Here’s a novel defense of our Traitor-in-Chief

Last updated on: May 16, 2017 at 12:19 pm By Mark Shea

Let this sink in, his defenders are saying he is too much of an ignorant, incurious moron to be able to betray much information: In private, three administration officials conceded that they could not publicly articulate their most compelling — and honest — defense of the president: that Mr. Trump, a hasty and indifferent reader of printed briefing materials, simply did not possess the interest or knowledge of the granular details of intelligence gathering to leak specific sources and methods... Read more

Up till now the only rhetorical tools of the Party of Trump…

Last updated on: May 16, 2017 at 11:14 am By Mark Shea

…have been the Genetic Fallacy (“What? You believe that extremely well-documented fact? But its reported by somebody the Dear Leader declares to be ritually impure!”) and the “Tu Quoque” (“But Hillary/Obama/some other Culture War enemy did it too, or something that is kind of like it if you stand on one foot, tilt your head and squint!”) Now the Trump apologist has a new tool: the Ad Baculum or Argument from the Big Stick. “He did because he has the... Read more

Traitor shares highly classified intel with Russia

Last updated on: May 16, 2017 at 10:16 am By Mark Shea

When the story broke yesterday, all the Usual Suspects fanned out to shout “fake news” at a Pulitzer-prize winning newspaper while defending the integrity of a pathological liar with a paper trail the size of the rings of Saturn. It never happened, etc. This morning, on cue, the stupid braggart confirmed that he did it and had an “absolute right” to do so. Now, of course, the prostitutes committed to defending everything he says and does will transition smoothly from... Read more

Visual Effects Artist Makes Ad to Sell his Used Car

Last updated on: May 15, 2017 at 2:04 pm By Mark Shea

…and winds up with 2 million offers due to this: Read more

Dead Men Bleeding and Medjugorje

Last updated on: May 16, 2017 at 10:30 am By Mark Shea

There’s the old story of the guy in the lunatic asylum who insisted he was dead. A doctor was convinced he could reason the guy out of his delusion, so he asked him, “Do dead men bleed?” The man replied that they did not. So, quick as thought, he prick the man’s finger with a needle and showed him the blood streaming down it. “What do you say to that?” he asked, triumphantly. “Well, what do you know! Dead men... Read more

A reader is troubled with me

Last updated on: May 16, 2017 at 9:34 am By Mark Shea

He writes: I’m a casual reader of yours and a fan of much of what you have said on many topics. With all due respect, however, I think you’re finding it increasingly difficult to see the difference between a differing opinion from your own on public policy and heresy. Even when I agree with you on a particular topic (like your recent post where feeding kids at school should clearly trump a so-called “principled” stand on public spending), I find... Read more

The Dunning-Krueger Effect

Last updated on: May 12, 2017 at 4:34 pm By Mark Shea

Mercy for Murderers in Scripture

Last updated on: May 15, 2017 at 9:24 pm By Mark Shea

Part 4 of my series on the death penalty in the Catholic Weekly. Some varieties of Christianity see in the Crucifixion a kind of weird divine child abuse. In that telling, God the Father wanted to slaughter the human race, but then God the Son distracted him by offering himself as the target for the divine sadism and this somehow made God the Father happy and he forgot his desire to destroy us in his orgy of cruelty against his... Read more

Oklahoma Republican’s plan to save money

Last updated on: May 12, 2017 at 3:00 pm By Mark Shea

Turn 82,000 kids over to ICE. Even more incredible than this inhuman and despicable cruelty is the fact that I still hear from Christian readers asking me, “What does this have to do with the gospel? Why don’t you talk about Catholic theology and not this political stuff?” The spectacle of Catholics who cannot for the life of them figure out what cruelty to the least of these has to do with their faith just takes my breath away. If... Read more

Surreal

Last updated on: May 12, 2017 at 2:41 pm By Mark Shea

Law firm @POTUS used to show he has no ties to Russia was named Russia Law Firm of the Year for their extensive ties to Russia. Unreal. — Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) May 12, 2017 The American electorate is divided between the 2/3 who live in reality and the 1/3 whom I call the People of the Lie: wilfully deluded suckers immovably convinced of every lie their Dear Leader and the Right Wing Noise Machine feeds them. People inflexibly committed to... Read more

What was the profession of Peter and Andrew?