Fifteen minutes of fame: The leftist media goes gaga over Bishop Marriann Budde

 In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.

 

Andy Warhol

Donald Trump had hardly been sworn into office as the nation's 47th President when Bishop Mariann Budde, dressed in clerical splendor, scolded him. She entreated him to be merciful to the LGBT community, many of whom, Budde attested, feared for their lives.

It was a golden opportunity for Budde, a princess of a dying Protestant denomination. Trump showed up with his wife for the traditional post-inauguration prayer service at Washington National Cathedral, and thus, the couple was a captive audience for Budde's self-righteous sermon.

Instantly, Budde snatched herself from obscurity for her 15 minutes of world fame. She became the darling of the left-wing media and was interviewed by The New Yorker, MSNBC, NPR, and The View.

These are my thoughts. 

First, as I said in an earlier post, it is not accurate, as Budde insinuated,  that LGBT folks are in fear for their lives at the prospect of a Trump presidency. Why would they be? All that Trump has done on the sexual identity issue is to affirm that there are only two sexes and stop the bizarre trend of allowing men dressed as women to compete in women's sports.

Second, I acknowledge that Bishop Budde might have acted courageously when she "spoke truth to power" at the National Cathedral. Nevertheless, it was highly inappropriate for her to embarrass the President in the manner that she did.

Budde's denomination is on its last legs. Many lay Episcopalians have left the Episcopal Church because of the clergy's sexual politics, with many choosing to become Roman Catholics. Budde's self-indulgent prank will likely cause thousands more to leave. 

The Episcopal Church has controlled the National Cathedral for over one hundred years. It is time for this national institution to sever its ties with the Episcopalians. Let's give other denominations a chance to run the place for a few years on a rotating basis.

I nominate the Jehovah's Witnesses to serve the next term, followed by the Pentecostals. Both groups are theologically far apart from the Episcopalians, but I'll bet church leaders in those groups know how to deliver a sermon without gratuitously embarrassing our President.

Lousy sermon, cool socks
Photo credit: The New Yorker

What's the Difference Between a Liberal Democrat and an Episcopal Bishop? Bishop Budde Lectures Our President

 A riddle:

Question: How can you tell the difference between a liberal Democrat and an Episcopal bishop?

Answer: An Episcopal bishop wears a funny hat.

On my tortuous road to the Catholic Church, I abided for a time with the Episcopalians. While studying at Harvard, I went through confirmation classes at Boston's Trinity Church. I was attracted by the pageantry of Trinity's religious services and by the Episcopal liturgy. 

In time, however, I became disenchanted. I realized that being an Episcopalian was very little different from being a progressive Democrat. Thus, I left the Episcopalian and became Catholic.

Other Episcopalians have become disaffected with their denomination. One article reported that the venerable denomination fell from a peak membership of 3.4 million in 1959 to 1.58 million in 2020. Indeed, the Episcopal Church is losing members so fast that one commentator predicted its demise by 2040. 

However, the Episcopal hierarchy is unbowed, and the elaborately robed bishops continue to lead their flocks toward oblivion. In this spirit of self-destruction, Bishop Mariann Budde delivered a disrespectful lecture (disguised as a sermon) to President Trump at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC. President Trump demanded an apology, which he is unlikely to get.

Bishop Budde made two main political points. First, she expressed fear for gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans, saying: 

I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now . . . There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.

Second, the Bishop challenged President Trump's immigration policy. "The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals," the Bishop exhorted and begged the President to show mercy "on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here."

I want to briefly challenge Bishop Budde's political themes. First, I don't believe that American gays, lesbians, and transgender people fear for their lives. Nor do I think President Trump has ever said or done anything that should frighten our nation's LGBTQ communities.

Second, Budde's insinuation that Trump would harass or deport immigrants who entered this country to escape persecution is not entirely accurate. The President is merely requiring immigrants to follow established legal processes and trying to stop the entry of criminals and drug traffickers from entering the United States.

Deportation processes may indeed disrupt some immigrant families, but I believe our government can remove illegal immigrants humanely. We will soon see.

Speaking as a Catholic and ex-Episcopalian, I suggest Bishop Budde pursue her political agenda as a layperson. Perhaps she should become an employee of the Democratic Party. I'm sure the Democrats would be happy to hire her and allow her to continue wearing her funny hat.

Biden pardons his buddies: I'm ambivalent

 This morning, President Joe Biden issued another raft of pardons. Anthony Fauci, Liz Cheney, and General Mark Milley were among his cronies who received "Get Out of Jail Free" cards. He also pardoned everyone on the Congressional January 6 Committee. 

I'm ambivalent. On the one hand, I agree with critics who warn against the precedent of granting wholesale pardons to friends, family members, and political allies for uncharged and unspecified crimes. Such a practice fosters lawlessness and disrespect for the law.

On the other hand, President Trump once said that General Milley deserved to be executed and Liz Cheney should be criminally prosecuted. Those were imprudent things to say and provide some justification for Biden pardoning the two.

Most of the people who harassed Trump over the last eight years are lawyers. Several of them prosecuted Trump in the criminal courts for political reasons. In my view, this conduct constitutes malicious prosecution or abuse of process. Also, pursuing criminal charges against an individual for political reasons violates the ethical standards for attorneys.

Americans are tired of the interminable and dishonorable litigation that raged during Biden's presidency. I would like to see all the lawyers who pursued Trump through the courts for political reasons disbarred.

However, disbarment proceedings are within the purview of the various state judiciaries and bar associations, and these bodies are unlikely to act.

Therefore, I am content to see Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, Jack Smith, and dozens of others fade into obscurity—perhaps to write their memoirs. To paraphrase the lyrics of a famous country song, they only did what they had to do, and now they're growing old.

Photo credit: Bill Moore and Amsterdam News

Pete Hegseth's Senate Confirmation Hearing: Did Senator Elizabeth Warren Get Above Her Raising?

Senator Elizabeth Warren and I have three things in common. We were both born in Oklahoma and have law degrees, and neither of us is a Native American. 

I grew up in Anadarko, near where several Native tribes were settled in the late 19th century: the Comanche, Kiowa, Fort Sill Apache, Wichita, Caddo, and Delaware.  

Riverside Indian School operated a couple of miles from the city limits. In the 1890s, St. Katharine Drexel established St. Patrick's Catholic Mission to educate Native children, and the mission grounds were less than a mile from my childhood home.

Native culture was all around me. The Southern Plains Indian Museum, a federal facility, was located just outside the town, along with the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians. Our movie theatre was named The Redskin before that word became politically incorrect and had a magnificent neon marque.

It never occurred to me to try to get ahead by claiming Native American status, although I'm sure I was probably a lot closer to Native American life than Senator Warren. It would be dishonest to call myself a Kiowa or a Comanche, and it would be ridiculous to make such a claim. After all, my great-grandfather immigrated from England in the 1880s and was already married to a British woman when he arrived in America.

Senator Warren's false claim that she was a Cherokee is water under the bridge. She apologized to the Cherokees for taking a DNA test to prove her Indian ancestry, which was a commendable gesture.

I would not raise the matter if Warren hadn't acted so beastly towards Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth. She and her fellow Democratic harpies repeatedly trolled through Hegseth's personal life, suggesting ad nauseam that anyone who had done what they accused Hegseth of doing was unfit to be the nation's Secretary of Defense.

I wish someone would ask Warren if a person who misrepresented her ethnicity to advance her career is fit to be a senator. 

Warren is a citizen of Massachusetts now and probably doesn't reconnect much with her Oklahoma friends and relatives. However, if she were to return to her roots, Oklahomans might remind her not to get above her raising. In other words, don't jettison the core values of your youth and childhood just to get ahead in the world.

Warren's despicable display of self-righteous hypocrisy at Hegseth's confirmation hearing may be acceptable to her Massachusetts constituency, but most Oklahomans find that kind of behavior offensive. They might ask her what good came from her Harvard connections if she forgot the rules of civility and courtesy.

 

Catastrophic Weather Events and the High Cost of Living Make Flyover Country More Appealing

 Wildfires in Los Angeles have driven thousands of Angelinos out of their homes, and many won't return. California, with its spectacular weather and stunning beauty, has become too difficult for anyone but the wealthy to live.

Catastrophic weather events--wildfires, mudslides, and earthquakes--coupled with stratospheric real estate prices, sky-high taxes, and directionless political leadership have transformed paradise into a nightmare for people of modest means.

So, where will discouraged Californians go? Many are going to Texas and Florida, but taxes and the cost of living have climbed in those sunny states.

 Austin, known for its low cost of living in the 1970s when I was a student at the University of Texas, has become so expensive that a person of modest means can't afford to migrate there. 

Florida has been a retirement haven for almost a century but has become too pricey for many older Americans on fixed incomes. And then there are the hurricanes.

How about Flyover country? Would that be a good region to move to? 

The Cambridge Dictionary defines Flyover Country as "parts of the United States which many people only see when they fly over them on journeys to the other coast, but which they would never visit." In other words, Flyover Country is made up of the regions of the U.S. that were once known as Middle America or the Heartland.

As the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent article, some parts of Flyover Country are becoming increasingly attractive—specifically Middle Appalachia: 

Drawn by lower housing costs and living expenses, lower taxes, lower insurance costs, low crime, warm weather (but with seasons) and less chance of hurricanes, an older, wealthier population is arriving [in Middle Appalachia]and demanding a level of services from governments and businesses that neither had to provide in the past.

Other parts of Flyover Country are just as enticing but have yet to be discovered by the frazzled Americans trying to escape the high cost of living on the East and West Coasts.

I live on Lake Mary in South Mississippi, in the heart of Flyover Country, and I find it a congenial place to live. I admit that Lake Mary is not as prestigious as Lake Tahoe. We fish for catfish here instead of rainbow trout, but real estate is a lot cheaper in Mississippi than in the famous Nevada vacation spot, and the people are more interesting. 

And life in South Mississippi offers attractions you can't find on Cape Cod or the Hamptons. For example, we have an alligator season in Mississippi, and you can hunt feral hogs here day or night all year round. 

Marlin fishing in the Keys is all well and good, but it's nothing like hooking into a monster alligator gar or Asian carp on Lake Mary. And you can take my word: a fried Mississippi catfish tastes as good as any seafood you will eat on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. 

Not all Flyover Country is idyllic. We need better schools in the rural South and an economy that produces more middle-class jobs. Nevertheless, as coastal cities become increasingly expensive and crime rates rise, Flyover Country might be a better place to live and raise a family.

Image credit:  TV Tropes

Los Angeles Wild Fires: The Lord's Burning Rain

This old town is filled with sin

It'll swallow you in

If you've got some money to burn

Take it home right away

You've got three years to pay

But Satan is waiting his turn.

Gram Parsons, "Sin City"

I'm not blaming anybody for the Los Angeles wildfires. Yes, the water hydrants ran dry in some burning neighborhoods, but no one could possibly have envisioned a conflagration as massive and catastrophic as the inferno that overwhelmed the LA firefighting infrastructure.

And I'm not blaming Mayor Karen Bass for the fire disaster. She had no business traveling to West Africa on a political junket while a disaster was looming, but Bass didn't start the fires.

For me, the LA wildfire is nationally significant as a sign of the arrogance and cluelessness of America's political and media elites. The people in LA's elite neighborhoods sneered at the working folk in Flyover Country as they insulated themselves from the real world with chauffered limousines, gated communities, and private bodyguards. 

The glitterati labeled working-class patriots as "white Christian nationalists," despising them as racists because they worried about crime and our country's open southern border.

Hollywood moguls made boring, overlong films full of woke DEI drivel and then wondered why movie attendance was down.

Movie stars donated millions of campaign dollars to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris even though they knew both were idiots.

Now, the chickens have come home to roost, and the Tinseltown world of the West Coast elites is falling apart.

I feel sorry for the average Angelinos who lost their homes in the wildfires, but I have no sympathy for the wealthy assholes who got rich under Bidenomics and whose cosmos is going up in smoke.

Mayor Karen Bass and her DEI minions are done--exposed as incompetent dolts. Governor Newsom and Kamala Harris are done as important political figures, having shown no talent for leadership. George Clooney and Julia Roberts, sycophantic fundraisers for the Democratic Party, are done as respected movie stars.

Many West Coast elitists are still rich, but their wealth won't save them from irrelevance. As Gram Parsons put it, "On the thirty-first floor, a gold-plated door won't keep out the Lord's burning rain."

President Biden Gives Presidential Medal to Hillary Clinton and George Soros. Flipping the Bird at Flyover Country

As Joe Biden's disastrous presidency wound down, he searched for ways to display his middle finger at the people living in Flyover Country—particularly those who voted for Donald Trump. Handing out prestigious honors to his political cronies was the perfect strategy.

Thus, President Joe Biden awarded George Soros and Hillary Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award. 

Let's start with George Soros, one of the wealthiest men in America and a megadonor to the Democratic Party. Soros bankrolled so-called progressive candidates for various district attorney positions in many of the nation's cities. 

As reported by Thomas Hogan, Soros-backed candidates won D.A. races in "Manhattan, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, San Francisco, . . . and other population hubs." Hogan quoted an estimate that 20 percent of Americans lived in districts served by prosecutors that Soros supported.

These prosecutors promised to focus on serious crimes rather than divert resources to prosecute non-violent offenders accused of petty offenses. But, as a Heritage Foundation article observed:

[O]nce these candidates get elected, they quickly turn their anodyne statements into something different and engage in prosecutorial nullification by refusing to prosecute entire categories of crimes, watering down felonies, refusing to ask for bail, and refusing to prosecute violent juveniles as adults. 

The result of this tragically flawed strategy was that crime rates went up in many of the cities where Soros-assisted prosecutors held office. 

And then there's Hillary, who also received a Presidential Medal of Freedom. It is now well known that Hillary and her presidential campaign created and circulated the false story that Trump was in collusion with the Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The Wall Street Journal summarized this tawdry tale in a 2022 editorial:

[T]he Clinton campaign created the [Trump-Russia collusion] allegation, fed it to a credulous press that failed to confirm the allegations but ran with them anyway, then promoted the story as if it was legitimate news. The campaign also delivered the claims to the FBI, giving journalists another excuse to portray the accusations as serious and perhaps true.

As the Wall Street Journal correctly noted:

 [T]he Russia-Trump narrative that Mrs. Clinton sanctioned did enormous harm to the country. It disgraced the FBI, humiliated the press, and sent the country on a three-year investigation to nowhere. Vladimir Putin never came close to doing as much disinformation damage.

Biden's award to these two disreputable public figures was his way of showing his complete contempt for the American people.  But maybe this disgraceful episode will have an epilogue. If there is any justice in the world, perhaps Hillary will become the first Medal of Freedom winner to be disbarred.

Photo credit: Associated Press