Stika in the eye of Biden, Pelosi
The bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Knoxville, which includes the Chattanooga area, tweeted last week that he couldn't understand how Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi profess to be faithful Catholics but don't live up to the teachings of their faith.
"It really confuses me that [they] time and time again state that they are faithful Catholics and yet promote unlimited abortion as well as deny so many of the teachings of our faith," Bishop Richard Stika wrote. "Nancy stated that she will no longer support the Hyde Amendment."
(The Hyde Amendment is a legislative provision barring the use of federal funds to pay for abortion except to save the life of the woman, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape.)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life," and the faith considers abortion one of the few sins punishable by immediate and automatic excommunication.
"I guess they think it is ok to say they are faithful," Stika said in another tweet, "but yet support the ultimate child abuse and human rights violation of the death of the unborn. I hope someday [Pelosi's] portrait will be removed from the [Capitol] as she did of those who supported slavery. No difference."
Home, sweet home
Two Democratic mayors whose cities have been persistently hit by left-wing demonstrations this summer - St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson and Portland, Oregon, Mayor Ted Wheeler - have had to relocate from their homes.
Both, to their credit, said they wanted to spare their neighbors the problems, but neither seemed to appreciate they'd brought it on themselves by first praising the ongoing protests and then not doing enough to quell the violence that was an outgrowth of the protests.
Krewson said "we have not lived at home for two months," thanks to demonstrations in July and August
"We did it to deescalate the situation [and] to save police resources. ... I ran for this job - my neighbors did not. Wheeler said he left the nearly million-dollar condo building that he bought three years ago last week.
The Portland mayor, who also is the city police commissioner, was greeted outside his building on his 58th birthday (before he decided to leave) by demonstrators, some wearing party hats, and shiny, gold alphabet balloons spelling out an expletive. A fire also was set outside his building.
Oh, Joe!
Mark down masks as another area where Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has changed his mind.
"No, no," he said last week, denying he'd ever proposed a mask mandate. Instead, he said, he would "ask every person in authority" to impose one and put pressure on governments and businesses.
"I'm a constitutionalist," Biden said, evidently surprising many. "You can't do things the Constitution does not allow you the power to do."
In his nomination acceptance speech in July, though, he was clear.
"Let's institute a mask mandate nationwide," Biden said. "Every single American should be wearing a mask when they are outside for the next three months at a minimum."
Biden did not specify an age group that would be exempt and boasted such a policy would save 40,000 lives.
It has nothing to do with rights, he said, "but your responsibility as an American."
My student debt for this?
A course at Washington and Lee University this fall called "How to Overthrow the State" seems aimed at the protests this summer that started after the death of Black suspect George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
"This course places each student at the head of a popular revolutionary movement aiming to overthrow a sitting government and forge a better society," the course description says. "How will you attain power? How will you communicate with the masses? How do you plan on improving the lives of the people? How will you deal with the past?"
Students also will study Marxist revolutionary and assassin Che Guevara and will be "producing a Manifesto" and "writing a persuasive essay on rewriting history."
The faculty of the Lexington, Virginia, school voted in July to remove Robert E. Lee's name from the university's moniker, and an associate professor at the school said they should remove Washington's name as well.
"The lessons of the past few months prove that these ideas don't stay on campus, they spill out onto the streets," said Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA. "This is a prime example of the intellectual rot that has infected the academy in America."
Breitbart News Service said the university did not respond to a clarification request about whether students would be trained to the overthrow federal government, state government or both. Nor did they respond to questions about the educational merit of the course.