We Need To Talk

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

You know how I keep telling you not to fall for psy-ops? Well, egg on my face, because I at least half fell for this one.

In my defense, so did Trump and most of the media on the right. On the left, of course, they were in on the plot.

This is going to get far more uncomfortable than… well, than I’m comfortable with. This is not a religious blog. In fact for a long time I kept my religion as obscured as possible, because frankly the matters we work through here are rational and we should be able to argue them rationally.

In fact religion is one of the forbidden topics on this blog. Funny how that happens, innit? And I’m very uncomfortable talking about it where I know it will make a lot of you just as uncomfortable.

So, let’s lay down some parameters for this:

First, if you are an atheist, and a lot of my friends are, don’t try to argue this as a religious matter. Take the crazy parameters of what I tell you and what I say is how it works, and assume it’s my own little psychosis, shared with millions of people, and stay with that. The consequences of this mess are still important, if you know history.

Second, if you are a protestant, you can take a minute now, find a thick cushion and scream into it: REEEEEE PAPISTS. But don’t get into it in the comments. Do me the favor of believing that I am no more stupid or insane than you; that my route to my beliefs was not just “someone said to do this”; that I studied all the materials and re-upped — twice — of my own free will, the latest one being when I’d realized I had drifted so far I was more pagan than anything else. I’m not at this point interested in a discussion of the fine points of this or that belief. I have a religion and I’m fine where I am. Let’s not get in that fight, I had enough of that on twitter, with people who claim to share my faith.

Yes, what I am talking about is how in the last few days the media has been full of “The Pope berated Trump and kissed up to Islam and Trump is talking back — with a side order of the leftists being very upset that Trump posted a meme of himself as Jesus, which might or might not be it, since I remember that meme from January 25 as being of Trump as a healer, healing America. Goofy, but not Jesus — with a lot of people a lot them sane and decent people deciding the Pope was just a Chicago Communist and so on and so on, ad fricking nauseum.

I will confess I fell for it to an extent, or perhaps I rose to the bait. In my defense, I’m recovering from ear infection from hell, which — I have these a lot — is taking me longer to recover from than any of these has before. (Yeah, yeah, over sixty, but here’s the thing: I didn’t authorize any of this!) so I was a little more liable to sudden ’tism explaining.

So when someone shared a meme saying that Catholics couldn’t disagree with the pope I felt forced to quote retweet it explaining that no: we can’t disagree with the pope when he’s speaking ex cathedra, which is usually the culmination of discussions by theologians and always on theological matters. The last time a Pope spoke Ex-cathedra was 75 years ago. It is such a process that even Francis didn’t dare try something with it. Other than that, particularly when the pope is running his mouth on politics (and I confess I thought he was) I’m as entitled to disagree with him as with Joe Schmoe on the street.

This brought the world’s stupidest answers, almost certainly from non-Catholics, one of them informing me that that was “cafeteria Catholicism” and I was being an hypocrite — no. I’m being a Catholic. The rules haven’t changed. — and another basically screaming that no, Catholics had to do everything the pope said. That one was cute. Stupid but cute.

Then I had the horrifying experience of seeing someone who identified as a priest — though I’m informed that he’s uh… how do I put this…. the lavender mafia tells him “whoa boy, too far” — tweeting “If you are against the Pope you can’t be Catholic.” For those not Catholic, this is a piece of extreme evil. Note how he phrased it. Take if for granted from me that yes, Catholics can disagree with the Pope. In fact we, cradle Catholics make a sport of disagreeing with the pope. Praying for the Holy Father often takes the form of “G-d, could you please talk some sense into that lunkhead.” Because Popes aren’t supernatural. Yes, they’re fulfilling a role, and while in that role, we believe G-d makes sure they don’t step wrong. But as people? They’re men like the rest of men. And carrying a heavy burden, which doesn’t tend to make anyone sane. The trap here was that in the comments this priest admitted you could disagree with the pope, but you couldn’t be “against him.” What he meant, actually was that if you’re against having a pope at all, you’re not a Catholic. DUH. But what he was trying to make people — including fearful Catholics believe — is that you couldn’t disagree with the pope on anything. This is such breathtaking evil that it left me sick to my stomach and means I slept very badly last night.

Here I must explain some inside Catholic baseball. Those of you who are Catholic can beat me up behind the bleachers after school for it. The thing is, before I explain what I figured out was going on, I must explain that not all Catholic priests/bishops/cardinals are in any way the same politically. And there is, particularly in the US, a strong current of leftist Bishops. If you hear anything from the American Council of Bishops, assume they’re dyed in the wool leftists, and the Catholics are rolling their eyes along with you.

I will confess I thought the Pope had indeed run his mouth, and I was grieved not for the Pope insulting the President, which I didn’t think had any effect on Catholic Americans, really. But because I thought it would do damage to the church.

People! I didn’t see the half of it.

To begin with, the Pope was not in fact criticizing Trump or speaking about Trump at all. And his comments on Islam were carefully targeted at a regional branch.

I knew that the comments in context didn’t feel right to refer to the thing in Iran. Friends and I tried to figure out why he would say that stuff now, and the only thing we could figure is that he was trying to somehow protect the Catholics in Iran — there are 20k or so of them — from retaliation by the mullahs. But it didn’t quite fit.

… We were wrong. We were wrong, because the pope didn’t say any of it, not in the context of Trump and Iran. The thing is that the leftists who created this psy-ops forgot this Pope not only could read English, but read American media.

This is the thing we need to make sure it’s known far and wide. Yes, even you who just screamed “Papists” into the cushions. Because even you — and the atheists — want to ruin this psy-ops. Trust me on this.

This is the article: Pope Leo says remarks about world being ‘ravaged by a ​handful of tyrants’ were not aimed at Trump: report. Vice President Vance later thanked the pope for clearing the record.

Unbeknownst to us because the media doesn’t report it, this came in the context of the pope traveling to Africa, specifically if I understand correctly (I might not) to Nigeria and countries bordering Nigeria. If you don’t know this, Nigeria is the place where Catholic school children, nuns, etc. keep getting kidnapped by Islamic terrorists. The church there is under attack right now. it is one of those times when martyrs are made, and quite frankly it is a thing of beauty and great courage for Pope Leo to go striding in, trying to give hope and call attention to what is happening there. He has no armies, no temporal power (nor should he) but he has the power to call the eyes of the world to situations. John Paul II used this to call attention to communist abuses, and Leo is trying to use it to call attention to poor, bleeding Africa. He’s risking MARTYRDOM to do this, in the serene belief that his martyrdom in Africa would bring the world’s eyes to the situation. It is admirable, heroic, and worthy of John Paul II.

What our media made of it is an utter scandal and horror, and if the Pope isn’t furious at it, he’s more than human. Or perhaps less.

I figured out the psy-ops and the reason they’re all in on this yesterday, after being very disquieted by the exchanges on Twitter, so I’m going to lay it down as I believe it happened. (Note, that while the enemy is wounded and at bay, they are still more organized than us and are GOOD at using the resources they have for deception.)

Imagine you’re a leftist in America, and you’ve miscalculated. Part of letting in Latins by the bucket full is that you knew — KNEW — all of them would vote for the left forever, and the more left the better. They also thought they had control of the Papacy by installing an old Argentinian leftist as Pope. Because the left absolutely believes Catholics will blindly do what the Pope tells them. (Frankly they also think Baptists and even Mormons — MORMONS! — will do so.)

Anyway, imagine their shock when Catholic immigrants (who by and large are actually against illegal immigration) were horrified by the left’s lurch into all gay, trans and sex sex sex all the time, not to mention insane feminist girl bossing, and … well, became more Catholic.

Catholics increasingly, in fact, despite the leftist council of bishops and a lot of corrupt clergy, vote GOP. The left is so furious at this they spent most of the auto-pen’s presidency raging about “rosary extremism” and setting the FBI to spy on traditional Catholics (the worst thing they do is choose too lacy a veil) and and and–

But none of that had the effect they wanted. Promoting the priests who agree with them didn’t have the effect they wanted. Pouring money into NGOs with Catholic in the name (It’s complicated. A lot of them have no affiliation with the church. I always check) had no effect. And all these people where the younger generations are actually having a bunch of kids were slipping through their fingers.

So they started a psy-ops to get Catholics back in the fold.

There are two ways of scaring an ethnic or cultural group back into voting for the Democrats lockstep. Or at least in the Dem minds there’s two ways:

1- Make them believe they’re obligated to.

2- Make them afraid of voting any other way.

Note that they’ve been running a psyops with Jews too, having become afraid too many of them were escaping the Democrat plantation after the Democrats revealed their true anti-semitic colors after 10-7. I don’t know if they were, but I know the left thought they were, because the psyops using chowder-heads and foreign bots and foreigners and bots to post vile anti-semitic things while pretending to be on the right was supposed to scare Jews of voting any way but for Dems. I don’t know if it worked.

So, they started one for Catholics.

Was Axelrod’s visit to the Vatican part of the psyops? I can’t think of any other reason for that gutter-crawler to visit the Vatican. Did he actually have an audience with the Pope? I don’t know. The reporting on it was of that kind where it might be that. Or he might have seen the Pope’s third undersecretary. I don’t know. Either of them is possible. For connected people — and Obamanites are that! — getting a few minutes audience with the Pope is not hard. And it doesn’t matter what he said, if anything, the important thing was to have the record.

Their plan was as follows: Seize on the first set of remarks the Pope made that could be twisted as referring to Trump and used it to A) make those blindly lockstep obeying Catholics to turn against Trump.

B) In case that didn’t work, make sure to leak the Axelrod visit and paint the Pope as a dyed in the wool lefty and use it to smear ALL Catholics, bringing up one of America’s oldest bigotries, and get people on the right attacking Catholics as Catholics, so that Catholics in self defense would be locked into voting for Democrats.

It worked like a charm. With the trio of crazy lefty bishops chiming in: ’60 Minutes’ accused of using left-leaning Cardinals to bait Trump into feud with Vatican. Raymond Arroyo labeled the media strategy ‘pope-a-doping,’ saying it was designed to provoke a White House-Vatican clash.

And then the outright reprehensible priest on twitter and others like them.

It all rolled along until the Pope chimed in. Incidentally, this is the speech he gave and where he gave it: APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF POPE LEO XIV
TO ALGERIA, CAMEROON, ANGOLA AND EQUATORIAL GUINEA.

A friend who has family (Baptist family) in Cameroon says they are impressed with Leo and think he did good by coming there. Note the thing about Islam was basically saying “you Muslims in Cameroon, we can live with you, don’t fall for the propaganda from Nigeria telling you to start kidnapping and killing Christians.”

I’m beyond furious that a Pope’s actual noble and heroic mission, trying to look after his flock has been preverted into this. And that few people who were wound up into hating the Pope and Catholics in general, and running their mouths on it are going to see or believe the Pope’s explanation.

I’m asking you, yes, even the atheists, to stop conversations about this cold with the truth.

The reality of all this is that the left is indeed desperate. They offer nothing people want to vote FOR. They only have fear to herd people in. And they are despicable and unprincipled beyond belief.

I’m going to ask all of you — all of you, I don’t care who you are — that when a psy-ops like this rolls along, seemingly on oiled gears, trying to break the right to pieces and scare pieces of it back into the left? Stop. Stop and think about it. “Who does this benefit?” “For whom does this work?” “What does this do?” are the questions you should ask yourself first and foremost. And hold back your most intemperate comments until others have time to do the footwork and figure out what’s going on.

They’ve tried to scare Jews and Catholics. We were the low hanging fruit. I don’t know how they’re going after the other groups in the right, but I can promise you they are. There will be more of this.

Remember this. Remember what they’re trying to do and don’t fall for it.

And meanwhile, please spread the truth.

93 thoughts on “We Need To Talk”

  3. Oh, the second I saw that Cardinal Cupich was to be on 60 Minutes, the cat was out of the bag. His Excellency lieth down with dogs, and hath fleas which spread a Plague of Temporal Blackness.

    Almighty Father, could you please knock some sense into the Three Stooges of the USCCB?

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    2. Ding, ding, ding. And Tobin, my bishop as it happens. Funny enough, the handsome Italian actor friend he had in Rome didn’t appear. So, the money is cut, Obama’s consigliere meets with another boy from Chicago, and presto here we are.

      Honest question. Is anti-clericalism a thing outside Catholicism? My da used to say that the problem with being an RC is we were stuck with the bishops and our bishop was O’Connor who was the best of them,

      Off topic, there’s a huge foot and mouth disease outbreak in China. Look out for it.

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          2. Foot and mouth disease is no joke and the current breakout is just another in a series of diseases that have affected chickens, pigs, and all the rest. There is no Chinese inspection regime, at least not an honest one since if they want to destroy you they’ll do so, and Chinese agricultural practice is disgusting and operating way beyond codify. It’s a recipe — sorry — for disaster.

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      2. “Hand, foot, and mouth” is the US term for a rash little kids get. “Hoof and mouth” is the term for the disease that’s not generally fatal to cattle but reduces their milk output and can cause miscarriages, and makes them less healthy in general once they get over it. They often die from secondary infections through the sores they get, or from not eating because of the sores in their mouths. There are vaccines for it, but … each different virus needs a different vaccine, apparently.

        Any country that has it gets promptly slapped with a full quarantine on livestock transport, meat export, and dairy export. Anyone who has visited a farm in a country with hoof and mouth is supposed to report that to the US Department of Agriculture, and stay far away from livestock for at least 14 days.

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  4. I have been, many times and in many places a fool. Will be again, the same. When a conman fools me it is on me for taking it in and it is on him for being an ass. Those two things are separate, not together. The squabble about the Pope was confusing, now it seems deliberately so. Not terribly surprising, that.

    What the left, here and abroad, does is corrupt. Magnify disagreements between people. Faith is something nigh on all people have within them. We disagree on many things even within our own particular brand. That’s how we seek to understand and deepen that faith.

    The great ‘MAGA split,’ and this are of a piece. How can we get these people to hate each other enough so we can win again? That’s the strategy. And, sometimes, it works. You’ll see lots of these little sensationalist hate campaigns going on, ramping up towards the midterms. It’s as predictable as spring rains.

    Step back. Take a breath. Let it out slow. Let the topic sit for a while. Usually, chances are, we get clarity within a few days, week or two most times at the outside. If it looks bad for us, for all those values of “us” that we use, it might just be that the man behind the camera showing us that look is just what you think.

    Yet another conman.

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  5. A little off-topic.

    One thing that annoys me is that the Left (and many Democrats) love screaming “Separation Of Church And State” when Conservatives speak out about their Religion, BUT LOVE IT WHEN RELIGIOUS LEADERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST CONSERVATIVES AND REPUBLICANS.

    Sorry but if it’s BAD when Religious Conservatives speak out concerning Politics, then it’s EQUALY BAD (or worse) when Religious Liberals speak out concerning Politics.

    And of course, Democrats Hate The Catholic Church when it speaks out against Democratic Sacred Cows.

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    2. How Democrats choose to interpret “separation of church and state” can best be seen as they shamelessly politicize from the pulpit of black Protestant churches–and are allowed to–while savagely heaping scorn on anyone who would dare do so from a white Protestant church.

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      1. Oh no, my friend.

        Catch me or Jolie about the fate of the UMC sometime. They do it just as hard to white churches.

        They’re just further along in the gotal distruction.

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    3. Marxism is a belief system, in as such as it always fails. Marxism relies on the belief or faith of the populace, I put it to you that Marxism is in itself a religion. As such it can no longer be taught in schools due to the separation of church and state. They have to build their own Marxist Churches to teach it.

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  7. For folks wondering who Arroyo is, he’s from EWTN and associated media– and, like the rest of that bunch, is “conservative” because they’ve defined not killing kids, not killing old folks, not killing the disabled, not stealing, and not violating folks’ basic rights as “far right.”

    Oh, I forgot Father Mitch Pacwa– hunting, that’s crazy right-wing, too. :eyeroll:

    About as political-right as you’re going to get is Jimmy Akin, a very geeky explainer type who has a habit of converting prices into modern equivalents “when you account for the massive inflation resulting from printing more dollars”.

    They’re not political. They are philosophically grounded, with a solid eye on defending the inherent dignity of all people, including our right to be able to meaningfully choose.

    And yet they keep ending up strongly (sometimes more strongly than the professionals!) on our side, because they have principles, especially that you are responsible for your choices, and that threatens the Progs to their very core.

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  8. Dear Hostess, if I overstep my bounds please remove this post and accept my apologies.

    To start I have never been a Catholic, nor do I play one on TV. I am an evangelical Christian with my closest ties being to particular (i.e. Calvinist) baptists. My own experience with the Catholic Church was as a paid chorister in the early ’80s for about 18 months of Sundays. In that time I met clergy and parishioners that I wholly expect to meet again; true Christians in the best sense of the word, devoted followers of Jesus and his teachings. I also met a few (particularly one Monsignor) who absolutely set the hackles on the back of my neck up, a very political creature. I’ve seen the same across the Protestant spectrum Episcopal, Baptist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, assorted Evangelical and Pentecostals. In particular there was one pastor who I helped interview as part of a search committee who set me off far worse than that Monsignor. The Church Invisible is a distinct subset of the Church Visible. Scripture tells us the tares are sown with the wheat, the goats mixed with the sheep and my experience across all Christian denominations has shown this to be true.

    Pope Leo seems to be a decent fellow. However, I find I disagree with him in particular on his position on the Iran war, and on his position on war in general from what I can see. As part of his remarks on Easter (though not part of the Homily from what I can find he said

    Pope Leo XIV went on to recall the prophet Isaiah’s words: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood” (Is 1:15).

    “Jesus is the King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” said the Pope. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”

    (https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-03/pope-leo-xiv-celebrates-palm-sunday-mass-rome.html I presume Vatican News is not TOO biased other than favorably with its reporting of Pope Leo’s remarks)

    The full context of the Isiah passage is this Isiah 1:10-15 (Using NET translation a good translation publicly available and free to use, with excellent translation and text critical notes )

    10 Listen to the Lord’s message, you leaders of Sodom! Pay attention to our God’s rebuke,
    people of Gomorrah!
    11 “Of what importance to me are your many sacrifices?” says the Lord.
    “I have had my fill of burnt sacrifices, of rams and the fat from steers. The blood of bulls, lambs, and goats I do not want.
    12 When you enter my presence, do you actually think I want this— animals trampling on my courtyards?
    13 Do not bring any more meaningless offerings; I consider your incense detestable!
    You observe new moon festivals, Sabbaths, and convocations, but I cannot tolerate sin-stained celebrations!
    14 I hate your new moon festivals and assemblies; they are a burden that I am tired of carrying.
    15 When you spread out your hands in prayer, I look the other way;
    when you offer your many prayers, I do not listen, because your hands are covered with blood.

    So the Context of blood in 15 is that this is the blood of the offerings (see v. 11). This passage has NOTHING to do with war or violence against humans; rather, it is about the hypocrisy in the offerings and celebrations of the Hebrew people in the time of Isiah (and by extension that kind of hypocrisy in general in religious observances).

    Pope Leo States “Jesus is the King of Peace, who rejects war”. Certainly He is the King of peace. Does Jesus reject war or violence absolutely? In general yes, although certainly in Luke 22:36-37 (Again NET translation) does say

    He said to them, “But now, the one who has a money bag must take it, and likewise a traveler’s bag too. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. 37 For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me is being fulfilled.”

    Although the purpose here (That Jesus be counted among the transgressors to fulfill scripture) is not a violent one. Indeed when Peter later draws a sword and cuts off the ear of a slave in Gethsemane Jesus reprimands Peter and heals the slave.

    Leo also said ““He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”

    Scripture is also full of warlike sentiments (c.f. Kings, Chronicles, the imprecatory psalms etc) and at times Israel is punished for NOT finishing off an enemy (e.g. the Amalekites) when G*d commands it. Moses, Joshua, Saul, David, Hezekiah, among others, make war in some cases taking the Ark of the Covenant (the seat of G*d) with them. It is NOT clear that absolute peace is expected to be found at any time short of the Second Coming.

    Over time, the Catholic Church developed the theory of just war based on the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and later extended by Thomas Aquinas. This is the standard by which war is justified. It comes in two parts (with help from AI)

    Jus ad Bellum (Conditions for Going to War) (comments with respect to Iran in italics)

    • Just Cause:War must defend against aggression, protect innocent life, or correct a massive injustice. Here this seems satisfied, 30,000- 40,000 Iranian civilians were slaughtered. There was the high likelihood of Iran achieving a deliverable fission weapon and using it on Israel, or European cities which its missiles CAN reach (C.F. the attacks on Diego Garcia which would allow attacks to include London)
    • Lawful/Proper Authority: War must be declared by a legitimate government, not private actors. Although not explicitly declared by congress it was authorized for at least 60 days via the War Powers Resolution. In general we have not had an explicit declaration of war since WWII, laziness on the part of Congress
    • Right Intention: The goal must be to secure a just peace, not vengeance or territorial gain.Goal appears to be preventing Iran achieving nuclear status, so in line with the cause,
    • Last Resort: All peaceful alternatives must have been exhausted. We putzed around for 47 years and Iran has just been happily marching towards fission weapons, which they as signatory to a variety of treaties have forgone
    • Reasonable Chance of Success: A war that is likely to fail is unjust, as it creates chaos without achieving a just goal. I think so far this holds, this is a call I cant make, I’m a retired Software engineer not a skilled General
    • Proportionality: The good achieved must outweigh the destruction caused. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv , London, Paris, Berlin, Rome (!!!) are still there with no giant 20-30 KT scars, so far so good

    There is also Jus in Bello (Principles During War) (comments with respect to Iran in italics)

    • Discrimination/Non-combatant Immunity: Soldiers must distinguish between combatants and civilians, protecting the innocent. Here great care seems to have been taken to focus on targets of Military value (The Iranian Navy/ Air Force, Nuclear sites, IRGC commanders and Iranian command and control including the leaders). Information on collateral damage is limited but seems to be very careful. Far better than even Desert Storm or the Iraq war of 2003
    • Proportionality: The tactics used must not be excessive in relation to the military objective. There is some waffling here. Again, I am not a military specialist, but the tactics have been VERY focused and seem appropriate from my limited knowledge
    • Military Necessity: Attacks must be necessary to achieve victory, avoiding pointless cruelty. Again the tactics seem appropriate. There have been attempts to negotiate a settlement, but as expected this appears to be a classic hudna technique described in the Koran, Iran is just hoping we fold or go away

    It seems to me that the requirements of Just War theory are satisfied. Although Pope Leo SEEMS to believe that ONLY defensive action is permitted, that does not seem to be implied in the Just Cause clause. We are acting to protect innocent life (Both Iranian and potentially Israeli and Europeans). Pope Leo also made a classic homiletic error of proof texting using Isiah 1:15. I am certain his training in both Just War theory and scripture is far better than what his statements would indicate. I suspect he is letting his own distaste for war creep in as well as his distaste for the Trump administration slide in.

    Admittedly, Trump is NOT acting particularly presidential or diplomatic in his responses to Pope Leo or in his general Statements on the war. He is being, well, particularly Trumpian. That said, the President’s actions appear to be the right ones in respect to Just War theory. A little more restraint and contemplation from both parties seems in order with respect to their statements.

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      1. When Leo was quoted of “world tyrants” by the left, I knew that the ones reporting were expanding the remarks further than intended. None of Trump’s actions can be considered tyrannical (despite the usual suspects screaming). Bit surprised when Trump responded to the lefts quote of Leo. OTOH I thought was Trump being Trump and waving the red flag in front of the left? His “look here”, not over there.

        Still that Leo has followed up with “not commenting about Trump” clarification, is good. It spikes the lefts comments.

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    2. I presume Vatican News is not TOO biased other than favorably with its reporting of Pope Leo’s remarks

      :laughs:

      Oh, they’re biased as heck, starting with what they think is “favorable.” Much like anyone else who’s not actively lying for fun and profit!

      For that article, click through to the actual homily text– they were kind enough to link it.

      Note it’s for Palm Sunday, where the reading they just listened to was of Peter chopping off a guy’s ear and Jesus saying don’t do that, it’ll mess up the plan.

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      1. The thing that occurred to me on that bit after I spent some time with swordlike objects in college was the sword work to JUST get an ear is very, very precise. I know even at my top Sabre fencing form back in the day (admittedly not all that high level, but fair), that level of cut precision would have been beyond me. And with the heavier short swords in common private use in the Roman era, even more tricky to my estimation.

        Any current sword cutting enthusiasts please chime in, but I remain impressed with Peter’s technique there.

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        2. The way I always heard pastors explaining it in sermons was, Peter was going for a horizontal(-ish) swing at the neck, and the guy ducked sideways to avoid it. Didn’t entirely get out of the way of the blade, but did manage to get out of the way enough that it was only his ear that got chopped off rather than his head.

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    4. Soldiers must distinguish between combatants and civilians, protecting the innocent. 

      Since the use of human shields seems to be a basic Islamic tactic, if he didn’t use the term Perfidy even once…..

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  9. On the topic of popes being lunkheads, the very first pope was the apostle Peter, who is Biblically famous for being a lunkhead. Little things like lacking faith, or denying Jesus. And yet, he was the one who was picked, probably so the rest of us wouldn’t get discouraged. So there’s definitely precedent.

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  10. Ah, the old 48 hour rule applies again – this time with regard to matters Vaticanish, instead of the usual ‘hair on fire’ kerfuffle about a horrible crime/terrorism incident, or a political dumpster fire.
    I thought the Pope would be politically savvy sufficiently to make himself unmistakably clear at the start, but I guess he is in as much of a bubble as the rest of us.

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    2. The problem isn’t what the Pope actually said.

      The problem is the Idiot News Media “selectively quoting” the Pope and claiming that the Pope is talking about Trump.

      IE The News Media is take “bits and pieces” of what the Pope says and claiming that the Pope is “condemning Trump” even/especially when the Pope wasn’t talking about Trump.

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      1. I am still in awe of the idea that the Pope saying “killing civilians is bad,” when Iran has killed tens of thousands of their own and is shooting neighbors at random, when Israel faced another organized overt genocide and is still getting all kinds of rockets, and they go:

        Pope’s talking about the US shooting military bases and train tracks.

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        1. No, that’s a reasonable conclusion if you assume (1) the Pope is a middle-of-the-road liberal (2) who gets his news from mainstream sources. How many people are convinced there’s a genocide in Gaza because the news said so?

          Of course, the Pope might not be as liberal as claimed, he might get his news from less biased sources, or the full quote might be unambiguous. But absent that extra context, the quote fits the hypothesis that he’s a liberal saying liberal things.

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    4. The news media will news media. That’s the problem. A month or two ago we had breathless news stories about the Republican who *gasp* had a copy of Mein Kampf. The reason that they knew this is because he mentioned it on a live stream, mocked it, and then joked with the host about how the exchange would be taken out of context to attack him. Which it was.

      Meanwhile, the media is blatantly ignoring the Democratic candidate in Maine (I think?) who has a tattoo of the divisional symbol of the 3rd SS Totenkopf Division (which is a distinctive and uncommon version of the skull and crossbones).

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    5. Since the Latter-Day Saints were mentioned –

      I think we have a small advantage in this area in that we have a lay clergy. If your local bishop starts getting political from the pulpit, it’s not as big of a deal to have him replaced. It also means that the people in charge are from the local congregants, so you don’t get people coming in from elsewhere and cluelessly stepping in it immediately with an inane political statement. Doesn’t rule out the possibility, but there’s hopefully less cluelessness when it does happen.

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  11. In my defense, so did Trump and most of the media on the right. On the left, of course, they were in on the plot.

    Maybe I’ve gotten too cynical but I think most of the media on the right is in on it as well at this point. They fall for it too often.

    Then again, some days I think the real point of DOGE being covered at all was to just rub our faces in how much they are and will continue to steal.

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    1. The noisy ones, I’d say so.

      Just this morning I went down a rabbit hole about REEE DEM STRATEGIST ANNOUCES PLAN…. short version, guy who worked for Clinton has a low-circulation podcast and said the same things he’s been wanting for 30 years now, and suddenly it’s A Big Deal and we’re Totally Needing to Panic.

      I think the conmen are shifting to the right because they realized there’s a market, following folks like Carlson.

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    2. Knowing there’s a problem is important. Being allowed to fix the problem is more important.

      Being allowed to fix the problem before the engine seizes is most important.

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    3. “Maybe I’ve gotten too cynical but I think most of the media on the right is in on it as well at this point.”

      I don’t think that’s cynical at all. The “Righty” media is focused on making a buck. That means clicks, and therefore they will make a tempest in a teapot every single time. Accuracy? That’s for suckers.

      The Canadian “Righty” media does this a little less, because they have too much red meat to throw the audience every day. They have to pick and choose which outrage-of-the-moment to run with, because there’s such a wide variety available.

      I like Jasmine Lane these days, she’s a little less for the hyperbole and a little more for the “Just take a look at what these f-ers are doing today, kids!” Plus she’s cute, that doesn’t hurt. ~:D

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  14. Reeeeeeee!!!! PAPISTS!!!!! Reeeeeeeee!!!!!

    Ok, now that I have that out of the way… Ignore the psyop. Remember your Gell-man Amnesia or however it’s spelled. Don’t let them divide us, just point and laugh at the stupidity, and thank God that he looks after America.

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  15. The Prince of Lies, has his minions, they are called democrats and the press is their whore. nuff said. We are all human, which makes us all fallible, true courage is admitting you were wrong and standing by your own principles to help expose the truth, kudos.

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  16. Being Mormon, I don’t pay a ton of attention to the Pope, but I admit I fell for this one and was mildly disappointed that he seemed to be another socialist. I should have known better, lol!!

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  17. One of the problems that modern media has is that it make it very difficult for an orator to tailor his language to the audience which he is addressing.

    Well that’s not accurate, it’s as easy as ever to tailor ones language to ones audience and speak to them in terms that they find meaningful.

    The problem is that your carefully tailored language escapes into the wild, and is seen by people who either don’t find the specific terms meaningful, or find them actively offensive because they understand the terms differently than your original audience does.

    And those people then set their hair on fire, assuming that you were addressing them when you weren’t, and are condemning them for actions that they have to do but (apparently) aren’t entirely comfortable with doing, even though they need to be done. Or for things they haven’t done at all.

    And that’s with people who under normal circumstances regard you as neutral-to friendly.

    When people who actively hate you put their oar in…

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  18. Honestly, I recognized the picture of #TheDonald that everybody is complaining about as a takeoff on the pictures of Dr. Norman Bethune that the Chicoms love to fawn over, and I thought it was fricking hilarious. So many delicious layers of mischief there. So much egg on the faces of the Lefties after the screaming dies down…

    Then there arose the business of the Catholic Church, and I A) didn’t care a damn because I’m as not-Catholic as they come and B) I assumed that all the media were lying. They lied about the picture, they’d lie about the Church too.

    I assumed all the #DemocRats hiding under priestly vestments would be lying right along, in unison. They always do, after all.

    This is not because I am so smart, I hasten to add. It’s just that I’m old and I’ve seen this sh1t so often that I never believe anything anymore. The #Pope called #Donnie a tyrant? Over a picture on the interwebz? Sure he did, uh huh. Either he didn’t, and therefore I don’t care, or he did, and I still don’t care.

    So I just waited a little, and here we are. Lying liars lie. Must be a day ending in ‘Y’.

    As a general rule, I feel that if some media guy wants me to be upset about something, I’m best to assume he doesn’t have my welfare in mind and behave accordingly.

    This is also why I don’t talk to Normies anymore. They’re like a pack of stupid monkeys fighting over a mango. Nothing they say or do makes a lick of sense.

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  19. It’s a serious problem when the head of one of the largest organizations in the world can’t reliably disseminate his message to the only people who will fight on his behalf. Right-wing American Catholics are the only group with a direct interest in keeping the media from lying about the Pope, and for the past week or so, the best ammo they’ve had is “Well, the Pope isn’t always right.”

    That’s really sad.

    Leo’s clarification that he wasn’t talking about Trump is a step in the right direction, but a lot of the damage has already been done. There has to be a better way to cut through the noise. (Assuming the Pope knows and cares. I’m not sure he has any reason to prevent a MAGA-Catholic schism.)

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    1. :raises hand:

      I have been telling folks to stop listening to the idjit media.

      I’ve told folks where they can go to get context. I’ve handed folks links left and right.

      And the self-anointed experts then proceeded to scream and do it anyways.

      Why? I have no idea.

      But it is a lot like the self-anointed “right wing” authorities who scream I need to be guilty for not speaking up when for the last 20 years they’ve completely ignored me in favor of the media-chosen chicks.

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      1. “…the self-anointed “right wing” authorities…”

        …many (but not all) of whom seem to be in it for the clicks, and who will therefore say the loudest and most click-bait thing they can conjure up.

        So many of these dorks don’t understand that the “Right Wing” is a mob of feral cats that goes in all directions at all times, and will not be herded. It is easier for them to make sh1t up to blame you for, than come up with something constructive.

        And these would be the ‘honest’ ones, who are in it for the money. We know there exist legions of foreign actors and domestic trolls who are in it for the enemy.

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      2. If the Vatican were handling this adequately, you wouldn’t need to play Pope-whisperer to get the truth out. The facts and rebuttals would be as easy to come by as they are for the rest of American politics.

        You can’t open X without hearing the Trump administration’s stance on every news item, usually within hours of the story breaking. I just watched conservative Catholics spend the better part of a week floundering for a single talking point to use.

        Whatever the Church is using to get its message out, it isn’t working. Either they don’t care how the media portrays them or they need to step up their game.

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        1. We have a lot of house cleaning to do, yes, but part of the problem is “our” loudest TwiX defenders are either compromised, confused, or listening to sources that are both. After a point, the Vatican itself can only do so much about the Pope’s messaging – and they weren’t keeping it a secret that he was in Africa. Most of “our” outlets and TwiX people were either focused on that, or on other things, so that the sudden left-field onslaught of “fight with Trump” caught them off guard.

          Part of the reason for that is we’re still trying to make sure he’s not Francis 2.0. So far he’s been very encouraging, but…okay, inside baseball moment here: A lot of “trad” Catholics are liable to flip their lids because it got them clicks under Francis. The same clique that got Francis in remains a problem, too, so some are not entirely wrong to flip, their reflexes are just twitchy. So. If they want clicks or attention, or if they somehow get that nerve hit now? They flip about Leo.

          Getting through that noise is not, after a point, the Vatican’s job. Half the floundering you saw was Catholics with compromised or “trad” or liberal sources and a serious Francis-induced flinch reflex spasming at the thought of “It’s happening again!” Seriously, Biden had 4 years to leave people twitchy. Francis had ten or so to leave Catholics bouncing like scalded cats who jump every time the kettle whistles.

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  20. An excellent summary. I confess (…to Almighty G_d, and to you my brothers and sisters that I have greatly sinned…) that it was all too easy to see/read Axelrod, Cupich, and our new Holy Father the White Sox fan* and connect an unrelated set of dots.

    I still compare the Holy Father’s remarks to those of his predecessor Leo XIII (Rerum Novarum, Humanum Genus, etc.) and can’t help but wish Leo XIV had Leo XIII’s gift of stupendously clear communication, but then I wish anyone, myself decidedly included, had that gift in greater measure.

    *I have to give the Holy Father his props for that. Anybody can root for the Cubs; they’re easy to like and Wrigley Field is as good a place to watch a ballgame as there is. Takes conviction to root for the White Sox; the only way to top it would be to have a Pope who roots for the Cleveland Browns, a team that could try the patience of a saint.

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  22. This is a hard thing to navigate. I’d say the Left is the enemy always and everywhere, and it’d be absolutely true…except that they know we know this, so they’re sowing confusion about who they are, where they are, and even who *we* are. This isn’t helped by the fact that they’ve managed to infiltrate and co-opt almost every major institution (and by now they know that we know that too), including most of mainstream Christianity, to the point where if you’re seeing leftists lurking everywhere, including and especially among the loudest doomers on the right, you wouldn’t really be wrong.

    For better or worse, I assumed that the pope was likely flying his true colors…and that it didn’t matter very much because commies gonna commie, and like cockroaches, they’re everywhere, so it’s more or less another FIDO situation. *Almost* right, at least in the judgment that it’s the kind of kerfuffle that I could ignore. But wrong because the entire thing was fake, and I reflexively accepted the lie.

    It’s easy to say everything’s a lie, so pay no attention, but you’ve got to believe at least some things, from some people, sometimes, because like it or not, we do need outside information in order to orient ourselves to the world and make decisions. If the so-called mainstream and other, farther left outlets are saying it, you can safely assume it’s a lie or a deception. But when everyone on *our* side is saying it too, what are we supposed to do then? Wait and see and reserve judgment is about all you can do, I guess. There’s no satisfaction in it, but there it is. F— it, drive on.

    It’s an evil bind the left’s got us in. Both division/confusion and lockstep conformity are powerful social weapons, and the left wields them both against everyone: against their own to keep them in line and against us to demoralize and enervate. Seems like they’ve weaponized human nature against itself.

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    1. “They’ve weaponized human nature against itself” could literally be the grand-strategy mission statement of leftism, itself, as “we” understand it. This is the means; the end is power.

      Power for the Party, the apparatchiki and nomenklatura, the fascisti, the in-group that always works like an aristocracy and is never called that. And even if the particular people in some historical or hypothetical or possible-future group of leftists (authoritarian-communists, authoritarian-socialists a-la NSDAP, authoritarian-fascists, authoritarian-democratists like the New Dealers, authoritarian-statists of any sort but anarchists, maybe) were not so consumed and driven by power as a goal, their whole system is as good as designed to attract the very sort who will take that power as their end, as their reason to be (and do unto others), take it as their own.

      It’s like the biggest social-genetic algorithm, the best human-level gain-of-function experiment ever. So how can be be surprised, when the machine does what it’s designed and built to do?

      Need a better machine. (See 1776 etc.)

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  28. Now, as to all that kerfluffle…

    Jesus is Lord. Moving along….

    Collecting Lightsabers is fun. I particularly like the “build your own” options from Saberforge. You can have them assemble your creation, or ship you the loose parts. The latter option is essentially “Saber legos”. Highly recommend.

    Now, I need to figure out what a MAGAsaber is and build it.

    (grin)

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  29. Oh. And I had one of those “Oh crap” realizations.

    60% enriched is sufficient for crude gun-type weapons. Too big ti fly, but ship delivery works.

    If I were wargaming as Iran, 2-3 such weapons are either on Kharg Island, and/or on tanker(s) docked there. If the USA player takes Kharg, Iran player removes it and its contents from the game. “Mahdi” summoned with hellfire.

    Ouch. I hate my brain sometimes.

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    1. That would require the person/people in charge of the Iranian forces to be capable of believing they’re going to lose Kharg Island and not be able to get it back.

      Furthermore, it would require said weapons to have been prepositioned before the war launched, because once the war launched and there were hostile aircraft all over the sky, any significant movement of troops or material near where the enriched uranium is (buried under tons of rubble after last year’s strike) would have been noticed and reported. It’s kind of hard to keep a secret when enemy pilots can fly over any part of your airspace at any time.

      And I don’t believe that Iran had weapons before the war kicked off, because what the Iranian negotiators said to the American negotiators (which they then reported to Trump, which caused him to call Netanyahu and go “We’re out of time, we’ve got to go hot right now”) was “We can have nuclear weapons within weeks”. They did not brag “We already have nuclear weapons”, they bragged “We can have them within weeks”. Were they exaggerating their capabilities? Perhaps. But given the context (they thought that bragging about their capabilities would help them in negotiations, having completely misread Trump’s character), they would not have underplayed their capabilities. If they had had working nukes, even poor ones, they would have said so; instead, what they said was “we’re weeks away from having nukes, so take us seriously” (and Trump did take them seriously, in a way that was not at all what they wanted).

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      1. It’s kind of hard to keep a secret when enemy pilots can fly over any part of your airspace at any time.

        It’s even harder when you have the level of electronic and humint penetration we and the Israelis had before the first drone launched….

        When the guy in charge of counter Mossad operations is revealed as a Mossad agent — not because YOU found him but because your enemies extracted him and then admitted it — that just HAS to be a tad demoralizing.

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    1. For some reason the majority of people don’t seem to understand (or believe) that Iran’s whole game is world destruction.

      If your whole world view is to take the world for your god at the point of a sword, why NOT use a nuclear weapon? Why not attack other islamist nations? Why not kill your own people?

      The destruction is planned and deliberate. You can trust them to do the most insane thing possible, if it will cause death and destruction. The more the better, from their pov.

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      1. If you grew up with MAD, you assume that the other side is not suicidal. if you grew up without truly believing in religion but mouthed the words to keep parents/teachers/whoever happy, then you don’t take other people’s beliefs seriously (as the State Department showed during Ahmadinijad’s presidency). If you don’t know much about the ayatollahs’ interpretation of the end times ideas of Shia Islam, then you don’t know that they really want to start the war that forces the return of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi, and Issa bin Maryam (aka Jesus).

        That leaves the rest of us jumping up and down and yelling, “They want to kill us all, you idiots. Take them seriously!”

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  31. I knew years ago that Carlson, et all were leftist stooges. Just too many times when they subtly used leftist talking points, or not so subtly used the same words/phrases that the leftists were currently using.

    It became obvious pretty quickly that if they weren’t leftists themselves they still lived in and trusted the media bubble. They were steeped in it, lived in it.

    CO is a different flavor of crazy. I’ve gotten to the point where if any of them say anything I reflexively go in the other direction.

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