Last Saturday was the feast day of the Apostle of Mercy St. Faustina who was a Polish nun who died at the age of 38 just before the start of World War Two. In her famous diary (you can read it here) she recorded her prayer life and her encounters with Christ, the Blessed Mother and occasionally the enemy and his minions.
WQPH 89.3 FM Shirley / Fitchburg which hosts my weekly radio show Your Prayer Intentions hosted a bus trip to that shrine on St. Faustina’s feast day last Saturday I attended.
While there I took advantage of the best insurance a person can get for a person or family, perpetual masses.
In addition to a bus load of pilgrims from several parishes in the state and from WQPH we had two priests with us. One Fr. Bob Doughty I interviewed as we were preparing to get on the bus to return. He was in the process of anointing those who wished it and dozens came to him from all the various buses there.
And Father Alex who is from Nigeria who I sat down and spoke with upon our return.
Due to some bus issues it was a short day at the shrine but a fine one. It is very likely that there will be another such trip next year on Oct 4th. If you have an interest in going comment on this post and when things start getting rolling in April I’ll give you a heads up
The only election Lyndon Johnson ever lost was due to it being stolen. It was stolen for his rival Pappy O’Daniel not by O’Daniel’s allies but by his enemies because they wanted Pappy, the sitting governor of Texas gone. So when the chance came to steal that senate seat after Johnson made a rare mistake in reporting a key district early they jumped in with both feet and Johnson would have to wait six years to steal that senate seat back from Pappy’s successor Coke Stevenson.
And that brings me to something a friend of mine said in conversation yesterday that frankly I didn’t think of.
As you all know by now Kamala ended up picking the rather incompetent governor of Minnesota Tim Walz over the VERY competent governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro as her running mate. This was likely because a pick of Shapiro might disturb the vital “death to Israel” and “death to Jews” vote that has been very vocal lately.
My friend noted that Shapiro is one of those rare things, a competent Democrat who has not driven his state into the ground. Furthermore he has ambitions for higher things and there is one thing we can be sure of: If Kamala Harris somehow wins in 2024, he wont be running for president until 2032.
BUT if Trump is elected he is instantly a lame duck meaning that he can run in 2028 against a J.D. Vance who will likely be bloodied in some tough primaries as there is actually a pretty deep GOP bench.
Do I think Shapiro would try to steal Pennsylvania FOR Trump? Nope, that would be an unforgivable sin for too many Democrat voters, but he might choose to do the next best thing, not allow them to steal it for Kamala.
Not only does preventing such a steal raise his cred with swing voters within the state when his re-election comes around but would allow him to co-operate with a Trump administration on energy which would produce a boom there that he could take credit for. It would be a powerful contrast to California the disaster where his chief rival Gavin Newsom is presiding over.
I must confess none of this had occurred to me but it DID occur to my friend who also notes that with the woke currently in retreat Shapiro might be able to marginalize that wing of the party, blame them for any Trump victory and in a sense use that to purge them from their place of power.
The one fly in the ointment is that simple demographics says to me that he can’t purge the “death to the Jews” wing but you might recall when he was being considered for the VP slot he was already hinting at compromises to appease them and of course in four years there might not be a Hamas or Hezbollah for them to support.
Will it work out this way? I don’t know but I do find the argument credible and thus has given me real hope, because the only way the steal worked last time was because everybody was on board. If Pennsylvania doesn’t play along the likelihood of successfully stealing the national election is low and the risk of an investigation from a crusading Trump AG and Justice department who would be highly motivated to investigate any steal in Arizona, or Michigan or Wisconsin is just too dangerous for a party that can’t stand scrutiny.
And frankly for all their anti Trump furor the Democrat party and the media didn’t want Kamala and were talking about her as a liability right up until Biden forced her on them.
In the old days when a party was facing a bad loss they basically took the hit and started planning on their comeback, if my friend is right the Democrats might actually be forced to play it on the up and up, not because they love Trump but because of the ambitions of a key Democrat in a key spot who might just decide to force them to do the right thing (and the smart thing in the long run) to satisfy his own personal agenda.
…for all their fury expressed in public and willingness to intimidate police and administrators in western cities in the year they have been marching NONE OF THEM HAVE TAKEN UP ARMS TO HEAD TO THE MIDDLE EAST TO FIGHT.
Quite a few Jews have gone to Israel to fight and there is no shortage of Jewish citizens currently under arms but none of these brave protesters, whose men of military age would constitute a mighty army, for all their loud pronouncements are ready to go off to war to fight those who they claim are committing genocide.
They seem quite invincible when it comes to shouting and screaming and going after lone counter protesters with a mob behind them, but the prospect of facing an armed Jew, man or woman, even with numbers in their favor makes them wet their pants.
They are like the man on the train that Confederate Joseph Johnston encountered after the Civil War who loudly proclaimed the southern cause but when asked by the former general in what regiment he served said that circumstances didn’t allow him to fight. Johnston described him to a friend later as the type who were “Invisible in war and invincible in peace.”
These protesters are “Invincible” in the safety of the western world in places where the rules of free expression are stretched to their breaking point to allow them to denounce Israel as genocidal monsters.
But “invisible” when it comes to putting themselves on the line to fight against them when there is the risk of harm.
Unexpectedly of course.
Cue Python and the Ballad of Sir Robin:
Frankly if I was Israel I’d finance people to dress up like the minstrels in this skit and taunt them
While he’s only 17 months in his first term in office, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson is on pace to be remembered as one of America’s worst big city mayors. The competition to be inducted into that shameful club includes some real rascals and incompetents, such as New York’s Jimmy Walker, Detroit’s Coleman Young, Cleveland’s Dennis Kucinich, and Chicago’s Big Bill Thompson.
The insufferably incompetent and complicit Chicago media, once among the America’s best, rarely mentions that “Branjo,” prior to his election as mayor, was a longtime paid organizer–that means agitator–for the far-left Chicago Teachers Union. The CTU was the largest donor to his mayoral campaign, and it supplied ground troops to get Johnson elected. Yes, I know, Johnson was also a Cook County commissioner. While in that job he authored no memorable legislation.
Johnson, in short, is in the pocket of the CTU.
Why can’t you say so, Chicago media?
Chicago is essentially broke because of massive unfunded pension obligations, and so is Chicago Public Schools.
On Friday afternoon, all seven members of the Chicago Board of Education resigned because they refuse to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who was appointed by Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot. Johnson has called on Martinez to resign, the mayor supports the fiscally anemic CPS to take out what’s widely being called a “payday loan” to pay for pension obligations and big raises for CTU members.
Martinez opposes that, and clearly, so do the former board members. Unlike Martinez, the board members who just quit aren’t Lightfoot holdovers. Johnson appointed all of them.
Richard Nixon had his Saturday Night Massacre, @ChicagosMayor has his Friday Afternoon Massacre. And once again, Branjo will probably blame Nixon for his problems.
The president of the Chicago Teachers Union is Stacy Davis Gates. She’s an ill-tempered leftist who is possibly crazier than US Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Gates, it’s important to know, sends her son to a private school. Of course she is against school choice for everyone else, as is Johnson.
Besides its money problems, Chicago Public Schools do a horrible job educating students. Even though CPS spending continues to soar, student test scores continue to be quite low. Roughly three-quarters of CPS students are unable to read at grade level—and math scores are even worse.
Can this story get any worse?
In Chicago, getting worse is the normal.
As part of a transition to a fully elected Board of Education, ten seats for a new board are up for election this fall–voting has already begun. Johnson will appoint the remaining 11 seats.
The new members that Johnson will appoint will be out of office in a few months. Branjo will task them to fire Martinez, approve the “payday loan” for those pension obligations, and approve a big raise for Chicago’s unionized teachers.
Good government types in Chicago—amazingly, they really exist–condemned Johnson’s pro-Chicago Teachers Union power play. Surprisingly a large majority–over eighty percent–of the Chicago City Council, including aldermen who are members progressive caucus and two of the six socialists, have expressed opposition to Branjo’s move.
As Barack Obama famously said, elections have consequences. Chicago voters choose poorly.
Crime, despite laughable denials from Crain’s Chicago Business, also known as Crain’s Chicago Anti-Business, is a serious problem Chicago. The office and retail vacancy rate downtown are over 25 percent. For 2025, Chicago faces a $1 billion deficit.
Sadly, there is not recall mechanism in place for Chicago mayors.
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