By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster
Benjamin Franklin, one of our nation’s greatest founding fathers, was asked by a resident of Philadelphia after the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied famously, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
In the wee hours of this morning, we learned that God the Holy Trinity had bestowed an extraordinary gift of grace upon our American Republic through the much maligned American electorate—a second chance to reverse the cultural, moral, and political slide that we, the people of the United States, have allowed—and even fostered—during the last few decades, a second chance to keep our Republic alive and to revive the unique American spirit that celebrates faith, family, community, patriotism, and liberty and justice for all as participants in the American experiment in ordered liberty.
As faithful Christians, as well as good Americans, we must always remember the wisdom of King David in ancient Israel: “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to his earth; on that very day his plans perish” (Pslams 146:3-4, LXX). No king or queen, prince or princess, elected man or woman merits the faith and love that is due to God the Holy Trinity alone. But we may still hope that our political leaders will open their hearts to the Holy Spirit and let Him work wonders through them. Sometimes hope is a worthwhile plan.
The fictional character Captain John H. Miller’s last words to PFC James Francis Ryan in what I have described as “the greatest anti-war pro-soldier film” ever made, Saving Private Ryan, are these: “Earn this”
My prayer to Almighty God today, after the most grueling, exhausting, mean-spirited, and divisive presidential election in my memory dating back to 1960, is that we, all of us, will accept the gift the same way that a grateful PFC Ryan does in that uniquely moving film.
Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster, Ph.D., is a retired U.S. Army chaplain (Colonel) and parish priest of St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church, Stafford, Virginia.
The rich and famous liberal lives and believes in the fake utopia that liberalism sells. Truth is they have to, otherwise their livelihoods are taken away, by the Hollywood powers that be.. My opinion is that many are closet conservatives.
The non elite liberals will destroy their lives in the liberal lifestyle, thankfully many survive and grow out of the fantasy that is liberalism. The hopelessly brainwashed and drugged will self destruct themselves and their friends and family.
REINCE PREIBUS, GREEK ORTHODOX , AND NOW TRUMP’S CHIEF OF STAFF. Another reason to rejoice Trump’s triumph over The Clintons, and victory of those who hate Jesus Christ!
Yeah, he seems like a stand-up Greek Orthodox kind of guy. One who tacks to the traditionalist side of things if I had to guess (he is a Republican after all). Not like the Stephanopouloses, Psakis, Podestas for the world. (BTW, it’s unclear whether Podesta a Catholic or Orthodox. I distinctly remember him playing the Greek Card back in the 88 election when Arb Iakovos questioned Dukakis’ Orthodox bona fides because he married a Jewish woman. It was on Crossfire and he took particular umbrage at that because he stated that his mother was Greek Orthodox. He didn’t actually say it but the implication was that he was Greek Orthodox as well.
Is “Reince” a Greek name?
No. His middle name however is Hercules.
Not Heracles? Is he secretly Frankish?
Dino’s latest HOWLER!
“Another reason to rejoice Trump’s triumph over The Clintons, and victory of those who hate Jesus Christ!”
“Rejoice”, Dino (or should I say, “Golden Mouth”)? Victory of Christ-haters? How so?
Bishop Tikhon! What exactly do you mean by Golden Mouth? Enlighten me! Should I not rejoice that some Christian values might return to the White House. Clinton’s support of late term abortion, homosexual marriage, and transgender free for all, is an Anti-Christ stance with Satan.NO?
I do owe you an apology, Your Grace, and I mean this sincerely. I did not show you, or any other veterans who might be on this site, the proper respect on Veterans Day, and for that, I ask your forgiveness.
Dino! By “Golden Mouth,” I referred obliquely to your mistake in saying “Another reason to rejoice over Trump’ victoryThe Clintons…and victory OF those who hate Christ!” I, for one, Dino, do not see Mr Trump’s election as “victory of those who hate Jesus Christ!
Thank you for honoring the Veterans, but George doesn’t think it’s so bad if you express sympathy for someone else and ignore the veterans. Perhaps Mr Trump thought it would be super-ironic for a draft-dodger to praise veterans!
All hail Mammon and our woman groping, marmot topped, con man god emperor!
This is after all the second coming embodied by a man who has publicly stated he’s no need to repent of anything, refers to Holy Communion as wine and crackers and who suddenly opposed abortion as soon as it was expedient to round up support from evangelicals such as those that write this blog.
Concerning getting off to a good start. Trump can relieve the US armed forces from an indignity of cow towing to transvestites, who have choice of uniform ( male or female} according to their fancy. Let alone that can obtain rank and make life a living hell for natural heterosexuals. who they might have a fancy for and are being fervently opposedm to their advances. Uh, sorry. it’s not my cup of tea, I do not want to be sodomized. Don’t tell me, the fags would try and do this. Every day is their birthday, like Gollum, in the LOTR. When I was in the Navy, there were 1st class petty officers, who expressly stated this to me. We can’t make do what we want, but we can make you damned sorry , you didn’t. The was in the 60’s. They can become horrendously jealous of someone who they fancy, but rejects their advances out of hand.The military is freedom-less enough without having to deal with tranies. True discipline comes from the freely given, willing obedience to orders. The problem with our military is there is no discipline.
Nice comment for us veterans, Michael. Thanks for your appreciation of us!
Happy Veterans Day anyhow, to the Vets who appreciate our armed forces today!
Gee, it’s after 8 pm here in L.A., and word hasn’t reached us about how Mr Trump honored veterans today. Anyone? Trump is supposed to be patriotic, no?
Then again, President-elect Trump did take the time to call the widow of a slain policeman.
George, I asked about how Mr Trump honored veterans yesterday, Veterans Day. You said: “Then again, President-elect Trump did take the time to call the widow of a slain policeman.”
I think you are beginning to see yourself as Trump’s parent?
Yesterday and today we are witnessing large protest against President-elect Trump(so fun to say). Many Americans who witness these disgraceful riots, anger at such displays.
We who supported Trump, should not. Why? Aside from the obvious, that it is their right, in a free Democracy. The truth is these riots now, and in the past cemented Trump’s victory. When average, middle class, hard working Americans witness this behavior, by these type of people who are pro-Clinton or Sanders supporters , they wanted nothing to do with them, or their choice for President. Most Americans saw the future, in the rioter’s faces, and the type of change they want for America, and said NO THANKS, and voted for Trump.
Dino, you’re being too charitable. Demonstrations are ok but riots –not so much. If they truly want a “revolution” we’ll give it to them. Conservatives are more heavily armed than these pencil-necked geeks. Sheesh, they wouldn’t know how to use a gun if their lives depended on it.
George I’m still grateful America got to see the face the Clinton base rioting in the streets and turning off the undecided to vote Trump, the protests and rioting backfired on Clinton.
Definitely. Of course what we are seeing right now is another of Soros’ “color revolutions.” The idea is to so permanently destabilize the US that the Electoral College will faithlessly elect Hillary or even Romney.
Yes there was already a petition signed by half a million leftist demanding the Electoral vote abolished for the popular vote.
If I see another crying leftist on CNN, or terrified illegal alien protesting with Mexican flag, calling for a revolution… Well let’s just say bring it on, good wholesale way to rid of them, round them up jail the traitors, deport the aliens, and build the wall!
Well, the left is acting childish sure their are a few racists that like Donald but most are not. I hope Donald Trump really deals with the immigration issue instead of the same results. This can be done by not deporting everyone but using an e-verify system that makes it harder for illegal immigrants to get jobs and reforming the farm guest worker program. Also, Trump might be able to changed some parts of NAFTA since Canada is interest, he has to convince Mexico.
I hope SOMEBODY will address the problem of so much bad English!
Oh please, if you were a “conservative” during the colonial days, you would have been a loyalist and would have resisted breaking away from the Crown!
Maybe. Maybe not. The bozos that the English sent to govern us were certainly not “conservative” in the traditional sense. They were a dissipated lot for the most part. George III on the other hand was a stand-up kind of guy (loyal to his wife, Christian, the whole nine yards) but the flunkies that were over us were a benighted bunch for the most part.
annoyed, since I am not a big fan of democracy and the American Revolution was in some ways the continuation of the iconoclastic English Revolution, I might have supported the Crown. That is a bad thing how?
Not really. Think about it: we here in America are absolutely ga-ga over the British royal family. Maybe longing for dynastic monarchy is hard-wired into the genes of most nations? I.e. I agree with you. Monarchy may be the most natural and safest governing structure.
Where monarchy usually breaks down is in the middle which you alluded to. The aristocracy stops caring and tends to get eaten up with privilege, power, and play.
Then the genes get weak.
A Christian monarchy with a mechanism to counter the aristocratic entropy would be a good form of government. That mechanism has been notoriously difficult to create, even in a participatory form of government such as ours.
Putin, essentially, has attempted to restore monarchy to the Russian Federation. That is the point of “sovereign democracy”. Many were dismissive of it when the term originated, and for good reason given their political predilections, but I’m sure it was a conscious turning of “constitutional monarchy” on its head. The verbiage is too coincidental and Russians don’t believe in coincidence. “Nje sluchajno!”, as is said.
Normally in the United States, we do not associate the presidency with the office of monarch, but essentially, that is what it is, a greatly restricted monarch. Head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces are titles of the presidency and are the normal titles of a monarch.
Progressives are their own worst enemies. Obama made copious use of executive orders during his presidency. Thus the template is there. There are various other mechanisms by which executive power can be expanded. The president appoints justices to the Supreme Court, yet there is no fixed number mentioned in the Constitution. With a majority or bipartisan agreement in Congress, the president’s allies can alter the jurisdiction of the federal courts pursuant to the Constitution.
I mean, really, if you make sure that a majority of the House and 60 Senators get fed, you can do just about anything.
Copious use – Misha the fake news accepter?
How many EOs Misha?
annoyed, keep in mind that estimates on the relative support of the Crown was about a third if the population, about a third shifted between the two sides depending on who was in town and then there were the die hard revolutionaries. As with all revolutions, it was a minority revolution. At least we did not execute those who opposed the revolution after it was over and did actually set up a stable functioning government–an historical miracle.
The revolution was the first significant experiment in what has become known as assymetrical warfare. In such encounters, it is next to impossible for the large occupying force to win as we found out in Vietnam.
Still, but for the French Crown’s help and the English arrogance, we still could have easily lost. There was no historical inevitability to our winning.
So, I ask again, how is George’s hypothetical support of the English Crown a bad thing? How is it any different than those in Puerto Rico who want statehood?
Given your distain for the possibility, trying to use it as an epithet, I would like to see an answer.
Screw the Crown and the Germans on it.
The crown sits on on the head of someone who has less English blood in her filthy veins than I do and she got her crown via the Scottish kings, who my family backed for centuries, anyway.
Time to send her packing to any one who will have her.
Up a republic if not in Britain then in Scotland in solidarity with our Irish brothers!
Greg, you really need to pop a Xanax. Most of the royal families of Europe are of Germanic descent. As are the Anglo-Saxons (you know, the English) for that matter.
P.S. I won’t publish your other comments unless you sign your full name.
Thank you, Father Alexander!
Father, hopeful words. I pray they become real. God can work wonders in the life of a nation through one man, even a man who does not seem to honor God.
It happens.
May God in His mercy work in this man for the benefit of all and for his own soul as well.
While being cautiously optimistic, I for one am not persuaded that the American project is validated in any way whatsoever, merely that God raised a leader to save the American people from a worse fate which they actually deserve.
I’m not Yankee Doodle. I do not believe in democracy at all. Nor should any of us. It is evil. It yields the failure of a culture that America currently represents. Let us make no mistake about this or have any illusions. That is why I no longer ever celebrate the Fourth of July.
If we go down the road of Libertarian Americanism, we’re going to end up in precisely the same place once again, just postponing the judgment. Please spare us all that crap.
Specifically, I hope Trump knows better than to take on the welfare state head on, like the Contract for America crew did over twenty years ago. That project would be doomed to abysmal failure even before it started.
Better to re-embrace Classical Conservatism as opposed to Classical Liberalism or Libertarianism. Classical Conservatism had no problem with economic redistribution, it simply recognized firm limits as to the extent to which it would be employed. The government does have an obligation to care for the least of these, as does the Church, as do we all. That should never be overlooked, diminished or swept under the rug. That is the Achilles heel of American Conservatism and hopefully Trump is bigger than that.
But, optimism is the name of the game. Bring the troops and jobs home and there will be more than enough money to go around without raising taxes. Just as he is not a free trader, I hope that Trump can keep the American right’s libertarian economic ideology on a short leash or this will be a short lived little project.
Father Thomas Hopko (1939-2015) was a wise priest. He wrote:
“Christ is not a socialist or a capitalist, a monarchist or a democrat, a communist or a fascist. He accepts no other vision of human life than His own. He does not condescend to error, commiserate with stupidity, or make accommodation with lies wherever they are found. And human beings are called to accept His vision and nobody else’s. This is their only recourse to sanity and their only salvation from the snares of deceivers, on the right and on the left, including those deceivers who cover their deceit with His Name.”
Thank you Lina. Such simplicity from a man who, though not a monastic, in his final years, moved his final home to overlook his final resting place, his own grave. So rarely do we see such fearlessness, such simplicity, and such faith. Memory Eternal!
It strikes me that “gratitude” to our God has diminished to the point of complete melodrama – with the appropriate movie clip or some musical appeal to the passion of the senses: “Thanks to God we finally have a quarterback in Oakland!, “a friend said to me, “Thank God the prices of gas is finally falling, “or “God is good!” my next door neighbor yelled, “marijuana is legal in California!”
A “second chance?” ΚΥΡΙΕ, ἐκέκραξα πρὸς σέ, εἰσάκουσόν μου! Our God bestows chance upon chance upon us, upon the clergy, the hierarchs and the church, and time and again, we prove the words of the Gospel, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” (Lk. 16:31) To suggest our God – the God of heaven, God of gods, Lord of kings, Lord of lords, revealer of mysteries, and Him Who alone does great wonders – would concern Himself with the presidential election as a “soteriological” event is ludicrous at best.
Dr. Stankovich, we have had to endure for some time on this blog your carping criticism of the pro-life ministry of many Orthodox bishops, other clergy, and faithful as “misguided” or useless to the Orthodox mission in America. Perhaps your disdain for Orthodox Christians engaging in the political sphere to achieve justice, especially on the most pressing moral issue of our time, is due to a bizarre version of Quietism, an escapist, pseudo-spiritual movement that began in Roman Catholicism in the early modern era and made some inroads into imperial Russia. Too often I hear echoes, ironically, of Quietism among Orthodox Americans who would eschew the “political” realm for the “spiritual,” as if the two are mutually exclusive.
Your opposition to “legislating morality back into the fabric of society” in another reply on this thread betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of both the prophetic mission of the Church and the American legislative process. Undergirding all worthwhile laws is a moral or ethical intention. In contemporary America the only folks who seem to rail, as you do here, against “legislating morality” are those, particularly on the political and moral left, who wish to prevent others from enacting laws contrary to the left’s own legislative / moral agenda.
Now you smugly dismiss the possibility that “the God of heaven” would deign to “concern himself” in the recent U.S. presidential election, as if that were beneath Him or completely irrelevant to His purposes. In your other reply on this thread you express outrage at the suggestion that the Lord might raise what you egregiously mischaracterize as “a heterodox ‘champion’ in the form of a divisive, arrogant, mysoginistic [sic], pig of a man to ‘protect’ and ‘salvage’ His Church, His pure Bride & Body.”
Apart from the gratuitous insults that you hurl to your own disservice, your main point misses the point of so much biblical revelation. Have you not read in the Old Testament where the Lord God Almighty used King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to chasten the Kingdom of Judah, as He did with other pagan kings and conquerors of Israel? Do you not recall how the same Lord inspired King Cyrus of Persia to end the Babylonian Captivity, liberating the Jews and facilitating their return to the Holy Land? Let’s not forget Acts of the Apostles 17:26-27, where the Apostle Paul is inspired to proclaim to the Gentiles in Athens the true God “who made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us . . .”
Your problem, Dr. Stankovich, appears to be with the Orthodox theology of divine providence! Perhaps you’ve drunk from the well of classical Deism, an Enlightenment pseudo-religion that rejected any notion that the creator, after the initial creation, intervenes in the natural order. We and other Orthodox Christians may disagree over the merits of various candidates for political office in this country and whether the prospective presidency of Donald Trump bodes well for America—even as we would have if Hillary Rodham Clinton had been elected. But we cannot, at the risk of blasphemy, declare with certainty that God does not—or, even worse, cannot—“concern himself” in the affairs of men and nations.
In the aftermath of the November election, you may choose to grind political axes, “but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15): the Lord of history and nations, as well as souls.
What would be the point of “credentials” if they didn’t afford us the LUXURY of labeling? As in Father Webster labels Michael Stankovich…..
You aren’t prolife though. You’re pro birth. Two different things “Father”.
I hate to burst any bubbles, but God didn’t give Trump the wisdom to be a masterful politician anymore than he revoked the coronation of Hillary.
I think you missed the more relevant Scripture about in whom to trust.
Things happen either by God’s desire or His permission. He desires the good but allows His creatures free will and the consequences thereof which are sometimes evil. Evil, of course, has no ontological reality but is merely a mistake or error (a glitch in the Program), albeit sometimes very painful.
So, either God wanted Trump to win and Hillary to lose, or He simply allowed it. Given Hillary and the Democrats’ views on abortion, feminism, religion, perversion, etc., it is safe to say that He wanted Trump to win, assuming that He actually exists and that He is the God of the Old and New Testaments and Orthodox Tradition, that is.
And if He’s not, who cares what He thinks or wants?
If God is playing with pawns, then why try?
Fr. Alexander,
In case you missed it, I did not vote for either major candidate in this election, choosing to write in Mr. Kasich as consistent with my conscience. Likewise, I did not vote to legalize marijuana; to fund a new stadium for the Chargers in the “inner-city” in lieu of affordable housing; and I voted in favor of abolishing the death penalty, where 3-billions dollars have been expended to execute exactly 12 men since 1979. I am not affiliated with any political party – notably because I am not stupid – I have no political “agenda,” and am a seminary graduate and morally and ethically an Orthodox Christian with all that implies. And even you must admit I have endured more scrutiny as to my every position than nearly any poster on this site. I resent your silly implication as to my “post-election axes to grind,” “wells” from which I might have drunk, or theologies you know well enough are foreign to my thought. Don’t play me, Fr. Alexander.
Let me clarify my point and be done. I despise politics and am, in fact, embarrassed and scandalized by Orthodox clergy who wipe their lips of the fatted calf of such matters on their silk cassocks. And the distinguishing factor is a matter of three words: in lieu of. There is a “once and unending” response to a call: “I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then said I, ‘Here am I; send me.'”; (Isa. 6:8) “And as Jesus passed forth from there, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he arose, and followed him.” (Matt. 9:9); “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.” (Jn. 15:16) Does our God act in this world among His people? Of course He does. The Lord Himself promised, “I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” (Matt. 28:20) But it is not the role of God, nor is it my calling to be Patristic. It is the role of the ordained clergy. And it has been abdicated, and one segment has abdicated this “patristic” role to the “public square” and its intersection of culture, “morality,” and governance, imagining a “moral society” will restore what the church abdicated through indifference, laziness, ethnicity, and the adoption of secularism. What is sad to me, Fr. Alexander, is that you are the priest who called for “men of muscle” in our hierarchs, and I interpreted this to mean those with the moral strength of character derived from their high Patristic calling, the Holy Canons, our Holy Tradition, and by prayer and fasting would wrest back the flock from its current path. Apparently I was mistaken, and your expectations are significantly lower. Nevertheless, in the end, I must disagree that “we cannot, at the risk of blasphemy, declare with certainty that God does not—or, even worse, cannot—“concern himself” in the affairs of men and nations”:
But isn’t that your patristic calling?
Lina I have always agreed with Fr. Hopko, and would definitely affirm the above state from him, but this was not about political ideology, but simple good versus evil. The good people of our nation crying out to God for relief and help from a very evil person and regime that would have taken us to war with Russia and further decimated our people and wealth.
This was about good versus evil not politics, and God heard the prayers of his people. Fr. Hopko would agree with that version as it is throughout the Bible from Sodom to Nineveh.
God bless you Lina and thank you for quoting the dearly departed and still loved Fr. Hopko.
Peter
Peter, my friend, you did not know Fr. Thomas Hopko, and I will tell you that your “interpretation” of his words suits your contrived notion that our God is so impotent in aiding His own Church, that He is incapapable of Himself fulfilling the promise of the Ascension, “I am with you, and no one can can be against you”; that He, and only He, is so “impaired” in His Will & Energy as the Just Judge and the Righteous Judge of His people, necessitating Him to send us a heterodox “champion” in the form of a divisive, arrogant, mysoginistic, pig of a man to “protect” and “salvage” His Church, His pure Bride & Body? And how will he do this? By legislating morality back into the fabric of society? Can you legislate abortion from women’s heart’s? Can you legislate faith & morality in? You’re from Chicago; are the laws prohibiting murder effective? Did the addition of the death penalty bolster the effect of the prohibition of murder?
Peter, my friend, you didn’t know Fr. Thomas Hopko, and I tell you he did not write in riddles. In this case, he wrote about about those who would purposely misguide in the name of Truth to mislead others – “blind guides” – with the specific intent of robbing men of their sanity, and those with eyes, “let them see.” You are fabulously, extraordinarily, and sadly very wrong in your reading of Fr. Tom to fit your narrative, and you do so at your own peril.
You are correct Michael I did not know him. I only read his books growing up and listened to his podcasts. However, this election for me was not about left or right, Democrat or Republican, but good versus evil.
Trump is a King Cyrus to us, and Not a Christian or moral man, but he is a reprieve for us and nothing more. We can squander it or we can start to evangelize the lost.
We have grown complacent, and I agree with you God has given us more than enough chances to get things in order and we have failed. This is why I believe he left us to our own devices all these years till it got so bad we just had to cry out to him.
This I believe is our last shot. Either we do it now or we don’t. I hope we do not fail in truly bringing the Gospel to our Nation and the west this time.
You always have my love and my prayers.
Peter
Oh Peterlein! Peterlein! “Trump is a King Cyrus to us, and Not a Christian or moral man, but he is a reprieve for us and nothing more.”???
Check your Septuagint! The Prophet Isaiah has the Lord God speaking of that Persian Shah, Cyrus (Persian is “Kurosh,” but, as we know, Greek can’t handle “sh”), as “His Christ!” Such an appellation indicates that the Persian Shah was AT LEAST a moral man!
Good Lord Mr. Stankovich you are a pompous ass. No not all of us had the privilege of personally know the late Father Hopkins, who was a treasure of American Orthodoxy. But that is not necessary to hearing and understanding his words. And I think Peter is spot on. As for Mr. Trump he may be a little rough around the edges for a public official, but that is exactly why We The People love him and turned out for him in droves. And he will be much less divisive than the current race baiter and divider in chief. God bless Donald Trump and God bless America!!
The One who preached and lived the Kingdom of Heaven, whose Kingdom shall have no end, is not a monarchist? Well, I suppose I’ve heard it all.
O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things, Treasury of good things, and Giver of life: come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every sin, and save our souls, O Good One!
O Lord, save Thy people,
And bless Thine inheritance.
Grant victory to the Emperor
Over the barbarians,
And by the power of Thy Cross
Preserve Thine Estate.
Hopko had his moments. That was not one of them. He also endorsed civil unions. He was better on the character of God. He frankly and openly embraced the Old Testament God the Father with all His Vim and Vigor. He was also good on relations with Rome, as I recall, laying out the path to reconciliation in a no nonsense fashion.
All in all, I will agree he was a positive force in Orthodoxy.
I did not know Fr. Hopko well but met him on several occasions. My favorite story he told about working in the ecumenical movement. He was conversing with several Protestant types who were supporting the “Branch Theory”. He said he told them there is only one tree, Jesus Christ and His Church – we Orthodox. His interlocutors then asked, “What are we then?”. Father Hopko replied: “The nuts that fell off the tree.”
My favorite performance by Hanks, and a truly great film. I don’t know it we can credit God the Holy Trinity for Trump just yet though. We are certainly in receipt of ‘extraordinary gifts of grace’ every day. Perhaps ascribing such a status to those “in whom there is no salvation” is premature at best, and willfully foolhardy at worst. I too hope that all of us will pray for our new President and the government he will lead.
President-elect and Accused D. Trump has a court date in December. Hope the defendant will be found innocent before the Inauguration!
The case will in all likelihood settle as most cases of this nature do. If you are trying to compare this to the out and out evil of HRC try again. In fact, no stop trying. Your done. Good bye. I’m done with the likes of you.
From here on out, after you pay up on your bet of course, I’ll be done with you and so should everyone else. Your done and are yesterday’s news. Good by, and Shibboleth my good, oh so good, bishop.
Peter
Dear Bishop Tikhon,
If memory serves….you promised to retire from this blog a number of months ago. Now would be a good time to make good on that promise.
I have announced, but never promised, to leave off kicking against the pricks more than once, “Mikail!” It’s always the right time to leave the council of the ungodly, no? Or sit down with these scorners.
Did you notice the useless fact that if you add the votes of the Electors TO the popular vote, Mrs Clinton still comes out ahead by a couple hundred thousand? Look up “landslide” in your favorite dictionary. It’s not the same as “majority,” or even “large majority” , is it? Mr Donald Trump won the election! Why is that apparently not good enough for the Peter A. Papoutsis types? Did they let their mouths overload their exhaust pipes?
Vladyka, minus the ballot stuffing, illegals et alia , and rigged machines, he would have had the popular vote.
Some people are just not wise enough to understand when they’ve been had by the stick it to the man concept.
The popular vote and the electoral vote cannot be combined! They require different strategies and like it or not, the electoral vote is the fairest way to represent those who would otherwise be under represented, if we went strictly with the popular vote or some weird combination of the two, as you have suggested. Either candidate needed 270. Trump got 290. That’s a landslide. You can’t change the way one measures these things AFTER an election just to prove your candidate was really the victor. That’s just being a poor sport.
I have announced, but never promised, to leave off kicking against the pricks more than once, “Mikail!”
Oh tiddly winks! Could you please promise next time?
Mr Donald Trump won the election!
Glory be to God!
Bishop Tikhon Fitzgerald has lived up to his bet and has NOT welshed. This actually speaks volumes of the Bishop’s character as he was and remained true to his word. For this he has earned my respect. Although I still disagree with him on certain issues, he will be treated, at least by me, with respect. So on that note.
Thank you your Grace. Please forgive me a sinner and pray for me and my family.
Peter A. Papoutsis
Bishop Tikhon would NEVER welsh on a bet. Never doubt it.
Peter A. Papoutsis! I have always forgiven you, a sinner, and will continue to pray for you and yours! Now go and have a shot of good Irish Whisky followed by a cup of good Turkish coffee. Why, by the way, does Trump like Turks so much– Islamist Turks, at that? Is that a cue from Putin?
Will do so. Also I don’t drink GREEK coffee the great majority of the time. Only when visiting my dad in Florida. As for the rest I do not know, but will look into it.
Peter A Papoutsis
Dear Vladyka,
What a kind thought you have for the president elect. May he also survive his November Trump University trial before the inauguration and the WIkileaks posting of his taxes..
Dear Mikail,
Guess who I’d rather read, you or the dear retired bishop? May he continue to bless us with his thoughts!
Orion,
I did not know that you could be blessed by his thoughts.
Bishop you are a dithering old fool and embarrassment to yourself and your former office. If you want to make a fool of yourself on the internet at least do the Church the courtesy of resigning or not using your old title. Your words are not Christian or charitable and you certainly no longer speak as a successor of the Apostles. You should be praying for your President-elect and country and not running around making snide insulting comments under the title of a bishop. You embarrass yourself and our Church.
Michael, I pray for our president in Church at every Liturgy and will continue to do so, even if he’s a craven coward who imitates the crippled FOR LAUGHS!
I didn’t elect myself a Bishop: the popular votes of the diocese plus those of the Episcopal Electoral College called “The Holy Synod” did that! If St John Chrysostom can during Divine Liturgy call his Empress “Jezebel”, I feel I can call that handicapped-citizen mocker, Mr Trump, a SCOUNDREL! Would you prefer it if I used my legal name, Captain Lee Fitzgerald? Would that be the right answer to your expressed loving concern for me or yourself, do you suppose? May all of you except those on the State Calendar of Imperial Russia greet this Pre-Nativity Fast with joy!
Oh Michael! I should have noted the ethical DISCONNECT in what you wrote: First you wrote “Bishop you are a dithering old fool ..” Then you wrote, “Your words are not Christian or charitable ” Hmmmm.
either are your words about the clergy and clergy wives you hate and slander telling us here that they are drunks… Lady Gaga and you have the same politics
BLM…
Where is the like button?
Greetings your Grace,
I was wondering if you could help me out. In your post, you wrote that your legal name is Captain Lee Fitzgerald. Your first name is Captain? Oh, by the way, that was a funny post you wrote to Michael where you ended it with ” Hmmmm.” Good to see that you haven’t lost your sense of humor. I always like someone who can make me laugh. Thank you kindly.
Oh, one more thing, your Grace, you called Mr. Trump a scoundrel Naturally, you have every right to call him anything you like, but come January 20,2017, the presstitutes will be calling him Mr. President.
Vladyka, your blessing.
“State Calendar of Imperial Russia”– I’m not sure I understand. I wonder if Palestinian Orthodox under the Patriarchate of Jerusalem refer to the calendar that they and their ancestors have all used as the “state calendar of Imperial Russia.” I wonder if this is the way St. Paisios of the Holy Mountain, or any of the holy monks there, spoke of it. Serbia might also take issue with such terminology, since it was never a part of the Russian Empire.
Those of us on the calendar sanctioned by an Ecumenical Council, by centuries of universal agreement of the Christian world, and the calendar with which the typikon was designed to work, love this calendar, though we don’t make a fuss of it like the sectarians, and damage the Church’s unity over it.
I expected Trump to win and I expected strong objection. All the things they might have done to thwart the election were abandoned because of their BELIEF they would win. God blinded them and there is absolutely nothing they can do to change the fact that Trump is our president-elect. Absolutely, nothing. The reason Hilary did not come out to speak to her supporters is because she had nothing planned.
It was reported that Hillary did have speeches prepared – one for victory and one for concession. I’m certainly no fan of hers, but having seen her rather gracious concession speech the following day and her fighting back of tears even then, my hunch is that she was in no emotional condition to speak in public that night. I don’t fault her for this, as some seem to do, as though she were too belligerent or too proud to concede. She made the concession call to Trump, and I suspect that’s all she could handle that night without breaking down in tears before the entire world.
She lost, and I’m glad she lost; but we ought to give her as pass on this one.
Buddy she could have talked, but the banks needed time to fix their finances before she conceded and our oh so trustworthy media called it for Trump. That’s what really happened.
Peter
True that. The banking cartels knew that she was going to lose around 1900. That’s when I clicked on Drudge and saw the bottom headline which said that the S&P futures’ markets had lost 600 points. In about an hour, it was down to 700.
From what I understand they got to the media consortium and told them to put off calling any more states until they moved their funds around to prevent a banking crisis.
Exactly.
True indeed. I wonder how many tens of millions were wired from New York to Qatar and other shady places in the hours between her loss becoming known and her admittedly gracious concession speech?
Most importantly, glory to God that the bomber of Belgrade will never hold a position of trust or peer again! Thanks to Donald Trump!!
Worse than a poor loser is a poor winner. Trump wasn’t a poor winner, but his disciples and apostles are!
I don’t believe what was reported. As far as I’m concerned, there is no other reason why she would send her supporters away without hearing from her. She owed them that. The crowd was devastated. She had all night to see she was losing. – Sorry, I can’t give her a pass.
As for her being too upset, I was able to speak at my son’s funeral. If I can do THAT, she can suck it up after losing a job.
Gail, word on the street was that she was rip-roaring drunk. Probably had thrown some serious crockery at Bill and a couple of her flunkies. That, together with (probably) a massive seizure made it all-but-impossible for her to show up at that wee hour to speak.
But you’re right: it is the duty of a failed candidate to buck himself up, come forward and speak graciously. If nothing else, his thousands of minions deserve one final thank you.
What bugs me is that Podesta tells the crowd that Hillary will not be making an appearance, because the votes are still being counted. Yet she is on the phone with Trump, conceding. Because he had suggested it would be morning before they would really know anything, the press didn’t know why Trump was taking the stage when it came time for his acceptance speech. They thought he was going to call the election himself! Podesta lies so easily.
Yes Gail, but you have faith in God and His peace does remarkable things for those that honor Him. Hillary only has her delusions and perhaps her substances.
Husband Bill was probably laughing up his sleeve.
She is alone now. In our world a failed Presidential candidate has no friends.
May God have mercy on her.
I hope she isn’t hurt, but she truly IS a liability to the “machine” now. People are saying Wikileaks has the 33,000 DELETED emails (not the emails the FBI already received, obviously). There is no way they would want something like this go to trial. Other people have been killed for less.
What like 4000 US soldiers?
All of the above may be true. I don’t doubt it. But the report of her having two speeches prepared came early – well before many polls closed when everyone was still assuming she would win. Who really cares at this point? She lost, thank God.
If that is true then she, the DNC and the MSM knew all along she was losing, which internal polling in real polling institution constantly showed Trump was head and she was trailing and lagging way behind.
It was ONLY the MSM’s polling and those associated with them that showed otherwise. The only reason this is important because this was a SUSTAINED meme from the MSM. As such it was the clearest form of voter suppression.
However, I do agree with you. Thank God and God alone for her loss. Glory be to God in the highest.
Now we need to get to work as the Church because Trump will not turn this moral decay around, we will with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. God is moving and has given us a reprieve to secure the Church and go and give the Gospel to our fellow citizens, SJW, BLM, and all. Tuime to be bold for Christ and His Gospel and plant the seeds of faith.
Peter
If Hillary was too emotional to offer a concession speech, how on Earth would she have what it takes to deal with North Korea, Russia, ISIS etc?
I suspect that a lot more women than care to admit it voted for Trump because women instinctively want a strong man to lead, not an emotional woman.
Gail,
Not having surveillance of her headquarters available to me, I can’t say for sure, but I’d say you and George are both about right.
I don’t think she had a concession speech planned or even in mind. I think she banished the thought of defeat from her mind out of pure hubris and trust in the mechanisms that brought her as far as she got. But, as I have remarked elsewhere, at some point when it became apparent that she was going to drag down the whole American super-Establishment if she persisted, they turned on her. I’d guess that it was when the former Attorney General implicated Obama himself in illegal activity regarding the emails.
That was too much for them. Trump knew exactly how much he had to spend in campaigning to get the required electoral college votes. Though he could have, he did not spend a penny more than necessary. All he needed then was for the Powers that Be to stay out of it and not interfere with the results. Having stared into the abyss, that’s precisely what they did.
My sources tell me the same thing that George’s did. I’m pretty sure she was in the bottle too far to make a public appearance until the next day. I’m sure she was a mess until they talked her down from the ledge and reminded her that there was still a lot of speaking money on the table and some unspent campaign money and nice life outside of the constant public eye. She may have been in angst over possible prosecution but I’m not sure that that will materialize.
As Brian said, “She lost, thank God.” I prayed to God several times leading up to election night that He would spare America the burden of bearing the cross of an HRC presidency.
God is truly gracious.
With all the young people against Trump, he may be lucky to make it to his own inauguration. President Pence?
The young are not nearly as bold as they used to be. They have better things to do than throw Molotov cocktails and bitch. They’re either gaming, scheming to get ahead, posing (hipsters) or playing gangsta in the hood. Not exactly revolutionaries.
I have seen revolution in the eyes of blue collar whites. And it will surprise me if this does not get bloody. But I wouldn’t worry about Trump.
Trump will make it. But like I said before Trump is the start or better yet the door stop to the moral and economic decay in America, and maybe, just maybe the West if you add Brexit to the mix. We in the Church have a lot of work to do to Get the Gospel out to the mass of young people that need it.
The young people of our nation of today have been robbed of their humanity and their spiritual inheritance. They have been taught and believe that they are animals and came from nothing and when they die they will go back to nothing. That is nothing but good old fashion nihilism (i.e. Satanism).
Blessed (and Hopefully Soon to be Saint) Seraphim Rose predicted this and wrote several books on this, especially his book on Nihilism. It is these young people that need the Gospel more than ever.
Right now we have a lot of vitality in the Church doing many great things. We have:
1. Fr. Ephraim Monasteries
2. Be the bee
3. Ancient Faith Ministies
4. The Bulwark of Truth from the beginning.
And so many more. This is the beginning let us not forsake this great opportunity to share and proclaim the Gospel of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to a young people, old people, all people in this Great Nation and the West that so desperately need it.
Peter
You think Trump’s fear mongering candidacy is going to bring people to God?
And you find his grab em language, or his 5 service deferrments, or his 3 marriages, or his 4 bankruptcies, or his fraud settlement, or his language condemning Syrian (even Orthodox), or his condemnation of hardworking illegals with the fence, or his anti-Muslim rhetoric, or his lies about repealing the ACA, or his lies about prosecuting Hillary to be a door stop to moral decay?
Rather good humor.
Julie, dosen’t say something pretty awful that our last two Presidents spawned assissination scenarios even before they took office.
If Hillary had won, I dare say a similar comment would have been made about her.
Lord forgive us.
There is the “Electoral” score and “Popular Vote” score then my Cy
football score. Trump 28. Hillary 16. I give Trump four touchdowns.
Hillary one touchdown and three field goals. 28-16 game.
Trumps four touchdowns were those States, upper Mid-West. Give
Hillary her “popular vote” lone touchdown, field goals just her Blue States.
Trump is awestruck now, he will shake it off and start doin’ some policy.
The electoral map shows a clear, but not absolute division in our country: Far West and Northeast vs Central and Southeast.
Folks in California are making noises about secession. I say let them, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii go along with the Northeast.
Everyone would be happier.
My secessionist side says: “Amen to that, Mr Bauman!” However my evil twin Skippy says “not so fast! Let them suffer under President Trump as the rest of use have suffered lo, these last 30 years!” He even goes on to say: “Let the Red States use them as ancient Athens used Syracuse and her other colonies! Then when they’ve suffered enough, let them rebel and we can put them down as brutally as President Lincoln put down the South! That’ll teach them!”
Well, George I am afraid the betrayal has begun. Not unexpected, but I am a bit surprised by its speed. California won’t suffer. It is back to business as usual. Trump is “uniting the Republican Party so he can work across the isle”. Gag me with a spoon.
1. Obama is saying nice things about him;
2. Already backtracking on Obamacare ( although that was an impossible promise to begin with). But if Gingrich has any input it will continue to be an unholy mess, just a different unholy mess.. I could do a better job on the plan than anybody who has actual input;
3. There will be equivocation on all of the things that got him elected;
4. No change on the important social issues;
5. The wall will evaporate;
6. He will not make peace with Putin;
7. In the end, the seduction of power will consume him. Especially since he was already pre-disposed.
8. Whomever the Democrats amount in four years, with the Islamic Congressman from Minnesota having a big say, will walze right in and begin their reign.
I voted for him pretty much knowing betrayal would come but Hillary would actually act to carryout her nihilist agenda under the direction of Soros. I voted for the least dangerous, I hope.
Lord have mercy on me.
Most of these points are debatable. Regardless, no one ever said he was going to deliver 100% on everything. Just the fact that he defeated the Globalists is more than enough for me. Just yesterday he received a call from our man Vlad. They see eye-to-eye. Hint: no mushroom clouds in the near future.
Plus, I really liked what he said about the 2nd Amendment. Full speed ahead!
Michael,
Ye of little faith.
Iran is a client of Russia. They are Shiite. They are the enemies of ISIS/al-Qaida/Saudi Arabia. Don’t sweat the Iranian thing.
Nothing else Trump has said, or Obama has said, leads me to believe that Trump is veering off course. They’re already going at him for Bannon. Take what Obama says about him as an insight into how easy it will be to roll many in the left. Obama does not want to go to jail with Hillary over the email thing. Obama would like some credit for at least making a running start at healthcare. He has speaking fees to collect from a dying movement.
Don’t think like an American Conservative. In American terms, Trump is debatably a Centrist. That is what is confusing. “True Rightists have no objection to a Welfare State.” Say that 10 times and take a deep breath. That is why American Conservatives are really American Conservative Liberals. They have a libertarian economic streak. Trump lacks that. That is why he can reach across the aisle and pull more and more people into the fold. That is how he will undercut the Progressives and destroy political correctness and the moral quagmire. He will leave (im)moral “progressives” with no base since much of their constituency was bought, not sincere believers in their bs.
All the while he will concentrate power in the executive branch . . .
Watch and learn.
Chomsky called him and his Republican followers “dangerous” today. From his perspective, he is absolutely correct. He is an anarchist of sorts. Trump is an authoritarian. If you define authoritarian Rightist as Fascist, then that is what Trump is. Both Hitler and Mussolini had extensive social welfare systems. I do not think Trump is like them in their totalitarianism; i.e., their godlessness and lack of respect for traditional values.
But the campaign strategy was no fluke. He will take full advantage of his executive powers to impose his will. He will pack and or undermine the courts if necessary to get his way. Jessie Helms once proposed that Congress remove jurisdiction from the federal courts to hear abortion cases. They actually have that power. If need be, he may very well do it. Helms could not persuade the Senate to go to that extreme. The Donald is not dissuaded by conventional concerns.
As to the legislature, they can all be bought or coerced, quite simply. Priebus and Bannon will handle that. He will find allies on the spineless milquetoast left as well. They just want their social programs and will hail/heil victory after victory. Trump will simply insist that we account for everything in the budget and push a constitutional balanced budget amendment, only to be overriden by the president in time of war or national emergency.
He will shut down War, Inc., reducing our overseas conflicts and commitments. But he will not make any draconian cuts in defense spending in terms of maintaining a truly fearsome military capability, firmly under his control. He will inflict justice on ISIS/al-Qaida, etc.
Soft power and economic muscle will be his primary international weapons. He doesn’t need to use the military as much as the neo-cons if he adopts a Samuel Huntington type worldview. He would be content to be the chairman of the board of regional hegemons. But always with a decisive military capability.
At home, there will be rabid conflict. He is serious about traditional values and destroying the power and legacy of race, feminist and sexual orientation crits. He is no socialist, of course, but a strong private sector has nothing to fear from a strong public sector so long as the two work in harmony under the command of a Rightist who has no antipathy whatsoever to capital. Donald loves capital. He just insists that they not become an international source of sovereignty. In that, he is very Christian. He does not want one world government. He does not want one world economy dominated by the Davos crowd with all governments beholden too it. That is why there will be widespread conflict.
It will be bloody. Count on it. But he will have undercut the Progressive Establishment’s chief advantage – commitment to the welfare state. Most people don’t care about “other people’s special rights”. People care about their checks.
As he said, “It will be beautiful.” And, for some, it will be quite ugly.
But that was America’s decision.
I think you’ve been bedazzled. And you look funny with all that
Glitter on your arse.
(not a Hillary fan, so don’t even go there)
Well, it’s been a few years since I issued a challenge to all Christendom to define what abomination of desolation is for the benefit of the faithful Church and define precisely what the Vision the Christ gave to His Church is, so the people do not perish.
To date, no one has matched me, with a obviously most Truthful explanation of either. Come on hot shots, make look stupid or crazy, so you can look like you belong in the high seats. Chimps!
It’s certainly never going to be a slow news day for a while. The Trump Transition Team has yet to contact the Departments of State, Defense, or Justice, but the President-elect apparently can make time in his day to meet with a celebrity serial domestic abuser:
https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/799067083250212864
Of course, not being in contact with State, the President-elect is not briefed, nor remotely prepared for his first meeting with a foreign leader:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-meeting-foreign-leader_us_582cecace4b030997bbd71fb
On top of that, that leader is the Prime Minister of Japan. A meeting day after Trump surrogates are citing the precedent of Japanese interment camps as reason why a Muslim registry would pass legal muster:
https://twitter.com/bad_takes/status/799079032499343360
That was just TODAY, that’s not even considering the day the transition team had yesterday, aptly summarized here:
https://twitter.com/awprokop/status/798708532493381633
Interesting times!
CNN can’t get enough of this stuff. What’s so funny is the MSM gave Trump more free press than anyone on earth.
Isn’t that ironic indeed? The Trump campaign was like catnip to them. Some estimates put the value of all the free media that Trump got at $2 billion. Sounds about right.
Realclearpolitics is calling it 306 electoral votes now. Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (by 1%). Royal flush.
Well, are you ready to refute the idea the MSM is leftist then?
Obviously they are more interested in ratings than promoting socialist ideals…not stating my position here, but the MSM is not liberal like everyone says. If they were, they’d have never played any of Trump’s bogus Mexico gonna pay for it sheet.
They are ratings junkies, whatever story works. The fact that Caitlin Jenner is big news is not promoting some liberal idea that liberals all love cross dressing, for example. Liberals might say live and let live on Jenner, but really don’t give a flying leap where he buys panties. MSM loves it cuz it gets viewers.
For anyone old enough to remember Peanutgate, this is pretty…special.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/2016/11/18/9da9c572-ad18-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html
And that, of course, is merely the tip of the iceberg as far as conflicts of interest and grifting potential is concerned. Although it isn’t preventing the President-elect from suing DC over the hotel tax bill because he thinks it is too high!
And now we have one of the children supposedly managing the “blind trust” sitting in on diplomatic meetings. Buckle up!
Although I have to say, who among us hasn’t settled fraud charges for $25 million before starting a new job?
Oh, come on Nate, de Vos contributed lots of money to Trump, patronage rewards are only bad if you are a liberal. For heaven’s sake Nate, the lefties sell state secrets for money. You need to stop talking bad about such a fine groper.
“Although I have to say, who among us hasn’t settled fraud charges for $25 million before starting a new job?”
I have to hand it to you, that was a good line.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=Trending&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article
But they still don’t get it.
What if it became impossible for the Left to outbid the Right with respect to the welfare state? What would happen to the rest of Progressive, Inc.?
That is precisely what we are about to find out. The genius of Trump, if he chooses to pursue what he signaled in the campaign, is in agreeing to the most generous economic arrangement for ALL Americans that anyone could responsibly posit.
Keep the welfare state, get rid of fraud, etc, impose reciprocal trade to favor American companies keeping jobs in America.
Progressives, once the economic angle is neutralized, have to fight on the actual terrain of Crit-land. They can’t use the poor as human shields anymore.
The thing holding back conservatives was their hostility to government largesse. Learn to love government largesse (so long as it is sustainable) and the rest of the menu is imminently doable. What Trump cannot do is afford to be outbid. He has to call the Left’s bluff on entitlements and fund them even to the point that it hurts his own party’s emotional stability. I mean, he needs to get out in front of it and say, “I support the most generous welfare state we can afford and I intend to pay for it by shutting down War, Inc., imposing reciprocal trade and eliminating waste and fraud.” Whatever excesses are required to defang the entitlement dragon are justified.
Frankly, we’ve been playing with monopoly money for quite some time now anyway. Obama lulled the printing press in 2014. Yet when you’re halfway down the side of Niagra Falls, shouting “reverse full!” is futile. Ride it on down.
At least as far as the Center will facilitate. You don’t have to agree with the Leftmost spenders, just occupy most of the spectrum.
“So . . . Daddy’s got Visa cards for everybody. What else we got to talk about?”
At that point, everyone is imminently more persuadable on these social issues, on trade, and on foreign policy.
So we begin to ask “what if?”
What if men are natural leaders and women are not and it has to do with aggressiveness and biology, not “artificial gender constructs”?
What if, on average, some races and ethnic groups demonstrate higher intelligence or other valuable characteristics than others?
What if it is perfectly natural for people to group with those they sense are like them, just like all other creatures do?
And what if the function of gender is to propagate the species, as is demonstrated by complimentary sexual organs, and not a matter of inclination or orientation, but rather normality vs. psychological perversion?
These questions are much easier asked and soberly, rationally answered on a full stomach, well clothed, with no one threatening to evict you.
I wouldn’t have settled the case. The problem was that it would be unseemly for a sitting president to testify in court. Politically, it was the expedient thing to do. Get past it.
However I would sue those strumpets for defamation. He wouldn’t have to appear in court as they’d cry uncle in no time flat.
Yeah, I get you George. I assume it was a question of cost/benefit. He thinks like Hoffa, “What has been gained and what has been lost?; write the rest of it yourself.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/steve-bannon-on-politics-as-war-1479513161
Here’s is Bannon, up close, personal and unfiltered. I was right about the electoral strategy having it down to the last household. Evidently it was his son-in-law’s system. Very impressive. I still don’t think they realize that he knew he was going to win some time before election night and that is why he could be so cocky and openly state on a stage in front of God and everybody that he was going to incarcerate Ms. Clinton.
It gives me some pause that he is underestimated by conservatives. I’ve tried to express this politely to conventional conservatives but it is not getting through. I do it out of kindness because I was once more conventional and understand the ideas and emotions involved in the current metamorphosis.
Those who think Trump is merely Archie Bunker on steroids with a bank account and the incredible luck to stumble into the White House are mistaken. And those who consider him a bully are also mistaken. I suppose I’m glad his enemies are underestimating him and it may even be good that some of his newly gained fair weather friends are doing so. But it is a mistake.
A bully is someone who is posing and who will back down if confronted firmly and resolutely.
Trump is a pit bull. In order to get him to relent you have to shoot him in the head. Once he latches on, it’s over. That is why I think it is not totally off the mark to call him a fascist. He is very, very white and this will get quite ugly. I can almost feel it already.
I hope his supporters have the stomach for it.
A number of lawyers stepped up to offer pro-bono services to the women, should Trump attempt to come after them legally. Also, historically, Trump in deposition and discovery has been a disaster for Trump. Trump going to trial, either for Trump University, or for suits against the women he allegedly sexually assaulted would not be in Trump’s best interest.
At the end of the day, Trump University was a giant fraud that scammed thousands of working Americans. America didn’t care and voted for Trump anyway.
Trump bragged that power, wealth and celebrity let him take liberties with women, a score of named accusers came forth and said he was not just talk, but also action. America didn’t care and voted for Trump anyway.
That is to our collective shame as a country.
It’s pretty precious when the More Orthodox Than Thou guy starts pondering if some humans are, let us say, a bit more in the image of God than others? Valuable characteristics, seriously? Racial pseudoscience BS is definitely going to be back in vogue in the coming years.
Two things:
1) Trump has a better than 85% success rate when it comes to suing people.
2) Gloria Alred can afford to offer her services pro bono publico. Regardless, it keeps her in the public eye which she milks for every drop in future cases.
The concern is not the lawyers in question but the complainants who (if Trump prosecutes) will be wiped out financially.
Lord A’mighty! It just keeps getting better and better. He went out of his way yesterday to get up close and personal and right in the face of the press. Today he snubbed the NYT as dishonest dealbreakers re a sitdown with them.
Open, full frontal war with the MSM. Fascinating and entertaining. I expect he will continue to treat them like the dogs they are as long as they continue negative coverage.
http://nypost.com/2016/11/21/donald-trumps-media-summit-was-a-f-ing-firing-squad/
http://nypost.com/2016/11/22/trump-cancels-new-york-times-meeting-after-paper-was-not-nice/
I know! I heard it was like a “firing squad!” Trump is Spiro Agnew on steroids when it comes to the media.
Bring it on! (I can’t stop smiling!)
http://buchanan.org/blog/besieged-trump-presidency-ahead-126059
Pat nails it again. This is going to be much more fun than watching W or BHO.
Respectfully, I must disagree with Buchanan and you –to a degree. Believe it or not, I’m rather optimistic.
Why?
For one thing, the official Left has been exposed as a paper tiger. It’s strength has come from bamboozling the Right via its agents in the MSM. We now know thanks to Wikileaks that the entire Obama presidency and the HRC campaign were held aloft via an intense collusion between the Establishment and the MSM. We always suspected this was the case but we had no idea how entrenched and coordinated it was. Seriously, the USSR had nothing this sophisticated in its own disinformation campaign.
Second, Trump doesn’t play by their rules. Unlike most GOP office-holders, he doesn’t immediately fold when an underling is “exposed” as a “bigot.” Just yesterday, he berated the entire MSM at Trump Tower. We saw an indication of this when the Rolling Stones kept on asking him to not use their song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” as his unofficial campaign song. He told them to go pound sand. They never responded.
Third, if the economy continues to improve and he keeps just a modicum of his promises then the majority will continue to give him some slack. Remember, for most of us Trumpists, we don’t even care if he screws up from now til Doomsday. It’s more than enough that he destroyed the Bush dynasty and prevented Hillary from being president.
Those things alone are “yuge.”
For a more eloquent analysis, please see Srdja Trifkovic in Chronicles Magazine: http://www.chroniclesmagazine/disasters-averted .
Srdja is priceless. His conclusion:
“There’s something out there that’s hard to fathom,” said a CNN pundit as the map started turning uncertain or even red in unexpected places, around 4 AM my time (10 PM Eastern). “You would not have a reality-based conversation projecting this map until a few hours ago,” said another a few minutes later. These people, and their ilk in a thousand studios, editorial offices, colleges and think-tanks, and their masters—from the Vineyard and Upper East Side to Palo Alto and Beverly Hills—are clueless and stupid, in addition to being evil. They deserved this defeat, and their shock should be exploited immediately and boldly to rob them permanently of their power to do bad things to good people.
* * *
“Exploiting their shock” means instigating a revolution rather than conducting an eccentric, possibly single term, administration with no legacy whatsoever whose gains will be reversed as quickly as those of Obama might very well soon be.
In order to do this, he must hurt and subdue the Progressive Left. If he leaves them to fight another day, it’s all for naught. If his administration does not decimate Progressivism, the Right will not soon get another chance.
And he can’t do that by respecting “American freedoms”. It just isn’t possible. It all boils down to his being willing to point a gun at the heads of the Progressive Left and order them to move, to alter their stated opinions. If they do and they understand that they must abandon their ideology, sacrifice their freedom to be evil and get a grip, then fine. If not, he must be willing to pull the trigger and make an example for the next pantywaste in line.
Sorry to be so frank, but it will come to that and if he is not man enough to take power, he will lose it and it will all have been a waste of time. Neither the Byzantine nor the Russian Empires were built and maintained on any less of a commitment than that and they had the full endorsement of the Fathers and the Church.
God gave the sword to the government to punish evil and establish order.
By the way, the Progressive Left will do most of the work for us. Trump doesn’t have to appear extreme, just be willing to escalate things to the point where decisive action is called for:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/22/national-politico-editor-publishes-home-addresses-of-alt-right-icon-richard-spencer-advocates-for-baseball-bats/
They will cooperate in escalating the violence, he just has to be willing to insist on having the last word.
“It’s pretty precious when the More Orthodox Than Thou guy starts pondering if some humans are, let us say, a bit more in the image of God than others? Valuable characteristics, seriously? Racial pseudoscience BS is definitely going to be back in vogue in the coming years.”
I’m referring to serious research such as the Bell Curve project which has tended to find a hierarchy of IQ in terms of race. The differences are not profound, but they are there consistently and tend to defy attempts to massage them away.
But the wider point has to do with natural talent and affirmative action. Many are sick of quotas by whatever name. People are either qualified according to established criteria, some more than others, or they are not Race, gender, etc. should not be protected classes in the sense of satisfying a diversity mandate. It dumbs down education, results in less efficient and effective employment and degrades and compromises the military and other physically demanding occupations. All because there is an objectively verifiable difference in intelligence between certain races/ethnicities, women are on average physically weaker and less emotionally aggressive than men and too many people cannot and will not accept the material reality behind these facts for political reasons.
Better to just lay it all out there and let the chips fall where they may. There are many blacks more intelligent than I. I am more intelligent than many Asians (who have an average IQ higher than European whites). And there are some Asians less intelligent than some of the Latino immigrants we have here in America, legal or illegal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_race_and_intelligence_controversy
Above is a partial history of the controversy. Those who find substantial differences due to genetics are often labelled as racists but no other plausible explanations exist.
Is it possible, Scott the lawyer, that you have forgotten the longitudinal research provided by the University of Michigan in support of the landmark Supreme Court decision Gratz v Bollinger that definitively demonstrated that Black students admitted to the U of M Law School – despite the fact that some are marginally qualified by “established criteria” – fared equally well, if not better than those who met the established criteria? Or did you purposely omit it from your “partial history?”
For anyone else, following the SCOTUS decision in the case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1997, where the court ruled that “racial “quotas” in the admissions process was unconstitutional, but affirmative action, in some circumstances could be justified,” the University of Michigan set out on a truly pioneering longitudinal study of the impact of racial and ethnic diversity on the educational process in general; and in my estimation, having followed the incremental release of reports and data over the years, believe it is a monumental project. And the obvious point is that there are few aspects of the student education experience – personally & academically – that are not positively affected by diversity. There simply is no question as to the overwhelming benefits. In 2003, when the University of Michigan Law School was itself sued by a qualified applicant who was not accepted because of affirmative action, it became Gratz v Bollinger, the University presented voluminous research data demonstrating the necessity for diversity, as acknowledged in the opinion of the court:
This, then, leads to the truly unfortunate remarks of Justice Antonin Scalia on 12/09/2015, during the oral arguments in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, to decide whether race-conscious admissions should be upheld. Like your unfounded commentary, he said:
Gregory G. Gerre, on behalf of the respondents, cut him off with the simple statement, “This was definitively settled by the court in 2003 in the ruling of Gratz v Bollinger. [Relying on the University of Michigan research], if you look at the academic performance of holistic minority admits versus the top 10 percent admits, over time, they [the minority admits] fare better.”
What bar are you a member Scott? I can’t seem to locate you. That I should be educating you on the nuances of law and research that clearly contradicts your ludicrous arguments as to affirmative action, diversity mandates, and “facts” is quite astonishing.
Amusing, court cases written by progressives offered to prove your point. Most lawyers know that there is no point preaching to the choir, the only ones who might be persuaded by what you offered.
Diversity in and of itself is of little or no educational value. It is like world travel to broaden ones perspectives. Tourism simply does not do that. Long periods in country might.
It’s all a great steaming crock of crap, Stankjoshka. Justice O’Connor was frank that there would be a time in the not too distant future for the entire system of affirmative action and quotas to go into the dustbin of history. That time has arrived.
First, Scott, I apologize for forgetting to correct the grammar in your original racist stupidity, “There are many blacks more intelligent than I,” when I am sure you intended to say, “There are many blacks more intelligent than me.” And thus, in response to Fr. Alexander Webster, who inquired if I was “race baiting,” it would appear the fish are not only biting, but I caught me a keeper.
Secondly, Scott, not only have you demonstrated your complete ignorance of the profound scientific findings of the University of Michigan – empirically gathered over a protracted period of time – regarding the positive benefits of diversity, you would attempt to cover your ignorance by (hopefully) unconsciously ascribing the argument – now part of federal law – to me, referring to it as my point, and what I have offered. This is the same mis-ascription, mis-attribution you made in regard to Blessed John of Damascus, suggesting I am “daft” and possess an “opinion” for which you hold no value. This is no small matter.
As I recall, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said in an interview with the Washington Post that Gratz v Bollinger was a signal from the court that the beginning of the end of affirmative action had begun, and that she envisioned it gone “within 25-years or so.” We’ve plenty of time left to rid ourselves of rodents such as you from our collective thinking The only time that has “arrived,” Scott, is for you to go to speak with a professional. You are a narcissistic poseur.
The increase in crime alone since 1965 gives the lie to the “benefits” of diversity. Let’s look at this from the perspective of young black men: how many were killed by police officers during the Eisenhower Administration (1954-1962) opposed to how many were killed during the Obama Administration (2009-2017)?
By every metric, the African-American population has suffered worse under the enforced diversity of desegregation than before.
I realize it’s more complicated than that as government dependency accelerated during that time period as well. Whether the arrow of causation points from dependency to despondency or from dependency enabling the breakdown of the black nuclear family is a sticky wicket I grant you. Yet the correlation is certainly there.
Earlier this year, my wife and I were invited to attend a lecture by Tavis Smiley of PBS. He had come to Tulsa to receive an award. It was well-attended but my wife and I were one of the few people of the Caucasian persuasion there. Regardless, the picture that Mr Smiley painted of the actuality of blacks under the last eight years under the Obama Administration was a bleak one. And Smiley is no Republican or conservative.
I’ll comment more on that another time.
Mr. Michalopulos,
Before “another time” arrives, it behooves you to investigate the distinction between “diversity” and “integration” (or “desegregation”). The fact is that diversity is the sharing of ideas, information, processes, skills, successes, failures, and approaches of dissimilar groups with the intention of achieving a mutually common goal. Integration is “mixing” two dissimilar groups in the hope that the result will promote diversity. You appear to know little of the theory and achievements of diversity. And as Gratz v Bollinger clearly demonstrated, it is not as if an abundance of data does not exist. You are arguing the wrong question.
Let’s see shall we credit diversity for crime or the size of my parents living room for my grades?
These guys never heard the word correlation.
The real story Stanko is they are just afraid of black people cuz they look all shadowy.
Diversity + Proximity = Violence. The historical exceptions to this rule are few.
I often wonder, with all the praise of diversity bandied about, why didn’t the Byzantines welcome the Moslem invasion? Were they afraid of diversity? Would it have been more Christ-like to welcome the invaders and let them take over freely?
Ages,
How many occasions of “wonder” could it take to figure out that invasion is not an aspect of planned – or imposed, for that matter- diversity. This ain’t Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along… for the children?” Plessy v Fergusson supposedly settled that, and lawyer Scott has already weighed in on the virtues of segregated living. Diversity is the vision that dissimilar people can be smarter than I (pardon me, I meant me), and that by joining forces there is not simply a combined expertise, but a synergistic effect in approaching problems to our mutual benefit. This synergy may be in regard to controlling & preventing disease; the delivery of clean, fresh water; the equal education of children; religious freedom & freedom of speech; protection from oppression & war, and the list may go from the most simple to the most complex. I urge to examine what happened at that the U of M when the student experienced mandated explorations of diversity over the course of the entire undergraduate program. Miracles? No, but heightened sensitivity to those around them; alternate ideas, opionions, and visions; and flexibility, spontaneity, and creativity in problem-solving. And more important, respect, tolerance, and value for diverse opinions of others. Little to no value? BS.
“There are many blacks more intelligent than I,” when I am sure you intended to say, “There are many blacks more intelligent than me.”
Here is an interesting article explaining why either is acceptable. In short, “than I” has an understood verb “am”. That is how it was taught many moons ago. Today, “than me” is considered fine and dandy too. But it is a longstanding oddity of usage, categorizing “than” sometimes as a comparative, sometimes as a preposition.
How strange it concerns you, Stankjoshka.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/01/24/is-it-now-acceptable-grammar-to-say-is-a-much-better-advocate-than-me-and-95-of-my-colleagues/?utm_term=.09074ff1cc80
Is this what you meant when you said “they” dumb down education, Scott?
Misha is not incorrect in his use of English grammar.
“And he said to David, ‘Thou art more righteous than I: for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil.’”
I do consider the loosening of the rules of grammar to be an unfortunate debasement of language and culture. As with so many aspects of modernity, words have come to mean only what we, subjectively, want them to mean.
“Is this what you meant when you said ‘they’ dumb down education, Scott?”
No. “C’est moi.” is correct in French. What I am talking about is admitting people to courses of study for which they are not prepared because Big Momma thinks we need more blacks, Latinos, etc. here there and everywhere.
I have nothing against black and Latino attorney’s for example and have met some very bright, competent and personable ones. And I have met some attorneys of various races who should never be trusted to represent a client. My only point is that there should be a single colorblind standard.
When there’s not and when we de-emphasize cognitive function, we are playing with fire; i.e., with social stability and with our national vitality. If you want excellence, do what they do in Singapore. However, you will have to live with the racial/ethnic fallout.
The issue, Scott, is not a single color-blind standard of cognitive function, as this has been traditionally determined by testing, a notoriously skewed and biased form of selection. Rather, most universities have moved, or are in the process of moving to a multi-criteria selection process focusing on diversity and cognitive ability (such as utilized successfully at the Universities of Michigan & Minnesota Schools of Law) as demonstrated in Gratz v Bollinger, proving “the performance of holistic minority admits versus the top [non-affirmative action] 10 percent admits, over time, they [the minority affirmative action admits] fare better.” The only fire we’re playing with here, Scott, is your pants aflame.
Yes, Stanjoshka, that is precisely what I am against: giving minorities credit toward admission on the basis of who they are rather than their demonstrated capabilities. Diversity is just a polite term for reverse discrimination. I can even see special rights for the children of alumni inasmuch as that type of favoritism is pragmatic and not necessarily rooted in race or ethnicity. But “diversity” means nothing more than the concept that minority students bring some desirable academic benefit to all involved just by being there. That is nonsense. One can, of course, design studies to find precisely that since the benefits will likely be measured by ephemeral chimera-like criteria hiding in emanations and penumbras of the student experience.
Better just to fight the good fight and get rid of it regardless of the bitching and moaning that arises in protest.
As best you attempt to argue, Scott, you are unable to overcome the demonstrated outcomes. As Hamlet said, “Words, words, words…” and nonsense they. As my colleague, Ghana via London (Black as coal, him) is fond of saying, “The test of the pudding is in the tasting,” and as I’ve mentioned on occasion, his pudding – banged out from some root – is a bitter affair in my estimation.
So, as I do not find you listed in the bar, Scott, am I to presume you took a spot away from someone capable of cognitively functioning, yourself just “being there?” You did admit, after all, there are some blacks smarter than you. Perhaps you could offer a scholarship to compensate. Something karmic this way comes…
Since there is no judge between us, Stankjoshka, at any time either of us may safely declare victory and move on.
Why are you concerned with my activities as an attorney? I’ve linked to my facebook page here several times. I’m not in the business of helping you do . . . what?
Cheers
No, Scott, St. John of Damascus writes that in our God is a Just Judge – who is always between us – with “a righteousness that is an everlasting righteousness, and His Word is the Truth.” Pray more, Scott, be racist less. I have no interest in “victory,” and the issue is truth.
As to the matter of your “activities as an attorney,” what do I care? You also said you were now a researcher, and as someone who has been responsible for the management & oversight of FDA & NIMH studies, I told you that because of your demonstrated lack of “cognitive functioning” for research, I wouldn’t hire you. But you raised the issue of standards in law schools, denounced diversity as pointless, and you proffer arguments without any evidence other than yourself. Actually, that is characteristic of your arguments in general. But how would anyone know? Apparently your bullshit even provokes piloerection in some. But I know, Scott. And because I know, you will never “safely claim victory” and dismiss me. But even understanding this, your arrogance is such that you persist. In fact, you are the first to overcome the passions & become a hesychast I have ever heard of who actually claims, “I can keep doing this [being a rodent] forever.”
I’ll just bet that you continue that schoolyard faggotry of referring to a consecrated Bishop of the Orthodox Church as “Fritz,” and mess with my name because, like the ropes to a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, without some restraint, they’ll sail directly to heaven. Cheers to you, son.
“And because I know, you will never ‘safely claim victory’ and dismiss me. But even understanding this, your arrogance is such that you persist. In fact, you are the first to overcome the passions & become a hesychast I have ever heard of who actually claims, ‘I can keep doing this [being a rodent] forever.'”
The thing is, Stankjoshka, that you mistakenly think that my contributions or responses to you are as impassioned as your remarks seem to be. Nothing could be further from the truth. Raising ones voice to a child does little good unless it is to get the child’s attention. If the child is behaving badly, you calmly tell him so. The words may be pointed but the tone need not be.
And so, yes, we could go on forever this way because I am happy as a clam while writing these little remarks and responses. I mean you no ill will at all. I just don’t have any respect for your opinion and that seems to upset you. It need not though.
Why should you care?
As to Fritz, he can defend himself. He really has sacrificed all right to deference that would normally be accorded to him by his conduct on this site. I wish him no ill will either though.
Stankjoska, I have no enemies at present. Historically, people I have singled out as enemies in other contexts may or may not have lived to regret that designation.
Harboring animosity is like drinking poison in the hope that someone else will die. Your feigned offense has passed being entertaining and nosed its way into the land of boring.
Good one, Michael. Thanks!
Michael S.
So when do we get the diversity of ideas and religion? College campae have become some of the most rigid and unwelcoming places for different ideas.
Students at his school have called for censure of the renown scholar, Dr. Anthony Esolen. Why? He unapologetically champions actual thought from a Christian perspective.
This in a supposedly Catholic school.
Just wondering?
Michael Bauman,
My response to you is similar to my response to that of Mr. Michalopulos above. Diversity is not the cause of the intolerance and censure you rightfully report on American campuses of late. This “movement” is anything but diverse. Paradoxically, it is also – from what I have seen and read in the media, and from what I have repeatedly witnessed in my own community (UC campuses, SU campuses, and two RC campuses) – it is nearly exclusively void of African American and Hispanic students , leaving Caucasian (that would be “white people”), and feminists. Call it “baiting” if you wish, but I hear minorities demonstrating for their lives, while Caucasians protest “issues” that “oppress” them (e.g. males, the flag, religion, sexual orientation, marriage, abortion, etc.).
If you are being sarcastic, Michael Bauman, enjoy the moment. If you were not, understand the distinction.
Misha! Agreed, until the “WHAT IFS”! You are walking simple minded, and dangerous tight rope with your what if’s, similar to your “a woman is temple built upon a sewer” comment. We are all built upon sewers, if fact most MEN love the sewer. It’s not a question of hurting one’s feelings, it’s just wrong to generalize sexes,races, and ethnic groups.
WHAT IF, Nazis thought Slavs/Russians only good as slaves?
WHAT IF, Many believe Jews are responsible for all the problems in the world?
WHAT IF, Many believe Christians idiots for believing in “the big eye in the sky”
WHAT IF, Many thought America could never elect Donald Trump!
WHAT IF, The civilized world thought Africans sub-human and perfect for slavery!
Misha, “WHAT IF” many believe Slavs/Russians to be drunk fools. I don’t. Is that a fair question? Or does it just offend you? Offending is not the problem, fanning the flames of stereo types and hate are. Fine line your walking, Christianemou!
None of it offends me, Dino, and that is the point. Mine are honest questions. If yours are too, we can take a look at them. What is no longer acceptable is the PC Newspeak that is designed to cow opinions at odds with Progressive sensibilities. Accusations regarding coded language and hidden agendas are no longer welcome.
And it’s high time. White Northern Europeans came to America and built the greatest nation in the world where there was nothing but wildlife and stone age aboriginies. By and large it was the men who built it and the women, for most of its history, were housewives and babymakers. It’s historical fact. There were exceptions but the exception proves the rule.
Now these Northern European whites had help of course. This was provided by blacks either bought from their own people or captured and forced to come here and take part in the project. That’s simply the objective history.
So it is quite unnatural for the descendants of these Northern European whites to go around hat in hand, walking on eggshells regarding the tender sensibilities of blacks, illegal immigrants, women and perverts. That is the significance of the present moment. It is not so much a matter of White Supremacy as it is a matter of a long overdue reckoning with pathetic, bitching ungrateful pantywastes.
Long overdue and I am ecstatic that I have lived to see it and the overthrow of the Uncle Tom milquetoast conservatives and RINO’s who lacked the courage to do this for well over a generation. To hell with the George F. Will’s of the world. They are cowardly, complacent losers.
Слава Трампу!
Слава Путину!
Слава Победе!
PS: Re: “Offending is not the problem, fanning the flames of stereo types and hate are. Fine line your walking, Christianemou!”
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!!!
Misha! Not much to disagree with your post. I don’t care for pc bullsh** or affirmative action policies. I want the best person for the job, regardless of race or sex. I simply don’t see any need to stereotypes, they serve no purpose, other than to pit one group against another. Remember Misha, the enlighten elite, view us Christians as complete idiots in our belief and worship of Jesus! If the lie/stereotype is spoken enough it becomes the truth. One of the reasons I fear what my son has coming his way, when he attends college next year.
Please translate the Russian, and “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!!”
“I come not to bring peace, but a sword.”
The division and raising the temperature I see as a positive good. Catharsis is in order before any theoria or theosis can occur.
Stereotypes are usually based on factual reality. They just exaggerate what has a foundation of truth. Sometimes they are baseless of course. It varies.
For example, the stereotype that Russians are notorious alcoholics has a firm basis in verifiable statistics. It is an overgeneralization, of course. Not all Russians are alcoholics. But it is a much bigger problem in Russia than in many other places and profoundly lowers the life expectancy of Russian males as a consequence. Never fear the truth, for the truth shall set you free.
The same is true regarding black intelligence, the rate of violent crime in the black community and the physical/emotional status of women compared with men. It is simply objective reality. These things are denied, spun, massaged to death and demagogically suppressed. But they’re simply true and nothing is going to change that fact.
As to “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”: I intend to escalate and I hope that Trump will do so as well. If he does, I think he may prevail. If he doesn’t, he will surely lose.
Glory to Trump!
Glory to Putin!
Glory to Victory!
It is a somewhat humorous parody of the slogans of the Ukrainian nationalist movement.
Matthew 10:34 is a great paradox. How will we respond to our persecution, is the question.
The stereotype of black intelligence, really has nothing to do with their skin color, it is their past, and present human condition, from slaves, to their horrid conditions today, created in large part by our Government. An average black child’s intelligence is no different than that of a average white child if both were adopted by the same family, in a “normal” upper middle class type family, given the same education. The only exception will be that the white child child will be given more opportunities, because of said stereotypes, prejudice, and racism.
Same with Russians under better conditions, they could break the vicious cycle of alcoholism. Ninety percent of what we are comes from our family, and social conditions. They need to hit the books, not the bottle!
In regards to Trump. He must put on the blinders, and plow ahead. The devil will mock his every step. I agree with you, he must show no quarter, to the left, who only seek his destruction, and ours.
Misha, you’re wrong again! Here’s your latest howler:
“Glory to Trump!
Glory to Putin!
Glory to Victory!”
It is a somewhat humorous parody of the slogans of the Ukrainian nationalist movement.”
It’s neither somewhat humorous nor a parody of anything. It’s a worshipful imitation of the following German slogans:
“Heil Trump! Heil Putin! Sieg, Heil!”
However Hitler was not as blatantly licentious and adulterous as Mr Trump brags of himself (to the cheers of his envious and adoring apostles)..
Does all that mean that PC is no longer PC? A NEW PC?
Now I feel stuipd. That’s cleared it up for me
http://theweek.com/articles/663225/demagogic-genius-donald-j-trump
This guy kind of gets Trump from his own progressive perspective. Yet I think they all underestimate the most serious of possibilities which may very well stem from either race or perv politics (class and femme politics likely will not become explosive for other reasons).
In 1970, student demonstrations at Kent State in Ohio got way out of hand with rocks and bottles being thrown at police over consecutive days in late April – early May. Finally, the National Guard was called in and the university cancelled all demonstrations (an action later found to be legal and justified) and distributed 12,000 leaflets announcing the same.
What followed was tragic and a matter of public record:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
This was in reaction to the imposition of the lottery draft affecting many previously excluded students and the fact that Nixon had just announced the campaign into Cambodia.
What do you think would happen in response to some Trump initiative if large demonstrations took place around the country which became equally or more disruptive to public order? Could be racially based or “sexual orientation” based. Could be in response to actions taken against illegal immigrants or against suspected Islamic terrorist elements in America. Regardless, would Trump, Bannon, Flynn and Co. be as restrained as Nixon or some other more conventional administration?
I think not.
Perhaps it would be for the best though. Something has to change the New York, LA, DC mindset of progressive entitlement and a serious, violent shock to the public nervous system may be what is required just to make sure the intentions and commitment of all parties is fully appreciated.
Misha is now promoting federal power over the citizenry in the ultimate statist fashion.
So humorous when you sit back and realize that statism is accepted as long as your guy is in charge and has the perceived machismo to kick demonstrators butts.
The demonstrations against the Vietnam war were possibly one of the greatest examples of American freedom in the history of the nation. Rocks and bottles of a few were rewarded with state power and bullets and Misha lauds it. ?
Hysterical.
Yes, it all depends on what you’re fighting for. One of Steven Segal’s best lines was in a movie where a woman was aghast at the response he contemplated to someone else’s outrageous violent conduct.
She exclaimed, “You’re as bad as they are!”
He replied, “Oh no, I’m much worse.”
Hi Misha,
A couple of lines I really enjoyed in Steven Seagal’s movies are from Hard to Kill.
I liked when he said, ” Now you’re a good cop.” Also, ” This is for my wife; bleep you and die.” Also,” Ohhhh Vernnnn, I want to kill you so bad I can taste it.”One of my favorite actors. A guilty pleasure.
Yeah, Steven’s great. Putin made him a Russian citizen recently.
I don’t feel guilty about liking him. The world needs its St. Sergeis but also its St Dmitri Donskoys.
Dear Mr. Michaelopulos:
As much has I am loath to wade back into the Monomakhos swamp, I do think the comment on this month’s election posted by Fr. Alexander F. C. Webster, PhD does deserve a response.
Fr. Alexander wrote:
In the wee hours of this morning, we learned that God the Holy Trinity had bestowed an extraordinary gift of grace upon our American Republic through the much maligned American electorate—a second chance to reverse the cultural, moral, and political slide that we, the people of the United States, have allowed—and even fostered—during the last few decades, a second chance to keep our Republic alive and to revive the unique American spirit that celebrates faith, family, community, patriotism, and liberty and justice for all as participants in the American experiment in ordered liberty.
Of course, Fr. Alexander is exactly correct in that nothing occurs outside of God’s providence. However, if Mr. Trump’s election as out next president is a “gift of grace”, then we must therefore also accept that the previous elections of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama were also such divine gifts.
We must also recognize that God’s gift are not always felicitous. Indeed, a review of sacred history reveals that more often than not, God’s gifts are stern rebukes, painful chastisements or searing trials of faith. Indeed the Prophet Isaiah tells us:
“ I will give children to be their princes, and mockers will rule over them. The people will collapse, every one on another and every one on his neighbor. The child will be arrogant toward the elder and vulgar toward the honorable.”
Isaiah 3:4-5
Sound familiar?
Perhaps, the esteemed Fr. Alexander is counting on Mr. Trump’s election to serve as a catalyst for moral renewal; that Mr Trump and his crew “will open their hearts to the Holy Spirit and let Him work wonders through them” “Sometimes hope is a worthwhile plan”. Such hope in Mr. Trumps is certainly novel, if somewhat far-fetched.
After all, Mr. Trump is a self proclaimed serial adulterer, who took to the airwaves to proclaim his ability to force himself on various women and to brag about his latest conquests in an interview given while his third wife was pregnant with his youngest sone. This same Mr. Trump has made his career out of catering to the prurient interests of others (gambling, luxury entertainment and beauty contests). This same Mr .Trump bragged of the profit he made on his billion dollar bankruptcy, while his creditors were left broke and the Altantic City economy was wrecked, leaving thousands of hard working taxpayers out of work. This same Mr. Trump, who dodged the draft with the excuse of bad feet, had the gall to mock the service of Senator McCain who spent 5 years undergoing torture in a North Vietnamese prison camp. This same Mr. Trump publicly mocked the disabled and belittled women with the worst kinds of language.
Donald Trump is an unlikely catalyst to reverse the degradation of moral standards in America. IndeedMr. Trump is the epitome of modern America debauchery and the very icon of soulless vulgarity!
It is certainly possible that Fr. Alexander is counting on Mr Trump’s promise to appoint conservative Supreme Court justices who might reverse the liberal legislation that contributes to our current anxiety over religious freedom. Well, perhaps.
Unfortunately, in the few days since the election, Mr. Trump has already reneged and all of his campaign promises. Much has been made of the loud lamentation of the Left. It seems to me that it ought to be Mr. Trumps’s supporters who should be weeping now. After all, Mr Trump has broken every one of his promises to them.
Trump promised to repeal Obamacare, now he is going to keep its primary and most costly provisions. He was going to investigate the Clinton e-mails. Remember “Lock her up!”? Now, he wants her to “heal”. He was going to have the most clean and transparent administration in history. Now he intends to serve as president while still controlling his personal business dealings, despite the clear conflict of interest. He just met with Indian investors in the Trump brand who hope to benefit from his presidency. His daughter sat in on his meeting with Japanese Prime minister Shinzo Abe, while the press corp was excluded from that meeting. Frankly Trump is already making the Clinton scandals pale in comparison with the astounding dereliction of his duty to serve the interests of the American people above his own cavalier interests.
Trump promised to build a “beautiful 25 ft high wall along the entire southern border”. The wall has now been downgraded to a fence, and his team are already hinting at further retractions in the plan. Look for the entire project to end up as another government ‘make work’ boondoggle that does nothing to increase security. Anyone with any familiarity with the region would know that the project was technically impossible and prohibitively expensive. For the Trump true believers, I have a word: “Tunnels”. The drug gangs routinely build tunnels under the existing walls. Several years ago the border patrol discovered a tunnel extending from a warehouse in Nogales, Sonoroa under the wall to another warehouse in Nogales Arizona. That tunnel was large enough to drive a fully loaded panel truck through! Build a wall, get real! Mr. Trump promised that Mexico would pay for that great wall, not they won’t.
When a reporter asked Trump advisor, Newt Gingrich, about the promise to make Mexico pay for the wall, Gingrich replied with a condescending sneer: “That was a campaign device.” Get that, a “campaign device” In politician-speak “a campaign device” means “a blatant, cynical, bold face lie, and by the way, how dare you expect me to keep my word you, you ignorant gullible rube” It is now perfectly clear the Mr. Trump and his crew hold his own supporter in the exact same contempt with which he has treated his opponents.
So, while Fr. Alexander may “hope” that Mr Trump will be struck by a divine vision and change his stripes, the reality is that Fr. Alexander would have better odds mortgaging his home to buy lottery tickets.
Those of us who supported socially conservative causes and hoped for a conservative Supreme Court have been disappointed again and again. After all it was Sandra Day O’Connor, a conservative Reagan appointee, who wrote the decision in Planned Parenthood vs Casey upholding Roe vs. Wade: “matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment” It was Anthony Kennedy, a conservative Bush appointee, who wrote the Obergefell decision establishing gay marriage as a constitutional right.
Indeed, Fr. Alexander is most correct when he quotes the Psalmist: “Do not put your trust in rulers, in sons of men, in whom there is no salvation. His breath shall go out of him, and he shall return to his earth. On that day, all his thoughts will perish. Blessed is he whose help is in the God of Jacob; his hope is in the LORD his God.” Psalm 145:3-5
The question then remains, whom does Fr Alexander expect to achieve the hoped for renewal of American morality and piety? The alt-right partisans who salute Trump with the Hitler salute? Trump, himself? The church?
One might hope that the final answer is the one Fr. Alexander might choose; but even that comes with a caveat. Our Orthodox Church is not a growing community. On the contrary, the sad statistics show that the overwhelming majority of our own children have chosen to walk away from the faith.
What is more, the moral wiriness of the Orthodox faith is fatally compromised by the insidious rise of “political Orthodoxy” the ideology that reduces Christianity to a ‘global cultural world view’. Political Orthodoxy divides the world into a Manichean tribal cult, pitting “us versus them”. Political Orthodoxy uses the “degenerate evil West” meme as an excuse for the Russian invasions of Orthodox countries and the willful destruction of innocent civilians and Orthodox holy places.
Fr. Alexander wants us to accept his bona fides as a champion of the “sanctity of life”; but where was his advocacy for life when Russian troops bombed innocent civilians in occupied Georgia? Where was Fr. Alexander’s defense of the sacred, when Russian and Ossetian troops under the direct command of Vladimir Putin rocketed the Ghvertaeba Cathedral in Nikazi with rockets “blessed” by Russian bishop Theophan, or when those same soldiers desecrated the Holy Altar and burned that ancient house of God? Where is Fr. Alexander’s defense of the scared traditions, when his own Moscow Patriarchate expelled the last legitimate Orthodox clergy in occupied Abkhazia, and constructed a schismatic “Abkhaz Eparchy” on the ruins to the true church? Where is his defense of holy Orthodoxy when his Moscow Patriarchate receives into its ranks and awards its highest honor to with the schismatic renegade monk Vissarion Apliaa. Where was his indignation when Hieromonk Andrea Kurashvili, and subdeacon Giorgi Adua were brutally tortured and martyred by mercenaries under Russian command at the shrine of the repose of St. John Chrysostom in Komana in occupied Abkhazeti?
Where was Fr. Alexander’s witness for life when the Russian BUK missile shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over occupied Ukraine? Does Fr. Alexander hope to win American souls for the Orthodox faith when the clergy of his Moscow Patriarchate “bless” the nuclear weapons aimed at American cities, while Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Kiselov threatens to turn American cities and our children into “piles of radioactive dust” in an unprovoked nuclear first strike?
Wisdom is justified by all her children. Luke 7:35
If Fr. Alexander wishes to spark a spiritual and moral revival, he might want to start by addressing the festering sins that are poisoning our Orthodox Church, the unconfessed and un-repented sins of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and the religious persecution of fellow Orthodox Christians, sins perpetrated with the complicity and blessing of his own Moscow Patriarchate. Repentance, like charity, must begin at home. “First remove the plank from you own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck for your brother’s eye”. Matthew 7:5.
The Trump election is so satisfying to some because it appeals to their atavistic tribalism, their penchant for the zero sum ”us versus them” take no prisoners assault on their perceived opponents. The tragedy of our present day “political Orthodoxy”, is that it replaces the gospel of the God, who “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” with a political ideology that permits and justifies not just political violence but the actual killing of innocents in its campaign of conquest. You only have to read the prior comments on this blog to see that this is so.
The tragedy of our church in these perilous times is that we have forgotten the teaching of St. Silouan, that the essence of Christianity is our Lord’s saying “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” Matthew 5:44
“Do this, and you shall live” Luke 10:28
Everything else is just more cynical and demonic flimflammery.
A blessed fast to all.
It’s good to have you back Francis.
As usual, I’ll leave your “all Georgia good/Russia bad all the time” rants alone as their incessant repetitions cause you to beclown yourself.
Also, I will let Fr Alexander defend his positions on his own, especially given the fact that he’s got a PhD as well as an MDiv.
If however, you will allow me to defend Pres-elect Trump on one minor issue: he most certainly did not “take to the airwaves” to proclaim his ability to have his way with various and sundry women. Though indelicate to the extreme, that was a private conversation between him and Billy Bush that was surreptitiously recorded.
Nor has he “reneged” on any his campaign promises. Of course he will on some but that is normal –we didn’t elect a dictator but a magistrate.
And no, he didn’t say he wouldn’t prosecute Hillary only that he “couldn’t” see going forward with the e-mail investigation. If logic, this is called a contigency, one based on his own agency as a Federal executive and one which leaves open future actions. To say nothing at all about the fact that the FBI’s investigation is ongoing –as is the Congresses’ for that matter.
Apples and oranges.
Francis is a favorite of mine, of course.
I was not surprised by the HRC reversal. The only things that he has done so far that I’m disappointed in are his seeming backpeddling on “climate change” and his apparently kind remarks about the NYT.
What he should have told the press, if he didn’t, was that neither he nor they believe in objective journalism, which is a chimera. The press, for the most part, operated as a department of the DNC for most of its election coverage. They were completely shameless.
There are verifiable facts and there is spin. News is a mixture of the two. It matters which facts you report and how you spin them. He should have said that they will find facts favorable to the administration’s positions and spin them in a positive manner if they want him to make their lives heaven; and that if they are too interested in finding facts unfavorable to the administration or spinning anything in a negative way then he will make their lives hell. And he should emphasize that he is gravely serious about this.
His objective should be to tame a renegade press as Putin did in Russia.
Misha. Why is the press that reports favorable things about a Democratic president “completely shameless” while a press that reports favorably about a Republican president is “patriotic?”
See my response about Misha going all federal on us now. Mind boggling.
Francis, one word: Bravo. Profoundly wise, important, and true, words. Please pray for me.
Yes, Mike. Francis really did get the Trumpists’ number, and one of them, George M., really had no facts to contradict him!
Au contraire, Your Grace! I did actually dispute and disprove one of Mr Frost’s assertions. As for the rest I had no time to sort through his usual Bad Vlad/Good Georgia diatribe.
Regardless, I wish you and all my readers a blessed Thanksgiving.
Dear Mr. Michaelopulos:
For those who are keeping score:
Mr Tump has reversed his promise to bring back water boarding for suspected terrorists. Mr. Trump has embraced the LGBTQ (have they added on any more letters yet?) agenda. He is going full throttle on commingling the presidency with his own personal business interests, never mind the conflicts of interest, never mind the Emoluments clause in the U. S Constitution. Our new First Lady will not inhabit the White House, as she wants to focus on “teaching my son good morals”, probably a good choice on her part. After, all we’re likey to see roulette tables and Bunga – Bunga parties ala Berlusconi in the White house come the New Year.
So, what we are left with of the vaunted Trump agenda is more deficit spending to goose the economy. “We’re all Keynsians now!” and a looming trade war with the rest of the world. As for “making America great again”, China is already negotiating it’s own trade deal with the 23 nations we stood up when we dropped the TTP. China can buy its wheat and soy beans from Australia and Brazil, instead of the U.S. Have you checked the commodity markets lately? Pity the poor farmers counting on Trump to “make America great again”. Perhaps, Trump is unaware that GM sells more of its automobiles in China than in North America. Put a 35 % tariff on Chinese imports and put Wal-Mart and all the other box stores out of business. Protectionism – what a strategy in a global market! Bravo, Bufo!
So, what we have is a goosed economy, ala Bush 43, and this time, when the easy credit balloon pops, we will be in a full bore trade war.
Jeopardy quiz:
Answer: Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act
Question: What caused the Great Depression?
Really, you just couldn’t make this stuff up !
Seriously, remember this: “ I will make children to be their rulers, and mockers will rule over them “ Isaiah 3:4
Of course, my concern is not the civil government; but the political invasion of our Orthodox faith and the subornation of the Holy Gospel to a Manichaen, belligerent and anti-American ideology. “Political Orthodoxy” is both a heresy and a cancer in the church. It denies the goodness of God’s creation and God’s own mercy. Look at “Misha’s” recent post: “Glory to Trump! Glory to Putin! Glory to victory!” There was a time when we said “ Glory to Jesus Christ”. And somehow it escapes all of you how far we, the Orthodox have fallen!
You laugh off the real suffering of innocent civilians as ‘politics’ and I tell you George, because you and all the other Putinists have condoned and applauded the murder of innocents, Christians and Muslims alike, God will not count you among the guiltless on the day of judgement! Thus God said: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground!”
You call me a clown, so be it – if only I can be a fool for the Christ.
The tragedy of our times is that our leaders and our clergy have forgotten the Gospel, the Gospel of mercy and love. They fight political fights and they have forgotten what Solzhenitsyn taught: “The line between good and evil runs directly through each human heart”.
“The Gospel begins “ Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand”, yet our clergy hope in human rulers; childen and mockers all, rather than trusting in the God who made the heaven and the earth. This a very great sin, and still “their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” Matthew 13:15
“Turn, o Lord, how long, and be entreated for thy people”
A blessed fast to a all
“You laugh off the real suffering of innocent civilians as ‘politics’ and I tell you George, because you and all the other Putinists have condoned and applauded the murder of innocents, Christians and Muslims alike, God will not count you among the guiltless on the day of judgement! Thus God said: ‘What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground!'”
Orthodoxy has been revived in Russia and the evil neo-con/progressive cabal has been trying to “contain” it since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It tried to do so in the Balkans in the 1990’s and later in Georgia and the Ukraine. The Georgians got less than what they deserved for following the advice of the neo-con warmonger McCain. Had they not air-dropped Condi Rice into Tblisi, it would have been taken by the Red Army in retribution for the attack on the South Ossetians and Russian peacekeepers stationed there. Saakashvili can’t even hold a job in the Ukraine now. Pathetic.
Speaking of the Ukraine, revenge is a dish best served cold. To the extent citizens of the RF interfered in the American election, it is certainly poetic justice for the coup d’etat that the US and EU attempted in Kiev. What goes around comes around, no?
Nonetheless, Francis, it is good to have you back. You’re such an easy target and good excuse to get gangsta. Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!
I myself would cut the estimable Mr Frost more slack if I saw the same level of compassion for our Serb brothers at the hands of St Clinton of Little Rock, who chose to bomb them on Orthodox Easter –our holiest day.
Great points, Mr. Frost. Report today is that security at his Trump Tower will cost taxpayers about $1.5 million yearly, as the Trumps like to sleep in their own beds. So ironic that someone who has not paid taxes for dozens of years now gives us a huge bill for security at his Fifth Avenue condo. More to come, I am sure. Happy Thanksgiving to all.
$1.5 million a year is incorrect, far, far more than that. $1.5 billion a year is probably excessive, but not by as much as you might think, we’ll have to see. The Secret Service is already leasing two whole floors of Trump Tower to run operations out of. As expensive as that might seem (reportedly about $3 million a year), it’s chump change to personnel costs. Trump is going to be there often enough that the security perimeter and screening procedures for the building will need to be in effect at all times. That’s a significant amount NYPD and Secret Service manpower 24/7 even when Trump is not in residence. Frequent travel to and from the Trump Tower and the White House is also eye-wateringly expensive. For POTUS to travel anywhere is incredibly expensive, even domestically. If Trump is really going to do it 40+ times a year he is going to set some very expensive records.
I laugh.
My neighbor was bitching about Obama flying AF1 with his family to Hawaii.
His conservative viewpoint is the President should fund his own travels (while bullet dodging). He believes this would weed out the Commuity Organizers from running for President, or at least give some clear shots.
But in reality, just flying Trump’s 10 year old and wife around is probably going to cost us 50 million a year. If you consider all the staff, planes, limos, etc. This is when the right typically says touche’. Otherwise, the world is coming to an end.
My God, imagine if Chelsea rode in a White House limo. You’d never hear the end of it from the right. I would like to thank the voters for preventing that, but the alternative isn’t any better.
Can’t wait for my neighbor to say something about the liberals. I’m going to deliver the deathblow with Trump’s travel budget.
Perhaps, I can share my experience with the Secret Service. After all, it really is all about me. (just kidding) Living in Plymouth on the south shore of Massachusetts, it was impossible not to run into the Kennedy family at times.
As my story goes, when Ted Kennedy was running for President in 1980, I had occasion to travel to Squaw Island in Hyannis,MA to visit the erstwhile Senator at his home. To my surprise, a uniformed secret service agent followed into Senator Kennedy’s driveway. After a very brief conversation, he cleared me to enter the Senator’s home; to my surprise, on the wall in Kennedy’s kitchen, he had a bumper sticker on his wall that said,” We want cranberries, not peanuts.” I’ve been to the late Senator’s home many times in addition to Rose Kennedy’s home several times and Sargent Shriver’s summer residence one time. It was very interesting being in these historical landmarks. Also, when Jack Kennedy was a congressman, he spoke at my father’s school. I thought they were pretty nice people on a personal basis.
Oh please. The president-elect’s home is ALWAYS a matter of national security—no matter who he is or where his home is located.
So, if Obama decided to keep his daughters in Chicago, that would have been cool with y’all?
That part at the end was fun, wa’nt it George?
Francis, Francis, Francis, you’re just not getting it.
Even if Trump reneges on all his promises (an impossibility) or delivers on half (more probable), the fact of the matter is that those of us who voted for him didn’t do it because we thought he farted cherry blossoms but simply because he destroyed the Bush dynasty and the Clinton crime family. (And he most certainly did take the wind out of the Globalists’ sails! Thank you good people of Old Blighty as well!)
Just seeing Martha Raddatz, Wolf Blitzer and Megyn [sic] Kelly, et al fight to choke back tears on election night was all worth it. It was simply the political upset of several lifetimes.
Hi George,
You hit the nail on the head when you said that we Trump supporters voted for him because he destroyed the Bush and Clinton Crime Families. It’s very interesting that the totally irrelevant, low energy Jeb Bush authored an article in the Wall Street Journal on what course the Republican party should pursue. Who cares about this incompetent loser’s opinions?
My vote for Donald Trump was a vote against the evil forces that have enveloped our country. The cultural marxism that has wrecked our country is truly disconcerting. I’m so sick and tired of hearing about “diversity, sensitivity training, misogyny, homophobia, Islamophobia, and xenophobia.”
On another note, I think President- elect Donald Trump is an ignorant egomaniac. In my opinion, he really does have serious psychological issues. I was watching a segment on YouTube showing one of his appearances on the Howard Stern show. On the Stern show, he said the National Enquirer had written that he had more beautiful women than anyone else in history. Talk about delusions of grandeur. I also heard him say that ” it is very difficult for a flat chested woman to be a ten.” He also that if Ivanka wasn’t his daughter he would date her. What kind of person talks like that? I’ve seen many inappropriate pictures of Ivanka and him together. There was one picture of Ivanka sitting on his lap when she was fifteen. Very unseemly, to say the least. Having said all that, I voted for him and would do so again. The alternatives were that bad.
Completely agree. I imagine you and I are of similar age and if so, Donald Trump came to our consciousness sometime in the late 70s early 80s. While I was impressed with his business acumen & skills, I was not impressed with his New Yawk braggadocio or his personal life. Or his haircut or his appearances on Howard Stern, or… you get the picture.
Like you however, he was the perfect vehicle (perhaps by Providence) to destroy those two wretched global dynasties. I’m sure you or I or any other Christian would have approved of Cyrus the Great in his day or Alexander the Great or the Roman Empire. I realize what I am about to say is controversial, but say it I must (and not without a heavy heart): all of Yet these men and institutions were vehicles for God’s grace in the divine economy.
I know Prods really can’t stand Constantine the Great but in what way is he “not” a saint while King David of Israel is? You don’t have to read too hard between the lines of I-IV Kingdoms to realize that David wasn’t a choirboy.
Trump is appointing billionaires, millionaires and Washington DC Insiders, just as he promised The Faithful. “Hail Victory!”
Better than the Pizzagate crew.
I have to agree with Misha and Brian on this one. While Americans who are trying to “sound proper” are notorious for underusing the pronoun “me” and substituting “I” (or even worse, “myself”) where they don’t belong, this isn’t one of them. My attention was first drawn to this chronic misuse of first person singular pronoums when I was in high school, when I read an article in in Time or Newsweek entitled “Just Between You and I.” (If that title doesn’t sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to your ears, then the gentle reader needs a refresher course, as I did at the time.)
This is of course in part a misguided attempt to be self-effacing, thinking “I” sounds less self-centered than “me.” And it is in part a reaction to the well-known fact that, colloquially, Americans often use “me” in casual speech where they technically shouldn’t, such as “it’s me” rather than “it is I.” Of course one runs the risk of sounding like a pompous ass if one actually says the latter in everyday conversation or on the telephone. Likewise, there are perhaps situations where one might sound a bit pompous by saying “than I” in colloquial speech, but I wouldn’t consider this to be one of them. And it is never wrong, so far as i know.
Our German relatives prefer “I am it” (ich bin’s).