THE TAOS TATLER.

From Power Line Blog’s The Week in Pictures.

And sent by a friend:

Thanks to GWR.

“Let it die,” he says.

From Newsmax:

Former President Donald Trump took aim Friday at the National Review after the conservative magazine’s editorial board announced its opposition to his 2024 presidential run.

“They have absolutely nothing going, it is failing fast, and my only question is, who is paying for the losses — when it loses plenty of money and serves no purpose at all. People are tired of haters — let the National Review die peacefully!”

“Why does anyone read the National Review? They are so negative to Conservatives and me, and are seen as being led by lightweights that couldn’t shine the shoes of Bill Buckley,” the former president declared in a statement via his presidential campaign.

Tell us what you really think, Mr President.

Trump is right, though. NR, when William F. Buckley was alive, was a lively, even fun, journal to read, with sharp criticisms of liberals and liberalism. Since his death it has become enervated and lame, offering again and again the same stale rhetoric of Republican relics, who are in large part responsible for the mess we’re in now: “safe conservatives,” essentially going along with the Democrat socialist agenda, but perhaps compromising just a tad, pretty please?

NR’s “conservatism” is that of Bush 1 and 2 and wasn’t that a spectacular success? Trump’s blast, though unmannerly, as the sender of the link above and Bickerstaff both agree, nevertheless is spot on. Indeed, let it die and good riddance.

Thanks to GWR.

Finally, no more hateful logic, so racist.

This is the thinking [sic] process, which after four years of college, costing now anywhere from $40k-$160k, most those institutions will have planted in the brains of their young charges’s heads, after first expunging, if necessary, any reasoning faculties that might have survived their earlier schooling. Yet every year parents by the millions send their progeny off to be subjected to this brainwashing, with the hopeful notion it will help them get ahead in the world. Perhaps, sadly, these days they are correct, though civilization is rapidly declining as a result of this seemingly immutable educational malpractice.

One fine day, however, parents may wake up to realize what great harm putatively “traditional” colleges are doing to their children and send them instead to those small institutions offering a truly traditional education. Happily, those seem to be popping up more and lately. Will they prove to be the saviors of what’s left of western civilization? Who knows, but at least its proponents will go down fighting.

Image from Woke Antisemitism, by David Bernstein, via Instapundit.

Excerpts from The Daily Caller report:

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley on Thursday told FBI Director Christopher Wray it is “indefensible” that he previously fled an oversight hearing regarding his agency’s handling of Hunter Biden’s potential criminal activity.

“So you were going on vacation?” the senator asked. “I was, yes,” Wray said.

“So you left a statutorily required oversight hearing in order to go on a personal vacation in the Adirondacks,” Hawley said.

“The ranking member Chuck Grassley asked you during the hearing, he said, ‘I assume you must have other business.’ You said, ‘Yes.’ He then said, ‘If you have a business trip, you’ve got your own plane, can’t it wait awhile?’

Chuck Grassley: ‘We only just heard half an hour ago that now you have to leave. We were gonna have a seven-minute round followed by a three-minute round. I’ve got seven people on my side of the aisle, including me, who are waiting for this additional round. Is there any reason we can’t accommodate them for 21 minutes?’ And you said you had a plane to catch, you had somewhere to go, and now we find out it was for vacation?” Hawley said.

“You left an oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee required by statute so that you could vacation with your family. I find that absolutely unbelievable, and frankly, indefensible,” the senator said.

***

Someday there will be a day of reckoning for these partisan criminal hacks, many of whom ought to be in jail. Once justice has been delivered to the miscreants, the next step should be determining not only if the FBI can be reformed, but if it should exist at all. This writer leans toward the latter. The United States survived for nearly a century-and-a-half without having need of a Federal police force. It can do without it now.

Promotional graphic of the Vatican’s Synod on Synodalty.

Feel for the family of Dan Millette. A new priest arrived at his parish who is the embodiment of Pope Francis’s vision of modern Catholic worship. He quickly and enthusiastically set about re-ordering things to accommodate that vision.

Active participation is required now in the parish, particularly through singing Happy Birthday to others at the end of Mass. Meanwhile, we are told that the value of the Mass comes solely from people being in attendance. How ironic, considering how the congregation has diminished since Vatican II. As for Mass being Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary? I guess that’s so Vatican I.

I look up during this Mass and see an altar boy in the sanctuary playing an air guitar while his brothers beside him laugh. It is a far cry from a few months ago when it was my two oldest boys who served. They were good at what they did, I must say. However, they quit. The new priest forbade them to genuflect when entering the sanctuary. No compromise. Better to play a fake guitar than genuflect to Christ.

The author decides to  “temporarily bail out of this Mass” by escaping to the basement with his infant son. Alas, to no avail.

In the basement I pray my rosary, while holding our dear, but fussy, little Benedict. It is the only way to pray at such a Mass. Yet even this is disturbed. I hear the echoes of a Broadway musical permeate into the basement. ‘Alleluia… for the glory… and the honor… are Yours… Alleluia!’ I thought I turned down the microphone’s volume last week? They’re on to me. As ‘and the glory…’ powers through again, I picture Hell as a place filled with church microphones–a good incentive to live in the state of grace.

It gets worse. Millette,, a traditionalist,  observes,

The Catechism of Trent says that Catholics are obliged ‘to go to church, and there, with heartfelt piety and devotion, to assist at the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.’ As far as I know, the Catechism of Trent does not discuss air guitars and singing Happy Birthday. To take it a step further, it does not discuss clown Masses, rock-n-roll rites, liturgies inspired by James Martin, nor Masses with every abuse and heresy under the post-conciliar sun.

Read it all, if you can take it.

Bickerstaff is not one to embrace wild-eyed conspiracy theories, but cannot help wonder: is there a plot afoot in the Vatican, coming from the top, to purposely drive from Holy Church precisely those worshipers whom she should be desperately striving to retain? Those like the Millette family, young, pious, observant (almost to a fault), with many children? Millette writes of the “small, white-haired congregation” in his church. That is a feature found at nearly every church this writer has attended Mass.

With one exception: those churches where the Traditional Latin Mass is celebrated, which are generally full up of with worshipers and even more significant, lots of young families, large ones often. Yet the Pope himself recently expressed his great displeasure with TLM, actually asking for prayers for those who prefer it, and directed his bishops to make it as inconvenient as possible to celebrate. Certainly in New Mexico, the Archbishop of Santa Fe, a Francis lackey of the First Class, has been doing his best to implement that directive.

Yet it is at usus antiquior masses where one finds the greatest number of young worshipers. So, to rephrase slightly, is the Vatican working to drive Holy Church into extinction? Circumstantial evidence makes that an all too easy conclusion to arrive at.

Deus misereatur.

Con artists used to have more class.

A reader sent Bickerstaff a fine and mercifully short piece on the recent collapse of the late cryptocurrency firm FTX and the fellow who ran it (into the ground), Sam Bankman-Fried. It all seemed so familiar; an entrepreneurial “genius” who’s found a gimmick that will enable those who don’t want to work for it make buckets of bucks. Though these schemes come in different shapes, forms and colors, they are essentially alike and have been with us since the dawn of civilization.

Reading the article linked above brought back memories to your Tatler of his long dead father. He was a securities analyst for many years at an old respected Wall Street firm that was eventually gobbled up by one that was not. He then retired.

Bickerstaff’s father had an uncanny ability to quickly pore through stacks of dense prospectus, deciphering them and reporting in plain English what they were about. No doubt an alarm would have sounded early in his head had he read an FTX prospectus (if any), quarterly and annual reports etc.

Fortunately for Sam Bankman-Fried, the people to whom he was pitching his scheme likely had no interest in prospectus and the like, not even having someone else examine them and report. A greedy sucker, for that is what most suckers are, has little desire to see his balloon burst and a good swindler will keep it afloat until the air runs out.

One thing that struck Bickerstaff about this scandal was the appearance of its perpetrator, Bankman-Fried. Two or three generations ago a swindler-to-be, in order to have doors opened for him, would be clean shaven and clad in suits by Brooks Brothers,  F. R. Tripler (Bickerstaff’s father’s clothier; Brooks was too flashy), J. Press or others of that genre, so to effect a WASPy guise that would command respect.

Now, scam artists must present themselves differently, as the preferred look of today’s well-off entrepreneur is that of a college sophomore majoring in gender and climate studies. There is no doubt Bankman-Fried perfected this look.

Thanks to GWR.

From Power Line:

This could be huge news: Texas Governor Greg Abbott has summoned the National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety to repel the invasion of Texas from its southern border. Abbott invokes the Invasion Clauses of the U.S. and Texas Constitutions:

Fun point: gun boats on the Rio!

Interesting point: Governor Abbot intends to “enter into a compact with other states to secure the border.” Well, of course he should and certainly Arizona will want to join in. But what about New Mexico? Our governor, Lujan Grisham, is as blue as they come and will likely express loud disapproval of Governor Abbot’s plan, calling it a stunt or words to that effect. If however she refuses to take part in the compact, she will have a huge problem on her hands.

The flood of illegals heading north and finding Texas and Arizona’s borders closed, will not just make a U-turn and go home. Not at all, they will instead make a left or right turn, depending on the state, and head for the New Mexico border and take the swim. This will vastly increase the flow of illegals into the Land of Enchantment, which will be utterly incapable of dealing with them.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out. New Mexico is mostly blue, but with hundreds of illegals inundating the state daily, we may see a color shift over time, especially in the southern part of the state, some of which is already red.

Letting the cat out of a cellophane bag.

From the Daily Caller:

Former President Donald Trump officially launched his 2024 presidential campaign at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, making a run for the White House for the third consecutive time.

Given the loggerheads at which so many in the Republican Party’s leadership find themselves, it’s not at all far fetched to suggest Trump might pull this off again.

From the Times:

Russian missiles have struck in Poland and killed two civilians, according to a senior US intelligence official.

Two stray missiles hit a farm in Przewodow, a village about four miles from the border with Ukraine, according to reports. Poland is a Nato member, and under Article 5 of the defence alliance an attack on one country is considered to be an attack on all. (Italics added.)

This could be big trouble if not handled right, and not handled right is what we may expect from our crack crew in the White House, from President Gibberish on down.

UPDATE:

Polish president says the missiles came from Ukraine, not Russia. Others are doubtful.

In one generation it’s gone from this:

To this.

Will Disney Corporation be the next Meta, dropping zillions on a product in which there is little interest? It seems to Bickerstaff the course the company is on is unsustainable. Even though it is directing its marketing at the enormous number of Gen Z-ers in this country, which makes certain sense, are there enough of them with children (a vastly smaller number) willing to let them be exposed to woke, new age nonsense? Even if there are, how many of those children will prefer this god-awful twaddle over Mickey, Donald and Goofy?

The mistake Disney makes is marketing to parents, not children. Gen Z parents may go along with the ruse, pretending to enjoy this wretched stuff, but their children, not well versed in adult make believe, will likely express, loudly, their dislike of Mr Neptune and that sort of thing.