop is absolutely correct.  The Free Exercise of Religion clause of  the First Amendment guarantees all Americans the right to worship as they please.  Progressives claim that Establishment clause of the First Amendment created a separation of Church and state.  This is absolute fiction.  That clause only prevents the United States from declaring an official state religion.

AMS said that despite numerous appeals to Walter Reed by their general counsel Elizabeth A. Tomlin to reinstate the priests at least through Holy Week, they received no response from the medical center.

“Especially during Holy Week, the lack of adequate Catholic pastoral care causes untold and irreparable harm to Catholics who are hospitalized and therefore a captive population whose religious rights the government has a constitutional duty to provide for and protect,” 

This move is only the latest attack on the free exercise of religion.

Additionally, in September of last year, the administration issued a rule mandating that Veterans Affairs medical facilities carry out abortions as well as provide abortion counseling. When a Christian nurse practitioner requested a religious accommodation on two occasions from having to participate in abortions, she was denied. She is now filing suit against the hospital for placing a substantial burden on her sincerely held religious beliefs.

And here is one more from Louder With Crowder

The Weaponization of Government Committee obtained information from the FBI revealing the agency had sent undercover agents into Catholic churches to investigate them for domestic extremism. Yes, into churches. Jim Jordan wrote in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, “Based on the limited information produced by the FBI to the Committee, we now know that the FBI relied on at least one undercover agent to produce its analysis and that the FBI proposed that its agents engage in outreach to Catholic parishes to develop sources among the clergy and church leadership to inform on Americans practicing their faith.”

This rather despicable episode also violates the Fourth Amendment. We do not live in a police state.  Actually that is not accurate anymore.  Progressives have now disgracefully turned the US into a police state.

I Don’t get the Confusion here

Posted: April 13, 2023 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, catholic, official oppression
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If you work under the assumption they’re all Marxists it all makes sense

Steve Nott

At Hotair David Strom notes the war against the Catholic Church by this administration :

But even with these caveats, I have to conclude that Biden is, in fact, anti-Catholic in the simplest sense: he is at war with Catholics and the Catholic Church.

The evidence is irrefutable and copious. In just the past 4 days I found 4 stories about Biden Administration attacks on Catholics, and if you go back further than that you can find innumerable more. The FBI has categorized Catholic traditionalists as potential domestic terrorists, placed informants in Catholic organizations, kicked Catholic priests out of Walter Reed, and let a domestic terrorist who attacked a Catholic Church off with a slap on the wrist.

The latest example of course being the slap on the wrist for vandalizing churches:

He closes thus:

The Biden Administration has clearly targeted Catholics and the Catholic Church for what amounts to state suppression. The Catholic faith is being treated as a font of dangerous ideological ideas and a potential breeding ground for domestic terrorists. Further, the Biden Administration has basically declared open season on Catholic institutions, looking the other way as Catholic institutions have been vandalized.

Is it the pro-life doctrines of the Church that so offend?

Is it the hostility to gender ideology that stems from the Catholic Natural Law tradition?

Or is it just that the Church as an institution provides a cultural counterweight to the ideological power of the state?

I really don’t understand, to be honest. But the evidence is clear.

As a Catholic I really don’t see the confusion here because Christ was really explicit about this kind of thing during the Last Supper discourses to his disciples:

“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name,  because they do not know the one who sent me.

John 15:17-21

So when I see this:

And Christ’s word to those opposing him:

“If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and am here; I did not come on my own, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? Because you cannot bear to hear my word. You belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.

John 8:42-44

I remember that there are two sides in the eternal battle and that like the Satanists who hold the black mass because they KNOW the Eucharist is the actual body of Christ, this administration knows, the mediocre Francis not withstanding, that the Catholic Church is not on theirs because they willingly carry out their father’s desires.

Mr. Storm might not understand it but I understand all too well.