Posted on 06/26/2022 4:25:34 AM PDT by cotton1706
Imagine being the manager of a Planned Parenthood clinic in a red state with an abortion trigger law this morning. In one fail swoop, the Supreme Court Dobbs decision not only stripped women of the fundamental right to reproductive freedom you have spent a lifetime championing, but it literally put you out of business. It must be so depressing, but you can still hold your head high, knowing that no matter how bad the past 24 hours have been for you, it’s nothing compared to sense of humiliating defeat Dobbs has visited upon ‘True Conservative’ Nevertrumpers.
For the Nevertrumper, there’s nowhere to hide. Everyone knows that this never would have happened without Donald Trump and there’s just no escaping the embarrassing reality that you’ve been absurdly wrong all along. A few have tried to rationalize the truth with “it doesn’t matter” pieces. The most embarrassing of which includes Kevin Williamson who wrote a piece in National Review arguing that Trump just “got lucky” with his SCOTUS picks, claiming that a “well trained monkey” could have duplicated Trump’s successful remaking of this country’s entire jurisprudence. You won’t be surprised to learn that Kevin is so butt-hurt by Dobbs that he called you a “rage monkey” if you think Trump has anything to do with any of this.
(Excerpt) Read more at regularguy66d.substack.com ...
6-3 saying the Mississippi law is constitutional.
5-4 saying Roe is completely overturned.
Roberts was the one who tried weaseling a compromise.
Thanks. That’s very clear.
I think the influence ran both ways. IIRC, Scalia wasn’t buried an Episcopalian.
Which is a good excuse to post the funeral homily, which was brilliant.
(As is noted at the end, the Homilist was Paul Scalia)
We are gathered here because of one man. A man known personally to many of us, known only by reputation to even more. A man loved by many, scorned by others. A man known for great controversy, and for great compassion. That man, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth.
It is He whom we proclaim. Jesus Christ, son of the father, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, buried, risen, seated at the right hand of the Father. It is because of him. because of his life, death and resurrection that we do not mourn as those who have no hope, but in confidence we commend Antonin Scalia to the mercy of God.
Scripture says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever. And that sets a good course for our thoughts and our prayers here today. In effect, we look in three directions. To yesterday, in thanksgiving. To today, in petition. And into eternity, with hope.
We look to Jesus Christ yesterday, that is, to the past, in thanksgiving for the blessings God bestowed upon Dad. In the past week, many have recounted what Dad did for them. But here today, we recount what God did for Dad, how he blessed him.
We give thanks first of all for the atoning death and life-giving resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our Lord died and rose not only for all of us, but also for each of us. And at this time we look to that yesterday of his death and resurrection, and we give thanks that he died and rose for Dad.
Further, we give thanks that Jesus brought him to new life in baptism, nourished him with the Eucharist, and healed him in the confessional.
We give thanks that Jesus bestowed upon him 55 years of marriage to the woman he loved, a woman who could match him at every step, and even hold him accountable.
God blessed Dad with a deep Catholic faith: The conviction that Christ’s presence and power continue in the world today through His body, the Church. He loved the clarity and coherence of the church’s teachings. He treasured the church’s ceremonies, especially the beauty of her ancient worship. He trusted the power of her sacraments as the means of salvation as Christ working within him for his salvation.
Although one time, one Saturday afternoon, he did scold me for having heard confessions that afternoon, that same day. And I hope that it’s some source of consolation, if there are any lawyers present, that the Roman collar was not a shield against his criticism.
The issue that evening was not that I had been hearing confessions, but that he had found himself in my confessional line, and he quickly departed it. As he put it later, “Like heck if I’m confessing to you!”
The feeling was mutual.
God blessed Dad, as is well known, with a love for his country. He knew well what a close-run thing the founding of our nation was. And he saw in that founding, as did the founders themselves, a blessing, a blessing quickly lost when faith is banned form the public square, or when we refuse to bring it there. So he understood that there is no conflict between loving God and loving one’s country, between one’s faith and one’s public service. Dad understood that the deeper he went in his Catholic faith, the better a citizen and public servant he became. God blessed him with the desire to be the country’s good servant because he was God’s first.
We Scalias, however, give thanks for a particular blessing God bestowed. God blessed Dad with a love for his family. We have been thrilled to read and hear the many words of praise and admiration for him, for his intellect, his writings, his speeches, his influence and so on.
But more important to us — and to him — is that he was Dad. He was the father that God gave us for the great adventure of family life. Sure he forgot our names at times, or mixed them up, but there are nine of us.
He loved us, and sought to show that love. And sought to share the blessing of the faith he treasured. And he gave us one another, to have each other for support. That’s the greatest wealth parents can bestow, and right now we are particularly grateful for it.
So we look to the past, to Jesus Christ yesterday. We call to mind all of these blessings, and we give our Lord the honor and glory for them, for they are His work. We look to Jesus today, in petition, to the present moment, here and now, as we mourn the one we love and admire, the one whose absence pains us. Today we pray for him. We pray for the repose of his soul. We thank God for his goodness to Dad as is right and just. But we also know that although dad believed, he did so imperfectly, like the rest of us. He tried to love God and neighbor, but like the rest of us did so imperfectly.
He was a practicing Catholic, “practicing” in the sense that he hadn’t perfected it yet. Or rather, Christ was not yet perfected in him. And only those in whom Christ is brought to perfection can enter heaven. We are here, then, to lend our prayers to that perfecting, to that final work of God’s grace, in freeing Dad from every encumbrance of sin.
But don’t take my word for it. Dad himself, not surprisingly, had something to say on the matter. Writing years ago to a Presbyterian minister whose funeral service he admired, he summarized quite nicely the pitfalls of funerals and why he didn’t like eulogies.
He wrote: “Even when the deceased was an admirable person, indeed especially when the deceased was an admirable person, praise for his virtues can cause us to forget that we are praying for and giving thanks for God’s inexplicable mercy to a sinner.”
Now he would not have exempted himself from that. We are here then, as he would want, to pray for God’s inexplicable mercy to a sinner. To this sinner, Antonin Scalia. Let us not show him a false love and allow our admiration to deprive him of our prayers. We continue to show affection for him and do good for him by praying for him: That all stain of sin be washed away, that all wounds be healed, that he be purified of all that is not Christ. That he rest in peace.
Finally we look to Jesus forever, into eternity. Or better, we consider our own place in eternity and whether it will be with the Lord. Even as we pray for Dad to enter swiftly into eternal glory, we should be mindful of ourselves. Every funeral reminds us of just how thin the veil is between this world and the next, between time and eternity, between the opportunity for conversion and the moment of judgment.
So we cannot depart here unchanged. It makes no sense to celebrate God’s goodness and mercy to Dad if we are not attentive and responsive to those realities in our own lives. We must allow this encounter with eternity to change us, to turn us from sin and towards the Lord.
The English Dominican, Father Bede Jarrett, put it beautifully when he prayed, “O strong son of God, while you prepare a place for us, prepare us also for that happy place, that we may be with you and with those we love for all eternity.”
Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever,.
My dear friends, this is also the structure of the Mass, the greatest prayer we can offer for Dad, because it’s not our prayer, but the Lord’s. The Mass looks to Jesus yesterday. It reaches into the past — reaches to the Last Supper, to the crucifixion, to the resurrection — and it makes those mysteries and their power present here on this altar.
Jesus himself becomes present here today under the form of bread and wine so that we can unite all our prayers of thanksgiving, sorrow and petition with Christ himself as an offering to the father. And all of this with a view to eternity, stretching towards heaven, where we hope one day to enjoy that perfect union with God himself and to see Dad again and, with him, rejoice in the communion of saints.
Rev. Paul Scalia is a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia and the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
The gun decision was 6-3, the Dobbs decision was 5-4, Roberts sided with the abortion team.
The Republican Establishment was been strangely subdued since the ruling. I think they are actually horrified. They never really wanted to end abortion, most likely even quietly supported abortion, they just wanted to use the promise of ending it as a campaign tool to manipulate the religious right into coming to the polls every election and hitting the “R” button.
Well Roberts opinion was weird, technically he did concur with the Judgement that the Mississippi abortion law should be allowed to stand, which made the ruling on the case overall 6-3 . But then filed a separate "concurring" opinion that read more like a dissent. Saying that the court should have simply upheld the Mississippi law and not touched Roe v. Wade.
In reality the final opinion was more like 4/1/1 - 3. With Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Berrett signing onto the majority opinion. Thomas filing a separate opinion saying he would have gone even farther and sent other rulings like gay marriage back to the states. Roberts filing his wishy-washy opinion saying he would have allowed the Mississippi law but kept Roe, and then three liberal filing their dissent.
5-4 to overturn roe v. wade, 6-3 in the case that triggered it.
“I think they are actually horrified. They never really wanted to end abortion, most likely even quietly supported abortion, they just wanted to use the promise of ending it as a campaign tool to manipulate the religious right into coming to the polls every election and hitting the “R” button.”
You are correct.
What is a “fail swoop”?
“I think they are actually horrified. They never really wanted to end abortion, most likely even quietly supported abortion, they just wanted to use the promise of ending it as a campaign tool to manipulate the religious right into coming to the polls every election and hitting the “R” button.”
Just to add to your point, having watched this stuff for so long I detect that the common thread throughout the years is that conservatism and conservatives are not to have any REAL victories. They must be thwarted at all cost.
And when you realize this, everything else makes sense. For example, Obamacare was never to be repealed. They could campaign on it and vote on it as long as there was a veto or a stoppage in the other house, but conservatives were NEVER to have the victory of repeal. Then Trump was elected, and with him, control of both houses of Congress so they had to pretend to repeal it. They dithered until about April of ‘17 then the “repeal & replace” failed so they were like “oh, well, we tried.” But then Mark Meadows & allies finagled a bill that actually got through the House. And it was “uh, oh” time. So it was up to Collins, Murkowski and McCain to kill any Obamacare repeal, which they did. But then we got the individual mandate repealed in something the Establishment wanted: tax cuts. But the rest of Obamacare remained. And this is all corrolarried with RINO governors expanding Medicare, etc.
The thwarting of conservative victories also went with judges. We wanted conservative judges, but we got squishy moderates, who preserved both Roe and Obamacare. During the Bush years, Trent Lott and Bill Frist would move the moderate nominees but not the conservative ones because they were easy and they didn’t have the stomach for the fight (and didn’t believe in it anyway).
But again with Trump, he sent the Senate mostly solid conservatives, and McConnell had no choice but to confirm them if he wanted to get reelected (and he wanted to get reelected). So Trump got 54 Circuit judges in four years, just about equaling Obama’s 55 in EIGHT.
And with immigration, a physical barrier was to be thwarted. Paul Ryan specifically prohibited the use of provisions of the Secure Fence Act to build a wall on the southern border. And then he prohibited the use of concrete to build a wall, which would have been cheap.
But Trump got the wall built anyway, but the Ruling Oligarchy delayed enough so that it wasn’t finished and illegal immigration to continue.
And Trump himself was not supposed to be victorious. As we know they tried to stop him at every turn.
So to reiterate, the common thread is that Conservatism is never to be allowed ANY victories.
But we got one first with Trump, in which, as you said, they were horrified, then we got most of the wall built, we repealed the Obamacare mandate, and now Roe vs Wade is gone!
They’re in politics but they don’t like winning. They don’t want to actual defeat Democrats or their issues, because, as you said, they agree with them.
And so the battle goes on, to remove as many RINO’s as possible, because they really are not, and never have been, Republicans.
Laura Bush is liberal so she is pro-choice (I am pretty sure). I respect her though because she keeps it to herself, the way it should be. It's obvious that Bush's daughters are very liberal. Jenna is one NBC. That tells you everything you need to know. I won't be surprised if Dubya is pro-choice due to his wife. He probably chose his judges because he did not think Roe vs Wade will be overturned in his lifetime and he did not anticipate a President like Trump having three appointees to change the calculus of the Supreme Court.
Dubya's favorite justice is John Roberts, I bet. A political creature just like him. They want to fit in so they'll get invited to cocktail parties inside the Beltway.
< nitpick >
This is nitpicking, but it’s “one fell swoop” not “one fail swoop.”
Fell, in this usage, is an archaic term usually meaning fatal. The illusion here is to a raptor, a bird of prey, striking its prey down in an unexpected dive.
Since my MSWord autocorrect feature routinely sabotages my own writing (have to watch it like a hawk (pun intended) for its mischief during editing) and the iOS oral dictation feature on my iPhone is a co-conspirator, the author gets the benefit of the doubt in this case.
</ nitpick>
[...NeverTrumper, Turtle Mitch, deserves some credit, too.”
THAT is the only thing I give McConnell credit for. His usefulness has subsided and it’s high time Kentucky send us some MAGA to replace him with.
Lindsay Graham, your useful life has also long since expired.
[...eliminating the judicial filibuster...]
That was NOT McConnell, that was Harry Reid, and in the deep dark corners of the Capitol, they spit whenever they speak Reid’s name for having done that and then losing the Senate majority.
Good analysis.
Allusion, not illusion. As long as we’re nitpicking.
Yeah, that one, too.
Although, as alluded to in my previous post, the author may be receiving “help” from the software. The error in spelling you point out could come down to what the dictation application selected based on what it “thinks” was said. “Allusion” and “illusion” are close enough together aurally that the software may have had to use probability (of use) to decide on which spelling to post.
When you consider that, at base, it’s all being done by incredibly thin wafers of sped silicone using ones and zeros, what other marvels (and horrors) does the future hold for us?
Sped = doped. And I did type in “doped.”
Just repeat “The app knows best.” (And take another soma to enhance your mood.)
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