Now It's Up to the People

I zipped through the papers this morning....no news there (unless it's the  coronavirus).

Without a big surprise today, the president will be acquitted of "inappropriate" behavior (Sen. Lamar Alexander's word). The consequences?

1.  The Democrats plus the Socialist will gradually winnow the field for the opposition to Trump in November. Who can really pull it off?
2.  The Republican Senators, especially Collins, Murkowski, Booker, (except, Alexander who is retiring) will face uphill re-election battles. Here's hoping Leader McConnell will too. The whole party should get a shellacking in November. Likely? Unlikely?
3. Sycophant Dershowitz should be disbarred, even if he is appointed the next AG.
4. The Democratic National Committee is virtually brain dead. Can it be resuscitated?
5. The mirror being held up in the U.S. today: the Swamp is rising.
6. Here's to a better new day, November 4! Save the Republic. If we can.

George Conway at the WashPost gets it. 
Don't let the defense fool you. This impeachment is all about corruption.

New Hispanic Archbishop for Philadelphia UPDATED

I really like Rocco Palmo blog Whispers in the Loggia for its insights into our bishops.  Nelson Perez an Hispanic with a Cuban background became a priest of the diocese of Philadelphia and after being an auxiliary in Rockville Center became our bishop about two and a half years ago. Rocco gives some of the background and reactions there.

Bishop Nelson Perez of Cleveland goes back to Philadelphia

The story I like most is: 

While on the usual after-hours circuit at the 2014 November meeting of the US bishops, this scribe stopped to wave and nod to a familiar trio of prelates holed up at a table in the Marriott lounge.

Per his habit, the then-auxiliary of Rockville Centre wasn't with his old confreres from Philadelphia, but the bench's contingent of his fellow Cuban exiles: the auxiliaries of Brooklyn and Newark, Bishops Octavio Cisneros and Manny Cruz. (Somehow, the group's senior member – Felipe Estevez, the Miami-bred bishop of St Augustine – was oddly missing.)

To be sure, Nelson Perez would always join the other Philly priests-made-bishops for their traditional dinner during the week, but – having spent 15 years in these night sessions (i.e. the part of the day when Whispers' work really gets done) – the rest of the time, Nelson invariably wound down the days with the conference's Latino bloc, often including the now-president, LA's Archbishop José Gomez.

In any case, on the night mentioned, Cisneros shouted a memorable greeting my way: "Now you can say you saw the Cubans preparing the 'invasion'!"

Five years later, little could any of us have imagined how that line would prove prophetic.

UPDATED:  Tom Reese's view of the appointment  at NCR

Pope Francis Remakes American Hierarchy One Bishop at a Time

Get on the bus

Belatedly, here is my homily (more or less) from two days ago, the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A. 

Before I get to the text of the homily, a prefatory note: it seems the Holy Father recently has designated the 3rd Sunday in OT each liturgical year, this past Sunday and henceforward, a Sunday in which we particularly honor or celebrate the Word of God.  So a few weeks ago I had been duly advised to tailor my homily accordingly, but I completely forgot until our pastor mentioned it to me in the sacristy a few minutes before mass began.  So extempore, I interlaced a few sentences about that theme - which served, I am sure, to muddy (even farther) whatever message anyone could otherwise draw from what follows.  I'm not going to even try to recreate that part of the Sunday event; here is what I intended to present, and mostly did present, this past weekend:

The Sanders Issue....

Jimmy Mac posted this from the New York Times earlier way down below. 
The underside of Sanders' fan base:

Bernie Sanders and His Internet Army 

At the start of his 2020 bid, the Vermont senator told his supporters that he condemned bullying. Is it his problem if many don’t seem to listen?

Snip: "Since the start of Mr. Sanders’s first presidential campaign in 2016, his colossal online support base has been by turns a source of peerless strength and perpetual aggravation — envied and caricatured by rivals who covet such loyalty, feared by Democrats who have faced harassment from his followers, and alternately cherished and gently scolded by the candidate himself."

"Some progressive activists who declined to back Mr. Sanders have begun traveling with private security after incurring online harassment. Several well-known feminist writers said they had received death threats. A state party chairwoman changed her phone number. A Portland lawyer saw her business rating tumble on an online review site after tussling with Sanders supporters on Twitter."

On Mike Pompeo Blowing a Gasket

By now everyone has heard about the interview with Mike Pompeo by NPR's Mary Louise Kelly.

"During a Friday interview with Pompeo on US policy toward Iran, All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly asked the secretary of state whether he owed an apology to Marie Yovanovitch. Yovanovitch is the former US ambassador to Ukraine who was subjected to a smear campaign led by Rudy Giuliani and was unceremoniously removed from her post in April, bringing an abrupt end to her 33-year career as a foreign service officer."

A wholesome speaker, no doubt

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to address an annual rally of anti-abortion demonstrators on Friday in Washington, in what would be the first appearance by a sitting president at the March for Life, one of the movement’s marquee events.

 . . .

No president has personally attended the march in its 47-year history. Past Republican presidents might have been inclined to attend, but either on the advice of staff or their own instincts saw it as a step too far and instead showed their support in less visible ways, like through remote messages or by meeting with activists.

Mr. Trump, who once called himself “very pro-choice,” has until now addressed the group only remotely and welcomed some marchers at the White House.

His impeachment trial continues. There is absolutely no connection. There is absolutely no connection. There is absolutely ...

I wonder if anyone will change his or her mind about attending.

 

In Praise of Ordinary Time

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Ordinary Time. We had some snow and ice days last week.  By Saturday everyone was dug out, but the temps were still frigid, in the single digits.  We attended Saturday evening Mass, expecting that it would be sparsely attended.  It wasn't, the church was nearly full.
The Christmas decorations had been put away, though there were still some poinsettias around the altar.  People were wearing heavy coats and boots. Jeans and sweaters or flannel shirts were the attire of the evening. The choir wasn't the A-list; I don't think we have an A-list.  Though everyone put forth their best efforts for the holidays. But the music was fine. It was all familiar songs that everyone knew, and there was a lot of congregational singing, raising a joyful voice to heaven.  For the Creed  there were cards in the pew racks, but most people didn't need to take them out.  One of my favorite parts of the Mass is to hear the Creed recited in a full church.
The shepherds and wise men have departed, and the angels have gone back to heaven.  The Holy Family gets a little time before they have to leave for Egypt.  The Gospel fast forwards to John the Baptist, who has grown up in a hurry.
People go up for Communion, which is Viaticum, in the sense of food for the journey, though hopefully not the last journey yet.  After the last hymn no one leaves until we all recite the little prayer of thanksgiving, which is a local custom.
It was dusk before we arrived, and now it is fully dark. Everyone tells one another, "Stay warm!" and "Be careful on the ice!"
My husband deaconed at this Mass and stayed to help Father button things up afterwards.  Back in the sacristy Father said ruefully that he misplaced his homily notes, and had to wing it.  We told him that he had done just fine, which he had.
It was a good finish for a cold winter night.  For some reason the title of a book by Mary Pipher popped into my head, it was called "The Shelter of Each Other".

NYTimes endorses Warren or Klobuchar UPDATED!

UPDATE 

Poll Shows Sanders Leading in Iowa

New York Times polls shows likely Democratic caucus-goers, 25 percent, pick Sanders as their first choice in next month’s caucuses. That gives Sanders a 7-point lead over his closest competitor, former South Bend (Ind.) Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is at 18 percent, roughly tied for second place with former Vice President Joe Biden at 17 percent and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts at 14 percent. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is in fifth place, at 8 percent, the only other candidate above the low single digits.

New York Times Endorses Amy Klobuchar or Elizabeth Warren

On the Democratic side, an essential debate is underway between two visions that may define the future of the party and perhaps the nation. Some in the party view President Trump as an aberration and believe that a return to a more sensible America is possible. Then there are those who believe that President Trump was the product of political and economic systems so rotten that they must be replaced. 

At the dawn of 2020, some of the most compelling ideas are not emerging from the center, but from the left wing of the Democratic Party. That’s a testament to the effectiveness of the case that Bernie Sanders and Senator Warren have made about what ails the country. We worry about ideological rigidity and overreach, and we’d certainly push back on specific policy proposals

But we are also struck by how much more effectively their messages have matched the moment.

Ms. Warren’s path to the nomination is challenging, but not hard to envision. The four front-runners are bunched together both in national polls and surveys in states holding the first votes, so small shifts in voter sentiment can have an outsize influence this early in the campaign. There are plenty of progressives who are hungry for major change but may harbor lingering concerns about a messenger as divisive as Mr. Sanders. At the same time, some moderate Democratic primary voters see Ms. Warren as someone who speaks to their concerns about inequality and corruption. Her earlier leaps in the polls suggest she can attract more of both.

The lack of a single, powerful moderate voice in this Democratic race is the strongest evidence of a divided party.

Good news, then, that Amy Klobuchar has emerged as a standard-bearer for the Democratic center. Her vision goes beyond the incremental. Given the polarization in Washington and beyond, the best chance to enact many progressive plans could be under a Klobuchar administration.

The Secular Case for Being Pro-Life

I don't know how many of you saw this article, which appeared in The Atlantic,  December of 2019.  Though written from a secular point of view, it is a thoughtful reflection on the complexities of the abortion arguments.

Promoting life

Our exhibit at the March for Life Chicago

I spent last Saturday promoting Safe Haven Laws.   Besides talking myself hoarse, I learned that there are more outfits providing pro-life advocacy and services than I had imagined.

The Debate 1/14/20

I can't sit still when the debates are on...the media types drive me nuts and the candidates never have enough time to answer the questions. So I was happy to find in my in-box the following from a close friend who managed to sit through the whole thing plus the commentariat.

[Friend]: watched the debate, watched all the post-debate CNN coverage until 1:30 a.m., read most of the stuff in WaPo today and NYT -- and, my God, are observers all over the place! 

My crucial issue, like most people's, is "electibility," who can beat Trump, as Bernie says "the most dangerous president in our history."  I think a lot of the commentators are subordinating that to who can win in Iowa, even though the evidence indicates that who can beat Trump is exactly what's on the minds of Iowa Democrats as well.  I have become a big Klobuchar fan.  I think she could beat Trump and also be a good president. Several post-debate commentators thought K did poorly last night.  I don't see it at all, but I've lost a lot of my confidence about judging these things. 

Since becoming a daily reader of the WaPo online, especially the Opinion pieces, I have also become a fan of Rubin and share her negative views of Warren and Sanders. But I can't share her evaluation of Biden.  He was okay and had a few good moments and certainly overshadows the others on foreign policy, as she stresses.  But he continues to be less than articulate and forceful.  He stumbles on phrases and corrects himself, quickly enough I grant -- and maybe this is all due not to age but to his early history of stuttering, as some people have suggested -- but it doesn't make for a good adversary to Trump.  There's still some fudging about his Iraq war stances (see WaPo Fact-Checker), which Bernie keeps harping on; but Pete B (and also Karen Tumulty) is right, the international issues have changed, and I would certainly prefer Biden or Mayor Pete or Sen. K to handle issues like cyber warfare, China, nuclear proliferation and destabilizing weaponry, and climate change over Sanders and Warren.  However, the first order of business is how a nominee can successfully confront President Bluster and Bullshit about all these matters.  I also disagree with Rubin, or half disagree with her, about Steyer.  Yes, billionaires shouldn't be able to buy a place on the debate stage (what about Bloomberg?); but he was actually pretty convincing about his own bona fides and his ability to take on the Trump on the president's one success, the economy.

At the moment, I'm feeling the best we can do is Biden with Klobuchar as VP.  But a lot of pundits are still looking at Warren, maybe with Cory Booker.  If I were an Iowan, I'd caucus for Klobuchar and, if necessary, move over to Biden.

One odd thing: Although the pundits were occupationally disappointed in the lack of fireworks, except for the Sanders-Warren flap (and the related question of Abbey Phillips's professionalism), and similarly disappointed in the failure of the debate to "change the numbers" or "move the dial," I actually thought it was a good show for Democrats in general.  Everyone's rhetoric has improved, and we shouldn't sneeze at two hours of sharp eloquence mainly not directed at one another but at the failures of Trump and the GOP and the state of the nation.     

UH!OH! He's coming for us!

Trump looks to reward conservative Catholics for their loyalty

Someone told the Trump campaign that he has to turn some attention from Evangelicals to Catholics: "Rather than enjoying the same VIP treatment white evangelicals have received since the earliest days of his administration, conservative Catholics’ connection to Trump has rarely extended beyond his own staff. The president is surrounded by self-identified Catholics — including Attorney General William Barr, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House counsel Pat Cipollone — but rarely does he engage with outside Catholics in the same way he does with evangelical leaders." 

Let's see if William Barr is the headliner for the Archdiocese of New York's annual Catholic Charities dinner? That would be an attention getter!

"The Trump campaign says that’s all about to change: If the 2020 election will be won or lost in the Rust Belt — specifically in economically depressed counties throughout Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that boast a sizable share of cultural and devout Catholics — the president can’t afford to have Catholics feeling left out." 

Leave us out!

 According to the Politico story, plans include the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, The March for Life, Frank Pavone....

And much, much more: Attorney General Bill Barr: “A little bit more ethnic, a little bit more blue collar, a little bit more middle America, less upper crust country-club types."

Look before you open the door!

Icarus, Do We Have a Deal for You

 A lot of people have been looking aghast at what Boeing’s fired CEO Dennis Muilenburg is taking away with him after having crashed and burned the airline. More than $60 million says The New York Times.  BBC figured $62 million, and The Financial times agrees. $80 million says CNN, taking into account stock options he still has.
 What’s left of Boeing insists that Muilenberg got only what he was entitled to under his contract and no additional compensation for being fired. That’ll teach him!
 It's a great country when someone can make an iconic corporation crash and burn and walk away with $60 million, give or take. Not as much as the bankers got for ruining borrowers in 2008, but the bankers were only evicting people, not flying them into the ground.

 How did Muilenburg make his mess? Let the experts count the ways.
 Basically, he led a transition from making airplanes to making money. Muilenburg went after defense and space contracts which Boeing was used to getting because of the strength of his engineering. Meanwhile he weakened his strength with a string of large layoffs starting in 2017. The big hits were to engineers and mechanics, not so much in sales and image departments.
 Stockholders were happy. Employees, not so much. What exposed the flaws in Muilenberg's Boeing was the lick-and-promise stretch of the 737 MAX, which effectively turned a well designed airplane into a different, un-designed airplane. It lengthened the fuselage to add seats and didn't spend enough time thinking that a longer fuselage would change the plane's flight characteristics. 
 There was a time when pilots would chant, "If it ain't Boeing, it ain't going." Now they say, "If it IS Boeing it ain't going." They knew, while Boeing denied, that when you get a new aiplane you need more time in the  simulator. The corporation did it to save money and steal a march on Europe’s Airbus. But you can’t turn a Mini Cooper into school bus by adding seats, which is what Boeing effectively did with the MAX.  It was that kind of thinking that caused one disgruntled employee to email that the project was “designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”
 That colorfully describes what the stockholders got from the guy with whom they were happily contracted.  That's what he got fired (without additional compensation) for. He was replaced by a man who was serving on the Board while Muilenburg remade Boeing into a nightmare for airlines.
 After a certain financial altitude is reached in America, going down still looks like going up. Which is why Bernie Sanders, bum ticker and all, is still viable.

Seems Like Old Times

 Achtung, MOS! It appears, from "Today's Paper" on line, that the Sunday Review section has returned to the New York Times this week. Douthat is being Douthat,  Maureen Dowd is wondering for a whole column why we make so much of another country's royal family. There is a piece about how to talk to boys about sex (too late!). And Frank Bruni tells us Tucker Carlson is not our friend. I knew that.
 Oh, yes, and the once powerful editorial board explains how to fix the Food and Drug Administration, which needs a lot of fixing. Not that fixing it will draw cheers in Traverse City, and, ergo the current overlord of the FDA and all agencies federal won't fix it.
 I never did see an explanation for what wasn't there last week.

House Will Send Impeachment Articles to the Senate Next Week

Already one of my New Year's predictions has bitten the dust.  I had predicted that Nancy Pelosi would hang on to the articles of impeachment until after the State of the Union Address.  But she has announced that the House of Representatives will send the articles to the Senate next week.
From the Vox article:

Ohio Democratic Primary Delegate Selection

Last night I attended the 14^th Ohio District Democratic Caucus which began the process of selecting delegates for the Democratic Convention.  Ohio has 153 delegates consisting of 136 pledged delegates and 17 super delegates.  In order to become a pledged delegate you had to submit your name, your district and the person you support to the Democratic party by December 31^st .

Last night Democrats from the 14^th District came to Lakeland Community College. The doors opened at 6pm. You had to fill out a form with your residence etc. which became your ticket to the ballots.  I would say about two hundred people showed up supporting various candidates. At 7pm the district Democratic chairperson gave a motivational speech to come together to defeat Trump in November, then dispersed the crowd to separate rooms for the different candidates. I suspect the most people were for Biden but they were rather quiet.  The second largest group was probably for Warren; they were the most enthusiastic. Bernie came in third with about forty people. There were small numbers for  Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar.

Peace on earth

It seems that Christmas already is receding in the rear-view mirror.  In reality, we should still be living Christmas lives.

The end of the Times

I could be wrong....Tom Blackburn check me out.  The Sunday New York Times (1/5/20) has no editorial today, no editorial page, and no opinion page. The "Week in Review" where these usually appear on Sunday is taken up with essays/stories from their Privacy Project!!??   I'm talking about the print edition...

This could mean:
1. The editors now realize that the news section is essentially the editorial page.
2. The editors couldn't think of what to say about the bombing of General Suliemani and other Iranian officials.
3. The editors couldn't decide what to write about Trump's decision to "take them out."
4. ....Your speculation:

Sight seen

Update 1/7/2020 11:07 pm CST - in the Comments below, Stanley mentioned that he had once met Little Oscar.  I admit I was not familiar with the character - it must have been a promotion that was before my time (or maybe I've just forgotten it).  But I subsequently ran across an obituary of one of the men who played the Little Oscar character.  I've added, at the bottom of the post, a photo with several of the Little Oscars in it.

Update 1/6/2020 8:57 pm CST - I see I managed to misspell "Mayer" consistently throughout the post, despite having it written out for me in the photo below.  I've corrected all of them, I think.
-----
This is what was waiting for me outside the entrance to the grocery store on Saturday morning:

My Predictions for 2020

This is the time of year when pundits and others like to make predictions for the coming year.  I don't have psychic abilities, and I am not a particularly astute student of current events.  But that doesn't stop me from attempting my own predictions. I will share six of them here:

America Can Kill Anyone Anywhere to Save Whatever

  How do you impeach a president bravely leading the nation in wartime?
  Whether killing a high official of a foreign country on the land of a third country is assassination or simple murder or “stand your ground” or an act of war is somewhat debatable. But the facts are there. It wasn’t diplomacy. Gen. Bonespur, in his gilded bunker on Palm Beach, might echo Barabas in Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta: “But that was in another country, and besides he wench is dead.”
  Who asks about the past? Already, the media are focusing on the success of the drone strike, the uncertainty of the future and the evil deeds deceased,  who it is ill-advised speak well of. In support of the flag. The media has already chosen not to ask, “What in the world did you expect Iran to do when you cut off its access to financial markets, fuel and medicine, and then proclaimed its need for regime change and ratcheted up sanctions to cause it? Book vacations at Trump golf courses?"
 But if you can’t impeach a president the lemmings have rallied around, what is to stop future president from going to war at the first vote of impeachment? Not section 8 of the Constitution, which gives the impeachers, not the impeached, the power to declare war but which has been thoroughly ignored since 1950. Oh, a wallboard wall called the War Powers Act was passed in 1973, but it was ignored at the time and ever since.
 So here is the deal: Impeach, if you dare. But don’t be surprised if it leads to war.

The assassination of Qassem Suleimani

I am straining to find something comparable to the president's decision to kill Qassem Suleimani via a drone strike against the Baghdad airport earlier today.  It's been suggested that this is more significant than the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Suleimani apparently was an astonishingly effective military leader.  He is credited with saving the Assad regime in Syria, driving Israel from Lebanon, killing hundreds of Americans in Iraq, turning the tide against ISIS and directing Iranian proxies, including terrorists, throughout the region. 

He is said to have had a larger-than-life public persona in Iran, perhaps comparable to how Americans lionized their high-profile generals during World War II.

President Trump, until now known mostly for appeasing foreign strongmen and professing no appetite at all for long-running foreign entanglements, has made a bold and risky stroke which surely will ratchet up tensions and conflict with Iran significantly.  And this while facing an impeachment trial and with an election not far away.  The president may well have bet his presidency and his legacy on this act.

Families, imperfect and holy

This past Sunday, the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the wives of our deacons were invited to preach.  Here is what my wife Therese preached.  The readings for this past Sunday are here.

Trump Supporters Recruiting In Parishes

Pro Trump Group Targets Catholic Voters Using Cell Phone Technology

From the National Catholic Reporter:

Political marketers are using cellphone data from churchgoers to target the GOP base, especially white Catholic and evangelicals in key states for the 2020 presidential election.

Geofencers capture data from the cellphones of churchgoers, and then purchase ads targeting those devices. 

That data can be matched against other easily obtained databases, including voter profiles, which give marketers identifying information such as names, addresses and voter registration status. 

At least one lobbying organization, CatholicVote.org, has boasted about the possibilities of using geofencing to help tip the presidential election in favor of President Donald J. Trump.

Using geofencing, CatholicVote has already identified nearly 200,000 Catholics in Wisconsin who attended Mass at least three times in 90 days. By cross-referencing with other databases, they discovered that half of those Mass-goers are not registered to vote.

My experience has been that Catholics really want to keep politics out of the parish. Once I attended Mass then a dinner at a large Catholic parish. Right to life groups plastered cars with their literature. Many of the people at the dinner were very upset that their parish had been violated.

The little know organization Catholic Democrats tried to do something about it at some locations around the country and were moderately successful. They confronted the literature people. Told them they were ready to call the police if they did not leave, thereby forcing the pastors to disavow those that distributed the leaflets less the parish's IRS status be challenged.  Of course there are not enough of a Catholic Democrat's organization to confront the issue.

Now since Republican are using cell phone data, everyone has to face the issue that the parish is no longer politically neutral; it will become in the coming election a political battleground. How can pastoral staff keep political neutrality while acknowledging that politics is going on? How can liberal groups counter the Republican offense?  My suggestion is find all the Catholics that show up only on Christmas and Easter; target them. Especially the ones who are not registered to vote.

The NYTimes has an excellent series on the deeply disturbing aspects of this cell phone technology. They were given anonymously a large database. The tracked things like Trump secret service agents, and other members of security forces. Even these people had little defense against the technology.