Pope calling proposed development of Marian doctrine ‘nonsense’ doesn’t change truth: theologian

Lifesite News  "May 21, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis describing requests to declare Our Lady Co-redemptrix as “nonsense” is a reflection of his “personal taste” and not a statement on the validity of the doctrine, a Franciscan theologian told the Rome Life Forum yesterday.

"Fr. Serafino Lanzetta delved into the six-month-old controversy during an question-and-answer session on the first day of the seventh annual forum, which was moved online because of the coronavirus pandemic, and is on the theme “Coronavirus in the Light of Fatima: a tragedy and a source of hope.”

"The question referred to the pope’s December 12, 2019, homily in which he said Mary “never wanted to take anything from her Son. She never presented herself as Co-redemptrix,” and added, “When they come to us with stories saying we have to declare this, or make this or that other dogma, let us not get lost in nonsense.”
“We cannot dismiss the word ‘Co-redemptrix’ … only because Pope Francis said we don’t need it,” said Lanzetta, a Marian Franciscan from the diocese of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom. 
"Lanzetta contends that the doctrine that Mary made a unique contribution to our salvation as Co-redemptrix is part of the ordinary magisterium of the Church, and has been reiterated by many popes for the last 100 years." . . .

"It’s an infallibly defined dogma that Jesus Christ alone is the Redeemer."  . . .

Pope Pius IV, Council of Trent, Sess. 25, On Invocation, Veneration and Relics of Saints, and on Sacred Images, ex cathedra: “… the saints, who reign with Christ, offer up their prayers to God for men; and that it is good and useful to invoke them suppliantly and, in order to obtain favors from God through His Son JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD, WHO ALONE IS OUR REDEEMER and Savior… And they must also teach that images of Christ, the virgin mother of God and the other saints should be set up and kept… But if anyone should teach or maintain anything contrary to these decrees, let him be anathema.” (Denz. 984)

"This dogmatic definition, that Christ alone is our Redeemer, even mentions Mary.  So, in the very context of mentioning the Blessed Virgin and the saints, the Council of Trent declares that Christ alone is the Redeemer.  That proves that Mary is not the Co-Redemptrix"

Ex-mayor in California who quit after criticizing Trump dies in plane crash

Kirby gained notoriety last week after social media posts criticizing Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and comparing the president’s supporters to KKK members. Kirby’s posts and statements created an outcry and calls for his recall.

NBC News  "The former mayor of a Northern Californian city who stepped down after he harshly criticized President Donald Trump and his supporters, died Saturday in a plane crash, the Sacramento Bee reported.

"Dr. Bill Kirby, who was the mayor of Auburn, died in the crash Saturday morning near the Auburn Municipal Airport, officials told the Bee.
"Kirby, a urologist, was the pilot of the plane that crashed shortly after 11 a.m., the newspaper reported. A passenger in the plane suffered minor injuries and was transported to a hospital, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
"The Bee reported that a Facebook post from Sacramento political consultant Jeff Raimundo carried a statement from the Kirby family confirming he was the victim." . . .
More...

Biden and Sharpton: I fear for this nation if it is controlled by people like these

A Deplorable Moment for Every Black American in This Country

"As far as the Democratic Party has historically been concerned, black people are property or political props. Meanwhile, President Trump celebrated record low black unemployment in January on Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Trump has also allocated more money to historically black colleges and universities than any other president in U.S. history."

"Joe Biden saying, “You ain’t black” if you’re on the fence about voting for him over President Donald Trump is beyond insulting. Am I insulted? Hell yes. Am I surprised? Hell no.

"I’ve been called a coon “with bad African blood” because my skin is black, and I’ve never, nor would I ever, vote for a Democrat. And why the hell would I? The Democratic Party was founded in the 1820s in part to preserve chattel slavery in America. After the Civil War, pro-slavery zealots in the Democratic Party became pro-segregation barbarians who brutalized, terrorized, and lynched those of my parents and grandparents’ generation if they even thought about voting for a Republican. 

Today, there’s no shortage of Democrats who oppose school choice, despite the fact that school choice measures have been beneficial to and, thus, widely supported by black and Hispanic parents in states such as Alabama, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Tennessee. Today, the line of pro-abortion Democrats could stretch from the earth to the moon and back, despite the fact that in some cases, more black babies are aborted in one year than are born alive. Those same pro-abortion Democrats shriek, endlessly, about how black lives matter, but are silent when hundreds of thousands of black lives are ended in the womb. Today, there are Democratic governors such as Gavin Newsom in California and Andrew Cuomo in New York who work tirelessly to disarm black gun owners in their respective states while simultaneously letting criminals free from prison in response to the Chinese coronavirus. " . . .

Sharpton: Biden’s Comment ‘Ludicrous,’ ‘Inappropriate’ — But Trump Is ‘Racist’

Gov Gretchen Whitmer gets a hard look, but maybe not by CNN

Turning nursing homes into extermination sites: the Gretchen factor  "We’re finally getting a clear picture of exactly how the beating of a 75-year-old nursing home patient by a man nearly one-quarter his age came about. And boy, it is a shocker.
"It turns out that victim and perp were sent to the Westwood Nursing Center in Detroit due to the fact that both were suffering from COVID. The older man, an Army vet, was snatched from his apartment and dumped in the nursing home without any notification of his relatives, who then spent a considerable amount of time looking for him, to no avail.
"As for the younger man, who is evidently named Jaydon Hayden, though the police haven’t yet confirmed it, he was suffering from some sort of breakdown and had been sent to a group home to await treatment when he was diagnosed with the coronavirus and also dumped in the Westview facility. His father, who seems to be a decent sort, says he never should have been put there.
"Hayden is now in police custody, while his aged victim is in the hospital.

What it comes down to is that the victim was placed in the nursing home to die while the authorities aimed Hayden at him like a torpedo.
"It has not escaped my notice (as it has everybody in the legacy media) that Detroit lies within the realm of her Imperial Majesty, Gretchen the Terrible." . . .

Failed dam owner fought with state over Wixom Lake levels before flood

“The state agencies clearly care more about mussels living in the impoundment than they do about the people living downstream of the dams,” said Lee Mueller, part owner of Boyce Hydro LLC, which owns the Edenville Dam.

Weary Michiganders got an unwelcome surprise from Governor Gretchen Whitmer

While Whitmer has backed off of some of her more extreme bans (e.g., store advertising, hydroxychloroquine), that hasn’t stopped her from being controversial. Her administration waged a brutal war against a 77-year-old barber who had to choose between ignoring her ban against personal grooming services or starving

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany gives reporters another cheerful beatdown

Having given the media an assignment for the long weekend, the redoubtable Kayleigh McEnany closed her folder and walked away. She’s schooling the White House media and, because she’s obviously a good teacher, they might even learn to be actual reporters rather than party hacks.

Andrea Widburg  "Kayleigh McEnany is only 32 and has been the White House press secretary for just six weeks, but she’s already proving herself to be one of the best press secretaries in remembered history. This is impressive considering that, in following Sarah Huckabee, she has had big shoes to fill.

"Over and over, when Democrat party operatives disguised journalists try to catch her with “gotcha” questions, McEnany comes back at them with facts. On Friday, McEnany hit the White House press corp with a homework assignment intended to get them to direct some of their questions to Obama.

"McEnany’s gift is that, like Trump himself, she’s a happy warrior. She’s never unprepared, she’s never angry, and she never has the cornered quality of a trapped rat. No matter what the question, she’s got a sunny answer that throws shade on the angry, smug people assembled in the White House press room. With a few exceptions, these people are neither reporters nor journalists as those terms are understood. Instead, they’re political operatives trying to frame a narrative. McEnany understands this and denies them opportunities.

"For those who were paying attention, McEnany was already showing her chops back in 2016. Ignore the obscene rap music that ends this video and just enjoy the way McEnany handles an enraged leftist:

Watch her ask the press hard questions

"Most people, though, are like me and try not to waste time watching CNN. We only figured out that McEnany was something special when she fielded a “gotcha” question about her support for Trump. She threw that issue right back at the dishonest media and their habit of playing “mean girl” politics rather than doing actual reporting:

MSNBC Host: “Silver Lining” of People Dying From Coronavirus is That It Hurts Trump

Life News  "Even for the execrable Nicolle Wallace — Trump-hater extraordinaire and Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer — this was truly grotesque. Sure, tens of thousands of Americans have died, and the economy is in shambles. But hey, there’s a “silver lining” to all the death and misery: Trump’s alleged “lies” and sins” are hurting him politically.

"As Wallace put it Thursday afternoon on her MSNBC show Deadline: White House, “the things that we’ve been talking about for three years may be finally catching up with him.” Translation: time and again, we’ve tried and failed to destroy Trump. But the virus is our silver bullet, even though tens of thousands of Americans have died!
"Here was her gleeful but repugnant utterance:

[T]here is something both tragic, and pathetic, and ironic about the fact that it took a, you know, color-blind, gender-blind, state-line-blind virus to sort of have all of the President’s sins from his first three years catch up with him. You can’t stand there and lie. You can’t contradict your scientists because they’re the ones that stand at 66 and 68 percent public trust, not you. He’s down at 38 percent. Pence is lower than him. I mean, he needs those people whether he likes what they say or not and I wonder what you think about whether or not there’s some silver lining there, that some of the things that — that we’ve been talking about for three years may be finally catching up with him?

"Note that Wallace posed the question to Ron Klain, the leftist political hack who loves to boast about the great job he ostensibly did as Obama’s “Ebola czar”—as if what he dealt with in the 2014 outbreak of the far-less contagious (though more deadly) virus is anywhere close to what’s going on now.

'I think she's a waste of time': Trump dismisses Nancy Pelosi calling him 'morbidly obese'

USA Today "He's our president and I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and his, shall we say, weight group: morbidly obese, they say. So, I think it's not a good idea," she replied.
"Though Trump is obese, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standard,
Pelosi is incorrect in labeling him "morbidly obese."

"After last year's physical, the 6-foot-3-inch Trump weighed in at 243 pounds. According to the CDC, that gives him a body mass index of 30.4, which is just over the threshold for what the public health organization labels "obese."
. . .

"The CDC defines three levels of obesity. The highest level, Class 3, is sometimes called "morbid" or "severe” obesity, but that requires a BMI of 40 or greater. 

"The FDA warning regarding hydroxychloroquine does not say obese people are at greater risk from the drug's potentially fatal side effects. It says patients with "health issues such as heart and kidney disease are likely to be at increased risk of these heart problems.' " 

No Matter Who Biden Picks, His Running Mate Will Be A ‘Karen’

Issues & Insights

. . . For those who would complain that our editorial is sexist, we counter that with, one, Biden limited himself when he promised to choose a female running mate, so there are no men to criticize, and, two, there are male Karens out there, they just don’t have a name yet. We suggest Barack.

"We’re still at least a month away from Joe Biden announcing who his running mate will be for the 2020 election. It’s hard to tell which way he’s leaning, but no matter who he chooses, it will be “Karen.”
"Applying “Karen” as a pejorative is not as fresh as it might seem. Some uses of the name to describe a spiteful, unpleasant woman go back maybe as far as three decades. But the name has been more widely used as a cultural meme in recent months.
"With apologies to those named Karen but aren’t “Karens,” a “Karen” in 2020 is, “an entitled, obnoxious, middle-aged white woman,” says dictionary.com. Wikipedia says a Karen “displays aggressive behavior when she is obstructed from getting her way.” She often wants to “speak to the manager” because it’s her nature to complain, hector, and rage. 
"During the pandemic, we’ve seen Karens all over, screeching and nagging about masks, social distancing (both for and against it and on occasion taking both sides simultaneously), and any conduct she doesn’t agree with.
"A Karen is a tattletale and a snob, mean girl who got older but didn’t grow up. And her defining traits, bullying, a desire to subjugate others, and rank hypocrisy, fit snugly with progressive-left politics.
"Biden, guided by the identity politics of his party, has promised that his choice for running mate will be a woman. It’s said he’s looking hard at at least five candidates and maybe as many as eight. So who makes up this field of possibilities?

"Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Maybe the most Karen of them all. Given the pulpit of a vice presidential candidate, and, Heaven help us, possibly the soapbox of the vice presidency, she will constantly howl about economic inequality, Wall Street, profit, and just about any principle that has made America the exceptional nation it is.

“She is a nag. A scold. An ideologue,” . . .

The Kill Shot Against Gen. Flynn Was Not Russia, It Was Iran

“What made Flynn revolutionary is that he got people out in the field,” says Shahbandar, who served in Iraq under Flynn in 2007-08 and in Afghanistan in 2010-11. “It wasn’t just enough to have intelligence, you needed to understand where it was coming from and what it meant. For instance, if you thought that insurgents were going to take over a village, the first people who would know what was going would be the villagers. So Flynn made sure we knew the environment, the culture, the people.”

Noisy Room  "RussiaGate was concocted. RussiaGate was globally choreographed. But it was never about Russia, the real covert truth and story is Iran.
"Lee Smith has confirmed what I knew in my gut to be true. Smith authored titled The Plot Against the President. I read it and Smith was gracious enough to come on my radio show to discuss the book, which you must read. Congressman Devin Nunes knew in his gut the RussiaGate story did not compute either.
"A huge high-five to Nunes and Smith and on with the story. It is a long one. Once you sit back and read it all, the clue, tips and indicators begin to fall into place. But we must go back several years for context, patterns, and the cunningness of politicians and power-players.

"1. Remember the first set of WikiLeaks cables where it was determined that Hillary had her staff collect as much oppo-research as possible on her adversaries and foreign dignitaries such that she had to go on an apology tour after the cables were published?"2. Remember the scandal that surrounded Sharyl Attkisson and the computer intrusion(s) she experienced during the Obama administration that she is still fighting legally? She too wrote a book titled Stonewalled telling that story."3. Remember the journalists that collaborated with Edward Snowden, one being Barton Gellman? By the way I have zero use for what Snowden did but there is an interesting part of the story that Gellman tells in The Atlantic magazine. He too was a victim of major computer intrusions perhaps more significant than that of Sharyl Attkisson."4. Remember when President Obama had to apologize to German Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande for surveilling their phones?" . . .

Stacey Abrams’ face upon realizing Biden not making surprise announcement she would be VP

Legal Insurrection

Classic, she appears to have thought Joe Biden would pop the question when she was asked to join him on the Lawrence O’Donnell show.

"The “real” governor of Georgia, Stacey Abrams, has been embarrassing herself and the Democratic Party with her campaign to be named Joe Biden’s running mate (if he gets the nomination).

"For some unknown reason, she appears to have been under the delusion that Biden would surprise her, and the world, with the announcement . . . on someone named Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNBC show." . . .

Who Democrats kill

Don Surber  "His name was Mike. He was 93. He was too young for World War II, but served in the post-war Philippines. Afterward, he became a college basketball star. He later worked for Mine Safety. He developed the safety helmets that are still worn by most miners. "He saved lives.
"Thanks to Democrat Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, Mike died last month.
"A reader -- an adopted nephew of Mike -- told the sad tale of Mike's death.
"The reader wrote, "I called him on Friday -- he was 93 and crying -- even at his advance age. He hated his room and was always on the move at the nursing home. It just struck me as totally odd when he said he was locked up because of corona virus patients in the building. Why were they still there?
"  'Saturday, he was complaining about the food -- she tried to send him a pizza delivery and it was declined -- not allowed.
" 'Sunday, he had the one nurse take a picture and she texted it to my sister and she texted it everyone.  This is one of those haunting pictures that causes me to feel guilty; I didn't visit him as much as I could. I did see him about six times in the past year. He told the nurse he had a slight fever so she was going to get him tested or schedule him for one.
" 'Tuesday night, my niece called and said she called to check and he was dead. One of the nurses was with him when he passed away. But he deserved better." . . ."

https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/05/branco-cartoon-death-row/

Gretchen Whitmer Allows Gay Swinger's Club to Operate While Barber Loses License

Image by Mike Harris

PJ Media "There is perhaps nothing more confusing than Democrat governors’ orders during the Chinese WuFlu pandemic. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is by far the worst. That was made clear with the news that a gay swinger’s club with “glory holes” is being allowed to operate under her nose in Lansing while she aims her business-killing death ray on 77-year-old barber Karl Manke for giving haircuts.

Gay swinger’s club is essential.

"But strangers servicing each other through holes in a basement wall in the state capitol is perfectly fine. I guess group sex is an “essential” activity in the Democrat-run state of Michigan. The underground private club, Club Tabu, has a website that describes what goes on there. (HT: Steve Gruber)
"Unlike Manke, who is sterilizing everything in his barbershop and wearing a mask to cut hair, Club Tabu has no announcement on their social media about what precautions they are taking, if any, to keep people who are engaging in full body contact with strangers safe. In fact, the only messaging they are giving is that they are open. The website FAQ’s says, “Yes, we are still open; if this website is still up – we are open!!!. ” . . .