Tuesday was an extraordinary day for the United States. All across the country the American people made it clear that status quo politics and status quo policies were no longer acceptable. They stood up and demanded, in record breaking numbers, REAL change. And it was not just the election results. According to a recent AP poll, 80 percent of registered voters want either “complete and total upheaval” or “substantial change” in how this country is run - including 97 percent of Democrats, 90 percent of independents and 58 percent of Republicans.
Bottom line: the new Democratic majority must deliver. No more empty rhetoric. No more telling us how terrible Trump and the Republicans are. No more excuses. We now have the votes to pass legislation that will demonstrably improve the lives of millions of working families. And that’s what we must do.
"You Can See Everything is a 2026 American metadocumentary film directed by Nathan Fielder (in his feature directorial debut) and Lance Oppenheim. It follows Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the defunct health technology company Theranos, and her partner Billy Evans, who invited a film crew to document them beginning in the weeks before Holmes began serving a United States federal prison sentence for defrauding investors.["
Last Saturday Obama was in Cleveland for a rally. Betty and I spent much of the afternoon watching the whole thing on YouTube beginning with all the Democratic officials and minor candidates then those for Governor and Senator. Kind of like a mini convention. Somewhat boring but at least we still can have political rallies. I went down to the county office building for early voting on Tuesday.
Here is the Obama speech (captioned). From the articles in NYTimes and WAPO looks like this is shaping into a battle between Obama and Trump. Trump is really going to be disturbed if the Republicans lose both races in Ohio. Some of the analysts are saying that while he is campaigning hard, he is likely more concerned about controlling the Republican party into the indefinite future than controlling the House and Senate for the next two years. After all he has been governing by executive order with the blessing of the Supreme Court.
Mr. Obama has engaged heavily with midterm races, taping dozens of ads for candidates. But until Saturday, his time on the trail had been limited to light campaigning in the spring with James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas.
Mr. Obama made late endorsements over the weekend in Florida, backing David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for Florida governor, and Angie Nixon, the left-wing Democratic Senate nominee, who would be Florida’s first Black senator.
Mr. Obama was the last Democratic presidential candidate to carry Ohio, which was once seen as a quintessential swing state but has been drifting toward Republicans for years. Democrats have grown increasingly optimistic about their chances in the midterm elections in Ohio, though, as the state’s agriculture-heavy economy has buckled under the weight of the war in Iran and the president’s tariff policies.
In bluer Michigan, the Democratic Senate nominee, Dr. El-Sayed, has been trying to shore up his support from Black and Jewish voters. Republicans see his race against Mike Rogers, a Republican former congressman, as their best chance to flip a Senate seat.
Democrats emerged divided from a bitter Senate primary race between the progressive Dr. El-Sayed and Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate. Some Jewish Democrats in Michigan say they are concerned by Dr. El-Sayed’s fierce criticism of Israel and are torn about whether to support him. Tensions between Michigan’s Black and Arab American communities have also challenged Dr. El-Sayed.
At his evening rally, Mr. Obama, a more moderate Democrat, acknowledged differences that Dr. El-Sayed had expressed with his presidency in the past.
“You know who else doesn’t agree with everything I do?” he asked the crowd at a high school gymnasium. “Michelle Obama.”
Mr. Obama suggested there would be power in sending Dr. El-Sayed to Washington to join Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a Jewish Democrat who has endorsed Dr. El-Sayed.
“Imagine the power duo of Abdul and Elissa,” Mr. Obama said. “You’ve got a Muslim man, you got a Jewish woman fighting for you in the United States Senate. That’s something, Michigan, you can be proud of.”
The appearances by Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama on Saturday were striking in their contrasting styles: While Mr. Trump’s speech was lengthy and meandering, Mr. Obama’s two speeches were far more scripted. Mr. Trump spoke longer in his one speech than Mr. Obama did across two.
This is my homily for today, the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A. Today's readings are here.
Just a quick note: this homily is considerably shorter than what I would usually give. We were asked to keep the preaching short today in order to leave time for a 'sales pitch' for an archdiocesan fundraising initiative called Generation to Generation.
I also preached to the children today at the mass which is now billed as our Family Mass. I don't post the text here as it was interactive and mostly spontaneous, with me asking the children many questions about what commandments are, and what it means to love our neighbor. What follows is today's "adult homily".
Recently I have begun to have an interest in the agricultural practice of gleaning. In the OT this was the commandment that we are not to totally harvest all of our fields or vineyards but to leave some for the poor (the widow, the orphan, the foreigner) to harvest. Today our food banks are largely gleaning operations where the leftovers from our grocery stores are distributed to the needy.
This interest in gleaning was generated by the fact that this summer we had a huge surplus of tomatoes. After canning more than thirty quarts, we begin delivering the BEST of our remaining tomatoes to the parish food pantry in leftover cartons from last year when we had had to purchase tomatoes from a local farm market. Those cartons have a capacity of ten pounds and we filled seven of them.
Our vicar of deacons sent out a link to a blog post I'd like to highlight in this post. It addresses the imperative instruction given to us at the end of mass: "Go!"
