Tag: Tom Callaghan

Posted on July 27, 2022
Yeah, I’m Catholic. Not the best in the world. Maybe not even in the top ten.

I may get there though. The snark, ridicule and contempt shown by columnists and online commenters at the New York Times and Washington Post on everything and anything Catholic has been getting my Irish up and is causing me to be more energized in defense of the Faith Community into which I was born.

I grew up in a very Catholic environment. My father was one of ten, three of whom became Nuns (Sisters). When I was quite young, one or more of the Sisters would visit. They always wore the old style full religious habit. I have vivid memories of one of the Sisters looking at me in a way that made me think she knew I had been very bad and she knew the particulars of my reprehensible behavior in great detail and if she had anything to do with it God was waiting to give me a good ass kicking.

I was about three years old when all this was going down and all I could think was “how did she know?”

Luckily there was a friendly uncle who often came by for Holidays. He was a Jesuit Priest, Fr. Fred Berrigan, SJ (not related to the Berrigan brothers of the sixties). Father Fred was always in a good mood and he seemed to think I was good company. I liked him a lot. So, I guess things evened out, all things considered.

Church on Sunday was not a “maybe” thing in the Callaghan household. If you were living in the house you went to Mass.

But, religion, or “God”, was almost never mentioned in the house. God was Sunday Church. Being Catholic in our world was who we were. No need to talk about it Continue Reading…..

Posted on April 19, 2022

I call it unbelievable because our Press has lost its mind in its hero worship of all things Ukraine and its Jewish President, Volodymyr Zelensky.

The Press has given us no context and no history on whether these two countries, Russia and Ukraine, might have had some connection with each other over the last several decades. Just unadulterated love for a guy who did what leaders have been doing for centuries. Not bugging out the back door when the fighting started. He stayed and he’s been demanding free stuff from the USA ever since.

We’re up around $2.5 Bil for the year now for Ukraine. Nobody gets more except Israel. Ukraine, like Israel, never lifted a finger to help the US when we were hit on 9/11 although a number of Non NATO countries, like Jordan and Iran, did. Yeah, Iran. Dig it.

So, we don’t, in any way, “owe” Ukraine.

Let’s set some context for the Ukraine-Russia relationship. The most important thing to know is there wouldn’t be a place called “Ukraine” if it wasn’t for the sacrifices of the Russian people. Similarly, the number of Jews lost in the Holocaust would have been much higher were it not for Russia. Continue Reading……..

Posted on March 17, 2022

The expression “whose ox is being gored” comes from Scripture, Exodus:21:35. Nowadays, the phrase is often used in politics to describe how different people in similar circumstances are often treated quite differently depending on the relative “importance” of the individuals.

Important people, which often means rich and powerful people, get better treatment by society and government than those in poorer circumstances. Why? Because the rich and powerful are better positioned to reward those that help them than the poor. It’s not a particularly noble phenomenon, but it reflects human nature and reality.

One would hope that this form of discrimination would not apply to children who are not old enough to be responsible for their circumstances especially in war. Not so. There is a huge difference in how children, babies even, are treated depending upon who they are and who killed them.

Let’s compare Ukraine 2022 and Gaza 2014.

The war in Ukraine started February 24, 2022. I watched a significant amount on TV. Saw the footage of buildings being destroyed residential, commercial, mixed use. It looked like a horror show. Whole portions of ten story buildings falling to the ground. Continue Reading…..

Posted on March 6, 2022

Russia is an anomaly. It’s too big. Nearly twice the size of the next biggest country in the world, Canada, with a population less than that of Bangladesh.

Russia is in a war where they can’t afford to win or lose. Putin has forty miles of military vehicles stuck in the mud because he violated the first rule of war in Ukraine: Don’t Start A War In the Mud Season.

Putin knew his timing was off but he had promised China Boss Xi Jinping that he would not commence military action against Ukraine until the Winter Olympics in China finished on February 20, 2022.

Putin is running out of friends fast. He can’t lose Xi Jingping.

The American Press is somewhere between Ga-Ga and Ape-Shit over Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky. It doesn’t hurt that he’s Jewish. Congressman Steve Cohen of Tennessee called him “the bravest man in the World.” Hey, Zelensky is holding things together, from his bunker, asking for help, but he’s not going to be confused with Audie Murphy or Wild Bill Donavan.

I’ve been watching mostly BBC and CNN. Fareed Zakaria does a great job. Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer are solid and make sure nobody forgets that Zelensky is Jewish.

The whole Jewish thing is not totally irrelevant. When the Nazis overran Ukraine in WW II, Ukrainians were relieved to be out from under Russian domination. How friendly some Ukrainians were with the Nazis while they were under occupation, who knows? I don’t. Continue Reading……..

Posted on February 14, 2022

The Bear is Putin and he can’t quite get his story straight. He feels, in his gut, that Ukraine is really part of Russia but he doesn’t know how to say so, convincingly.

Every time he gets ready to find a reason to start some high-intensity pushing and shoving in Ukraine, Jake Sullivan stools the “secret”, identifies it as a fabrication and/or false flag operation and takes the Bear off his game. Putin ends up punching air and losing another news cycle.

Putin is accustomed to being first actor and having the advantage of surprise and Jake Sullivan is peeing in his porridge. The window of opportunity for Putin’s designs on Ukraine is closing.

Which is a good thing.

Who is this guy, Jake Sullivan? His actual occupation is National Security Advisor to the President of the United States. Henry Kissinger made the job glamorous and exciting. Kissinger made himself Nixon’s friend, confidant and alter ego. He became famous and powerful in the process. Continue Reading……..

Someone has got to tell Joe Biden to do the right thing.

Joe, you helped Obama win two terms and you beat Trump. Good for you. But, imagining you as President seven years from now is a bridge too far. In fact the very thought of a total of eight years of President Joe Biden, the guy I voted for, gives me the heebee-geebees.

Here’s what you have to do, Joe. On January 21, 2022, which is the one year anniversary of your Inauguration, go on TV and make the following statement.

“I SHALL NOT SEEK, NOR WILL I ACCEPT, THE NOMINATION OF MY PARTY FOR ANOTHER TERM AS YOUR PRESIDENT.”

Those were the exact words used by President Lyndon Johnson on March 31, 1968, seven months before the 1968 Presidential Election. Johnson was losing public support over the Viet Nam War and did what he thought was best for the Country and his Party at the time. Johnson’s announcement stabilized his poll numbers and he finished his term at just under 50% Job Approval. Not bad given the tumultuous Sixties and the War.

Joe Biden is a fighter and a patriot, I’m sure it goes against every instinct in his being to make such an announcement one year into his presidency. But, its not about what’s good for Joe anymore, its about the country and maintaining a viable two party system in the Congress. Continue Reading……

I’ve always liked Steve Bannon.

We’ve got a bit in common. We’re both mostly Irish and mostly, Catholic. Bannon went to high school with Benedictine Catholic Monks in Richmond, VA. I attended most of the Jesuit Colleges on the East Coast graduating from one of them. Bannon was elected President of the Student Body at Virginia Tech, in Harrisonburg, VA. I was elected to the student council from my home room in high school….ok, ok no big deal, but I beat the Class President and the Class Valedictorian in a three person race.

So, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Bannon calls himself a nationalist populist. I call myself an Obama-Pelosi Democrat with emphasis on staying out of unnecessary Mideast wars urged upon us by Israel and her, bought and paid for, friends in Congress. I know they’re “bought and paid for” because Tom Friedman of the Times said they were and Tom loves Israel more than life itself.

Bannon talks too much and often makes enemies. Chicken libs (a chicken lib is unwilling to criticize Israel ever) love to take shots at Bannon. Organized commenters (its called Hasbara, from the Hebrew) join the fray to vile excess. Their “real” gripe: Bannon supposedly said, according to one of his former wives (are you kidding me!), that he “didn’t want his kids going to school with a bunch of whiny Jewish brats.” Continue Reading………

Posted on September 26, 2021

It’s always something with Israel. Fight this country; bomb that country. Israel join us in battle? Never. Pester us for more money? Constantly.

We made a deal with Israel five years ago. We, The USA, would give Israel $3.8 Billion a year for ten years. Israel signed on. Now, they’re coming to us and saying, send us an EXTRA $1 Billion for this year. They say, they had to launch a bunch of rockets against Hamas a few months ago and don’t want to use “their own ” money…meaning money we already sent them under the Agreement. They want “new” money from us, in addition to the Agreed upon money.

As “Church Lady” would say “Isn’t that special.”

Why the heck are they bugging us with this Mickey Mouse, BS? Israel is a country with 71 Billionaires, more than three times that of the entire continent of Africa. Use the money we already sent you. The $3.8 Bil for this year isn’t exactly chump change. Don’t come to us with “extras”. That’s not our deal. And, if you have to spend a dollar of your own……..

And, by the way, the money we give to Israel, each year, is more than the money we give annually to all of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, combined. That happens to be the area of Africa where the slaves came from. Population, 950 million people. They get squatoosh which is a smidge more than bupkis.

Does anybody have the phone number for the Congressional Black Caucus? Do they still exist? Anyone in there with a pulse?

You already know how this story ends. Israel will get “their” (meaning OUR) extra $1,000,000,000 for this year. Do you think it will be different next year? Possible. People are starting to talk.

The good news is that nine brave souls, out of 435 in the House of Representatives, voted NO and slowed the process down. Israel likes its “special arrangements” buried in massive multipurpose legislative packages. The Virtuous Nine made that impossible. So, a little daylight got shined on the scam, making it a little more difficult to pull off again. Continue Reading…….

Posted on September 16, 2021

General Milley is going to be all right. I heard it from a couple of Four Stars. Like, for instance, Retired Four Star General Barry McCaffrey, who comments frequently on MSNBC and Retired Four Star General Jack Keane, who does the same at FOX.

General Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under Presidents Trump and Biden has admitted to authors Woodward and Costa, in their Book, Peril, to doing exactly what a person holding his rank and position is supposed to do. Keep us out of accidental wars with nuclear powers.

Its called “Deconfliction.” The word is not in the Constitution. Neither is the term “Nuclear Weapons.” The people at Webster have personally advised me that the first time the word “Deconfliction” was used was 1976, further proof that my history of bringing you up to date material, like “The Dude“, abides.

Deconfliction is the art whereby we tell friends, and powerful foes, what we’re concerned about and seek to ascertain what their concerns are about us. For example, it is not in the interest of the USA for China to be under the impression that our President, no matter who it is, is determined to use nuclear weapons against them. The act of convincing the government of China that their fears are misplaced is in the interest of the USA in that it lessens the likelihood that China would take what they mistakenly thought was “preemptive” action against us. Knowledge of what each adversarial power thinks about the other is useful to achieving an absence of conflict also referred to by liberals and flower children as “Peace.” Continue Reading……..

Posted on August 16, 2021

TALIBAN. The Taliban are a movement that originated in the mid 1990s. They practice a strict fundamentalist version of Sharia Law. The Taliban have 150,000 fighters. They now control Afghanistan, a landlocked country that borders Iran, China, Pakistan and four countries ending in “stan” known as the Stans.

The Taliban now get, for a brief fleeting moment, a second chance to make a first impression. Last time around they cut off heads, brutalized women and blew up priceless monuments. They have a chance to reboot who they are. The Germans remade themselves after WW II. Anything is possible. The American Press will give them about a week to demonstrate that they are not stuck in the Stone Age, after which the conventional wisdom will hold that they’re stone cold irrational killers.

JOE BIDEN. Has bragged about his knowledge of Afghanistan claiming he has taken up to 30 trips there. This is a moment of truth time for Joe Biden. Biden must get all our personnel out of Afghanistan safely. The same for the interpreters who risked their lives to help our troops. Biden’s presidency is on the line. Get us out neat and clean. There is no margin for error. Let your work speak for itself. Don’t over talk it. Use Wendy Sherman, No. 2 at State, as a spokesperson in place of underwhelming Secretary of State, Tony Blinken.

IRAN. Iran shares a 590-mile border with Afghanistan. A couple of million Afghanistan citizens have escaped into Iran. It’s in Iran’s interest to help Biden get all Americans out of Afghanistan safely. Iran helped the US right after 9/11. Continue Reading……….