All

“But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.  And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.” 

Matthew 21: 38-39.

One event only has made the Holy Land holy.  It is an event that was in many ways odd.  It was certainly quite unlike conventional notions of a holy and sanctifying event.   Harps were absent; the air was most likely heavy and foul; diaphanous light was nowhere to be seen.  It was, to be frank, a shabby event, on a grubby day, in a squalid place.  And I am sorry to say that the conduct of every man who took part was disgraceful.

There may be other holy lands on other planets, reverenced by beings quite different than ourselves; but this is the Holy Land of men.  They say everyone gets the face he deserves.  I say all planets and beings get the holy land they deserve.

Ours, the holy land of mankind, is a shabby, squalid, grubby place of disgrace.

In Scripture, the word grace means favor, so when we read that Noah “found grace in the eyes of the Lord,” we are being told that Noah found favor.  He became, not without reason, God’s favorite.  In a proverb it is said of God, “Surely he scorneth the scorners but he giveth grace to the lowly,” and we are thereby supplied with the antonym of the word grace.  That antonym is scorn.

We have another proverb from the playwright poet William Congreve, commonly rendered as “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”  Few men pass through life without seeing this confirmed, either intimately or at some short distance.  The actual lines from Congreve are,

“Heaven has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.”

The woman in question is raging and furious because she is no longer her former lover’s favorite.  She has been scorned, has fallen out of favor, has been disgraced.  In scripture disgrace likewise means withdrawal of God’s favor (see Jeremiah 14:21).

What Congreve tells us, and all experience confirms, is that the withdrawal of favor very often makes the former favorite insane.  It sometimes causes the former favorite to seek the reasons he or she fell from favor, and to try to reform.  But since men and women are, for the most part, narcissistic and vainglorious beings, this does not happen very often.

It certainly did not happen when God’s favor was withdrawn in our Holy Land.

Many Christians are in the habit of chanting that the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world, but I daresay very few consider that he first took away what had been the world’s grace.  God’s former favorites fell out of favor, and much of their conduct ever since, like that of Congreve’s jilted woman, has been predictably disgraceful. 

Rage, hate and fury; fury, hate and rage.  At God, and more especially at God’s new favorite.  There is, it appears, no jealousy so deathless as the jealousy of men who no longer find grace in the eyes of God.

All of this was, of course, foretold in a  parable that is hot, strangely enough, a homiletic favorite.  This is sometimes called, “The Parable of the Householder Demanding Fruit from His Vineyard.”  In the parable said householder plants and trims an excellent vineyard, and then graciously lets it to some favored husbandmen (i.e. caretakers).  The householder thereupon travels to a far country.  After a time, the householder sends servants to receive the fruits of his vineyard, and these servants the favored husbandmen stone and kill.  At last, the householder sends his son, thinking that even the most obstreperous husbandmen will respect his flesh and blood.  But he is mistaken, as the line in my epigraph relate.

The householder therefore withdraws his favor from the obstreperous and homicidal husbandmen.  In modern terms, the former favorites are fired, sacked, given the boot.  Because the householder’s former favorites rendered no fruit and murdered his son, they no longer find grace in his eyes.  They are now and forever disgraced.

Thus, when Jesus asked his disciples what the householder would do to his former favorites, they correctly answer.

“He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.”

This parable of course foretells the disgrace of the Jews, the termination of their days of employment as God’s favorites.  As Jews (not as individual human beings), they are scorned from that day hence (their former status having been been “miserably destroyed”), and this withdrawal of God’s favor has, predictably, made made many of these former favorites insane.

I have said that our Holy Land is a place of disgrace.  No doubt many of you are itching to remind me that it is a place of grace also.  This is true, but that is not something of which Christians needs to be reminded.  Christians remembers without bidding that Christ rose from the dead.  Christians must be reminded that, before that glorious advent of grace, “the veil of the temple was rent in twain.”

“From the top to the bottom,” in case there is any doubt.

Our Holy Land must a place of disgrace because we are narcissistic and vainglorious beings who must be reminded that God has no fixed favorites.  He does not love us for what we are, but for what we do.  He could snap the Cross in two, just as he rent the veil of the temple in twain.  Disgrace may come to any man, any tribe, any church.

Jesus loves me, but I know,
It may not always be thus so,
Serve him well, he has your back,
Otherwise you get the sack.

Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
But he can let me go!

I am very saddened to report (via the Facebook page of the Oxford Oratory) that the great Fr John Hunwicke died on Tuesday, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. As many of our readers know, he was a priest of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham; his blog, Fr Hunwicke’s Mutual Enrichment, was an incomparably valuable repository of wisdom, wit and erudition, and we have very often Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0

US Factory Orders Rise In March... But February Saw Yet Another Downward Revision Tyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 10:11

Programming note: As part of the Mark Steyn Club seventh birthday observances, I'll be launching a new weekly show on Serenade Radio this Saturday at 5pm UK time/12 noon North American Eastern. I hope you'll join us. We continue to receive very generous

Greetings, shalom one and all and welcome to the POST PASSOVER edition of Laura's Links. I thought kvetching about the cleaning and Passover prep would get the kvetching out of my system but no, I still would like to complain a little bit about being

American universities are besieged by students protesting their schools’ investments in U.S. suppliers of weaponry to the Israeli government, which Israeli officials are using to carry out their military campaign in Gaza. Some universities are now calling in riot police to break up the protests as well as suspending or expelling the protestors. Some university officials and their supporters in the mainstream press are accusing the protestors of being antisemitic.

The accusation of being antisemitism from supporters of the Israeli government is a longstanding one. The supporters are saying that when one opposes the polices and practices of the Israeli government — or the Israeli state itself — that shows that one is antisemitic — that is, that one not only opposes the Israeli government but also that he hates Jews in general. That response has always been a very successful strategical way to suppress dissent against the Israeli government. Since many people do not wish to be perceived as antisemitic, they decide to keep their criticisms of the Israeli government to themselves rather than being labeled as antisemitic.

However, in conflating the Israeli government with Judaism, the proponents of the Israeli government end up actually encouraging antisemitism. That’s because critics of the Israeli government who don’t know much about Judaism are induced to believe that the Israeli government and the Jewish faith are one and the same thing. Therefore, if one concludes that the Israeli state is doing something immoral or bad, the notion is that the immoral and bad act is also part of the Jewish religion. Therefore, conflating the Israeli state and the Jewish religion as a strategic device to suppress dissent against the Israeli government actually serves to encourage the very antisemitism that defenders of the Israeli government lament.

During the child-abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, there were people who criticized the Vatican for what they perceived was indifference to child abuse on the part of the Catholic state. As far as I know, the Vatican never made it a policy to respond to the criticisms by accusing critics of being anti-Catholic. Such being the case, people were able to discern that while indifference to child abuse might well have been part of the Catholic state, it was not part of the Catholic religion. Thus, people could separate out the two concepts by criticizing the Vatican while not being perceived as being anti-Catholic.

Let’s assume, however, that the Vatican or its supporters had responded in the same way that defenders of the Israeli state respond. Let’s assume that they said that the criticisms of the Vatican reflected the religious prejudice of the critics. That is, the defenders of the Vatican would be saying that if you criticize the Vatican, it shows that you are prejudiced against Catholics. In that case, one could easily imagine people who didn’t know much about Catholicism would conclude that Catholicism and the Vatican were one and the same thing. Therefore, given that they opposed what they perceived to be the Vatican’s indifference to child abuse, the conflation of the Vatican and Catholicism would encourage them to oppose Catholicism as much as they opposed the Vatican.

Therefore, to diminish antisemitism, the defenders of the Israeli government would be wise to discard their strategy of conflating the Israeli state and the Jewish faith as a way to suppress dissent against the Israeli state. They should instead be emphasizing that the Israeli state and the Jewish religion are two separate and distinct things and that the policies and practices of the Israeli state are not necessarily the tenets of the Jewish religion. In that way, students and others would feel free to criticize the Israeli state while, at the same time, support and embrace the Jewish religion.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

'Unity': Pro-Israel And Pro-Palestine Supporters Chant "F**k Joe Biden" In Solidarity As Democrats In 'Panic Mode'  Tyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 09:35

Last week, Congress voted to send $95 billion in additional aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

The largest portion was to Ukraine – $61 billion – after the Congress had previously approved $114 billion, for a total of $175 billion.

The total GDP of Ukraine in 2022 was $160.5 billion. In other words, we basically could have bought the whole country for less than we have sent them.

Of course, most of this money was approved due to the tremendous lobbying effort made and the big campaign contributions given by the giant defense contractors.

For many years now, as Eisenhower warned, almost all of our wars have been more about money and power than about any real threats to this country.

All giant bureaucracies, when it comes to money, just want more, more and more. And most members of Congress don’t seem to realize, or more likely don’t seem to care, that we are spending money we do not have.

It is almost impossible to humanly comprehend our $35 trillion national debt. And take a moment and try to comprehend how much this latest $95 billion foreign aid bill is.

One billion dollars could make 1,000 Americans millionaires immediately. One billion hours is equal to 114,000 years.

This latest $95 billion is equal to over $260 million each and every day.

The largest recipient, Ukraine, in addition to our $175 billion, has received over $53 billion from the countries of the European Union and at least $42 billion from the World Bank (and 17.5% of World Bank funds come from U.S. taxpayers).

As I pointed out in my March 4th column, Ukraine actually has had more money to fight this latest war than Russia has.

As of 2023, the total GDP of the U.S was $26.9 trillion. Russia’s GDP of  $2.1 trillion is actually much smaller than California’s GDP and about equal to that of Texas.

Just prior to this war with Russia, Ukraine’s government was rated as one of the most corrupt in the world. We would probably be sickened if we could ever really find out how much of this aid has been or will be wasted or stolen.

And as for giving billions in additional aid to Israel and Taiwan, I would ask – why? Both countries are much stronger per capita and in relation to GDP than the U.S. with our humongous debt.

The votes in the House were 311 to 112 on the Ukraine aid; 366 to 58 on aid to Israel; and 385 to 34 on the aid to Taiwan.

On the aid to Ukraine, a majority of Republicans (112) voted no, with all the Democrats voting yes. The Democrats in Congress don’t hesitate to spend money on almost everything.

Only two Tennessee Republicans – David Kustoff of Memphis and Chuck Fleischmann of Chattanooga – voted to send more billions down the Ukrainian rathole. Both Tennessee senators voted against the final bill.

The Congressional Budget Office says interest payments on our national debt will total $870 billion this year and $951 billion next year.

The top one percent already pay almost half of U.S. income taxes. Increases in corporate taxes will be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices for everything.

Thus, most of the increased spending this Congress is doing, in foreign aid and everything else, and in Biden’s shameless campaign of forgiving student loans, will be paid for by printing more money and by even more federal borrowing.

Germany, in the 1920s, was probably the most educated country in the world. Yet, read this from the biography of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

“For Germany, 1923 was disastrous. The German mark, which had begun to slide two years earlier, went into free fall. In 1921 it dropped to 75 marks to the dollar; the next year to 400; and by early 1923 it plunged to 4,000.  But this was only the beginning of sorrows…. The resultant economic turmoil would make the bleak conditions of a few months earlier look like the good old days: by August a dollar was worth one million marks; and by September, August seemed like the good old days. By November 1923 a dollar was worth about four billion German marks.”

In the last 12 months, people from 150 countries have flooded to the U.S. because their governments have adopted socialist policies that have destroyed their economies.

Reprinted with author’s permission from The Knoxville Focus.

When James Madison was a member of Congress in 1791 and charged with drafting the Bill of Rights, he made two grammatical demands. One was that the word “the” precede “freedom of speech” in the First Amendment, and the other was a command in the Ninth Amendment that the “rights retained by the people,” rights too numerous to enumerate, “shall not be disparaged” by the government.

This principle — that our rights preexisted the government — would be played out over and over in litigation in the centuries following the ratification of the Bill of Rights. The ratification itself was insisted upon by five of the new states who threatened to leave the new union unless restraints were added to the Constitution so as to protect the individual liberties that the Declaration of Independence — then only 15 years old — stated unambiguously were granted by the Creator.

Though the colonists deeply valued all the rights articulated in the Declaration, truly it was the freedom of speech that drove the revolution. Yes, the Americans had Kentucky long guns that enabled the colonial militias to shoot and kill British forces from distances that the British weaponry was unable to reach. Yes, the Americans were animated by defending their homeland.

But it was speech — sung in taverns, written in broadsides, delivered in sermons, distributed in pamphlets, adopted by the Continental Congress and colonial legislatures, and proclaimed in town squares from Boston to Charleston — that whipped the brushfires of freedom into a revolution and a new nation.

I offer this brief historical, philosophical and legal analysis of the freedom of speech as background for the discussion that follows.

Today, this most basic and utterly essential freedom — both a natural human right and a constitutionally protected right — is under assault by governments that hate or fear the content of the speech. I am addressing the demonstrations on college campuses today and the authoritarian responses to them by college presidents, governors and mayors.

Here is the dispute in a nutshell.

Students at various universities are repulsed by the gravity of the assault on Gaza by the IDF. They have chosen to address this assault and not the assault on Israeli civilians and military on Oct. 7. They are free to address whichever assault they choose.

They have also chosen to articulate their views by occupying public places on campuses; shouting, singing and haranguing college administrators. The administrators, fearing a loss of donations from those who disagree with the students or harm to other students who challenge the demonstrators, have engaged local and state police to suppress these demonstrations.

Can the government interfere with speech because of its content? In a word: NO.

How about on private property where campuses are not owned by the government? That depends on the location of the campus, as most states — but not all — have public accommodation laws that make college campuses public places available for the articulation of ideas. Even the colleges in states without these laws that accept federal funds do so in contracts with the federal government, which require that they respect free speech rights.

These public accommodation laws and these agreements with the feds are violative of the property rights of the owners of these colleges. Yet, like free speech, property rights, too, are under attack in America today. Nevertheless, today it is clear beyond dispute that college campuses are places for the free exchange of ideas, whether these ideas are approved by the owners of the campuses or not.

Is speech that preaches hate and threatens violence protected on college campuses? In a word: YES.

In Terminiello v. Chicago (1949), a Roman Catholic priest aimed hatred at President Harry Truman and the hate speech produced violence and property damage. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), a Ku Klux Klan leader aimed hatred at Blacks and Jews. In Terminiello, the violence was caused by the audience members who hated the speech they came to scorn. In Brandenburg, the KKK speaker demanded violence, but it never came about.

The Supreme Court sided with both speakers. The jurisprudence from both cases is now integral to American law. It teaches that all innocuous speech is absolutely protected and all speech is innocuous when there is time for more speech to challenge it.

Moreover, the court ruled, freedom of speech is so essential to human happiness and democratic values that it tolerates violence; meaning, those who cause violence can and should be addressed by the criminal justice system, but those who preach it are immune from prosecution, unless they cause an immediate, unthinking violent act — meaning there is no time for more speech to challenge the call for violence.

In the case of college campuses, the violence has been caused by the government. Whether the property on which the demonstrators stand is owned by the government — like the University of Texas, where the governor sent in police on horseback to rough up peaceful demonstrators — or is privately owned like Columbia University, where the mayor sent in police to arrest peaceful students, is of no moment.

No moment because the students have an absolute right to think as they wish, to say what they think, to read what they want, to publish what they believe; and they can do this alone or in groups, quietly or profoundly — and they can do this with impunity. Anything short of leaving them alone involves the governmental evaluation of the content of speech, the very acts that the First Amendment was written to prevent.

Today, the government wants war, and the students want peace. In the bitter days of the 1960s, student demonstrators chased an incumbent president from reelection and chastised a newly elected one into a policy change over war. Today, the government seems determined to use force to prevent change and suppress freedom. If the British had done this successfully in the 1770s, we’d all be bowing to Charles III today.

To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.

COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

On the occasion of a recent international meeting in Rome with 300 priests from every continent, Francis addresses a letter to all parish priests, urging them to 'Experience the joy of being true fathers, who do not dominate others but rather bring out' their 'precious possibilities'.

US Traders Took Powell's Pivot More Seriously Than Foreigners Tyler Durden Thu, 05/02/2024 - 09:15

The Fed presumably has an “implied guaranty” from the Treasury, but it seems certain that Congress never dreamed that the Fed could experience the losses and the negative capital that are now reality.

I will not be able to trace the links, so you will have to trust me on this. However, on the same day I read two articles about religion: one said that, among Protestants (I think particularly Southern Baptists) there were more women living their congregation than men. The other was a regressive whining about […]

Justice in a Shithole Country

Paul Craig Roberts

Russiagate, documentsgate, insurrectiongate, pornstargate and the phony civil and criminal trials being orchestrated against President Trump demonstrate that Democrat attorney generals, prosecutors, and judges have no integrity, no respect for law, and regard law as a weapon to be used against those who stand in the way of their agendas.

Consider, for example, the 34-count indictment brought by black Trump-hater New York city district attorney Alvin Bragg solely on the basis of Bragg’s assertion that Trump falsified business records by reporting extortion payments to an aging pornstar, who apparently threatened to make accusations to disrupt Trump’s presidential campaign unless Trump paid her off, as a legal expense instead of a campaign contribution to his campaign.

It is an absolute fact that business owners and business executives do not make decisions about how expenses are reported. Such decisions are the responsibility of accountants and attorneys. All Trump did was to sign papers prepared by accountants and attorneys, but of course Bragg, a quota-hire, is too stupid to understand how business functions.

Bragg claims, further demonstrating his stupidity and incompetence, that Trump interfered in the 2016 presidential election and got himself elected President by hiding his payment to the pornstar as a legal expense. Bragg’s contention is that otherwise the presstitutes would have used the unsubstantiated pornstar’s allegations to defeat Trump’s 2016 election as president.

How did something this absurd get to be a court case. Clearly, this is NOT THE WAY A FIRST WORLD COUNTRY WITH A RULE OF LAW BEHAVES!
It is the way a shithole country behaves. A shithole country is what Democrats have turned America into.

Bragg’s stupid case based on nothing but Bragg’s assertion of how an expense should be reported so that it can be used as a weapon against Trump–and Bragg is not an accountant–has as its only support Trump-hater Michael Cohen, who wrote a book that claims “Donald Trump is the mirror into the depth of the soul of government corruption. He is the standard bearer for corrupt dictator wannabes. He is the poster boy for fascism.”

Cohen has pleaded guilty to tax evasion, to lying to Congress, and a judge has said that it is likely that Cohen also committed perjury. Yet, Cohen is Bragg’s witness against Trump.

Moreover, the fake charges against Trump are misdemeanor charges, NOT FELONIES. Yet Bragg is falsely presenting them as felonies, claiming that the alleged misreporting of the expense constituted “election fraud.”

Bragg does not have to worry about not having a case. He knows that in NYC the jury will convict Trump even if the entirety of the evidence proves Trump innocent. All Bragg has to do is to bring an indictment. The jury will convict. Nowhere in America, not in the media, trials, medical science, or scholarship do facts any longer matter. All that matters are agendas upheld by official narratives.

There you have it. This is justice in a shithole country.

Be a proud American. “USA, USA, USA!”

The US Constitution Is Another Victim of Genocide

Paul Craig Roberts

A 19th century plantation slave suffered less abuse than an American today and was less likely to have his head cracked open by a police baton than a Columbia University Student. Here are the lost rights of Americans from A to Z: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/05/no_author/the-steady-slide-towards-tyranny-how-freedom-dies-from-a-to-z/

Republican US senators are no better friends of the US Constitution than the administrators at Columbia University, Netanyahu and the Israel Lobby, the NYPD, and the whore media. For example, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R, TN) labeled as “terrorists” students who protest against Israel’s destruction of Palestine. In order to protect Israel from students protesting genocide, Blackburn wants the students added to the terrorist watch list and prohibited from flying:

“Any student who has promoted terrorism or engaged in terrorists[sic] acts on behalf of Hamas should be immediately be [sic] added to the terrorist watch list and placed on the [Transportation Security Administration] No Fly List,” Blackburn wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240502/us-senator-calls-for-palestinian-protesters-to-be-added-to-terrorist-no-fly-lists-1118220031.html The stupid US senator sees the students as acting “on behalf of Hamas” and not on the basis of their moral conscience.

Senator Rick Scott (R, FL) accuses protesting students of violating Israel’s right to commit genocide and wants the US Justice (sic) Department to investigate the students for “conspiring to violate the civil rights of a religious minority.” US senators are falling all over themselves pimping for Netanyahu’s final solution to the “Palestinian Problem.”

One can see American conservatives supporting these demands, not realizing that their own Constitutional rights are in the crosshairs.

Today in America there is no thought. There is only manipulated emotion and the sale of Americans’ honor for campaign contributions. So what does voting fix?

The 21st century began with the George W. Bush’s suspension of habeas corpus on suspicion alone, and American liberty has gone downhill continuously at increasing speed. Only a simulacrum of the country into which I was born remains.

Americans are not permitted to speak freely about Israel. Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs points out the incongruity of a university, whose existence is based on freedom of speech, repressing freedom of speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xJKLT5Y9Os

Closing down voices is today the primary function of the Israel Lobby, media, universities and “education” in general. It applies to faculty as well as to students. The Israel Lobby was able to reach into a Catholic university and cancel the tenure awarded to Norman Finkelstein and into the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and cancel the tenured appointment of a recruit from the University of Virginia. One wonders If the Israel Lobby will order Columbia to fire Professor Sachs.

Rino Republicans Help Democrats Legitimize the Murder of the Unborn in Arizona

When Republicans accepted the stolen Arizona election, they accepted murder.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/arizona-senate-approves-repeal-of-near-total-abortion-ban-5641218?utm_source=RTNews&src_src=RTNews&utm_campaign=rtbreaking-2024-05-01-5&src_cmp=rtbreaking-2024-05-01-5&utm_medium=email&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAceE5JjMFys3H%2BbdAvWpUcQzPZ0WlGLZbDFlFfmdQNQ%3D%3D

On a day when even among local politicians rhetoric about labour abounds, in Pakistan and Sri Lanka the most defenceless groups have tried to make their voices heard. Fr Bonnie Mendes: "Even the Church should value the feast of St Joseph the Worker more to defend their dignity".

On a day when even among local politicians rhetoric about labour abounds, in Pakistan and Sri Lanka the most defenceless groups have tried to make their voices heard. Fr Bonnie Mendes: "Even the Church should value the feast of St Joseph the Worker more to defend their dignity".

The little town of Cocullo in the Abruzzi region of Italy, with a population of less than 250, has a very particular way of celebrating the feast of its Patron Saint, Dominic of Sora. Dominic was one of the great monastic reformers of the later 10th and early 11th century, as active in central and southern Italy (Lazio, Abruzzi and Campagna) as his contemporaries Ss Romuald and Peter Damian Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0