I caught the matinee showing of Civil War yesterday. It's a thrilling movie with several flaws, but well worth seeing. I have two criticisms. First, director Alex Garland’s dystopian film posits a civil war between the United States and the Western Forces, comprised of the rebel states of Texas and California. Both sides field conventional armies equipped with jets, helicopters, tanks, and armored vehicles. This scenario is implausible. If the United States implodes, it won't be because Texas and California fight a conventional war against the federal government. America will likely fall apa ..read more

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler," Albert Einstein observed. Indeed, it is a mark of intelligence to analyze a jumble of complicated information, come to a straightforward conclusion, and decide what to do. Unfortunately, our intellectual elites rarely try to make things as simple as possible. Instead, they obsess about complexity and often conclude that a particular problem is so complicated that it is insolvable. Homelessness, for example, is a complex problem, so tangled and tricky that San Francisco can't figure out how to keep people from defecating&n ..read more

A few days ago, Bishop Douglas Deshotel, prelate of the Lafayette Diocese, excommunicated Scott Peyton, a former Catholic deacon whose son was sexually molested by a Catholic priest. The priest, Father Michael Guidry, pleaded guilty to molesting Peyton’s son and is now in prison. Excommunication is an extraordinarily harsh punishment to impose on an errant Catholic, especially an anguished Catholic whose son was sexually abused by a Catholic priest. What did Mr. Peyton do to deserve Bishop Deshotel’s wrath? It seems Peyton angered the bishop by writing a letter that expressed his disillusion ..read more

In 2016, I wrote a letter to Bishop Deshotel,  reporting that I had been treated rudely by Monsignor Richard Mouton in the confession booth. After asking several shocking sexual questions, Monsignor Mouton refused to confess me because I was divorced. I delivered the letter to Bishop Douglas Deshotel on September 14, 2016. It is 2024, and I have yet to receive Bishop Deshotel's response.  I learned later that Monsignor Mouton was one of the priests in the Lafayette Diocese who figured in the sexual abuse scandal involving Father Gilbert Gauthe, who was eventually convicted of sexual ..read more

 President Biden issued a statement a few days ago assuring us that the economy is robust and we're all getting richer. Here is what he said: Inflation is down two-thirds from its peak, and annual core inflation is the lowest since May 2021. Wages are rising faster than prices over the last year and since the pandemic. Prices for key household purchases like gas, milk, eggs, and appliances are lower than a year ago. Inflation is down, while unemployment has remained below 4% for the longest stretch in more than 50 years. In short, Americans have become wealthier since Joe Biden took offic ..read more

As President Harry Truman observed, "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours." Similarly, subway crime was not a problem for New York Governor Kathy Hochul until recently. After all, New York’s media and political elites don’t ride the subways, and they have private security when they travel. However, crime became a problem for Governor Hochul after a train conductor was the victim of a knife-slashing attack in Brooklyn. NYC transit workers stopped work soon after the slashing to file safety complaints, “causing severe disruptions in subw ..read more

Maybe you’ve heard this joke. A modern-day Job is beset by a torrent of calamities. The bank forecloses on Job's home. Lightning strikes his barn and burns it down. His business fails and declares bankruptcy. His doctor diagnoses him with stage 4 cancer. Job's wife leaves him, and his children refuse to speak to him. Job asks God, “What did I do to deserve all this suffering? Why have you sent me so much misfortune?” "I don’t know, Job,” God replies. “there’s something about you that just pisses me off.” That’s the way I feel about Donald Trump. There’s something about him that pisses me o ..read more

The US Supreme Court released its opinion today, striking down the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling that Donald Trump is ineligible to run for President because he participated in an insurrection. Lawsuits had been filed in more than 30 states, and plaintiffs argued that Trump was not eligible to run for reelection under Section 3 of the of the US Constitution's 14th Amendment. Most state courts rejected this argument, but Trump was kicked off the ballot in Colorado, Illinois, and Maine. Thankfully, the Supreme Court's opinion was unanimous. Whether conservative or liberal, all nine justices c ..read more

Remember when Donald Trump boasted that he would build a wall on the nation's southern border and make Mexico pay for it? No one believed him when he said it, but we elected him president anyway. Mr. Trump built part of a border wall, but Mexico didn't pay a dime. The G7 leaders are making a similar boast about the war in Ukraine. In a statement issued in late February, the G7 reaffirmed the West's unwavering commitment to supporting Ukraine in its struggle to defeat the Russians. As video images show, the war has wrecked many of Ukraine's cities and infrastructure. The G7 estimates the cost ..read more

 Russia’s war on Ukraine enters its third year. Ukraine’s counteroffensive, launched last spring, was a failure, and Russian troops are gaining ground in the Donbas region.  What to do? Here’s an idea. Let’s slap new sanctions on the Russians—that’ll teach those Slavic thugs not to mess with Ukraine. But if these sanctions are such a good idea, why weren’t they implemented in 2022, right after Russia invaded Ukraine? Why wait two years?  Are any sanctions the U.S. and its European allies impose working? The Obama administration and other NATO countries implemented sanctions agai ..read more