Catching Up . . . sort of

It's been over a month, hasn't it.  Indeed, almost two months since we've cranked up blogspot, shifted The Inn in gear and pontificated about something or other. It's difficult to mind The Inn because it's online and in going online one is -- or at least I am -- immediately absorbed in the collapse of the current papacy.  I suppose if I had had something incisive or original to say I would've popped in for a bit. But I really didn't.

There are all sorts of sites to follow the Bergoglian catastrophe.  In my only occasionally humble opinion these are the best:

1 Peter 5
Rorate Cæli
What's Up With Francischurch?  (She doesn't publish as often as the others but it's always worth reading.)
The Moynihan Letters  (Tries to give the benefit of the doubt to PF, which I find difficult to read because I can't dig up a doubt to give PF the benefit of.   But he does reprint full copies of the relevant documentation.)
The Remnant  (THE trad bible for, oh, a half century or more.)
The Wanderer  (heavy on the politics but also full of factual reporting, much of which our most reverend fathers-in-God would prefer you not bother your pretty little head about.)

Most (all?) of those folks have Twitter feeds to keep you apprised of updates.

And that's where most of the online time went.  Well, that and the supreme court nomination exercize in rash judgement, calumny, and detraction.  (Does the Democrat party not realize that they are coming across to ordinary folk as certifiably insane, verging on the demonic?)  The Bergoglian affair does have more interest and importance sub specie æternitatis but the supreme court nomination hearings do capture the attention also.  You know, the way the six car traffic accident by the side of the road does.

Trump, the Russians and the Clintonian Emails of Song and Story

From Chaos Manor:

Mr. Trump asked the Russians to give us the 33,000 (according to Mrs. Clinton) emails that the Secretary of State erased from the private server she kept in the basement.  The media exploded. How dare he invite the Russians to hack us? Treason! Treason! But everyone knows that server has been destroyed.  Mrs. Clinton says so.  Thus it can’t be hacked.  If the Russians have these 33,000 erased emails, they did it long ago – a not unreasonable assumption, of course.  Any intelligence service would have had a go at it.  I’m sure the Brits did. It cannot be treason to invite the Russians to give us a copy of whatever they have already stolen.  The fact that grown people, presumably competent, would think Trump's remarks treason says more about them than him.  Hardly unexpected; more like a confirming instance.

(BTW: the link isn't direct; you'll have to scroll down.  I don't see a way to make a direct link.  Here it is again.)

Civil War

No, nothing to do with the War of Northern Aggression.  I mean the one in the conservative media.  A citation to this arrived in this morning's mail.   How are the neocon commentariate going to handle a Trumpean win in November?

It will be interesting to see how some of the conservative "NeverTrump" commentators handle the blowback in the days and months ahead. This soon after the last of his challengers threw in the towel, it looks like Trump is going to be supported by the vast majority of GOP elected officials and a large number of PACs and major party contributors. 

If, as expected, Clinton is the Democratic nominee and the race tightens, the pressure on those elements of the conservative intelligentsia who are pledging not to support Trump will be immense. So immense, in fact, that it's not clear whether their futures would look better if Trump subsequently wins or loses. If he wins, they lose access to the White House (and the Republican Party), and if he loses (and particularly should he lose narrowly), they will be held responsible for every objectionable thing subsequently done by President Hillary Clinton.

Interesting  stuff.  Will the rhetorical decibel level ratchet down a few clicks?  Will this make a difference:

. . . . the guess here is that many of Trump's most vocal critics will persevere in their opposition, though their rhetoric and tactics will undoubtedly be molded somewhat by the opinion polls as Election Day approaches. After all, many of the conservative outlets of news and opinion, funded as they are by wealthy benefactors like Philip Anschutz (The Weekly Standard), are not dependent financially on marketplace factors like advertising or subscription revenue.

Indeed.  Why reduce the bombast when you're not really an organ of conservative thought anyway but a mouthpiece for the oligarchy?

Not Your Usual Encomium

"He is vulgar, abusive, nasty, rude, boorish and outrageous."  The quote is from Paul Johnson and he means it as A Good Thing.  No, honestly.  You can read it for  yourself here.

Politics, Religion, and the Ruling Class

That's the title of the article in Catholic World Report - which you can find  here - which consists of an interview with Dr. Angelo M. Codevilla who gives a very good explanation of where we are now politically and culturally.  Well-worth a read.

(My only reservation would be the shot at The Donald.   Seems a bit unfair considering what else was - and is - on offer.)

A sample:

 In the common sense of humanity, and hence in dictionaries, the word “family” is defined by biology as augmented by marriage (which is a mingling of biologies) and adoption. The very essence of Progressivism’s many forms is to imagine and to treat individuals as if they existed without irrevocable biological connections—as neither son nor daughter, husband or wife, father or mother. Progressivist regimes—ours no different from that of Sweden or the Soviet Union—demand that we regard all human relationships as the result of revocable choices. All, except the relationship between each and every individual and the regime itself. That, we are to consider our parent, our spouse, our progeny.

Can HRC really be that unaware of the uses of youtube?

Before the primary season is over this little piece of business will be edited and inserted into more imaginative youtube productions than you can count.  You know it will.

What will?

This.

10 to 1 it'll be the Howard Dean howl of 2016.

The Dead Voters' Society

If you are registered to vote in Franklin County, Illinois, there is an almost 50-50 chance you are dead. Or live somewhere else. 

The small county in the southern part of the state has nearly twice as many registered voters as voting-age adults, according to a report released last week by the Washington-based Public Interest Legal Foundation.

Lots more fun here.

Why Does the Republican Party Exist?

 Is it just an arbitrary entity seeking a universal negative, designed to push back against Democratic policies and demand they be more something (efficient) or less something else (expensive)? Or does it have actual principles and priorities it seeks to make a reality? 

The Republican Party’s voters and supporters certainly seem to have such beliefs. But they rarely seem to make it through the process of synthesis that turns such beliefs into actual policy priorities. Being a negative force is not nothing, and blocking bad policy is worthwhile. But when given the opportunity to put good policy into place, or to take steps to make such policy more feasible in the future, where is the Republican Party to be found?

So why does the Republican Party exist?  This article does give an answer or two.  They're not good answers.  But they look pretty accurate to me.

No More High Hopes

William Murchison in Chronicles:

"The polls" have it that Americans in 2014 expect virtually nothing from the 2014 style in Washington politicians. 

Amid the horrors we trip over every morning when evacuating our beds, this revelation may count as very, very, very good news. 

We don't want to expect much from our politicians, of whatever sex, party, creed, and persuasion. A major roadblock to achievement of the earnest hopes of the past half dozen years—the Obama years—is ... well, those same earnest hopes. My brothers, my sisters, it wasn't ever going to happen that a smooth-tongued office seeker was going to set America right—or whatever it was we supposed he would do, once duly inducted as orator-in-chief. 

Aristotle may have thought politics a worthy tool for inculcating virtue, etc., but that was another place, another time, a world of more limited aspirations than the generalized hope for life without pain, inconvenience and undue suffering, marked by ethnic reconciliation, enduring peace and steady increases in the minimum wage.

More  here.