The problem's name is capitalism

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/intersection/problems-name-capitalism
MGB:_Mariam Williams is correct that the problem is capitalism, but the solution is not personal austerity. Affordable individual consumerism is what keeps workers from revolting and accepting lower wages than they would get in a perfectly competitive labor market (an equal number of positions and people to fill them) and while offshoring jobs displaces workers, it does not usually do it permanently or without the communities affected receiving cheap goods in exchange. Capitalism also means control over the market price by sellers, rather than a market set price. This includes offshoring.

The answer is solidarity, which not only includes union, but in allowing union pension funds to hold enough stock to veto any offshoring plans, which would include repealing provisions of law that prevent concentrated union ownership (Taft-Hartley) and those portions of ERISA that require decisions based on the best financial profit rather than on worker well being. The capitalists have used law to make sure that resistance is not allowed.

Solidarity is more than trust fund socialism or trust fund capitalism. Workers have to be active in ownership. Employee-owners often see their ownership tasks as extra duty. Allow them to veto offshoring or to conntrol it by making part of an expansion rather than replacement and they will start to get excited. Give them the power to impose open auctions or elections on the CEO and management classes, so that the lowest bidder gets the job, with worker-owner votes settling ties and they will get even more excited.

Give them real consumer options, like a company provided house (with or without habitat food production features), no interest loans through the members-only credit union, social services through the company and in general the workers collectively deciding on the means of consumption, which then dictates what is produced in-house, what is purchased as a group and what is purchased individually with cash or companyh provided credit, and workers should be demanding a socialistic workplace and the end of Wall Street and the financial sector.  Make no mistake, well done cooperatives means no Wall Street and less independent banking. Until that happens, capitalism will send jobs away.

Contact me for more information, because there is a lot to unpack here.

In 2017, politics influenced religion

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/2017-politics-influenced-religion
MGB:_The last I checked, the Southern Christian Leadership Conferencne, the NAACP, the Urban League and the ACLU all still existed on the left, although there was no national white Christian focus. Abortion is not mentioned, but abortion is not an issue per se. When the movement develops a real plan to pass something or comes to grips with the fact that personhood means that the mother goes to jail, we will take it seriously. Until then, it is an organ of the GOP based solely on emotionalism. It deserves no opposition because it is simply a scam, albeit a scam that got Trump elected. Note that I am not persecuting the unborn, I am calling foul on the conservatives for waiving the bloody clinic sheet in order to get votes and money.

No one is at all shocked that the Knights of Columbus have become a GOP front. They are civic, no longer religious.

Napa might as well be a Koch Industries front group as well. They fund astroturf and pseudo-science. The left is not looking so bad after all.

La Civita did not insert the knife, it just turned it a bit. It shows how the pro-life, pro-marriage movement, both Catholic and Evangelical are a Republican electoral front group. Their big win this year is tax cuts for the rich, nothing about abortion or marriage (which have no active policy options and, no, appointing Gorsuch is not an action. Roberts and Alito voted with Kennedy on these issues. Gorsuch likely will too.

The tragic thing is the conformity of the bishops with these scams, which they tried to escape but did not whe Naumann was elected to Pro-Life Activities over Cupich. The Church is already, in so many ways, the GOP at prayer, although some of us are exercising a prophetic voice and calling on real change on abortion, starting with abandoning fraud and sentimentality as a tactic and taking FROM, rather than giving to, Catholic Social Teaching in pushing for family subidies like a child tax credit big enough to meet the needs of every child, according to USDA figures.

Prophets do not have grass roots. We never have.

Regrettably, Trump dominated politics this year

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/regrettably-trump-dominated-politics-year
MGB:_FDR handled the national crises. Trump is the crisis. Something you can’t look away from is monstrous and Trump is definitely a Monster created entirely by FoxNews and Twitter. He believes both, which is disqualifying in a POTUS. One wonders what happened to Trump as a child for him to be locked in the personality of a ten-year-old, but we are suffering the consequences. His legislative program seems designed to undo Obama-everything. He is a part of white New Yorkers that hate-African-Americans. He puts no work into hiding it.

His reign is not a forever thing, however. The election of Democrats in 2018 will stop obstructionism on impeachment and allow the removal of both Trump and Pence. Call it a stick to get the GOP to put down its own dog before November. Defending legal abortion, to which the Republicans have no real attack, will be part of the election. Pro-life Republicans need to realize that they got played on Abortion by Trump and get rid of him now. If this non-issue is allowed to keep Trump in power for a day longer than necessary, I blame the sentimentalists who think Roe can ever be repealed because we have a Republican POTUS. It is just not true, or Roberts and Alito would have voted to do so on Gonzalez v. Carhart. They did not.

2017 alters the landscape of the US church

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/2017-alters-landscape-us-church
MGB:_I very much agree that appointments matter, as do removals. We were a few shy on the latter, which is why Cardinal Cupich did not get a chance to do a staff shake up at Pro-Life Activities, even though it is badly needed to disentangle it from the GOP. I will believe change as come when everone hired by Doerflinger has retired. Supporting keeping the ACA was good, but that was from the bishops, not staff. There is still too much overt Republicanism in the Conference. Its stances on immigration have been good, but not surprising. A few more of the notably pro-life bishops calling immigration a life issue for scoring by the NRLC would show real change, that and calling for a higher Child Tax Credit. Much higher.  Getting Amoris right will be good. Like Immigration and and Health, I am not sure it is universal. No one has really staked out fresh, modern ground on these issues. The right wing is right, there is doctrinal change needed, but the anti-modernists won’t like it.  Hopefully some of the resistence will come because of a change of heart rather than simply by a dying off. That takes a willingness to keep standing for truth, which makes all things new.

May Jesus be strong, inculturated, transcendent for you at Christmas

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/may-jesus-be-strong-inculturated-transcendent-you-christmas
MGB:_Pilgims banned Christmas because in England it had become a Saturnalia. For some, it still is. Others have shifted their drunken revels to New Years Eve, which is why the Church has turned New Years to a Holy Day (as if anyone passed up a good drunk to go to Mass).

I don’t see either Advent or Christmas as penitential. We need God not because we are sinners but because we have an inborn urge to seek God in our darkest times, with no time being darker in the northern hemisphere than the winter solstice. It is Good Friday, where Jesus takes the role of the condemned, abandons his patrimony as he learned it from his mother from the Christmas story and his mission when abandoned John to care for his mother. He calls to God as we do, giving us access to God as never before.

At Christmas, we celebrate the divine patrimony of Jesus, which he takes into the lower reaches of the a Galilean house where the animals stay in to shelter from the April chill, like any peasant child. That is the glorious fact. The arguments about vertical and horizontal have always been silly and ego driven.

Our poverty of the spirit is endemic to our condition. It is only in seeking Christ that we can overcome it. We act in anger when we seek other things to overcome that poverty. It is only when we surrender to the child that we find the light.

The tax overhaul isn't a victory and isn't a gift

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/tax-overhaul-isnt-victory-and-isnt-gift
MGB:_When the Republicans talk about growth, what they mean is not Keynesian increases to GDP due to increases in consumption and government investment. They mean the growth of wealth, of assett values, which is really just another form of inflation. Even budget deficits are an asset growth option to invest in federal bonds. Will they succeed much in hurting Social Security and Medicare? I doubt they have the votes in the Senate or the ability to stand against their own voters when those voters realize that Ryan wants to reform their benefits. It will be a short debate. At some point voters can be educated the fact that gay marriage and abortion are settled issues and that focusing on them is a way to keep the agents of the rich in office. Once this corrupt baragain is exposed, expect real change, probably more than just a backlash against the Tax and Job Cuts Act.

Links for 12/21/17

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/links-122117
MGB:_No Cardinal should have an airplane. Whatever his eternal fate, Cardinal Law should have died in a Massachusetts jail.¬ His exile shows why the Vatican should be tapped to pay the victims.

I lean toward a medical model in dealing with drunken rapists. Treat their alcoholism first and if the charges are confirmed, confine them for at least the minimum sentence in a facility for the criminally insane, with the option of pleading guilty by reason of insanity. All offensive acts, however, are not rape and non-criminal acts should be dealt with in company due process. Of course, the company should be employee-owned, which would have robbed Harvey of his influence as anything more than a movie nerd.

Bill Clinton did not drukenly importune Monica Lewinsky. She pursued him, just as some in politics and entertainment are pursed because of their position and charisma rather than their inheret goodness as a person. Men like that can be vulnerable to such temptation. It feeds their essential borkenness, making it an unhealthy relationship, but not an abuse of power.

Trump gets an F for not staffing the national security middle leadership ranks, thus ignoring the professional policy makers. Being an idiot and ignoring expertise is unpardonable in a POTUS.

I would blame only Evangelicals but then I read the NCR comment section an remember Cardinal Law and realize the author is probably dead on.

Why Christians should hate Christmas

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/why-christians-should-hate-christmas
MGB:_We should move Christmas to Yule and re-emphasize Jesus the light in our darkness. Surrender to the pagan implications of the solstice, which meet a very human need in deling with the long nights of winter. We could move Christmas to where the Magi calculated it (as an Ptolmeic era astrologer would), April 17, but that has reincarnation implications due to its closeness to Eastertide.

A moral reckoning on the subject of sexual misconduct

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/moral-reckoning-subject-sexual-misconduct
MGB:_It is perhaps one of those glorious accidents that last night’s news informed us of the death of Cardinal Law, whose strict moral tone was crushed when it was revealed that he covered upand probably abetted a different kind of moral misconduct, that of children at the hands of clergy. One of the most misunderstood passages in the Bible applies here. ”It is better if one leads one of of these little ones astray to be thrown into the sea with a milstone tied around his neck.” To apply this to heresy is bad proof texting. It is clearly about pederasty in both the modern and early Church. It is also about the casting couch. While perpetrators might claim no memory of their history of rape, their deniability likely comes from alcohol and drug use. An alcoholic blackout, howver, does not explain the systems they had for both procuring their victims and covering up their crimes. Feminism got its start in the Temperance movement, of which my great-grandmother, Margaret Esther Allen was a leader. She stands with the battered women, Hollywwood victims and clerical abuse survivors who all clamor for justice for victims and condemnation for the perpetrators in this world and the next.

Links for 12/19/17

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/links-121917
MGB: Lipinski's status as a pro-lifer is not important.  Abortion is not a real issue.  Roe is settled law and no one is proffering a bill to move legal personhood from viability to earlier in the pregnancy.  Until the pro-life movement realizes that personhood is that point where we can stomach women being sanctioned for abortion, being pro-life and pro-choice are meaningless terms.  What is regrettable are his votes against both Obamacare and the Dream Act.  When your district is one-third Latino, you are begging to be challenged.  I hope he enjoys his new job as a lobbyist.

Kasich should veto the Downs bill.  While I agree with such a measure, provided it is generous with both respite care for parents and life-long disability assistance (as well as a raise for everyone who gets disability, who need double to four times what they now get for a decent middle-class life), these are all federal matters.  States are not constitutionally competent to recognize a new class of personhood among the unborn.  This is a job for Congress, which should have the votes, including Lupinski for now.  They won't next year.

The Tax and Job Cuts Act is not passed until we know that Cochran has returned to town and Collins has decided that cutting the Mandate in Obamacare is fine with her.  I am not sure she thinks that and if they leave the Mandate repeal out, they will need to add some money back from corporate taxpayers.  This bill will fire up progressives, but so will the idea of getting enough votes to impeach and remove Trump. The math on removal on Trump is hard, but it might not be once the Muller report is out, which will leave Republicans with the question of getting rid of Trump now or letting the Democrats do it later with Nancy or Hillary as Speaker.  Note that anyone who dislikes the latter prospect should just register as a Republican. As for the Job Cuts Act firing up the economy, don't make me laugh.  CEOs earn their bonuses by cutting labor costs and this bill gives them a huge incentive to earn that bonus.

The labor participation rate means that older Salvadorans have not yet come to the U.S. to join their children and that some workers have not yet sent for their families.  I suspect that Trump feels justified in ending the program because MS-13 comes with these families.  He is Trump so he is probably wrong about this, but I can see how it would play well with his racist base (not even calling them Alt-Right anymore).

Finding a spiritual connection in Francis' exchange with fellow Jesuits

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/finding-spiritual-connection-francis-exchange-fellow-jesuits
MGB:_The holiday for me begins when Daylight Savings Time ends and the dark of midwinter comes way too early. At core, the holiday is about Christ meeting our human need for spiritual light when the sunlight goes long and dim. That does not wait for any Nativity Play by elementary students on Christmas Eve. It means finding and sharing joy as soon as needed. Making Advent positional is not helpful. Francis seems to share that. Advent, Yule and the Incarnation are about sharing the Lord always and especially in action. That means if you can wait until December 25th to shop for your friends, get more friends, especially children, who want their presents on time. Maybe even a poor family who you will have to take to Walmart to load up the cart. Their need cannot wait for sacred calendars. If Advent is about you, you are doing it wrong.

Sen. Tim Kaine offers to dialogue with Archbishop Naumann

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/sen-tim-kaine-offers-dialogue-archbishop-naumann
MGB: This is a welcome development. Most Catholic politicians hide behind saying they also oppose legal abortion, but cannot ban it because this is not a theocracy. This is, of course, keeping with Dignitas Humanae in a Deistic republic based on natural rights rather than natural law, but it leaves the Church both without a clue in how to do something about abortion and lets those who would win the Church over by looking busy have the political hand. I have some advice for the Senator as he deals with the Archbishop on this issue, which I will link to hear and post via his contact page.
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/11/how-is-life-right-letter-to-pro-lifers.html

Republican attacks on the FBI are despicable

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/republican-attacks-fbi-are-despicable
MGB:_The Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are looking for justification for not impeaching Trump when, not if, Muller presents his report. To do so, they and Fox News are employing what is called The Big Lie. It is a fascist tool. They are the heirs to the vast right-wing conspiracy that Hillary Clinton warned about when they were going after her husband. They are the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the Tea Party, the Birthers, the John Birch Society and the Committee to Re-Elect the President (with the apt initials CREEP). In Animal House, they were) sadistic ROTC Commander Neidermeyer, the ones who wanted to be in Vietnam. They are the out of control College Republicans at their state conventions, so sadly they are not dying off.

John Dean called them Conservatives without Conscience, who offer authoritarianism to people who think they have lost America to the dirty fing hippies. Turns out the dirty fing hippies were right (Google it). That they are financed by the rich and do their bidding is a feature, not a flaw. Neither is voter suppression an anomoly. They do it because they cannot win the honest argument. Sadly, part of their control mechanism is the Pro-Life movement, who also uses the big lie, that somehow privacy rights and state inferiority on equal protection can be overturned or that gay marriage can be reversed, to keep their majority fired up. In for a penny, in for a pound. Luckily, Lincoln, who would disown them, was right. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Indeed, once clearer Republican heads count the votes for impeachment and removal post 2018, they will shoot their own dog and get rid of Trump themselves, because after 2018, Pence goes too.

Links for 12/14/17

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/distinctly-catholic/links-121417
MGB:_The ability to pick up seats has to do with better national funding (no uncontested races, all funded by the DSCC, DCCC), better get out the vote/coalition building and especially the continuing deterioration of the Trump presidency and the GOP push to run Alt-Right Trump candidates. Hopefully it also includes straight talk on how much abortion is not an active policy issue rather than a symbolic one. I’ll take a fight agaisnt real racism v. imaginary abortion solutions every day of the week.

Bannon never goes where he is not wanted. Neither does Trump, although their audiences are smaller than photographed. Still, scratching that itch may feel good, but it draws blood on election day.

Fully funded pensions would be nice. It would be nicer to revoke all the defined contribution arrangements organized because of refusals to fully fund pensions and the insistence that all assets be present now for future obligations rather than a pay-as-you-go structure, which is all that is necessary but which draws less fees for people in the defined contribution business. For government pensions, Social Security should be a mandatory component, but in the end the answer is employee ownership, which gets rid of both financial capitalism and the capitalists running the company. Some kind of insurance fund is necessary to guarntee the pension assets, but it need not be govermentally based.

Silk’s questions are priceless. My answers:
1. only the body of Christ, as this is a family website
2. Jesus said that God was the God of Jacob, history’s most famous polygamist.
3. The tax exemption should stand, indeed, if I am preaching about abortion, I should be required to state the candidate I or my bishop is shilling for.
4. If the Church becomes a 501(c)(4), we should be eligible for dark money contributions from George Soros
5. I should provide a cake with no topper and should also arrange for flowers, as long as they are lillies, and if for my ex-wife calla-lillies (she hates the smell)
6. Refused to answer because of the ethnic joke implications
7. Ditto six
8. Only if I am serving at the Air Force Academy. It is an assigned duty.
9. Only if Trump wants to ban their faith.
10. You must sign, but you have to include devil horns in the signature
EC. See number 10 on devil horns

Or the Norse and pagan religions. Happy Yule!

Catholic advocates in full-court press on tax reform plan

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/catholic-advocates-full-court-press-tax-reform-plan
MGB:_The Center for Fiscal Equity, a Catholic social democratic organization, has also communicated its objection and some options to both the Senate Finance Committee and the Conference Committee. We believe that the deal reached Wednesday may be inadequate in avoiding a Byrd Rule objection, so further options need to be considered, including and especially bipartisanship. The only other option is to kill the bill. Here are our latest submissions:
http://fiscalequity.blogspot.com/2017/11/tax-and-job-cuts-act.html
http://fiscalequity.blogspot.com/2017/12/house-senate-conference-committee-for.html

Doug Jones won a Senate seat, but what did we learn from the election?

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/doug-jones-won-senate-seat-what-did-we-learn-election
MGB:_Baloney. If Abortion is an issue it is an indicator of gullability to Republican propaganda. Voters do not need me to say that. They see that there has been nothing done on the issue and that nothing is proposed on it for the future. If it indicates anything else, it is an indicator of sexism and a refusal to increase the child tax credit enough to have families not need abortions, that doing so would reward women for having sex. A large number of these people stayed home in Alabama. That is not a bad thing.

Will this loss slow down Bannon or Trump. Their kind of fascism cannot be slowed by losing an election. The loss of three Senatorial candidates because Tea Party extremists were nominated should have ended this movement in 2012. It did not. While it did slow down, it was the ground work for the Alt-Right.

This is a huge win for the Democrats. They ran a pro-choice candidate in Alabama. While the opponent ran one of the worst campaigns ever, it does not negate the get out the vote effort that is a model for the entire South. Having Trump as the President did help and it appears that even after Trump, the GOP is addicted to the same brand of idiocy he represents, which means Democrats will keep on winning.

Polling has been a problem for the GOP. Rasumussen is universally regarded as propaganda. If you use it in a poll average, the average will be wrong. Biased polls need to be excluded, period. As long as the GOP believes its own press, it is doomed. The exit polls were better. Note that if they are true, pro-life voters who believed in criminality opposed Moore anyway and voted for Jones. It is no longer the bellweather issue because voters will no longer be fooled that it is an issue at all. The pro-lifers have no plan and they don’t deserved the votes they would get for having one.

Moore will soon have his seat. Whether he keeps it or not is on him and partially on who he runs with and against. The old coalitions are falling apart and dying off and the old tricks, like pro-life sentimentality without a plan, will no longer work.

The Christian Left: Dignitas Personae at Nine Years

The Christian Left: Dignitas Personae at Nine Years

Editorial: The church was not 'out-marketed' on gay marriage

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/editorial-church-was-not-out-marketed-gay-marriage
MGB:_Dolan’s problem on gay marriage was and is the belief that gay marriage is about opinion or mass teaching and not about rights. Rights are not put to a vote. It does not matter how many agree with the final position (although the Court does pay some attention to that). The real problem for the Church is a lack of contrition and a lack of self-awareness.

On contrition, had Catholic hospitals treated long time companions with the decencyh of any spouse, the only reason to pursue gay marriage would be tax policy, which for some is a wash. The Church was prefering the family of origin to the spouse, even though Jesus said that when a couple is married, they leave that family and cling to their spouse. The ontology of this passage is not about sexuality but companionship and the Church got and gets it wrong One day, it will be celebrating gay marriages because the families say so and THAT will be because they were marketing a bad product.

As to self-awareness, the Church just gets it wrong on sexual orientation. People are gay, not same-sex attracted (as if renaming it makes it something that can be changed). People are also naturally asexual and Catholics of that orientation gravitate to the priesthood and consecrated life. Their only problem is that they think this is a charism or a chosen life style. It is not. It is an autonomous and peculiar sexuality that they are entitled to experience, but not to impose onto the rest of us with their rationalism about our sexuality requiring a necessary end, childbirth, rather than being good for its own sake. You can’t market asexuality to sexual people and not be laughed out of the room. Cardinal Dolan, an obvious asexual, should quit trying to do so.

Links for 12/12/17

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/distinctly-catholic/links-121217
MGB:_The Republican propaganda machine is giving cover to the House Republican members, especially on Judiciary, to ignore the Muller report. If the report comes out in the summer, it will be late enough to consider in the net Congress. If it implicates Pence as well as Trump, then impeachment and removal puts Pelosi in the Presidency, unless the House Democrats make Hillary or Bernie the Speaker. The GOP can only preserve the regime by removing Trump now or talking him into resigning. Going after Muller is a stupid play either way.

Not admitting fault is a basic human thing. It is why we needed a savior. A paywall stops me from saying more.

On Puerto Rico, both the FEMA Administrator and the Governor should read Gov. Daniels.

It is not the Pro-Choice Democrats challenging Pro-Life Democrats doing the damage. That is expected.  Indeed, as long as pro-life means someone goes to jail but they are not sure whom, any pro-life candidate is profoundly unserious. The real danger to most Pro-L-life Democrats is the Susan B. Anthony Fund, which enforces the position that Democrats cannot be pro-life in any constituency where the issue matters to the voters (who, again, are moved by sentiment rather than real policy options).

American Values Survey takes voters' pulse on Trump, political climate

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/american-values-survey-takes-voters-pulse-trump-political-climate

MGB:_I would have liked to have seen the age and strength of support cross tabulations on Trump voters. Are young Trump voters true believers or opportunistic? As for the older supporters, who is likely to die first, Trump or his harcore base. What about the Bernie bots? Are they different or the same on values with the older Clintoites? The best data is always below the level reported. The sturdiness of support by Trump voters makes some Republicans safe while others are less so. If The Democrats find enough marginal districts, they could win. 

Of course, if Muller finds enough to get the House to act on impeachment, anything could happen in November. It took two months between the Starr report and the impeachment resolution and that included an election where voters punished Republicans at the polls and they went forward anyway. Don’t look for an impeachment trial next year. Trump may resign, but Democrats, if they are strategic, will wait for a Democratic Speaker (maybe Clinton) to remove Trump, hence the possibility of resignation (assuming Trump can put party before ego).

Keep following the money in the Russia investigations

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/keep-following-money-russia-investigations
MGB:_The reason Trump had a second rate foreign policy team with ties to foreign governments was that the first raters in the Republican Party will not work for an obvious idiot. The reason Trump had to rely on Russian mob money to finance his projects is because he does not pay his bills. He could not get first rate credit. The reason he will likely be impeached and removed is that he has third rate lawyers, becuase again, he has a history of paying attorneys. Judging from his reported tantrums, he at least knows he is in trouble, which would be good sign if it did not just make him desperate, including desparate for a win on tax reform to keep Republican donors in play. It will take a lot of campaign ads to cover this mess up.

Fight the tax plan and the coming budget cuts

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/fight-tax-plan-and-coming-budget-cuts
MGB:_The Tax and Job Cuts Act is deliberately partisan. You could call it a Spoils tax bill. Since 1986 there has been a rate structure that, when considered with Social Security, is essentially a 30% proportional tax on the middle and upper classes.  The Democrats add to every time they are in power by restoring higher tax rates to wealthier households, which always spurs the economy by taking money out of the savings sector and increasing goverment spending and entitlements.

The Republicans come back and lower those rates and try to cut spending, although they never quite succeed on the last part. Their spending cuts rely on the fiction that poverty programs with shared funding should be picked up only by the states. It is a naive way to look at federalism that you would expect of a high school civics student, not a member of Congress, let alone the Speaker of the House.

Let us hope we can resist both parts of this strategy, which must be done bipartisanly. We actually need a bipartisan minority bill as an alternative that picks off some Republicans. We cannot simply rely on using passage of the bill as an elecoral issue for November. That hardly ever works, especially with a House Minority Leader who is cagey about impeachment.

Trump's decision on Jerusalem exposes a fiction

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/trumps-decision-jerusalem-exposes-fiction
MGB:_Michael Sean’s response is particularly Zionist. What I said in my post a few days ago is still as true. When we build an embassy in west Jerusalem, we should also build what on the West Bank, in East Jerusalem if possible and offer to protect the Palestinian state from the IDF (as in, kick them out of the West Bank and put our troops in the West Bank and Gaza. Then we can honsestly settle the question of the wall (tear it down), the boundaries of the Palestinian State, including how much of Arab Northern Israel it will include, rights of return and whether the state will join a larger Pan-Arab nation (which can only be settlded when Syria is stabilized). None of these positions is unreasonable unless you are a Zionist, like MsW.

The other option is that we put American judges in Israel to guarantee the promise of Israeli law that our system of due process applies there. If so, they have made a mockery out of it it with an apartheid state. NO MORE! If the Israeli state really wants to be western with no two-state solution, then all Arabs and Palestinians must have the same political rights as Jews, including joining the military, holding political office and even becoming Prime Minister. Without a possible Palestinian PM, the western nature of Israel is a fiction, as much of one as the Cpaital being in Tel Aviv.

Links for 12/07/17

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/distinctly-catholic/links-120717
MGB:_Hard cases make bad law, although this issue must be faced. The question of cake baking is moot. What is before the court was whether the Baker was deliberately rude to a customer in such a manner as to be discriminatory. Doing one of his impressionistic cake paintings should not be required, but declaring his lack of support for their right to marry goes beyond political speech into discrimination. He does not realize he did a shameful thing. A fine is a great educational tool.

Some might say that arranged marriages save us from that kind of bad behavior by men, but that would be inacurate. Women having power saves us from bad behavior by men, including bishops.

This bill will require compromise to pass, not only between House and Senate Republicans but with the Democrats. I don’t see how they can compromise with something like this, although shifting from a 20% corporate income tax to a 33% value added tax with offsets including health insurance and a $1000 per child per month tax credit for famlies might help (if the GOP would even accept that). This bill is best killed. We need to increase taxes on the rich at the highest levels, not reduce them. If this bill passes, we may yet get a test of whether Marxism predicted things correctly regarding revolution.

I am not in favor of blue laws, but every worker should have a Sabbath, especially students. Everyone deserves one day off of school, rest and homework, with Church being optional.

Moore indulges his supporters in a shared persecution complex, which is strange coming from a white person in Alabama, the essential home of racial persecution in modern America. Creepiness or not, keep that dog out of the Senate by the means at hand and send the Attorney General home too.

Giving tax reform a bad name

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/signs-times/giving-tax-reform-bad-name
MGB:_I got interested in tax policy in graduate school, when I learned about the demands of Catholic Social Teaching for a living wage based on family size, which along with my commitment to corporate socialism, which was really cooperative socialsm, was called Fiscal Communism. I later found out that Milton Friedman had the same idea, called the negative income tax and that President Ford had enacted it as a child tax credit.

In 1998, Ways and Means and Bill Clinton were talking about Social Security reform and I started making comments for the record and sharing them, often the old fashioned way, by mail. I also joined some online conversations on tax reform, replacing income taxes with a business income tax that filed taxes on what was already being withheld and then distributed tax benefits like the child tax credit. This is a good idea for working class households, but I have always believed that wealthier households should continue to pay a separate income tax.

In 2002, President Bush had a Social Security commission which I contributed to, consolidating these commets into an article for Labor and Corporate Governance in January 2003. (the second part on corporate governnace and wage equity was not printed). In 2005, I submitted testimony to the President’s Tax Reform Task Force, whcih included by two-part business income tax and corporate income surtax. These were included in my book, Musings from the Christian Left.

In 2011, Ways and Means and Finance began hearings on tax reform, while the Fiscal Commission also began deliberations on how to cut enough spending to deal with the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts. For the next few years, I responded to each congressional hearing on tax reform, health care and Social Security, which were frequent until the passage of the American Tax Relief Act of 2013, which essentially gave President Obama exactly what he ran on, preserving tax cuts for the bottom 98% and letting them go back to Clinton levels for the top 2%. Corporate Tax reform was left on the agenda and dislike of Obama left it there. I put forth a four point program as follows:

• A Value Added Tax (VAT) to fund domestic military spending and domestic discretionary spending with a rate between 10% and 13%, which makes sure very American pays something.
• Personal income surtaxes on joint and widowed filers with net annual incomes of $100,000 and single filers earning $50,000 per year to fund net interest payments, debt retirement and overseas and strategic military spending and other international spending, with graduated rates between 5% and 25%.  
• Employee contributions to Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) with a lower income cap, which allows for lower payment levels to wealthier retirees without making bend points more progressive.
• A VAT-like Net Business Receipts Tax (NBRT), which is essentially a subtraction VAT with additional tax expenditures for family support,  health care and the private delivery of governmental services, to fund entitlement spending and replace income tax filing for most people (including people who file without paying), the corporate income tax, business tax filing through individual income taxes and the employer contribution to OASI, all payroll taxes for hospital insurance, disability insurance, unemployment insurance and survivors under age 60.

Hearings started again when Kevin Brady became chairman of Ways and Means and continued through the release of introduction of the Tax and Job Cuts Act in the House, although the Senate held additional hearings before mark-up. It is certainly not what I spent the last The Bill contains nothing for the working or middle class and everything for corporations and the executive class. It essentially undoes Obama’s tax poliicies. It will lead to another boom and bust and give every incentive to companies to cut costs and give the savings to CEOs and stockholders. Even if the bill could be made bipartisan, it is rotten at the core and must be killed. My testimony on that can be found at  http://fiscalequity.blogspot.com/2017/11/tax-and-job-cuts-act.html

The standard deduction should be increased, but to four times what is proposed, with consumption taxes replacing that revenue and much higher taxes on the rich, as well as much more generous child tax credit increases to the levels USDA estimates are required to raise a child. That $1000 per child per month should come with pay, but as a carve out from base pay. Gift taxes are irrelevant. If they are still extant, then rates must be higher. Either way, the rich need to start paying down the debt before their children have to pay it back with still higher taxes. It should never be paid back by the working class. It is time to end the bondholder aristocracy started by Hamilton which this bill seeks to continue.

Pope concerned by US move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital

https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/pope-concerned-us-move-recognize-jerusalem-israels-capital
MGB:_It is good that the Pope is speaking out. No one else seems to speak for the rights of Palestinian Christians. Not Israel and not the Authority and certainly not the United States. Indeed, he should be a party to any talks.

This was a convenient announcement for Trump. His Alabama Senate candidate is looking particularly obnoxious and, unbeknownst to Trump at the time, survivors of sexual harassment are Time’s person of the year, not Trump but maybe some of his accusers. Finally, this announcement took his son’s testimony in front of House Intelligence off the lead of the evening news. Of course, one night’s opportunism has really messed things up in the region.

I urge Palestinian citizens and the rest of the world not to take this media event too seriously. Indeed, don’t take it seriously at all. No rage, no protests. Just give Trump the attention he deserves. Zero.

Luckily, there is no site available to move the U.S. Embassy to. It is still a pipe dream to actually move it from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It will take years, if it ever actually occurs. These things can move fast or slow. This will be slow.

Ideally, we should also announce plans for an Embassy to the Palestinian State in East Jerusalem. President Bush advocated that they have elections. The follow-up is to build an embassy to them.

A just Administration would also offer to guarantee Palestinian security and do so with an occupying force. By that, I mean that the IDF needs to leave. No more blowing up houses, no torture, no arbitrary arrest. We should do the same for Gaza. We can then deprive protesters of a target, expel the illegal settlers and help people rebuild their homes. Israel has historically claimed to abide by an American theory of civil rights. It has done an awful job of abiding by those principles. We will take it from there. The Wall will also come down and a new border negotiated, one that moves into the North in Israel proper so that the Israeli Arabs and Palestinians can become one again.

Whether that second state remains an American protectorate or a part of a larger Pan-Arab state depends on what happens in Syria, who has not right to call itself an independent nation any more. Until Jordan’s king steps up, however, all remains unsettled.

If Israel wants remain a single-state, it certainly can, but it must be secular, not Zionist and it must accept some kind of monitoring to assure Palestinians of full democratic rights, including service in the military and the government. Israel claims not to be an apartheid state. Prove it. Put lots of Arabs in the Cabinet, including the occasional Prime Minister. Anything less is abuse of the alien, which Torah frowns upon and while such abuse occurs, there will be no peace and no return of the Commandments to Israel or restoration of the Temple, which Israel probably does not care about but it is part of the American Evangelical wet dream.

This is why Israel should beware Trump bearing gifts.

Francis' trip to Myanmar, Bangladesh speaks louder than his choice of words

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/francis-trip-myanmar-bangladesh-speaks-louder-his-choice-words
MGB:_If there is any country that is a world away from the United States, It is Myanmar. I still find it easier to call it Burma, which probably makes me a revolutionary in the eyes of their military. I am tempted to say that this was a pastoral visit, but the number of Burmese Catholics is very small. A Monsignor would have been adequate.

From what I understand, military rule was only ended a few years ago. A few years after we declared our Independence, we were still a colony and after Yorktown, when our army had essentially disbanded, only the fact that Parliament did not want to reconquer the colonies prevented it from happening. The King would have certainly liked it and probably the military as well. With their perch in New York, the could have easily disbanded the United States. I relate this little known history to emphasize that the latest transnformation in Myanmar is so new, we have no idea what will happen next. Would a visit by Pope Pius VI have been anything but a footnote, in American history? Only the fact that he would not have been allowed off his boat. At least Francis was allowed entry.

When Francis visited here, did he speak of the contiued plight of our native peoples? I don’t recall, but I doubt it. The parallel to Muslims in Myanmar is the same. Whether this trip has significance for conversions or vocations in Myanmar is unknown. I suspect its main importance is to those of us on the outside looking at the Pope’s witness.

Links for 12/05/17

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/distinctly-catholic/links-120517
MGB:_Berkowitz is an unabashed neo-conservative Zionist, as is MSW. Gradualism is no better for Palestine than it was in the American South or South Africa. While some Palestinians are Beduin and some Egyptian, others were Samaritan Christians before being forced to accept Islam. Of course, all three are human and must be treated as such. They are not cogs in the Israeli economy by day and terrorists by night. There are two main choices. Full citizenship as Israelis (and no more restrictions on Arabs regarding government or military service) or a separate nation, including portions of the Arab North, which will be shifted to a larger Pan-Arab state (although that ties reform to a solutionn for Syria, probably a Hashemite one).

The new legislation may not sink in until the new withholding tables come out and for most, there is little difference until tax filing season. Those that use preparers or software may not notice at all. The second order effects will be more immediate, when CEOs earn their bonuses by keeping worker wagest stagnant, altough stagnation is hard to notice, especially when you blame it on health insurance premiums. The possible change to abortion law will be what gets noticed, because the bill, for one tax benefit, defines in utero children as eligible, which is enough to put Article IX of Roe v. Wade at risk without discussing it first.

Kaveny does not mention denying Communcion to Catholic politicians (which is seditious because the relevant Bishop is papal appointee). She also does not mention the fact that rigorism is based on a a faulty reading of Corrinthians. Unworthy reception is not linked to sinfulness but lack of belief in Who is recieved. Her focus is marriage. Once my wife was told to divorce me by her mother, it was over. Indeed, it was over when she asked. This is more common than we know. Indeed, our Lord hints at it in Mark. Some spouses never leave their families.

Since Mark Silk’s article, the Supreme Court has lifted the stay on the travel ban until they can hear the case. Of course, this may moot the case by the time they rule. My question is, if he can use his authority in immigration law for Mulsim ban, why was it wrong for Obama to give special treatment to Dreamers? It seems like the same kind of thing.

There is no way to do a write-in candidacy in one week, even if Moore demures. The Senate may expel him and the Governor replace him with another Republican, maybe the interim Senator, but the likely outcome is a Democratic pickup that will be temporary, but well deserved. Mitch needs to be on his best behavior. Badly behaved Majority Leaders have had defections before, including Mitch. I doubt he learned his lesson the last time. Maine, Alaska and Arizona may be vulnerable to change. Aside from contiuing resolutions, only one bill has been passed. Given that workload, the size of the margin is almost irrelevant.

Opponents in LGBT case agree: It's not about wedding cake

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/opponents-lgbt-case-agree-its-not-about-wedding-cake
MGB:_First, the question moot because the ceremony took place and another baker was used. The action going forward is about whether the punishmet prescribed by the State of Colorado can go forward. If this were in negotiation, I would mandate he bake a standard wedding cake but not offer the two-grooms cake topper, which can be easily purchased online by the couple and placed once the cake arrives. Also, some gay marriage cases were 5-4. The big one, however, was 8-1 and that one is dead. If Gorsuch follows his old mentor, this could be a unanimous case. When the case in the New York Circuit comes to the Supreme Court, there will be a clear decision on whether the Civil Rights Act applies to LGBT individuals. The plaintiffs cite the Marriage Equality decisions which established gays and lesbians as a protected class, so the likely answer is yes. If the Court does not carve out a religious exemption, and there is no part of the case that says it should, then Congress may well take up employee non-discrimination in order to put one in. It cannot be any narrower than Hosanna Tabor, however. It won’t allow the Church to fire gay employees who get married. That is not free exercise, that is moral scorn and it is no more protected than shouting fire in a theater is free speech.

Pope says global 'irrationality' led to shift on accepting nuclear deterrence

https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/pope-says-global-irrationality-led-shift-accepting-nuclear-deterrence
MGB:_I wonder who scares Francis more? Trump, Kim or Daesh/al Queda? I suspect that the safeguards in place againsnt an insane POTUS would stay Trump’s hand. Kim likely has similar generals but fanatics with such weapons is a major concern. Of coure, there are Dominionist Air Force generals, but they are usually not promoted into the nuclear chain of command.

The question is whether these weapons are unconscionable to use. Certainly a bi-continental war of annhilation would be, but those are not likely. Use of a single nuke is good or bad depending on the target. As a weapon from terrorists or on terrorist civilians, it is now allowable but it is also not the end of the world. Either way, we have too many. For uses against rogue states, missiles are not required. A subsonic bomber ride would get the job donen and allow of strategic actions in the interim. Nuclearizing the Korean pennisula is madness, especially if it does not take out all threats at once and leave survivors. That is not likely because once they could be used, it would be too late.

No one wants to desroy another nation’s entire population. The Soviets were never going to, as we now know. The United States should not be the world’s nuclear bully.

First Things' Matthew Schmitz needs church history lesson

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/first-things-matthew-schmitz-needs-church-history-lesson
MGB:_First Things is a reactionary website. Reactionaries, by their very nature, have a false and idealized sense of history, which warps their understanding of the present and their list of solutions for the future, which are their idealized vision of a glorious past. That their editor pines for bishops who are more like members of Temple Priesthood that Jesus spoke out against is unnfortunate but not expected. He pines for the glories of Catholic power in the cultural Potempkin villiage that was the 1950s where the Church always had the answer. Thinking the priest could stop divorce by threatening loss of Communion with remarriage is imagining a dream world. It also misreads by Mark on divorce and Paul on worthy reception.

Schmitz’s idealization of a Church immune from civil governace is at best tone deaf and at worst aiding ad abetting the Omerta hiding the abuse of young people by clergy. Any of it’s talent base who reads such words should either demand he resign or leave themselves. That it come with St. Pius X as an example is to use Pius as a front for the same tactics by St. John Paul II, who had Justin Rigali as his enforcer of the American Episcopacy in the Vatican. Ask any bishop of that era. Rigali is lucky is not in jail. It is only because one of his priests took the fall for him. Rigali should be defrocked.

As for Modernism, what is not to love? It has won and both Pius X and Pius IX before him have been discredited in their screed against it by the harshest critic, the future. The anti-modernists think these works were doctrinal. There were not. They were works on how to read doctrine from a rather cramped authoritarian basis that only carry weight in the CDF, and the extent that they do so makrs the CDF irrelevant. Francis is fixig that.

Schmitz’s idea of faith seems to be loyalty to the human institution of the papacy, which his side regards as magical. My analysis of the Syallabi by both Popes Pius shows that what they were objecting too has mostly come to pass in modern theology and scriptural scholarship. That means that they were either prophetic or reactionary. They weren’t prophetic.
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/09/dei-filius-annotated-modernistically.html
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/04/quanta-cura.html
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/04/responding-to-syllabus-of-errors-of.html
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/03/syllabus-of-errors-by-pius-x-on.html
Each of these documents were not matters of faith to be believed in but argument about authority which most now admit were lost by  these popes, especially after the laicization of the study of theology and the improved education of clergy.

Pity that the comments section is closed. We would have fun with this, although I suspect the trolls have moved on.

Schmitz’s sorrow at lessening the hierarchy within the Church leading to less secular power for it would be funny if it were not so sad. It is this pridefulness by clergy that Jesus spoke against at the Last Supper when he commanded the aposltes not to mirror the world. Schmitz would have us still tried to lead it. I bet he wants to bring the crowns too. His attitude, which the clericalists share, has long turned the ritual of the washing of the feet into a sad mockery.

Schmitz wants a harsher presentation of the moral law, but the moral law is for our happiness, not the edification of God. It is a gift, not a scourge. Of course, the hyper-moralists usually focus on sexuality. When Cupich wants to get guns off the street to stop the murder, there are suddenly crickets to be heard about the sin of murder and the calls go out for people arming themselves.

Yearning for the papacy of St. John Paul is a practice of the very young and converts during his time. It was hardly a golden age. Cudos to the Vatican II priests who survived it and are thriving now. This is a time of wonder in the Church, which scares the reactionaries who pine for their past-future that never was.

Religious leaders reject GOP tax bill, call for 'faithful budget'

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/religious-leaders-rejected-gop-tax-bill-call-faithful-budget
Rich people earn money by assuming the risk of employing workes and taking a risk premium for that which is most often not worth the benefit of assuming that risk, nor does it realize that workers themselves bear intrinsic risks by taking a position rather than day labor.

Bishop Sheen preached that profit sharing was an appropriate corrective. The Church teaches that some kind of social democracy with benefits for families, the elderly and unwed mothers is (from Leo XIII to Pius XI to Paul VI to Benedict XVI).

Our experience is that when the Executive Class gets a tax cut, they get an incentive not found when rates are higher to cut labor costs through deunioization, wage cuts, closing factories and sending them overseas or simply letting wage increases fall behind productivity increases and POCKETING THE DIFFERENCE instead. Stealing is not earning. When taxes remove most of the bonus, employee pay grows higher and unions are not attacked.

A faithful budget would fund social programs with a subtraction VAT/Net Business Receipts Tax will offsets for firms who provide or fund these programs themselves for their workers and families and the community. A goods and services VAT would fund domestic discretionary (both military and civil) to encourage both self-funding and the elimination of pork, particularly the military kind. Overseas deployment, net intrest and debt reduction would be funded by a surtax on higher earners with graduated rates, forcing them to realize that tax cuts will be paid back by their own children, not the entire next generation. Once they realize net interest won’t be rolled over or paid by the little people, they will minimize it by paying the debt faster.

Project Veritas is not journalism, much less 'truth'

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/project-veritas-not-journalism-much-less-truth
MGB:_James O’Keefe has about as much credibility as Lucian Wintrich, who speaks on why it is OK to be white. His all seems like a College Republican project with too much money from the Koch brothers or the Mercers. Without funding, these activities, like LifeSiteNews, the Mercatus Center, the American Catholic and the Catholic League could not exist. The other thing these hack jobs thrive on his publicity and I wish if you must cover them, then you also cover voices from the Left, including those who are not funded by anyone else but still have something to say (I suspect that this would lead to some of us getting funded). I have a few relevant sites.

The Center for Fiscal Equity (fiscalequity.blogspot.com) responds to every hearing at Ways and Means and Finance about tax, health and retirement policy with comments for the record. Sounds more impactful than O’Keefe’s stunts, yet nary a mention. The Christian Left at xianleft.blogspot.com has essays and book reviews that are unrelated to any other story, from commentns on current socialist literature to Catholic Social encyclicals and the comedies of error by Popes Pius IX and X. Hey Sean Michael! at heymsw.blogspot.com is simply commentary on this site, but finding such commetary will be impossible after today. What you feed grows. Quit feeding O’Keefe. And get a Facebook page so all of us can comment there.