Prosecutors who are questioning witnesses before a grand jury - including two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence - have asked in recent days about conversations with Trump, his lawyers and others in his inner circle, according to two people familiar with the matter.
This item is saying apart from Congressional hearings being broadcast on TV, and apart from generic questions of whether Trump or others broke laws; a grand jury is empaneled and hearing testimony with the possibility that indictments will issue.
The item states from the start:
The Justice Department is investigating President Donald
Trump's actions as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the
2020 election results, according to four people familiar with the
matter.
Prosecutors who are
questioning witnesses before a grand jury - including two top aides to
Vice President Mike Pence - have asked in recent days about
conversations with Trump, his lawyers and others in his inner circle who
sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from some
states Joe Biden won, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing
investigation.
The prosecutors have asked
hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020
and January 2021; his pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the
election; and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisers
about fake electors and sending electors back to the states, the people
said. Some of the questions focused directly on the extent of Trump's
involvement in the fake-elector effort led by his outside lawyers,
including John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, these people said.
In addition, Justice
Department investigators in April received phone records of key
officials and aides in the Trump administration, including his former
chief of staff, Mark Meadows, according to two people familiar with the
matter. That effort is another indicator of how expansive the Jan. 6
probe had become, well before the high-profile, televised House hearings
in June and July on the subject.
The Washington Post and other
news organizations have previously written that the Justice Department
is examining the conduct of Eastman, Giuliani and others in Trump's
orbit. But the degree of prosecutors' interest in Trump's actions has
not been previously reported, nor has the review of senior Trump aides'
phone records.
A Trump spokesman did not
immediately respond to a request for comment. A Justice Department
spokesman and a lawyer for Meadows both declined to comment.
The revelations raise the
stakes of an already politically fraught probe involving a former
president, still central to his party's fortunes, who has survived
previous investigations and two impeachments. Long before the Jan. 6
investigation, Trump spent years railing against the Justice Department
and the FBI; the investigation moving closer to him will probably
intensify that antagonism.
Federal criminal
investigations are by design opaque, and probes involving political
figures are among the most closely held secrets at the Justice
Department. Many end without criminal charges. The lack of observable
investigative activity involving Trump and his White House for more than
a year after the Jan. 6 attack has fueled criticism, particularly from
the left, that the Justice Department is not pursuing the case
aggressively enough.
In trying to understand how
and why Trump partisans and lawyers sought to change the outcome of the
election, one person familiar with the probe said, investigators also
want to understand, at a minimum, what Trump told his lawyers and senior
officials to do. Any investigation surrounding the effort to undo the
results of the election must navigate complex issues of First
Amendment-protected political activity and when or whether a person's
speech could become part of an alleged conspiracy in support of a coup.
Many elements of the
sprawling Jan. 6 criminal investigation have remained under wraps. But
in recent weeks the public pace of the work has increased, with a fresh
round of subpoenas, search warrants and interviews. Pence's former chief
of staff, Marc Short, and lawyer, Greg Jacob, appeared before the grand
jury in downtown Washington in recent days, according to the people
familiar with the investigation.
[...]
[italics added] Anonymous sourcing, with it key to mention of number of persons, undisclosed press sources stating whatever, all that is part of ones who anonymously talk about closed door grand jury activity.
With a grand jury, there is only one lawyer, a prosecutor, presenting evidence to a citizen panel, as and how the prosecutor chooses, with the grand jury to ultimately indict or not. Elsewhere there has been writing about the situation of a sole prosecutor in secret managing a grand jury proceeding, including:
As New York Judge Sol Wachtler said in 1985, “If a district attorney wanted, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.”
Grand juries are the prosecutor’s babies. They decide who gets
picked, what evidence gets presented, and what gets left out. There’s no
judge, no defense attorney, and generally a defendant only testifies in
rare circumstances — his story is so air tight that there’s no down
side in putting him in. There’s no necessity for unanimity among the 23
or so jurors, and the standard of proof is so low — that probable cause
exists to believe a crime has been committed — anyone, for the merest
hint of an offense, can get indicted.
Of course a grand jury can be manipulated the other way - to a non-indictment result equivalent to an acquittal without a trial, depending on presecutorial discretion, in secret, behind closed doors. Wikipedia posting on the Michael Brown shooting death which happened a few years back in Ferguson, MO; white cop shoots black man; extensive protest activity resulting:
A grand jury was called and given extensive evidence from Robert McCulloch, the St. Louis County Prosecutor. On November 24, 2014, McCulloch announced the St. Louis County grand jury had decided not to indict Wilson.[11] In March 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice
reported the conclusion of its own investigation and cleared Wilson of
civil rights violations in the shooting. It found forensic evidence
supported Wilson's account, and that witnesses who corroborated the
officer's account were credible. Witnesses who had incriminated him were
found to be not credible, with some admitting they had not directly
seen the events.[12][13] The U.S. Department of Justice concluded that Wilson shot Brown in self-defense.[14][15]
A new St. Louis prosecutor, Wesley Bell,
spent five months in 2020 reviewing the case with an eye to charging
Wilson with either manslaughter or murder. In July, Bell announced he
would not charge Wilson with any crime.[16]
You and I will never know how a grand jury is handled ["manipulated" being an alternative word] unless we are picked to sit on one. No broadcast. No public transcript. Witnesses and the jurors sworn to secrecy about what they experienced behind the closed doors, witness attorneys barred. All that, but the rationale is it is a preliminary inquiry of whether a crime should or should not be charged, and it can save an accused the cost of an adversarial trial, if no indictment issues. It dates to English law, protections against authority of the King, via right among the peerage to a grand jury and a jury trial each being with a panel of one's peers deciding, factually, what happened and was it criminal. Making it harder for the King to stack the court. What it is now is what it is.
BOTTOM LINE: Do not misunderstand. That a grand jury is sitting and listening is a major step beyond the FBI doing a field investigation. Subpoena power exists, compelling witness attendance, even should a witness invoke Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination as questions from the prosecutor are posed.
This step means the gears are seriously moving.
_________UPDATE_________
The ambiguity of the Michael Brown grand jury process remains online as it had been contemporaneously reported; PBS.
An image encountered on the web some time ago and felt compelling was put atop the sidebar recently and kept there. It was posted with a bare credit since the detail link was lost, and other things pressed on time.
It is particularly appropriate now to notice flag programs. Ramsey, Anoka County, MN, where I live has, (details of the decision unknown to me), posted a flag row along the Town Center main road, with street lighting so that the flags are never left aloft in the dark.
Why appropriate now? It is a federal flag. It is an emphasis to our being a federal nation, comprised of multiple states, but the federal flag and status predominate.
Since the civil war. Those who lost had to pledge allegiance to regain citizenship. That civil war remnant is why the anthem is played at public events, and meetings often are set to an agenda where the pledge begins things.
We are federal. Beyond anything that misguided but cagey lawyers did to us per killing off the great good sense of Roe v. Wade. Wrongheadedly, and as a precursor to much further mischief, the federal right to privacy is real, and despite Dobbs, properly reaches to protect abortion nationwide. As will ultimately be enacted by Congress, in due time, to undo the dastardly Court majority's constraint of freedom.
Back to Denton County Texas Rotary. Starting with:
Whether primarily to salute federalism and its preeminence, or for other reason, that group of individuals felt inspired to highlight within their land area the federal flag. The question of their entire motivation is not an open question, for they published online, explaining:
follow the link or click the image to read it all
Key text:
WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO? Nothing. We will install and pick up the flag every holiday.
Our goal is to show support for our
country, its servicemen and all of our freedoms. Please join your
neighbors and community in supporting and participating in our program.
We will place a United States Flag mounted on a ten (10) foot pole,
approximately 18 inches from the curb, in a non-permanent PVC pipe
receiver in your yard. We are very active in community and humanitarian
projects locally and worldwide. Your participation in the flag program
helps provide the funds that enable us to continue our numerous service
projects.
COST: $40 per calendar year
Contact Colt Edwards at 903-987-3111 or email him at coltedwards@gmail.com to get started!
[italics added] Again a federal flag, with "all of our freedoms" being a key theme.
The folks of that Rotary (on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DentonRotary) may have politics divergent among themselves, perhaps with a majority distant from the political feelings on the Crabgrass blog; but in the spirit of a diverse nation with treasured freedoms, they are noted. That sidebar image just captured the feeling of a free people, each to his own, live and let live, but wanting to be free within a national solidarity.
Clearly the Dobbs decision fits the recent Texas anti-abortion legislation, Texas being the land of Abbott and the Bush clan with one of the clan a former Rep. and another governor, before each generation reaching the White House. There can be dispute on whether Dobbs was disdainful of rights, in particular a necessary right of the female half of the nation to allow them autonomy, with the opinion here being clear that the Court majority stinks of disdain for true and needed freedoms and stands in thrall to corporatism and Christofascist mischief, but opinions do differ.
What can persist even with divided opinion is a salute to the Denton County Rotary in its activism in the way it freely chooses; freedom to the group, and to each citizen member.
Last, perhaps the page imaged above might be superseded by newer information, but the hope is the gentleman's email, as given, will reach the Rotary if any reader wishes to send congratulations, and express solidarity about our freedoms being the core of our existing as sovereign people. Nationwide, and state by state.
Best wishes to Denton Texas and a focus on the federal flag, preeminent, above flags of individual states, as the federal government predominates in fact and at law.
A candidate running for the
Anoka County Board says he fears for his family's safety after violent
threats that appear to have come from supporters of his opponent were
posted online.
Kevin Landry, who is running
for the First District seat covering the western side of the county,
called police after posts accusing him of pedophilia and implying a
death threat surfaced in a private Facebook group over the weekend. At
one point a post from Landry's opponent, incumbent Commissioner Matt
Look, thanked commenters for their support.
[...] Look said in an interview that he had been out of town
and was unaware of the threats against Landry, and that his own comments
on Facebook were unrelated.
The threatening Facebook
posts — which Landry shared with the Star Tribune — stemmed from a
photo, which a member of the private group obtained and posted, that
showed Landry holding a small child who was unclothed. Landry said the
photo was a "proud papa" picture, taken 12 years ago, of his
then-4-month-old daughter. The person who posted the photo on Facebook
accused Landry of being a pedophile and said the "behavior needs to be
addressed, not ignored."
A subsequent post showed an
image of bullets with the caption, "there is now a child molestation
vaccine." It continued with the words "one shot and its cured."
A different person commented "for Kevin???," accompanied by an emoji depicting a smiley face.
[...] The post from Look's Facebook
account, which appeared in the comment thread, read "Good work
everyone. This is without a doubt ... a full contact sport. It's
starting early and will last until the elections. Thanks for your help
and support. It is much appreciated."
Look said Monday that his
comment was in response to attacks he has faced about issues related to
his divorce and attacks Landry had leveled against him, and that he made
it during the filing period.
"I do not support this or what he is going through," Look said.
A member of the Facebook
group saw the posts and flagged Landry, who shared them with police. An
Anoka Police Department detective took a report and an investigation is
pending, [...]
[italics emphasis added]
People should simply know better. They should act, post, and behave like adults. All of it done online, behind Landry's back. Defaming him with mockery behind his back.
Not by Look directly, but within a group of enabled, invited cohorts.
These kinds of stuff are wholly absent, to the best of my knowledge, on any general, open, public access website Look maintains. Publicly, Look touts himself repeatedly, as expected of one seeking to keep an incumbency alive.
However - This is a private cabal at play. By invitation only. These by appearance are Matt Look's inner circle people.
Shame.
Surely Matt is not responsible for others' conduct. That is clear. HIs disclaimer is appropriate. At this point disclaiming is all he can do. However, why risk in the first place doing a private Facebook thing by invitation only? Bonding? Solidarity of the guys? (presuming a gender bias to the invitation process, which Matt can dispute by publicly disclosing the identity of all of his group's participants)
BOTTOM LINE: Look should know to keep a public online persona, only.
Risking the cozy paycheck this way raises a question of judgment.
Facebook, in the open is dumb enough. How much dumber is it to maintain a
"club site" type of thing where this type of banter can happen?
Readers can decide -- Is it proper, prudent, or a Christian thing, to enable such banter behind the opposing candidate's back? Or does it reflect badly upon the enabler?
__________UPDATE__________
Thankfully, Look replied to a notice email - his response in its entirety:
I did not set it up and I do not maintain it. I share information to interested parties, 99% of which I’ve never met in person
Sent from my iPhone
The implication I drew from the wording of the Strib report was that Look had set up and was maintaining a private website is then a wrong conclusion. That impacts all of the post, and its conclusions - based on a wrong reading of what Strib stated. Matt Look was not responsible for the Facebook private site's genesis. He did not invite or authorize membership. He joined. This UPDATE is to correct things.
Strib did not post a link, which they had to have held from Landry, where that might have enabled readers to be better informed in forming an impression. Readers are encouraged to carefully read the Strib item to see if I was too presumptive in my inference, or if their reading also suggests an implication that Look is responsible for the private website rather than a participant on it. My entire post suffers from a misperception.
STRIB WAS NEGLIGENT IN NOT GIVING THE LINK WHERE READERS COULD THEN RIGHTLY OR WRONGLY INFER LOOK'S POSITION IN THINGS. HE HAS BEEN ENTITLED TO BE A GROUP MEMBER, BY WHOEVER HOLDS THAT HAMMER, AND HE FOR WHATEVER REASONS HE HOLDS, HAS DECLINED TO SUBMIT THE LINK TO ME, ALTHOUGH BY EMAIL I EXPRESSLY REQUESTED IT OF HIM. THE WISH HERE IS HE HAD SENT THE LINK. HE DECLINED. READERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO ASK LOOK, OR LANDRY WHO CLEARLY ALSO HOLDS THE LINK, TO PROVIDE IT FOR THEIR EDIFICATION. THIS ENDS THIS POST, WITH THE LINK ITSELF LEFT TO READER FOLLOWUP.
MY FEELING, WHY DID LOOK DECLINE TO PROVIDE THE LINK? NOTICE OF THIS UPDATE WILL BE SENT HIM. LOOK CLEARLY IS FREE TO BE IN WHATEVER EMAIL GROUP HE CHOOSES, BUT GIVEN STRIB'S DETAILS, WHAT KIND OF A STRANGE, DERANGED GROUP IS INVITING HIM TO PARTAKE? WITH HIM ACCEPTING.
LAST, AFTER REFLECTION, HAVING THE GROUP LINK, WITHOUT AN ACCESS PASSWORD OFFERS LITTLE HELP. LANDRY'S CONCERNS INSTIGATED A POLICE INVESTIGATION, ACCORDING TO STRIB. POLICE OUGHT TO BE ABLE, BY WARRANT OR OTHERWISE, TO GAIN ACCESS TO THE ENTIRE SITE AND TO REACH PUBLICLY AVAILABLE CONCLUSIONS. PRESUMABLY LANDRY WILL KEEP HIMSELF CURRENT WITH INVESTIGATION RESULTS.
FURTHER: LANDRY MIGHT HAVE GROUNDS TO SUE AND PREVAIL ON A DEFAMATION ACTION. NOT AGAINST LOOK. BUT OTHERS.
PEOPLE ARE COMMUNICATING ABOUT LANDRY IN FALSE WAYS. WAYS LIKELY DAMAGING TO HIS CANDIDACY. YET HE CHOSE TO GO TO THE POLICE AND STRIB ABOUT IT WHILE NOT KNOWING ALL FACTS CONCERNING A WEBSITE WHERE HE WAS NOT ALLOWED ACCESS.
The item sends him much love, after all it is Breitbart, but then it quotes him, and the bullshit shines through:
“You gotta be ready for battle. So put on the full armor of God,” he
said, triggering a round of applause. “Take a stand against the left’s
schemes. Stand firm with the belt of truth buckled around your waist.
You will face fire from flaming arrows, but the shield of faith will
protect you.”
[...] “We’re just getting warmed up. I’ve only begun to fight,” he declared.
“I’m standing my ground, walking the line all the way through the finish
line, and I can tell you this. With your help and everybody behind us,
there is no doubt in my mind that come November, we are going to keep
the state of Florida free.”
He is mentioned by some as "Presidential." Sad. Florida also has Gaetz and Rubio. and alligators and now non-native giant snakes - invasive species. (Wikipedia)
And Sinkholes. And Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Bless Florida.
I could get on the guy's emailing list to see if his trying to shake me as a money tree is done with the same tired lines, or if he gets more creative when soliciting cash.
Not really caring to do so, I won't. But it is an interesting question. Does he dumb down his emailing or does he think perhaps the email audience is less needful of dumbing-down than his presumed predominantly apprehensive whitemaleJudeoChristocentric live audiences? Live audiences on his wavelength and him seeming mindfully on theirs:
By the Miami Herald Editorial Board -
-image omitted-
A proposed law would “prevent all
kinds of discrimination” at Florida public schools and workplaces,
based on the principle that “all individuals are created equal” and that
teachers should teach, not indoctrinate.
But despite the
platitudes its sponsor used to describe Senate Bill 148 and House Bill
7, this is not an effort to stop real discrimination. The true intent of
the legislation advancing in the Florida Senate
is to provide state cover for students and employees offended by
diversity training at private companies and by classroom lectures about
racism, sexism and homophobia.
The plan is to subvert what we
have historically considered as discrimination. And the way it’s
happening is through a proposal aimed at protecting certain people —
straight, white men, for the most part — whose sensitivities require
shielding via state policing of what teachers and diversity trainers
say.
[...] SB 148 puts into official words Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which
stands for “Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act.” He
announced the proposal last month at a rally-style news conference,
where he dared to invoke Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call to judge people on the content of their character, not on the color of their skin.
It’s
under the pretense of following MLK’s teachings that Republicans in
Florida and other states have banned critical race theory, an academic
theory that looks at racism at the systemic level and how laws that
appear to be neutral can propagate it.
Under the conservative
narrative, discussing slavery, segregation and discrimination is fine as
long as it’s a thing of history or an abstract concept that doesn’t
make people question whether they are complicit in perpetuating bigotry.
The WOKE bill, filed by Hialeah Sen. Manny Diaz, has a veneer
of social righteousness. [...] that no
“individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of
psychological distress on account of his or her race, color, sex or
national origin.”
Sounds
good, except the legislation leaves plenty of room for someone to claim
“discrimination” based on discomfort — which is sometimes bound to be
part of discussions that seek to make people reflect on their own
prejudices.
The bill bans training that makes people feel they
“bear responsibility” for “actions committed in the past by other
members of the same race, color, sex or national origin,” [...]
There is in the op-ed a BOTTOM LINE:
Drumming up outrage
It’s easier to
drum up outrage against esoteric enemies like critical race theory and
“wokeness” than it is to outline real problems. Vague concepts (how many
people actually know what critical race theory even means?) wind up
with vague fixes that people with an ax to grind can then abuse.
NO! Ron DeSantis is not that scheming and backhanded, is he? Say it ain't so.
..........................................
Now the big question. The one readers might have feared to ask. Or postponed asking.
Wtf read Breitbart?
Answering that question leaves DeSantis behind, for other fertile explorations.
If occasionally touching base with the Renaissance hedge fund - Long Island - Mercer guy's toy publication, (and daughter Rebeckah's - she loves it), you see Breitbart sometimes publishing things other outlets such as Strib pass over. Breitbart may spin the news stupidly, but it is reported there, sometimes, when not mentioned at all in sites I more regularly read.
ROME — Pope Francis has demoted the leader of the
conservative Opus Dei group from bishop to priest, revoking the
structure ordained by Saint John Paul II.
In an apostolic letter ironically titled “Ad Charisma Tuendum”
(In defense of the charism), Pope Francis reversed measures enacted by
Saint John Paul II in 1982 that ensured that the Opus Dei personal
prelature would always be governed by a bishop, thus guaranteeing a
certain degree of independence and flexibility.
[...] In explaining why in the future the head of Opus Dei will no longer
be a bishop, Francis states that for the good of the group’s “particular
gift of the Spirit,” what is needed is “a form of government based more
on charism than on hierarchical authority.”
In 1982, Saint John Paul II established Opus Dei as the Catholic
Church’s first personal prelature under the leadership of its own bishop
with his apostolic constitutionUt Sit, giving it a juridical configuration “suited to its specific characteristics.” John Paul wrote in that text:
The Ordinary of the Prelature Opus Dei is its Prelate,
whose election, which has to be carried out as established in general
and particular law, has to be confirmed by the Roman Pontiff. The
Prelature is under the Sacred Congregation for Bishops, and will also
deal directly with the other Congregations or Departments of the Roman
Curia, according to the nature of the matter involved.
Later, in 2001, John Paul reiterated the appropriateness of having Opus Dei governed by its own bishop.
Pope John Paul said in March of that year:
You are here representing the components by which the
Prelature is organically structured, that is, priests and lay faithful,
men and women, headed by their own Prelate. This hierarchical nature of
Opus Dei, established in the Apostolic Constitution by which I erected
the Prelature, offers a starting point for pastoral considerations full
of practical applications.
I wish to emphasize, John Paul continued:
…that the membership of the lay faithful in their own
particular Churches and in the Prelature, into which they are
incorporated, enables the special mission of the Prelature to converge
with the evangelizing efforts of each particular Church, as envisaged by
the Second Vatican Council in desiring the figure of personal
prelatures.
In an attempt to explain why Pope Francis felt compelled to demote Opus Dei’s leadership, some have had cited the decades-old public hostility with which the pope’s Jesuit order has regarded Opus Dei.
Other have underscored Francis’s personal animosity toward Opus Dei and his aggravation years ago that his own brother was close to the organization.
Whatever the pope’s personal reasons for humiliating Opus Dei, the
measure will not do much to dissuade those who see Francis as vindictive
toward those he views as unaligned with his priorities and merciful
only toward those who share his progressive leanings.
While the pope has consistently marginalized groups that do not share his pastoral slant, he has simultaneously elevated members of his own Jesuit order in a manner unprecedented since the notoriously nepotistic era of the Renaissance.
Well, in the hierarchy of the Roman Church, Francis is Pope, isn't he? Like it. Love it. Francis oversees all. Leonard Leo or Sam Alito can be unhappy, even distressed to where they'd shit a brick when Francis steps on their loves but they are lay believers, not otherwise, and Francis is Pope. Their world is hierarchical that way.
The heated meetings between the Order’s constitutional working group
and Cardinal Tomasi, the Pope’s personal representative, were meant to
conclude in a programme of reforms.
The Vatican sought to grant an expanded but controversial governing
role to the Fras – known as the Professed Knights (or Knights of
Justice) – under the spiritual authority of the Pope.
But after a draft of the controversial new constitution was leaked to the Pillar,
a Catholic website, the non-professed knights of second and third class
have begun to fight back with force characteristic of an order which
distinguished itself at the Siege of Rhodes in 1523 and the Siege of
Malta in 1565.
The proposed new draft reforms aim to hand over power and
administrative control to just a tiny band of professed knights – around
just 39 in total, who have taken vows of poverty, chastity and
obedience.
The proposal has exasperated the lay members of the Order who believe
it would effectively “downgrade the role of the laity” and make most
lay knights and dames like “associate members”.
Following the leak, Cardinal Tomasi has now reportedly backtracked in
the face of “fierce opposition” from within the highest ranks of the
Order, including its aristocratic German Chancellor Albrecht Von
Boeselager and senior knights, dames and officers in Britain and other
European countries.
Boeselager has already stepped aside from the process after admitting
that he could not accept the proposed reforms in good conscience and
Sehnaoui took his place as chairman of the constitutional reform
committee.
Leonard Leo, possibly only "an associate member?" What next? Expulsion from the Federalist Society? However, Daily Beast in reporting indirectly suggests that Maltese Knight LL might see kinship with Burke now with the Knights, in light of Burke's politics and the dreaded Leo's insinuation into the U.S. Supreme Court his and the Federalist Society's blessed and anointed like-minded Catholic Draconian dregs. Daily Beast being unkind to Burke:
Cardinal Raymond Burke is a 66-year-old guy who lives in Rome,
dresses like Queen Elizabeth, and talks like someone who majored in
misogyny at some bogus, backwoods, Bible-banging tent school. Until Pope
Francis stripped him of the powerful Vatican post Pope Benedict had
handed him, Burke behaved like the Catholic Church’s version of Ted
Cruz, operating with an ego and an attitude that proclaimed him to
always be right on matters of doctrine and dogma.
Burke’s new post
makes him the equivalent of a head waiter at the annual Knights of
Malta Communion breakfast, but the demotion has only emboldened him. A
few days ago the former archbishop of St. Louis was interviewed by some
pamphlet geared to restoring guy-talk in Catholicism, and Burke did not
disappoint.
“Unfortunately, the radical feminist movement strongly
influenced the Church, leading the Church to constantly address women’s
issues at the expense of addressing critical issues important to men,”
Burke told the correspondent from a pamphlet called (get this) The New
Emangelization.
“Sadly,” he pointed out, “the Church has not
effectively reacted to these destructive cultural forces; instead the
Church has become too influenced by radical feminism and has largely
ignored the serious needs of men.”
As
I read Burke’s manifesto on his desire for more arm-wrestling,
towel-snapping, locker-room guys to play larger roles in Catholicism, a
couple of thoughts went round and round in the carousel within my
noggin: those attending mass today in too many American parishes
resemble people sitting around the day-room of an assisted living
facility. God love them but they are old, committed, and slowly
disappearing.
The church in the United States is not exactly a
growth industry. Parishes are being closed or merged. There are too few
priests and not exactly a lot of people lining up for a vocation that
requires and insists on celibacy.
The second, almost immediate
thought was of a woman I knew quite well whose husband died young,
leaving her with a few children and an absence of both money and
employment in a struggling New England factory town where the paper
mills and textile plants were heading south at a pace that soon left
Main Street looking like abandoned property.
She buried her
husband on a bitter cold December morning two days before Christmas
during John F. Kennedy’s first year in the White House. She could curse
in Gaelic and pray in Latin.
She had no job, but quickly, within
weeks of her husband’s death, she began working at the rectory of the
large Irish parish where the church steeple was just about the highest
point in town, built by other immigrants in the 19th century
as a bold statement announcing their arrival. She did the priest’s
laundry, washed and ironed altar linens and vestments, and prepared
lunch and supper for four or five priests, two of them veterans of World
War II.
She took home less than $60 a week. She went back to
school, enrolling in one of what was then called a “teacher’s college”
in the old Massachusetts community college system.
After she got
her diploma she began teaching fourth and fifth grade at the parish
parochial school, where she remained for three decades. She went to mass
every day of the week and prayed nearly as much as she breathed. When
her youngest boy was in Vietnam she became a daily communicant, a
routine that continued after his war service ended.
Her faith was
stronger than steel. Her belief that God was all-knowing and forgiving
was unshakeable. She was in the forgiveness business and had a deep
understanding of human frailty, an insight that never left her until she
died at 93.
I called her “my mother the nun.”
So when I
read Raymond Burke clowning it up with his bogus beliefs that the
Catholic Church has lost a few steps because of the absence of “manly
men,” I could hear Mom muttering, “pol’thoin” (asshole) to describe him.
That description would have been applied for many reasons but the
biggest would be the most obvious: Burke is a guy whose most firm belief
is in himself and his own pronouncements.
The cost of his gilded,
ornate vestments could feed a family of four across a decade. He has
exhausted himself and more than a few who have had to listen to him
trying to ban pro-choice politicians from receiving communion. He has
attacked St. Louis University basketball coach Rick Majerus for
attending a Hillary Clinton rally and tried to prevent Sheryl Crow from
giving a concert to raise money for a Catholic hospital.
Last
year, as Pope Francis began turning the lights back on within a church
that has seen legions depart simply because so many in the clergy said
so little about the criminality and obstruction of justice surrounding
the reality of sexual abusers wearing roman collars, Burke said, “There
is a strong sense that the Church is like a ship without a rudder.”
Burke, Matt Birk, each feeling social recognition of greater opportunity for the females among us is a threat to - motherhood? To patriarchy, for sure.
Leonard Leo packing OUR court with HIS Roe killers. And wrong on everything else. While LL keeps thumping his chest like Tarzan over his Maltese Knighthood.
What a bunch. Citizens United is an apt legacy to judge all of them by.
Cut Matt Birk some slack. He bears no direct (or distant) responsibility for Citizens United, although if he's said anything against it reporting of such a thing has not percolated to me. Hike the ball for Jesus. Careers are for those who deserve one. Motherhood is underappreciated. Burke and Birk. Kindred spirits?
........................................
Anyway, that whole line of thought was triggered by Breitbart's report of Francis chopping Opus Dei down a few notches; as he did with Raymond Burke, while tightening Vatican [a/k/a Papal] hands in guidance of Opus Dei -AND- while lessening its "special status" per John Paul II, after (but in parallel to) squeezing a tighter Papal hand to Knights of Malta (and his exile of Raymond Burke to cerimonial duty there).
Absent Breitbart's "Francis update" reporting being serendipitously encountered, this post would have been shorter and limited to Breitbart/DeSantis.
Readers can judge if that seems good or bad - the growth of the post to more widely encompass Crabgrass justification for reading Breitbart -AND- thereby showing how an enlarged playing field is something not incompatible with general politics expressed on this site.
Those concerned more with DeSantis alone, be tolerant, please. If you made it this far in the post without moving on to other Internet content earlier, perhaps you might be glad to have learned things you'd not already known about Francis' Papacy.
________UPDATE________
The conduct and decision making of the first Jesuit Pope in the history of the Roman Church since founding of the Order (also the first South American Pope) is major news, with readers possibly seeing it as more news than a Ron DeSantis cliche-riddled speech, from yesterday, more of the same to follow. At a bet Leonard Leo and some whom Leo got boosted to the top court regularly keep abreast of Vatican happenings. Biden and Pelosi too.
_________FURTHER UPDATE_________
Raymond Burke instigated a personal website, winter of 2019. He has mass scheduled online, this month, for the future. On his personal website Raymond Burke has published his belief that Catholic politicians who support abortion should be denied communion. This view is not universally held within the Roman Church. In December, 2020, right-wing Minnesota outlet "Alpha News" published a Burke homily online, of which it approved. His favoring of elaborate vestments is apparent. An anonymous Ramsey, MN, blogger has republished it.
Crabgrass sees little merit to the man, Burke, or his supporters, relative to Francis or otherwise, but opinions can differ.
Interested readers may follow those links.
_________FURTHER UPDATE________
This year's news in the Roman Church reaches the Knights of Malta leadership and reform effort, here and here, a German schism concern, and the College of Cardinals becoming "less European." (A small sample of current news, not researched to aim to be at all exhaustive.)
Pence is the less humorous situation. FIRST - An op-ed online. (With a link - but the Pence speaking item dead-linked when checking it while writing this post). It states the argument re "hero status." While the link failed, the op-ed quotes Pence's talking points:
Trump is still around and will never let his supporters forget Pence and his refusal to do the right thing, according to Trump.
Thank you for seeing, through the course of this year, an agenda that truly is restoring this country.”
“You’ve restored American credibility on the world stage.”
“You’ve spurred an optimism in this country that’s setting records.”
“You promised the American people in that campaign a year ago that
you would deliver historic tax cuts, and it would be a ‘middle-class
miracle.’ And in just a short period, that promise will be fulfilled.”
“I’m deeply humbled, as your vice president, to be able to be here.”
“Because of your leadership, Mr. President, and because of the
strong support of the leadership in the Congress of the United States,
you’re delivering on that middle-class miracle.”
“And you got Congress to do what they couldn’t do for seven years, in repealing the individual mandate in Obamacare.”
“Mostly, Mr. President, I’ll end where I began and just tell you, I
want to thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank you for speaking on
behalf of and fighting every day for the forgotten men and women of
America.”
“Because of your determination, because of your leadership, the
forgotten men and women of America are forgotten no more. And we are
making America great again.”
If Mike Pence were a true Christian, he would have dropped out of the
race for Vice President the first time right after the Access Hollywood
tape came out with “Grab them by the pussy.”
WaPo, a second source with quotes, but no video. The video was located, Twitter - where the poster unfortunately interjects a comment repeatedly, lessening the impact of the shameful Pence self-demeaning showing, with Trump's "skeptic" body language an added plus.
SECOND - CNN reporting Betsey DeVos having had discussions with other Cabinet members about 25th Amendment removal of Trump after Jan. 6. Pence demurred. DeVos resigned. Overly cautious? Overly loyal? Keeping it private, options open? This was after the "Hang Mike Pence" chant while marching and at the Capitol Jan. 6. After the Trump and insurgent allies had leaned heavily on Pence to join the team. Biding time may be more planning than heroism. Pence, back in his talk radio days probably planned the show segment by segment to focus upon what he believed his audience wanted to hear from him.
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