Unjust pay dishonors Catholic identity of health care outfits like Ascension

MSW: Unjust pay dishonors Catholic identity of health care outfits like Ascension
The ultimate form of ownership is by the employees. When religious sisters owned and staffed these hospitals every employee owner took a vow of poverty. Professionalism and the lack of vocations has ended this form of ownership, but a mixed system could be devised with seats on the board from the Sisters, the Chaplains (and the local Ordinary if forced to), doctors, nurses and crew. For cooperative each stakeholder gets one voting share and a preferred share for every month employed or avowed. ESOPs would have a voting share each month. Everyone is vested immediately. 501(c)(3) status does mot prevent exorbitant compensation.

Boards and CEOs are just too cozy. Instead, CEOs would compete for their jobs in open auction. Ties are settled by warm body election.

Training should be at Catholic universities and medical schools, with doctors first training and working as nurses. From Junior year on, students are paid to attend school so that higher professional salaries are replaced with shares. Religious stakeholders get the same deal. Anything less is simple tokenism.

Note that there is much more to say about cooperative employment and purchasing. I have written a book on the subject.
Questions for Employee Owners: The Bindner Analytics Guide for Expanding Cooperative Democracy
 https://www.amazon.com/.../ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i...

MSW: Links for 3/28/19

MSW: Links for 3/28/19
That Trump is a petulant child and a racist is not news. A strong governor, however, is central to dealing with a crisis. P.R. does not have one. Mayor Kelly could not cope. Barry fixed her mess. Trump panders to his own base in the ACA. Leaders move the base to sanity, especially those who oppose the ACA when they depend on it.

Trump is also a crook and a thug, but worst of all, he puts his own interests before those of the nation. He thinks like a CEI. We asked for it. We need to stop asking.

Krugman is a neo-liberal and does not understand. The Democrats can win Ohio if they give urban voters someone to vote for who is not neo-liberal. The Black vote us more reliable than the Irish Catholic vote used to be, but we have to represent.

Stupidity never needs to be highlighted. Giving ink implies validity. Cover other blogger more and the Register not at all. None of us need to click their link. Millennial is a much better option and talking about religion in dealing with politics, but please highlight more voices, even and especially to argue with them. We like to argue.

MSW: Memo to Dems, regarding the Mueller report: Do not mimic Trump

MSW: Memo to Dems, regarding the Mueller report: Do not mimic Trump
The Democrats are grandstanding. They know that the whole report cannot be issued. Classified portions must be cut out but will be submitted to the Intelligence Committees. Grand Jury products will be transferred to the Judiciary Committees and may have been already. That would explain the multiple document requests that have already been nailed to the White House door. A version of each was likely prepared by the Special Counsel so my guess is that Justice is circulating the final product to to prosecutors, preparing briefing materials, making final decisions on what needs to be redacted that is prosecution sensitive and maybe even initial briefings the congressional leadership.

Demands to release everything are too cute by half. This has been a Pelosi-Schumer flaw for a ling time. It is all for electoral politics, not that it matters. We are not that stupid.

The claim that healthcare was the real issue is a canard. Exit poll respondents are more likely to self select and actually talk to pollsters. Parroting the party line us to be expected, making the results worthless. The issue was not healthcare. It was the justified fear that Trump was and would further mess with it. This has been confirmed by events this week. Again, voters are not stupid.

Trump is that stupid. If anything besides coordination is an issue, It will be how to portray a very open secret, that Donald Trump is an idiot, a fool and a forward. He literally cannot possibly have obstructed justice. That takes intelligence and self control. He is more like his supporters who watch Fox, except he has the attention if the press and a Twitter account which the media should simply ignore.  I have already posted in this topic twice on my Christian Left blog and musical accompaniment.
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2019/02/is-being-idiot-high-crime.html?m=1
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-stupidity-defense-closer-and-fixer.html?m=1
https://youtu.be/Ee_uujKuJMI
https://youtu.be/IfZbFh7qlCQ

It may be that Pence has actually been running the country or it is running on autopilot and the report has an audience of one, the Vice President. It is time for him to man up and get a vote from the Cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment. Trump can then quietly resign and the report can be suppressed. If Trump does not quit to avoid embarrassment, then he must removed by the Senate. How do you make being an idiot a high crime?

Congress may need SDNY to provide cover if his crimes are more than garden variety business corruption Being individual one may be enough. Being duped by Putin must be. There is also the problem of the First Children, who cannot be indicted until Trump is either arrested or hospitalized (six of one, half dozen of the other since he is already in protective custody and his mental state is an open secret).

Links for 3/26/19

MSW: Links for 3/26/19
The problem with Ascension is not a particular person. It is the CEO culture, particularly when grafted onto the Church. CEO culture is self-seeking. They create a crisis to fix it and justify their greed.

Trump is a lightning rod for reactionaries. There is no room in it for thoughtful conservatism, although they are merely different in structure, mot in substance. The former merely adopts overt racism as a norm.

Christ teaches the danger of self-reliance in all of his parables about the danger of wealth. Mutualism is the heart of Catholic Social Teaching.

While math has its own beauty, it is not Bach. This reminds me of a MASH episode when Radar tries to date one of the nurses.
http://gif.co/oM2X.gif

Weigel is using deductive reasoning to find fact in real life. That is simply stupid, both for solving crime and natural law on sexuality. In the Church, It puts piety before knowledge. Stupidity. Weigel, like all stupid people, is best ignored. Deduction only worked for Sherlock Holmes (although Doyle seemed to describe induction for his character).
https://youtu.be/IfZbFh7qlCQ

The endorse Trumpism because endorsing Republicans is essential to the pro-life agenda, even a faux pro-lifer like Trump. See comment above about stupid people and accompanying video.

Trump is destroying the GOP. This will force the Dems to split between Clintonian self-reliance and Sanders social democracy (not real socialism, which is about non-CEO management, not politics).

New York was all about political rewards. It changed no law. It is not the place of the states to do so, either way.

Humans naturally designate things as good and evil. It is part of our social nature. Aquinas taught that attraction to the ultimate Good is part of our souls, although the soul us more electro-chemical in this life, although such attraction may indeed be part if our social evolution. See how Helen Keller viewed reality before and after she gained language. See comments above on deductive reasoning. If there is truly human life after death, it is unknable to us except by belief in the risen Jesus. Inductive reasoning.

Extending the franchise and dealing with non-majorities has nothing to do with the Electoral College. The founders actually thought that there would be no partisanship (deductive reasoning again) and that the House would really select the President each time with one vote per state. This magnifies the absurdity of the Electoral College, which is an essential outgrowth if having a Senate. The Senate was created so the Congress would retain elements if the Articles if Confederation. It was conservatism in action.

Keen's book on ethics and LGBT relationships is thoughtful, considerate

Keen's book on ethics and LGBT relationships is thoughtful, considerate
My experience with gay siblings and in-laws is that they simply leave the Church, especially when authors like this get close but stop short of a more courageous conclusion. Even some one, like me, offering a more courageous stance, does not keep them. It must come from the Church as a whole. Seeing the Church as arbitrary on sexual issues, especially ordination, has many Millenials simply leave.

Pastors and denominations who take a different tack have more success in keeping them in Church. See Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber's recent book, Shameless, for her experience and that of her congregation on dealing with sex.

In ancient Jewish attitudes, it has been argued that lying with a man as if a woman us a reference to and condemnation of, pederasty. The great anthropologist, Mary Douglass, in see book, The Abominations of Leviticus, sees all such morality as an attempt at forging a separate moral identity for the people in exile. It is not hard to see Catholic sexual teaching as a kind of religious branding as well.

Christ's injunction in leading children astray is much more likely about this issue than doctrinal difference, given the penalty he suggests. He does not ever suggest the same about anyone who has doctrinal diputes with him. Not finding the Kingdom of God was more about faith than orthodoxy. It still is.

Jesus does not endorse the view of Moses on complementarity. He simply references it. He goes on to say that marriage is part of leaving one's parents and creating a new family. That teaching is equally true for gay couples, as our experience as culture and Church indicates regarding next of kin issues at Catholic and secular hospitals alike.

To not accept gay unions infantaluzes them in the family of origin. Doing so is both insulting and wrong. That society recognizes marriage rights for gays and lesbians is progress on this road. To keep gays and their families, a Millennial Church will likely rethink its bad branding once their priests come of age as bishops.

The idea of marriage itself has changed. It is no longer seen as hierarchical. It is now a partnership. This busts the metaphor of the relationship of Christ with the Church and power relations in the Church itself.

In ancient times, virginity was idealised as part if asexuality. What is seen as holy in the modern Church may simply be a justification of difference. Asexuality is even rarer than homosexuality, which if you use statistical terms us equally deviant from the norm or abnormal.

The imposition of clerical sacred continence likely had more to do with emerging conformity to Hellenism, which spits on the graves of the martyrs who resisted it, from Jesus Maccabee to Jesus Christ to the Diocletian martyrs.

St. Jerome's pious musings about the Holy Family seem to be based on pious imaginings to justify a desired conclusion in much the same way that Helen found the true cross.

This should not be the basis for a moral code, especially when it is at variance with the text of scripture. Indeed, not kidnapping Salome (wife of Zebedee and mother of James and John), Jude (aka Thomas) and his brother Jude (note that, like Jesus, named for Maccabees) shows Mary as anti-Hellenist rather than perpetually virginal. That would be inconvenient in Hellenizing the Church.

It is time to escape Hellenistic morality, which at best is quaint and at worst perverse misogyny. See again clerical continence as a rejection of feminity in the Church and the dignity of women in sexuality.

Seeing relations with a woman as a bar toward celebrating Mass can only be sexist, as is the view of Augustine that sin comes to us from sexuality. In truth, the Genesis myth has nothing to do with disobedience and everything to do with blame. It is no wonder the Church once Charles Darwin and now Gloria Steinem.

Renewal in the Church will junk much of Church teaching on sex and power. God does not make junk. We created it ourselves.

It is past time to rent and, ordain women and have them presidecat gay weddings. All it takes is real courage and acceptance and yes, mocking the anti-gay apostolate is entirely intentional.

In recovery, we have a term that you must only change one thing to get sober - everything (lest we win a Darwin Award).

Beto O'Rourke needs stamina, substance to make it to the nomination

Beto O'Rourke needs stamina, substance to make it to the nomination
Beto would be a good Vice President for Harris, although shooting for and winning the race for Governor of Texas will make him a strong candidate in 204 or 28. He should definitely hive the keynote in Milwauke. The 2020 nominee will be Pelosi or her VP,  unless she immediatelyakes Biden Speaker. By immediately, I mean the end of the day. That Trump is a dotard and a crook and Pence was in on the obstruction is obvious. If Pence is not implicated he will be running against Harris in 2020.

Links for 3/21/19

Links for 3/21/19
Can DB survive? Should it?

If the GOP is too fringe than the question is how Wall Street will a DLC Clintonian party will grow and whether there is enough room for faith in a DSA and Sanders based party. Both depend on the top of the ticket.

Devin needs to worry more about Mueller and less about Twitter.

Given how fringe the GOP has become, they no longer deserve to exist. Trump will be on trial in 2020. I would like to see a DSA debate with Klobachar and Gillibrand excluded. Warren should definitely be included.

Like Beto, the Mayor needs to be governor first. Neither should be invited to either debate.

It is better to improve health insurance and end poverty than to deny the sick a compassionate end. God is not an Ogre.

I am glad MSW finally agrees with me on overturning Roe. To do so, the Court would have to undo Plessy. Sadly, MAGA and some Catholic bishops would like that.

I am only half joking when I say remove Balsinaro's lungs. Sadly, he has the support of many Brazilians. This is more proof that Capitalism is the chief environmental issue. The planet needs a Green New Deal.

Nationalism, corruption and finding a better way in the news cycle

Nationalism, corruption and finding a better way in the news cycle
The reason for anti-papism in Britain was the attempted coup against Elizabeth, for which the plotters justly list there heads. Guy Fawkes did not win any friends for the Church, nor did Phillip II of Spain and his Navy.

To defend his own throne against democracy, Gregory XVI penned Mirare Bid. Vatican I continued to resist free thought, Leo XIII argued against the Americanist Heresy and Pius X created a modernist straw man to justify persecuting dissenters.

Father John Coutney Murray argued for freedom of conscience until he won the day at Vatican II with the acceptance of Dignitatis Humanae, finally catching onto the Enlightenment about 400 years late (and St. John Paul with Veritas Splendor seemed a counter-revolutionary).

While no one deserves persecution, the ideas coming from the throne were reprehensible. That the Vatican position and some of its bishops resisting Francis might be called reactionary is an understatement.

Reaction's ugly child is racism. It's purpose is to split the poor so that they do not demand reform. It is a feature of conservatism, not a flaw, especially in the U.S.

When open racism was about to cost Evangelical schools to lose their tax exemption, the White reactionaries went after abortion to keep their base riled up.

It is easy to draw a line from the John Birchers under Koch Sr. to the Silent Majority and the Southern Strategy and Lee Atwater and Roger Stone to Judicial Watch and their Right Wing conspiracy to the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth to the Tea Party, Roger Ailes, Fox News, the Birthers and MAGA. Am I being paranoid? You should have seen my email from the neo-Birchers in 2008.

As women have solidified their position (abortion rights are constitutionally secure and women are beating men in academic achievement), immigrants have become the new target of choice. No wonder the New Zealand shooter lionized Trump.

The Clintons are hardly left wingers. They are more moderate neo-liberals. Obama, who was rich as an author before being elected, was forced by the Great Recession to bring back the Clinton retinue.

Supposed bicoastal elitism used to be called the cultural elite, which was the liberal elite, the New York Liberal Elite and originated as the self styled New York Jewish Liberal Elite. They were a response to McCarthy and his acolytes Cohn and Nixon, the former cultivating Trump.

Rich parents, Hollywood or not, have always demanded special treatment for their kids and options for avoiding conscription. Absent grade inflation, this problem takes care of itself. Those with ability, like W, graduate. Those without wash out, like the Donald.

Getting ahead through sexual favors is nothing new, but the women are usually victimized. Me too is a just reaction. Let us hope the studio executive class has been restrained for now, as well as certain priests. Sadly, no fix is a permanent bulwark against entitlement. Women still have a ways to go and female immigrants are sex trafficking victims way too often.

Francis is certainly a force counteracting the forces of racism and exploitation.  Spiritual renewal is necessarily but not sufficient.

The latest thing is attacking AOC who, along with Senators Warren and Harris, are the best red meat the reactionaries have seen in a long while. MSW really needs to read The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin  to really understand how reactionaries work and why they need progress to react to it.

That is why Democratic socialists like AOC and me are needed to propose systemic change. It is past time to Occupy Capitalism as a way to reduce the power or wealth. It really isn't about the money.

Links for 3/19/19

Links for 3/19/19
Intersectionality should always deal specifically with law, especially on life issues, particularly constitutional law and public finance. Both should be part of the analysis. The first should be used in the context of political debate, specifically in reference to Dignitas Humanae and the responsibilities of Catholic public servants. It seems that Americanism is not a heresy after all. It is a necessary part of the analysis. The second regards the specific doctrine in Catholis social teaching on the responsibility to fund families with a living wage sensitive to family size. This falls into the legislative options which Catholic politicians should be talking about.

The Hoover Institute is not serious. Discussing their work is on the par with discuss ing Church Militant or EWTN. Don't.

Court packing is a legitimate means to deal with the conservative bent on the Court, particularly on economics.

The Colorado law is part if a larger movement to get 270 electors to comply, even if the voters of a member state vote the other way. A more interesting option is to chose electors based on the popular vote in each congressional district, even to the point of selecting electors based on who wins that congressional or Senate seat. Of course, this would skate close to the line prohibiting federal office holders from serving as electors .

William Galston is agreeing with Marx on using political means to achieve socialism. It won't work until capitalism is subverted from the inside.

College Republican Clubs have always been zany. Color me as not shocked that there is gambling in this establishment.

The purpose if taxing the rich must be discussed. If taxes are low, the rich get richer by imposing economic rent on workers for their own benefit. When high, the benefits go to the government, which effectively caps CEO compensation. That is what we should be talking about.

Beto is proving that rallies matter as much as fundraising. Still, Beto needs to run for Governor of Texas and give the Keynote in Milwaukee.

Bibi unwittingly told the truth about politics in Zion. This is why Rep. Omar has a point.

Will the Vatican's accord with China reweave the unity of the church?

MSW: Will the Vatican's accord with China reweave the unity of the church?
In the age if monarchy, Rome let local kings appoint bishops because they had no choice in the matter and because the papacy doubled as the Italian government. It had its hands full. Sadly, during the rise of democracy, Rome pulled appointments closer, lest non-Catholic governments or local Catholic priests and (gasp) laity might revert to a Democratic model.

China has a distance problem, a cross cultural problem and an authoritarian state that won't accept outside influence, like the European monarchies if old. There was once a Christian Church in the East, according to Dairmaid MacCullock, nut it seems to have vanished with the Kahns.

In Russia, there is the question of whether Rome should be there at all. The same question may be asked of African churches, which by ancient tradition should be under Alexandria and whether Anglophone Catholic Churches in North America might unite with Canterbury under a combined linguistic Patriarch.

Trump's failures and flip-flops have real-life consequences

MSW: Trump's failures and flip-flops have real-life consequences
Donald J. Trump is uniquely unqualified for any public office. Sadly, he appealed to the worst angels of his base, giving racism it's last hurrah. The system itself thwarts most of what he would do, which is also part of the wisdom of the founders.

He is a walking constitutional crisis. His staff quietly subverts his authority by stopping most of what he wishes. The Special Counsel has likely got him dead to rights and, despite the best efforts of Speaker Pelosi to drag his removal out in a misguided use of the issue, and all issues, for electoral advantage. Trump will likely be gone sometime this year. If the Vice President had a spine, he would be gone now.

The Democrats are not the party of abortion and bathrooms. Both are both settled law. Abortion is a side show. Sadly, the bishops are willing players in the drama, convincing enough Catholics to support a legal theory that is essentially the restoration of Plessy. It is the Courts who resist such nonsense. The Democrats merely pander to their base. Trump likely agrees with the Democrats. This is one issue where Pence has a spine and the ability to nominate his kind of judge: unrepentant capitalists.

The policies that make it beyond the subversion of the White House Staff are the budget and immigration, mostly to placate the base but also because they reflect the wishes of the worst of his Cabinet. The budget is classic Mulvaney and the unconscionable treatment of immigrants comes from both unchecked bureaucracy and the dark souls of DHS Secretary Nielsen and former Chief of Staff Kelly, who was harder to subvert. There is a special place in Hell for all three.

Links for 3/14/19

Links for 3/14/19 MSW
Facebook is free. Like most TV, it gets its money by selling ads. Whether the ads attract enough business or not is not a matter of public policy. Whether app developers can strike out on their own because FB is suppressing their creativity is a matter of whether they can attract ads.

Employee-Ownership could solve this, but FB may already have that. If Zuck is more equal than others, the best venue is a stock holders meeting to either replace the CEO or make the firm more democratic. I have an app for that. My book is $150 per copy with each employee getting one. I will even walk companies through it for free the old fashioned way, in person.

My question is whether Wednesday's Great Facebook crash of 2019 was payback for Warren wanting yo split up big tech? If so, did anyone but ad buyers have any real inconvenience or were they simply more productive at work?

Revamping Capitalism cannot be done by public policy. That only cleans the cage. Capitalism can only be subverted from the inside. Warren is less coherent than she appears and her wealth tax is only an answer if it is big enough to eat up most public debt, although any such scheme would have to balance the budget by raising taxes while introducing a different mix of tax breaks. That Warren is going after big tech is likely because she got donations from tech workers, not despite them.

Voters want celebrity, not change, or I would be the sitting president and the 22nd amendment would be gone. One of my changes would be cooperative rather than system schools, with the option of secular or religious modalities and no strikes needed for either pay or quality, even with a strong union.

There were plenty of blacks in Lincoln's White House. They were servants. Trump would take us back there.  It is a function of wealth and capitalism, like arranging for preferred access to college. Media lackeys like Carlson and his network are also a symptom. Gopnik is right about Trump, which is why CEOs are dangerous to the Constitution. Both Beto and Pete would be better presidents but they need to be governors first and I would need to make my first billion killing capitalism.

Sixth year may go down as the most decisive in Francis' papacy

Sixth year may go down as the most decisive in Francis' papacy
Synodality reverses the power of the Curia. It also gives practical justification for the limitation of liability for the Vatican for abuse awards (although at the time, the Church was enjoying a double standard). Synodality reflects dialog among the bishops.

Synodality does not recognize the ultimate sovereignty of the laity and recognition that Skekinah also dwells within them.

The laity have been given the right to be heard and must exercise fortitude, counsel, understanding and knowledge in the affairs of the Church. Piety and Awe of the Lord are
not loyalty to the hierarchy.

This includes a more practical sexual ethics, priestly continence and the ordination of women, as well as the protection of the environment.

Links for 3/12/19

Links for 3/12/19 by MSW
Snark sells on reality TV. Fox is the World Wrestling Federation of news. I wonder if there is a Coulter v Trump poll yet.  That the WWF and MAGA have a common demographic is no accident. Their identity politics is very old. As old as slavery in America. The current breed is reaction to civil rights identity politics, which was itself spurred by white laziness in the planter class.

Corporate welfare is the ugly step sister of earmarks. Earmarks arise from a bias for inaction in government , mainly caused by NIMBY.

Signing copies of Mein Kampf for his really good people?

There will be no Mueller Report per se, just a roadmap of the evidence that Judiciary seems to already have, given the 81 Theses nailed to the White House Door. http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2019/02/is-being-idiot-high-crime.html?m=1
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2019/02/trumps-future-and-mueller-report.html?m=1

They voted for Obama for the same reason. They are trying to fix the wrong thing. The problem is capitalism, which can only be fixed from within. I have a link for that. https://www.amaz6on.com/dp/1728996465/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_mL-HCbWM2MBZ0

African Americans are an ethnic voting block. They are important enough to put on the ticket. Anderson won't help with them.

I have only seen the Russia collection on Sunday. I was confirmed by the exiled Archbishop of Moscow.

The cancer of anti-Semitism must be excised from the Left

The cancer of anti-Semitism must be excised from the Left
The reality of supporting Palestinian rights, including and especially among those of us with Jewish ancestry, is the the charge of anti-semitism. My Friend, Joel Kovel, lost his position at Bard College for expressing the view that Israel should be a secular state. Many on the left share this view. There was a similar charge for whites in the South who supported civil rights. The polite term is race traitor, though many were given a name that is not memtiomable in polite society. Indeed, it was often applied to Jews in the movement. 

Being Jewish has certain rules as well. Those of us whose ancestors were forced to become Catholic are not considered Jews. Especially those us who have a mother who is a sikxa.

Neoconservatives are Jews who moved from Marxism in mid-century to Zionism who equate support of a secular Israel in keeping with it being the American democracy it claims to be as antisemitism.

They have allies, among them Catholics like MSW and Evangelicals who seek the conversion of the Jews in apocalyptic terms. They both need to butt out of our family quarrels. They resist the title neoconservative, though that is the origin of the term. They are supporting hypocrisy, especially when they support the stranger in this country but not in Zion, as Torah directs.

What to do when the president is a crook

NCR MSW: What to do when the president is a crook
Whether the Pesident is a crook or not is irrelevant.  I am sure he does believe he is. He is either stupid or crazy like a fox. I addressed this topic on my Christian Left blog (link in the comments). The urgent question is whether he is a clear and present danger to the nation. If he can be shown to be a Russian asset, the answer is yes. As a private citizen, he can certainly register as a foreign agent. He cannot do so as President. The fact that appointees seem to be running interference to keep him from doing real damage must be considered a constitutional crisis. So is his reported addiction to snorting crushed Aderall. Lastly, because his children are likely to be arrested soon, he cannot be given a chance to give them an unconditional pardon.

Sadly, Vice Pesident Pence lacks the courage to invoke the 25th Amendment. Mr. Mueller can force his hand by presenting probable cause for his arrest to the D.C. Federal Magistrate. A fax from the Clerk's Office to the Secret Service to change his status from protectee to prisoner will force Pence's hand. Indictment and impeachment can follow, as being under arrest ends his immunity from indictment.

Public sentiment will shift if Trump is in custody. His lunatic fringe will never believe he is a crook. Their opinion will not change in two years and it should be disregarded now.

The police power is not about moral guilt or innocence. If is meant to protect others from danger. That is why Manifort got off easy, why capital punishment is necessary and late term abortion is legal.

Links for 3/7/19

NCR MSW Links for 3/17/19

That the Catholic Herald (imported, not Arlington) is part of the vast right-wing conspiracy is not news. Actually, maybe the local diocesan papers too.

Housing problems for the poor are solved by giving workers higher wages and family subsidies, including students from ESL to Graduate School. Both should be high enough for housing and enforcement of fair housing should be transferred from consent decrees to criminal law. We need to mean business.

The Trump investigation started when Obama was President. It should end soon, with the arrest of Citizen Trump and his family coming at that point. The end of Trump will also end the GOP, as it goes deeper into MAGA, at which point the Democrats will be too large not to split into moderate (DLC) and progressive (DSA). That will end all talk of abortion, et al, as issues. A jailed Trump can run, but his public poll numbers won't matter. They never matter on impeachment anyway (except maybe at the state level). 

Democratic Party division will likely split racial voting, although if one new party gets it all it will be dominant for a generation. Klobuchar's treatment of her staff will be compared to Trump's. She is DLC all thee way. The current race is for VP and Klobuchar is not in it.

Bibi is a symptom, not the disease. A politics based on division and hate will produce leaders to match.

Four years later, will Americans still 'feel the Bern'?

Four years later, will Americans still 'feel the Bern'?
I was writing about this just yesterday, in the Links column and on a DSA survey on endorsing Sanders.

Sanders is getting in because everyone else is, although because most candidates are smarter than the press, they know that they are auditioning to be the VP to Pelosi or Biden (who can be made Speaker as a non-member under Article I, Section 2, clause 5 of the Constitution).

If Pence was implicated by Flynn or others, he will have to resign. The sitting Speaker will be next in line. Pelosi could take the job and the number 46 and then resign in favor of a new Speaker or her appointed VP (as long as McConnell allows a vote).

Any Democratic candidate knows Trump's days are numbered. If Sanders had been willing to be VP, he would have in 2016. Unless Biden and Pelosi pass, Sanders will not likely be interim POTUS.

She could also pick Harris as either VP or Speaker, provided she does not plan to run. Pelosi and Harris are both from the Bay area, so California electors could not vote for her. Unless they are sure of 326 electoral votes, Harris cannot serve if Pelosi wants to remain in office.

Biden or Sanders must pick Harris as VP or they will see Kerry and Clinton turnout levels in the black community. If Pelosi does run in 2020 she has to pick Booker. She could also make him Speaker to be POTUS and he would have to pick Warren. Warren would have to pick Booker. While Booker could pick Gillibrand or Klobachar, I would rather he not.

In a world with Pence as POTUS, Sanders could run the table if Biden stays out, although Governor Inslee of Washington has good Green New Deal chops, as does Harris (whom Inslee would have to pick as VP).

I am sure MSW hates the thought of a demographic ticket, however Catholics got the same consideration previously (and still do).

Sanders is no Neocon when it comes to Palestinian rights (I doubt MSW likes that either). Frankly, I wish he were more Marxist than social democrat. This could have been a teachable moment.

Bernie is likely to go with welfare for the Millenials and Medicare for All at Medicaid prices. I have already written that this would ideally be funded by an employer-based subtraction value added tax. Any GND candidate must.

DSA's endorsement poll was an up and down vote on Bernie. This is where his volunteers went. Sadly, I have not heard that they have taken over party slots from precinct caucuses to state committees, which is a strategic error. This is another example of youthful exuberance.

I counseled waiting until the Trump situation develops further. If the Democrats ascend to power in the next few months, Sanders must opt out. He should have waited to announce.

If the GOP goes full MAGA into to the fringe, the Sanders volunteer army could fuel a DSA based major party, but it should be more than about him.

Current polls have Sanders, Harris, Warren and Booker combined beating the Clintonite field. It would be nice to see them (and Gov. Inslee) have a progressives only debate, but only if there is no Democratic incumbent.

Links for 3/5/19

Links for 3/5/19
If the GOP goes full MAGA, the Clintonians (Democratic Leadership Council) and the Sanders (Democratic Socialists of America) will split. The NRA is a shadow of itself (Congress has asked for documents on Russia) and abortion would die as an issue if Roe were explained cogently, even though it would damage fundraising and activism for NARAL. Passing the ERA will become an issue to replace it, as well as stronger enforcement of discrimination of all forms. The DSA wing will likely win that battle, because the DLC will be much more corporate. The DLC will absorb most of the Democratic Neocon Pro-Zion votes, while the DSA will support Palestinians and Arab Israelis. MAGA will split the Neocon vote. These are the reasons the Grey Lady (NYT) will paper over any divisions, as division is not good for its Wall Street and Pro-Zion readership. Berkowitz is definitely DLC on the Neocon side, as are his readers.

The run for the presidency is a marathon and policy proposals are saved for the kick at the end of the party debates, unless you are ahead, or before the general election debate. As long as impeachment and removal are on the table, all the candidates but Sanders and Biden are angling for the VP slot to Pelosi (Biden may claim the top of the ticket. As long as Pelosi is only serving for the interim, that sets up Harris to be an unopposed candidate (which will stop the inevitable Democratic rift).  House Freshman sub-grouping is a sign of how inevitable a rift is.

The press coverage, including Silk, are focusing on victims and not on what they say about the laity taking back the Church. The hierarchy will never discipline itself, nor will the local clergy unless joined by a cadre Deacons parish administrators who elect (and remove) bishops and force a decision on a married  and mixed clergy (starting with Deacon Administrators) regarding both sex and sexuality. Once this is done, Catholic natural law teaching will actually conform to real natural law rather than the papal version. Bishops may be disciplined by their Metropolitans, but the Metropolitans and the Patriarch/Matriarch will be elected by the bishops they serve. There is nothing doctrinal about preserving Medievalism.  Chesterton may even concede the point. The problems we currently have come from an under-educated laity not taking responsibility for how things are run. The laity is no longer un-educated, they just need to realize that the power to change has always been theirs to exercise, although a nudge from Francis would help. The tragedy of the latest meeting is that there was no nudge.

'Vatican I' reveals that roots of papal authority are relatively recent

'Vatican I' reveals that roots of papal authority are relatively recent
I had incorrectly assumed that papal opponent of bishops was a reaction to monarchy, not emerging democracy. My bad. Vatican, it's ugly children, DF and it's Syllabus of Error and it's forage, Veritas Splendor are discipline, not doctrine.

That the Council Fathers joined Pio Nono in reaction to reality shows that conciliarism is both time bound and truth by agreement when the transcendent Truth is unknowable.

Using biblical justification is simply putting lipstick on a pig. Bacon is still bacon, despite a joint declaration that it is steak. Their result, a reaffirmation of the novel assexualty of the Church's sexual teaching over true natural reason, is of equal stupidity. For a section by section refutation of all of this, see my book: THE ILLUMINATI RESPIND TO THE PAPAL ANACHRONISTS. 

'Vatican I' examines pre-conciliar movements that threatened the church

'Vatican I' examines pre-conciliar movements that threatened the church
This history focuses on the nexus of politics and the Church which led to the Council where the Papacy tried to claim a new turf, having lost its secular power. This review of the book ends just before Mirare Via. More on Monday.