Posts Tagged ‘ed morrissey’

Under the Fedora: Ace Has Had Enough, Compare and Contrast, The Wages of Woke, Shrinking Pancake Stacks, You mean I have to GOVERN? and the Left tells the World Who They Fear

Posted: April 22, 2023 by datechguy in abortion, Blame Biden Administration, business, culture, election 2024, politics
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I remember sitting next to Ace of Spades at the Scott Brown Victory Party in the press area. Even then he was a person who did not mince words nor had any patience or qualms about saying what was on his mind and what is on his mind about Trump is that he’s finally crossed the line:

 Trump is now repeating all the left wing Democrats’ lies that Florida is a place of “misery and despair,” enlisting, get this, a leftwing blogger to write the hit piece on DeSantis, who in turn gets his “facts” from leftwing sources.

This frankly is Trump’s nature. He has always fought like a Democrat and it’s a lot of fun when his target is a Democrat, but right now he sees Ron DeSantis as the greatest threat to his campaign to return to the White House so anything goes. Ace concludes thus:

I’d also point out that we know for a fact who is the most uncomfortable with the Culture War — cultural liberals like the The Bulwark Boyz and The Dispatch Boyz. They hate the Crazy Christians fighting all the time with their gay frenz, and they want them to stop.

Well, guess who else is cultural liberal who doesn’t want the Crazy Christian fighting the trans extremists.

Is this True Conservatism, Trump-style, now? Is this “populism” — adopting all the cant and tactics of the leftwing, trans-crazy Ruling Class?

And he’s going to be the one to take on The Regime? LOL. He’s repeating every single point of their catechism!

This frankly is Trump nature and you can’t have the good problem solving Trump without putting up with this one but read the whole thing anyways any more than you could get the pragmatic Bill Clinton without the womanizing or the Politically savvy Lyndon Johnson without the temper and corruption.

On the same subject let’s compare and contrast two tactics in “support” of the Donald Trump campaign. A stupid one that relies on falsehoods:

And the smart one that takes the advice in my tweet to heart:

When you’ve got the best record of any president in the last century and a quarter why not run on that record?

At Town Hall Brad Slager has written a must read post which should be posted on the wall of every marketing division of every corporation that considers caving to the woke agenda:

I found Kristin Kroepfl, chief marketing officer for Quaker Foods North America, stating that in the year 2020, the Aunt Jemima brand had $350 million in sales. Okay, this gives us something of a baseline.

Throughout 2021, the Quaker Foods division saw the pancake mix and syrup sales plunge. The period following the introduction of the name switch that summer reported “a double-digit decline in pancake syrup and mix.” This was matched in the final quarter of that year – when the name change had gone into full effect – with “double-digit declines in pancake syrups and mixes.” 

Ever hear how compound interest grows wealth, well compound losses takes it away

This downward trend continued through last year. Quarter 1 delivered another “double-digit decline.” In Q-2, Quaker saw unit volume grow 2% across all of its products but was weighed down by another “double-digit decline in pancake syrups and mixes,” something also seen in the Q-3 reports. The only glimmer of positivity is that the former Aunt Jemima brand saw its bleeding slowing in Q-4, as that line only saw “a high-single-digit decline in pancake syrups and mixes.”

Considering the vagueness of these reports (since “double-digit” can range anywhere from 10 to 99%), even applying the rosiest measurement, by only counting a ten percent decline in each of those six quarters, the former Aunt Jemima brand declined by at least -50% since the name change. It is very likely much worse.

Small bit of advice to Bud Light and all those other who cave to the woke, don’t cave to people who aren’t your customers anyways.

And for the record I haven’t bought “Pearl Hill pancake mix” since the name change.

One fo the things I’ve noticed over the last few months at Hotair are the interesting Notes that Ed Morrissey adds at the end ofo posts by various authors commentating on their point. This one on Abortion and the states is so good that it bears listing here:

The problem for both parties is that the end of Roe also means the necessity of governance on the issue of abortion. That means applying principles in an effective manner and garnering the broadest support for those principles without having to compromise too much on them. While much of the scrutiny of this issue has fallen on Republicans, Democrats have the same issue with their commitment to the extremist position of legalized abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. The side that figures out how to engage the center most effectively will win, but that requires real patience and risk taking — and neither quality is in large supply in American politics. — Ed

That’s it in a nutshell. SCOTUS has forced states to actually make real world decisions, forcing political animals to actually do the job that they’ve begged the voters for and that involves making some people angry.

You can’t go wrong reading Ed Morrissey, ever.

Finally I noticed that the media has done all it can to marginalize RFK JR. in his run for the Democrat nomination, suggesting he is a fringe candidate, however I think they are terrified of him.

USA Today’s confident use of the word “debunked,” however, can’t mask a growing suspicion among an increasing number of Americans that the authorities aren’t being honest with us. The COVID vaccine debacle, with what was originally touted as a single shot that would protect you from a deadly disease becoming multiple shots and boosters that carried side effects that were often worse than COVID itself, only fueled that suspicion. So the establishment media’s confidence that voters will dismiss Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because they dislike this vaccine skepticism may be whistling in the dark.

Kennedy also said something extremely interesting in his announcement that he was running: “My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency, will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now – threatening now – to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country.” Well, yes, and no one else is talking with this kind of clarity and consistency about the kind of collusion that we saw in the Twitter Files between the massive corporations and the government. Not even Donald Trump.

And that more than anything else is why the Democrats have announced that there will be no debates between the Democrat candidates for President.

Robert Spencer is a smart guy and thinks it’s pretty much done

They’re going with Biden for reelection, and they know that he can only hurt his own chances by standing toe-to-toe against a man who can actually articulate a coherent sentence and defend his positions, as well as against a woman who, however loopy she may be, looks like Madame Curie next to Old Joe.

And so despite the fact that RFK, who has never been a national figure, immediately jumped to 14%, there will be no real Democrat race. There will just be a coronation. No one should have ever expected that anything would be different. After all, these people have made it abundantly clear that they don’t really like disagreement and want to silence dissent. Why would they allow it within their own party?

I’m not so sure, while changing the primary schedule will certainly help I suspect that RFK Jr. will do a whole lot better than anything thinks in the primaries because he doing what Trump was doing in 2016, saying forbidden truths aloud and promising to address the problems they bring and while the activist class that gets it’s funding from the machines are unlikely to be with him I suspect normal democrats who would never vote for Trump might just decide to hitch their wagons to a Kennedy.

I’d Like to Expand on Ed’s Excellent Piece at Hotair Concerning Francis, Homosexuality and Sin in the Catholic Church

Posted: January 26, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions
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I know it’s redundant to say that a piece by Ed Morrissey is excellent but this particular piece at Hotair titled:

Pope Francis: It’s no crime to be gay — but …

is worth expanding on.

Let’s start at the end rather than at the beginning because he brought up an excellent point that a lot of people forgot in the marriage family debate concerning the Church in Africa:

The AP suggests this is more prevalent in Africa, which is also where the Catholic Church is experiencing its most dynamic growth. The bishops from Africa have argued hard for a firm defense of church teachings on family, and have many good reasons for doing so. As at least one told me directly while I covered the Synod on the Family at the Vatican in 2014, any erosion of that position on same-sex relationships would be disastrous in Africa and the efforts to end polygamy among other religious and secular populations.

He quotes John Allen on the subject:

When cardinals from around the world met in Rome last February [2013] to set the table for the October synod on the family, some prelates from non-Western cultures hinted that polygamy may drive them to oppose any change in the ban on divorced and remarried Catholics receiving the sacraments.

Their argument went like this: The Catholic Church has been telling people in polygamous marriages that they have to change because marriage means one man and one woman, for life. If the Church softens that teaching for the divorced and remarried, it might face pressure to cut a deal for polygamists, too. …

“They’ve been telling people that if you come into the church, you’ve got to choose one wife,” DiNardo said. “If you suddenly change that, couldn’t [people in polygamous marriages] say, ‘Why can’t you give me a break, too?’ ”

The thing is Christ when talking about marriage being between one man and women & inviolate was rather explicit on this point:

Some Pharisees approached him, and tested him, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?” He said in reply,

“Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”

They said to him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss (her)?” He said to them,

“Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.”

[His] disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” He answered,

“Not all can accept [this] word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”

Matthew 19:3-13 Underline emphasis mine

That underlined portion I highlighted concerning “some being incapable of marriage because they were born that way “ is key to understanding the Catholic position on Homosexuality and understanding Francis’ distinction between “crime” & “sin”

“Being homosexual is not a crime. It’s not a crime. Yes, it’s a sin. Well, yes, but let’s make the distinction first between sin and crime.”

Ed expresses the church’s position on this very plainly

Nothing about this statement is new. To speak in strictly technical terms, Francis errs to the harsh side (clearly inadvertently), as the Catholic Church’s catechism doesn’t make same-sex orientation a sin in itself. Same-sex actions are sinful, as are any sexual relations outside of a marriage based on the traditional model of one-man-one-woman. Sexual activity is blessed within such marriages (if consensual) and are sins in any other context. This is why the catechism urges Catholics to welcome gays as brothers and sisters, so that they can also hear the Word and repent of their sins, the way the rest of us do — and as long as they repent and resolve to sin no more, they can access all of the sacraments. Repenting means either engaging in a sacramental marriage and monogamy, or choosing celibacy … again, just as it does for every other Catholic.

It’s the repent-and-sin-no-more issue that is the sticking point, just as it is for all of us.

Emphasis mine

And that’s where the rubber really meets the road here.

As a person who struggles with habitual sin let me tell you it’s not easy. It’s a fight, and every fall is not only painful but is embarrassing when you have to go back to the priest to confess the same sins that you’ve resolve to avoid again and again. Victory can take years and like a person in AA you’re always subject to relapse.

However some have decided that it’s much easier to redefine sin rather than fighting it. If suddenly something is no longer sinful, you can do it with impunity! (I suspect there are more than a few people who might have considered being catholic clergy when young who left for liberal protestant sects because they have redefined their sins and even celebrated them, even if God has not) Why do all that work to repent when you can by fiat suddenly decide sin isn’t sin.

And let me note that this attitude isn’t just about sexual sin as illustrated by American’s society sudden embrace of theft as not a big deal if done in the right cities by the right people.

How should this be approached: Very simply as Ed notes:

The 2014 synod left many of these issues dangling, at least in the eyes of activists on all sides. It ended with Francis, then in the middle of his second year as Pope, with a declaration of welcome to all regardless of family status, but again clearly on the terms of Church teaching.

Or to put it another way, a person in a state of Mortal Sin, even continual Mortal sin should not skip mass because adding an additional mortal sin to the pile doesn’t help one toward salvation.

So how should the church handle homosexuality or even those in a gay marriage who want to go to church or receive the sacraments? Well for me the answer comes from apply what Fr. John Zuhlsdorf said when asked: In what scenario would you give Holy Communion to the divorced and remarried? Job one is for the priest to educate the people involved:

If a couple who are civilly married, etc. etc., have entered into a process with a priest who has helped them to see what their situation truly is (according to the teaching of Christ and His Church), then they know that what they are doing is wrong.  They know that they are in an adulterous union and that they have committed mortal sins.  Therefore, they know that are not properly disposed to receive Communion.  They also know that Communion is not “the white thing”.

That is what the priest must help them to understand.  That is his duty, at the peril of his own immortal soul and theirs.

That duty of a priest to his own soul is something often ignored but it all comes down to this

If they really get the Eucharist, with the full implications of receiving as Paul describes in 1 Cor 11:27 (“Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.”), and if they really get the Four Last Things, then … would they really want to put at risk their eternal salvation by sacrilegious reception?

If they have been working with a sound priest who helps them to understand what mortal sin is and what matrimony is according to the Church’s teachings – BECAUSE THAT’S HIS JOB! – would they really want to receive Communion in their irregular state?

Or course there may be times when they fail in their determination to live in continence and they have sexual relations.

What then?

Simple.  They go to confession and start over with a firm purpose of amendment.

That’s what we all do when we sin in any way.  We go to confession with a firm purpose of amendment and start over with God’s help.  In some Amoris scenario, they might have to live in a near occasion of sin, but for the sake of care of children, etc., they have to bear their Cross.

However, there is a rock solid principle that cannot be set aside: No firm purpose of amendment, no Communion.

underline emphasis mine

That’s what it really comes down to. Do people want to be seen being at church and getting communion and having sins “accepted” for the sake of their own self esteem or cultural goals? Or do they want to save their souls?

If it’s the later then we should do what we can to help them along this path. If it’s the former, we should walk away to avoid being pulled down the slippery slope and into the pit.

If there is one useful thing that the international movement on Transgenderism has done it’s been to illustrate that the “slippery slope” that we’ve been warning about for decades, it’s as much a slope as it is a Luge track but I digress…

DaTechGuy on Ed Morrissey Podcast today at 2 PM EST (Plus Pregnancy centers and DaTechGuy’s Laws of Media Outrage) Update (it’s not going out live)

Posted: July 15, 2022 by datechguy in abortion, catholic, DaTechGuy on DaRadio, podcast
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Lots of stuff going on in the house as we will have a friend staying over today so just a few minutes to let you know that I will be on Ed Morrissey’s podcast.

We will be talking about yesterday’s post and Elizabeth Warren’s attacks on pregnancy’s centers

As I was tying this it hit me that all these pregnancy centers are great examples of DaTechGuy’s law of media outrage to wit:

DaTechGuy’s 1st law of media outrage:

The level of Outrage or interest of the media and their allies on the left concerning any insult or prevarication concerning a person or thing will routinely be equal to the inverse of the degree of the political distance between said media / leftists and the target of said insult or prevarication at the time it is made

Attacks by Warren on centers that help woman do not generate outrage because the target, Pregnancy Centers, are diametrically opposite from the left in practice if not in theory

DaTechGuy’s 2nd Law of Media Outrage:

The level of acceptance of the positions and/or actions of any group or organization by the left and media is directly proportional to their current or potential value in electing liberal Democrats.

Actions against pregnancy centers fires up the Democrat base so the left and leftist pols are accepting of them (if that changes this might change but for now that’s where it is.

DaTechGuy’s 3rd Law of media outrage:

The MSM’s elevation and continued classification of any story as Nationally Newsworthy rather than only of local interest is in direct correlation to said story’s current ability to affirm any current Democrat/Liberal/Media meme/talking point, particularly on the subject of race or sexuality.

The fact that these pregnancy centers have been doing incredible work to help woman, particularly poor women has been ignored as a story for decades because such help does not affirm and in fact contradicts democrat talking points on everything from sexuality to religion and of course abortion.

DaTechGuy’s 4th Law of Media Outrage:

The degree of media exposure of the corruption or illegality committed by any individual or organization under investigation is directly proportional to its distance from the media’s ideology.

While a lot of churches and pregnancy centers are under attack lately the truth is they have been regularly under physical attack for decades but because the radical groups who have been doing these attacks have no distance from the media none of these stories made national news and frankly barely make local news.

DaTechGuy’s 5th Law of Media Outrage:

Any positive actions, even one that supposedly advances a goal or, or done by a group allied or identified with the radical left, will not be considered newsworthy nationally, if said action has the potential to highlight a failure and/or inaction by a Democrat administration that is in power at the time of said positive action

Supposedly helping pregnant women, particularly poor women of color is a positive action that would normally be lionized by media but because said help are provided by religious non profits that get no federal money and tend to be service that are not provided by Democrat allies such stories are not newsworthy as they would highlight the failure of the left and Democrat administrations to provide such needed services

DaTechGuy’s 6th Law of Media Outrage:

The degree of protection by or attack of the media on any person is governed by the degree of danger and/or usefulness to the Democrat party’s electoral goals said protection or attack represents

Because pregnancy centers are not centralized so they don’t have a national face this law is the hardest to apply but we can apply it to Senator Warren in this case. Her attacks on centers that help poor women, if done by a Republican, would normally cause scorn by the media, but Warren is protected from such attacks as they are considered vital as part of the Democrat’s electoral goal of using the Dobbs decision to energize the left base which has very little reason to feel energetic lately.

Update: Didn’t realize it wasn’t live so I don’t know when it will be on I’ll update the post when I know.