When Humor Isn't Funny

When Humor Isn't Funny by MSW.  MGB: The sketch comedy on the Daily Show is often sophomoric.  I usually don't stay up to watch that part (or any part).  However, the Vatican's handling of most issues regarding women are apt subjects for such humor.  If it offends, it is because you are not looking at their actions and positions honestly.  The unborn are not a "cause" and the Church would be well advised to listen to some criticism on how they are handling this issue - as their actions have helped maintain a status quo for almost 40 years, allowing several conservative activists to get rich seeking what is a non-solution. If that is not due for some mockery, nothing is.

Douthat "Half-Right" Watch

Douthat "Half-Right" Watch by MSW.  MGB: The freedom of religion is not absolute.  Indeed, current constitutional law states that as an employer in dealing with some areas, the Church has not special rights at all.  In the matter of contraceptive mandates, until the draft policy was released, the Church as employer had no protection from having contraception paid for in its insurance policies that include preventative health care - and have not since the EEOC said they didn't in December 2000.  All attempts to ignore this fact won't make it go away.  It is further, rather ingracious of the Church to criticize an effort to increase their protections when the status quo is no protection at all.  On the contraceptive coverage issue, it is not some liberal activist in the Office of the Secretary that is coming up the requirement that women's health be included in basic care, but the Preventative Care Task Force of the Institutes of Medicine.  The bishops should be a bit more grateful that Secretary Sebelius gave them the accomodation she did.  If she stood on current law, all insurance provided to Church employees (even at the parish level) would include this coverage.  The only change in the ACA was the removal of copays.  Be honest about the facts of the issue, even if they eviscerate your point.

Garnett Responds

Garnett Responds by MSW.  MGB: Garnett is still wrong on abortion and neither he nor MSW know why. Read my responses and comment on them if you really want to face the real issue on this topic - which show that ONLY the economic means to fight abortion are available. Abortion is not an issue that can be dealt with by an originalist appeal to states rights (which would gut equal protection law in a variety of areas - while the Church might agree with that in the area of privacy - most of us would see that as a step backwards for individual and group rights and protection from the moralistic mob's tyranny). While the Congress could very well change the rights of the unborn under the enforcement powers of the 14th Amendment, it won't do so because setting legal recognition of the unborn too early in development has drastic consequences in how the law views miscarriages (since making the miscarried full citizens brings both the requirement to investigate their deaths and the possibility of tort relief into play - making such a step impractical at best).


If you want the truth, I double dog dare you to address my arguments and invite Garnett and Camosey to do the same. Truth does not depend on who is funding your website.

Romney's Blunders

Romney's Blunders by MSW.  MGB: Just to provide context.  Romney attracted elites.  When Obama was a candidate, he attracted crowds.  No one wants to see Romney, including American voters.  W handled himself better.  His performance was Palinesque and bespeaks bad staffing who cannot control their candidate.  He needs to fire the yes men and pull some grade A talent into his organization at the top levels.

Camosy v. Garnett

Camosy v. Garnett by MSW.  MGB: Garnett is absolutely wrong, because the nature of the abortion law is not legislative, but judicial. Catholic politicians are not responsible directly nor indirectly for it, nor are Catholic voters - precisely because no federal judge can be directed by the Church to come up with the moral result based solely on the teaching of the Church. If, indeed, the six Catholic justices felt any kind of pressure to comply with the hierarchy's wishes on this matter, they would be forced to recuse themselves from the case and the Papal Nuncio would have to either fire the offending hierarch or be expelled for countenancing sedition.


If the Church cannot directly act in this matter, it certainly cannot require Catholic politicians or voters to do so either. To put it bluntly, the entire pro-life cause is a bit of a farce if overturning Roe (other than by constitutional amendment) is its begining and ending (and the amendment has no chance of ever passing - nor should it - because of its effect on equal protection law in cases of miscarriage). The fact that no Catholic politician has properly schooled the hierarchy on this is a testiment to their moral cowardice in dealing with the bishops and the voters who might still care what the bishops think. Catholic commenters, present company included, who allow the Church to continue their delusion are just as bad.

Camosy Jumps In

Camosy Jumps In by MSW.  MGB: A good discussion of prudential judgment in the real of "how" rather than "what."  However, I suspect that Weigel and those he defends don't agree with the concept that any public policy should safeguard workers or the poor.  The right seems to have bought into the conception that the poor deserve what they get and the only way to have them strive for better is to despise them.  That may be a bit of an overreach, but not by much.

Romney & the Olympics

Romney & the Olympics by MSW.  MGB: Its an olde legende that I would trust you to respect, although in truth Jesus likely spent his lost years as a humble day laborer, rather than a traveling pilgrim. Given Mitt's thoughts on immigration, self-deportation and presumably the rights of day laborers to hang out at 7-11 looking for work, one wonders if the governor or his followers can see the face of Christ behind their eyes. Somehow, I doubt it.

Profile In Cowardice

Profile In Cowardice by MSW.  MGB: I think they were justifiably afraid of women voters, who would take a dim view of giving an employers a veto on paying for care that should be between them and their doctors.  Since such care comes through the public sphere, it could be argued that the privacy rights that make such care legal also adhere to beneficiaries of such publicly mandated money.  Such care, by the way, is not the same thing as abortion - and repetition does not make it so.  Before gastrulation, the blastocyst operates solely on maternal DNA, and by implication, the maternal soul.  Just because Catholic theologians are deliberately agnostic of this does not make it any less true.

Contra Garnett

Contra Garnett by MSW.  MGB: One can certainly rethink unions in both the public and private sector - especially in light of Catholic Social Teaching which actually favors ownership by those employed.  Unions are ideally moving in the future from collective bargaining from their narrow interest to representative factions among employee owners.  In such a world, privatization of public services is actually a good thing, provided the workers are owners rather than the slaves of capitalists who channel the money once spent on retirement benefits to the profits paid mostly to management.

As far as seeking a libertarian socialist solution to government action - I am all for it.  The problem is, most libertarians don't see the need to come up with the alternative and implement it before trying to take down the government service.  As long as they continue with this omission, the voters will not trust them and government remains.  To take away an expected benefit without replacing it with something better is an act of violence against the beneficiary.  Unless that beneficiary is a rentier, this is never justified.

Why Bain Matters & Why It Won't

Why Bain Matters & Why It Won't by MSW.  MGB: Sadly, he is not aware that the economic privileges the tax code affords him are why the middle class and the working class are not doing well, since they give mangaement and investors 85 cents of any savings in labor costs, with the government keeping only 15 cents.  Granted, some places have corporate taxes added to this - but on balance current tax policy has caused real wages to decline.  As the ad by Obama says, Romney is the problem.

Boy Scouts Re-Affirm Ban on Gays

Boy Scouts Re-Affirm Ban on Gays by MSW.  MGB: Their position is ill advised, because it assumes that married men are not pedophiles - an assumption that is hardly justified.  An openly gay scoutmaster would never dream of touching one of the boys.  A married hetero pedophile, with the same kind of scoutmaster in his past, will hide effectively and continue the cycle.  Considering the Victorian anti-masturbation agenda of the origin of the Boy Scout movement, I'm not sure the institution is worht preserving.

Kazin on Romney's Business Credential

Kazin on Romney's Business Credential by MSW.  MGB: Having staff that work for you as a person is great in business. In politics and in campaigns, staff must put the nation first and be able to tell the candidate or elected official he is wrong occassionally.  I don't think his people can make the jump.

Reaction to Wheaton College Joining HHS Suits

Reaction to Wheaton College Joining HHS Suits by MSW.  MGB: They are a bit late, as the Federal District Court for the DC Circuit has already thrown out one of the suits on ripeness grounds (since the final rule is not issued and won't be until 2013).  This lays bear the fact that this suit as nothing to do with the substance of the rule and everything to do with electoral politics in the pro-life coalition.  It shows that the Church is badly advised by lawyers and staff, who should know better, or they are ignoring them.  I suspect the former is the case.  Any staffer who does not have the courage to tell the boss he is wrong, or the knowledge to know when he is on such a basic issue of law, is not worth their pay.

Morna Murray on the ACA

Morna Murray on the ACA by MSW.  MGB:  Any pro-life provisions in the ACA go against the Susan B. Anthony meme that it is a pro-abortion bill (which it is decidedly not).  That meme is essential for their political message, as their activities in 2010 well show.  If they really believe that doing things to encourage abortion are damnable, then by their own standards they are going to Hell.

Death in America

Death in America by MSW.  MGB: Gun control is absolutely a pro-life issue.  So is the ability to more effectively allow intervention on those who need mental health care, whether they want it or not.  Jails are now the main provider of mental health services, which is way too late.  Now that we have gotten there, however, Suspect A should be allowed to plead guilty by reason of insanity, with the defense stipulating he was the shooter and the prosecution stipulating he is crazy.  He should then be locked away for the minumum sentence for at least manslaughter, if not murder, and not be allowed out until both that time period and functionality.  If people such as Suspect A knew that confinement in a looney bin was their sure fate, they might actually think twice.  There is no glory in being thought of as insane.  Of course, if he presents a danger to other patients, regardless of treatment modality, than Euthanasia is not only indicated, it should be required in order to protect others as we protect society from other dangerous animals who cannot be trained.

Report: $21-32 Trillion Off-Shore

Report: $21-32 Trillion Off-Shore by MSW. MGB: Marriage equality is actually the cure for AIDS.  Resistance to it sends the message the there is no difference between promiscuity and fidelity in the gay community.  That is decidedly not the case and the Church has blood on its hands for sending that message.

AIDS in America

AIDS in America by MSW.  MGB: Marriage equality is actually the cure for AIDS.  Resistance to it sends the message the there is no difference between promiscuity and fidelity in the gay community.  That is decidedly not the case and the Church has blood on its hands for sending that message.

Saving Catholic Schools

Saving Catholic Schools by MSW.  MGB: The decline in vocations to the religious life made this inevitable.  Urban Catholic schools need to transition to Charter Schools to survive, leaving other parish schools either closed or turning them into the kind of elite academy that reeks of entitlement.

First CCHD; Now CRS

First CCHD; Now CRS by MSW.  MGB: I suspect conservatives object to any charitable work by the Church because it distracts from their sexual magisterium.  For those who were products of the black and white morality of the early 50s, where the demand for economic justice meant communism or upsetting white privilege, it is hardly surprising.  It is, however, sad as this lack of charity will send them to Hell.

Galston Debunks 2004 Myth

Galston Debunks 2004 Myth by MSW.  MGB: 2004 was close in every way. This race will not be, especially if housing starts to come back.  Mitt of the Olympic gaffe has to debate Obama.  Romney is not Kerry - he's Mondale or Dukakis.

In Context & Out

In Context & Out by MSW.  MGB:  Romney and his staff don't seem to believe that people will catch them lying when videotape can easily contradict them.  He needs better staff.  Much better staff.  (Too many GOP staffers have either gone to Fox, are making big money on SuperPACs or have quit the GOP in disgust).

Weigel Attacks Church's Social Magisterium (Again!)

Weigel Attacks Church's Social Magisterium (Again!) by MSW.  MGB: The Arlington Catholic Herald no longer carries him and has not since he tried to redline Caritas in Veritate.  Even some Trads blanche at such open disobedience to our key doctrines.  While I agree that our welfare system for the poor is broken, it was the GOP that broke it by making it both inadequate and a highway to low wage jobs rather than a way out of poverty.  As for Social Security, it could be improved by including personal accounts holding employer voting stock - thus eventually dooming Wall Street - however I don't think Weigel would stand for such a result.

Kaveny on Obstacles to Evangelization

Kaveny on Obstacles to Evangelization by MSW.  MGB: Until the hierarchy deeply understands that doing the work of Jesus involves lifting up the poor rather than enforcing their truly abberant view of sexuality, the New Evangelization will flop.  Eternal life with an Ogre is simply not desireable.

Douthat: Half-Right

Douthat: Half-Right by MSW.  MGB: There is nothing wrong with liberal Christianity that a little more expert coverage would not fix.  Those of us who are liberal Christians are doing fine.  What is missing is reportage and attraction by both the Catholic and Main Stream medias to those voices who are both well funded and controversial and mostly conservative, such as blowhards like Bill Donahue and George Weigel.  If you cover the message and spend less time on the messengers, you will find a great deal more leftist and libertarian Christians than you recognize are out there.

Health care ruling may resonate in November

Health care ruling may resonate in November by MSW.  MGB: The tax associated with the mandate is miniscule. Few will pay it and it won't impact the finances of the program. Indeed, its inadequacy may well lead to the collapse of that part of reform which includes buying insurance, while the part ruled uncontitutional may be the end of state funding of Medicaid and total federalization - which health and tax policy analysts have been talking about for a while. In the interim, the stock markets will decide whether reform stands as it is. If the investor class is more risk averse than the uninsured, expect health insurers to accept a tax subsidized public option for anyone who can't get private insurance.


More interesting for the purposes of electoral politics is the claim that reform is being financed by taxes on the middle class. In truth, it is financed by excise taxes on device makers and others who profit from the new legislation, and by increased taxes on non-wage income over $200,000 a year for individuals and $250,000 a year for joint filers. The fact that Romney and the GOP consider this strata, which is the upper 2% of households, as being midddle class is, or should be, the big story on this issue.

Kaveny v. Donatists

Kaveny v. Donatists by MSW.  MGB: The point is valid that the contraception teachings in the Church do seem to be about identity politics and papal authority rather than on natural law as it is objectively defined by those who are not teaching the Magisterium.  Natural law should be accessible to all who use reason.  As long as the bishops believe they have a superior and infallible facility with it, they are resorting to authority and not reason.  Their authority applies only to Catholics and is therefore relativistic rather than absolute.  The natural sciences show that before gastrulation, blasatocysts operate using only maternal DNA for control of development.  If the higher reality is reflected in the lower reality, this must mean that ensoulment has not occurred - so endng the life of a blastocyst or morella is not abortion.  Period. The extent to which the Church cannot see that is the extent to which it is in error, with its teaching not even applying to Catholics because it is simply wrong.

Romney's Problem

Romney's Problem by MSW.  MGB: Romney's problem is that he will say whatever his sychophantic staff tells him to in order to be elected, whether he believes in it or not.  The real Romney is both pro-choice and proud of health care reform.  Strong conservatives smell a rat.  He needs better staff that will tell him the bad news and a time machine to relive a career without flip flops.  The fact that he is still building a vacation home bespeaks his own likely belief that this is a vanity run to get into the history books.  I don't think even he expects to win.

Obama's Problem

Obama's Problem by MSW.  MGB: Obama's problem is as much the attempt to be too cute by half on tax policy, using it for political points rather than actually doing some compromise (say letting the top tax rate stay at 35%, letting the capital gains rate go to 25% as planned and meeting the GOP even a bit more than halfway by having the dividend rate also go to 25%, rather than stay at 15% or rever to 44.6% under current law.  The 15% rate, by the way, is impossible because Obama will never delay the new Health Care tax and there is no way the GOP can force him to.  His other problem was trusting Larry Summers et al on the issue of providing radical help to underwater borrowers.  Bold action in 2009 would have seen a much faster recovery.  His economic staff did not serve him well on this issue.

Conspiratorial Craziness

Conspiratorial Craziness by MSW. MGB: The connections between Soros and NETWORK are no more or less intriguing than those between the Koch brothers, the John Birch Society, the Tea Party Movement and your local GOP county or precinct committee, or the campaign of lies in their name waged by Carl Rove on our airwaves under the banner of American Crossroads or ALEC (which is behind the Voter ID movement).

The reason conservatives see conspiracies behind every tree is because that is how they operate.

Fidelity Oaths in Arlington

Fidelity Oaths in Arlington by MSW.  MGB: True free thinkers will simply take the oath and regard it as ceremony and teach the truth anyway. I don't expect it means much, since instruction does not really cover contraceptive politics anyway. A good teacher can get the class to tell the truth through discussion. The best form of propoganda is often to tell the opposing side's story in all its self-evident flaws, making it obvious that it is bogus.


I feel more for the teachers who are true believers but who disagree with particulars at such parishes as Blessed Sacrament, which is a bit more liberal in its laity than the bishop. Hopefully, this won't deprive my daughter of CCD.

Abp Lori: Scatenato!

Abp Lori: Scatenato! by MSW.  MGB: Lori, Chaput and Dolan are the resistance to the HHS Mandate, which is still being falsly portrayed as an expansion of contraception (which is already covered and has been for over a decade).  The law simply requires no copayment for services - and not from some liberal agenda but based on the findings of the Preventative Care Task Force of the Institute of Medicine.  It is still Orwellian to call giving the Church the ability to restrict the health care coverage of their employees as somehow an aspect of Freedom, especially when those employees may not even be Catholic and the funds received to pay them come mostly from insurance companies or the government.  If you buy into the resistance, you must accept the antics of those behind it.

Class Struggles

Class Struggles by MSW.  MGB: This lack of class consciousness lets Romney and the GOP congressional leadership claim with a straight face that taxing non-wage income for individuals making over $200,000 a year and families making over $250,000 a year to pay for fixing Medicare Part A and the Affordable Care Act is a tax on the middle class.  That is true only in their universe.  Most people consider such families to be well off or rich.  They are at least upper-middle.  Note that the same congressional framers who prohibited titles of nobility were of the same economic strata, so this is not accident.

Bishops Back SNAP

Bishops Back SNAP by MSW.  MGB: I would eliminate SNAP and instead increase the Child Tax cut to living wage levels and make it refundable, including to people in subsidized and paid adult education programs for literacy, votech and community college or those on Unemployment compensation (like me). This will both make the subsidy adequate an not treat the poor like children by restricting their purchases.

Most/Least Catholic States

Most/Least Catholic States by MSW.  MGB: Hard to deny the continuing relationship between being Catholic and Democratic, or at least being in a Democratic state. I would be interested to see the state by state crosstabs on this. I bet that in the highly Catholic Blue States, the Fortnight for Freedom did not do so well.


I have not been posting for the last week. Last weekend I read the Millenium Trilogy (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, et al) from Friday to Monday. On Tuesday, my mother got caught in a gas leak and died last nite, so I won't be following the blog until next week.

Head of Vatican court describes 'VatiLeaks' as 'most grave crimes'

Head of Vatican court describes 'VatiLeaks' as 'most grave crimes'  His Emminence is definitely part of the problem.  If he enables such bad behavior as is uncovered by the leaks by encouraging silence, then he is a party to it and the words of Christ apply to those who would harm the littlest ones - that it would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around their necks.  He is an example of why the faithful must be again given the ancient right to elect our overseers (which is better translated as Pastor rather than Bishop - although electing Bishops is not a bad idea either).

Catholic Charities, Catholic Health Association challenge HHS mandate

Catholic Charities, Catholic Health Association challenge HHS mandate  Oddly enough, my then fiance got contraceptive coverage from Catholic Charities USA's insurance policy even before the EEOC made them do it.  More oddly, most policies written today for CCUSA, its member agencies and Catholic Health members also already include contraceptive coverage - which has been mandatory since December 2000.  They are clearly making nice with the bishops.  My question is if the bishops are aware that the status quo is coverage and has been since 2000.  If so, they are deliberately causing scandal by attacking an administration that is not really moving the chains to terribly much on this issue.

Now, the Politics

Now, the Politics by MSW.  MGB: There is such a post going around about a nine year old with brain cancer. Get on Facebook and you will see it. The take-away here is that Romney is claiming that this act taxes the middle class in a major way. The mandate itself is fairly minor, but about half the money to implement comes from a tax on non-wage or unearned income paid to households making $250,000 per year. I'm sure Romney considers these people to be middle class - and this is exactly the theme that Obama should seize on (as well as the Massachusetts experience).


Will raising this tax cause "job creators" to fire people or will it have the opposite effect - taking away some of the profit from sending jobs overseas by channeling it to the government? This is actually the central economic question of our time and why the Bush years were so bad while the Clinton years were better (but not good enough). It is also the crucial difference between Democrats and Republicans, for the most part (defense is mostly a wash, as is drug policy and most of what happens in domestic government). Not that you could demonstrate that with Obama's action letting all the Bush cuts extend until the end of this year.

The main political flaw in Obamacare is Obama. If Romney had been elected, he could have passed exactly the same bill had he wished to (that Republicans may not have wished to is beside the point - he would have gotten enough to work with Kennedy to pass what Obama passed). Obama's race and age are all they really don't like about Obamacare. Luckily, all things being equal, the most likable candidate ususally wins. People like Obama better and most people find the people who really dislike Obama to be hateful, which makes their task impossible.

Happy Feast

Happy Feast by MSW.  MGB: Of course, many attribute their deaths in Rome entirely to legend rather than anything verifiable.  We also know that Priscilla was the benefactor of the Roman Church which Paul wrote to.  He made no mention of Peter in that Epistle.  Makes you wonder.

The Polls That Matter

The Polls That Matter by MSW.  MGB: The sweet part of the map is the no toss-up option.  If more people looked at that, they would not say the race is at all even.  You can see why Romney has the strategy he does, but it does not appear he can do it effectively, especially given his staff of sycophants.