Month: September 2020

Written by AP, splashed across national and local news sites. I copied this from the front page of yahoo.com: https://www.yahoo.com/news/vision-2020-happens-us-election-160042541.html

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Is it possible the election will be up in the air and we won’t have a president on Inauguration Day: Jan. 20, 2021?

Even if the election is messy and contested in court, the country will have a president on Inauguration Day. The Constitution and federal law ensure it. Here’s what happens after voters go to the polls on Nov. 3:

First, states have more than a month to count ballots, including the expected surge of mail-in ballots, and conduct recounts if necessary. But states’ electoral votes have to be cast on Dec. 14.

Courts will be mindful of that in refereeing any disputes. During the 2000 election, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ended Florida’s vote recount, saying time had run out before electors were set to meet.

When the electors meet, the candidate who gets at least 270 of the 538 electoral votes wins. But what happens if election issues still prevent a winner from being named? The Constitution has an answer.

The 12th Amendment says that in that case, the House of Representatives elects the president and the Senate elects the vice president. The new Congress that enters in January is the one tasked with carrying out the so-called “contingent election.” The president has only been selected this way once, in 1825. The winner was John Quincy Adams.

In a contingent election, House members have to choose among the three people with the most electoral votes. Each state delegation gets one vote, and 26 votes are required to win. In the Senate, the choice is between the top two electoral vote-getters and each senator gets a vote, with 51 votes required to win.

What if that fails and the House hasn’t elected a president by Inauguration Day? Then the 20th Amendment takes over. It says the vice president-elect acts as president until a president is picked. And if there’s no vice president selected by Inauguration Day?

Well, then the Presidential Succession Act applies.

It says that the speaker of the House of Representatives, the Senate president or a Cabinet officer, in that order, would act as president until there’s a president or vice president.

Happy Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today is the Patronal Feast of the SSPX.

At the foot of the Cross, the Mother of God became Our Mother. Remember, Mary was more holy at the moment of her birth than all the saints combined at the moment of their deaths. Yet she only grew in holiness. This happened in many ways throughout her life, but most especially by her Son allowing her to participate in His Passion. Her participation is the only time “compassion” literally took place in the history of the universe. This was an act of love, in both directions.

She is our model, and Our Mother.

She is our model, because she is the epitome of bearing suffering well, ordering suffering towards its rightful object, uniting our suffering to the Cross, participating in our own redemption through the grace of suffering. It is even possible to experience joy through suffering while yet in this life. There is no escaping suffering, because it is for our own good. If you haven’t really experienced it yet, believe me, it’s coming. Get prepared.

She is Our Mother, precisely because her suffering entailed the participation in Christ’s Passion in a real way. Meaning, she suffered with Him every sin ever committed. She knows you, and she wants you to ask for her help. You are never given a burden heavier than you can manage, provided you work with the graces being offered. And guess who mediates all those graces? Yep, your Mother does that.

Pray the Rosary every day.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Stabat Mater sequence, literal translation:

1. The grieving Mother stood weeping
beside the cross where her Son was hanging

2. Through her weeping soul,
compassionate and grieving, a sword passed.

3. O how sad and afflicted
was that blessed Mother of the Only-begotten!

4. Who mourned and grieved, the pious Mother,
looking at the torment of her glorious Child

5. Who is the person who would not weep
seeing the Mother of Christ in such agony?

6. Who would not be able to feel compassion
on beholding Christ’s Mother suffering with her Son?

7. For the sins of his people
she saw Jesus in torment and subjected to the scourge.

8. She saw her sweet offspring dying,
forsaken, while He gave up his spirit

9. O Mother, fountain of love, make me feel
the power of sorrow, that I may grieve with you

10. Grant that my heart may burn in the love
of Christ my Lord, that I may greatly please Him

11. Holy Mother, grant that the wounds
of the Crucified drive deep into my heart.

12. That of your wounded Son, who so deigned
to suffer for me, I may share the pain

13. Let me sincerely weep with you,
bemoan the Crucified, for as long as I live

14. To stand beside the cross with you,
and to join you in your weeping, this I desire

15. Chosen Virgin of virgins,
be not bitter with me, let me weep with thee

16. Grant that I may bear the death of Christ,
share his Passion, and commemorate His wounds

17. Let me be wounded with his wounds,
let me be inebriated by the cross and your Son’s blood

18. Lest I be set afire by flames of death, Virgin,
may I be defended by you, on the day of judgement

19. Christ, when it is time to pass away, grant that
through your Mother I may come to the palm of victory

20. When my body dies, grant that to my soul
is given the glory of paradise. Amen

No one is sick. You can go to a bar or restaurant with 200 other people in the same room with no mask, and yes, everyone is doing it. The place we went last weekend had a thirty minute wait for a table. But there are politics to be had. So even though they have all their plexiglass and PPE deployed at the ready, Dr. Chad and his teachers don’t wanna go. Even though the state and county health departments have approved classroom learning, Dr. Chad has an agenda.

Dr. Chad should be held accountable for every suicide and drug overdose he causes.

Published at the Leftist rag The Atlantic yesterday:

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In presidential elections, once is a fluke; twice is a pattern. I struggle to imagine how, beyond utter shock, millions of Democrats will process a Trump victory. A loss for Biden, after having been the clear favorite all summer, would provoke mass disillusion with electoral politics as a means of change—at a time when disillusion is already dangerously high. If Democrats can’t beat a candidate as unpopular as Trump during a devastating pandemic and a massive economic contraction, then are they even capable of winning presidential elections anymore? Democracy, after all, is supposed to self-correct after mistakes, particularly mistakes as egregious as electing Donald Trump—whose unfitness for the nation’s highest office makes itself apparent with almost every passing day.

Liberals had enough trouble accepting the results of the 2016 election. In some sense, they never really came to terms with it. The past four years have witnessed the continuous urge to explain away the inexplicable, to find solace in the fact that the voters betrayed them. How could so many of their fellow Americans side with a racist…

That was then. This time, it would be worse… Because Biden’s poll numbers this year have mostly been higher than Clinton’s were in 2016, a Trump victory will be even harder for the left to absorb.

If Trump manages to win, recent polling data indicate, he will likely do so despite losing the popular vote. That will fuel disillusion not just with the election outcome but with the electoral system. The popular-vote numbers will be used to argue that Trump won without winning—again…

Accepting the things that never should have happened is far more difficult. A certain kind of cognitive dissonance—the gap between what is and what should be—can fuel revolutionary sentiment, and not just in a fluffy, radical-chic kind of way. In such situations, acting outside the political process, including through nonpeaceful means, becomes more attractive, not necessarily out of hope but out of despair.

This distance between what a society should be and the tragedy of what it actually becomes is less of a problem in democracies, because democracies are supposed to be responsive to voters’ demands and grievances. But they aren’t always. The gap will grow larger under a Trump presidency than a Biden one, and this has implications for mass unrest and political violence across American cities. For democracy to work, the losers of elections need to believe that they can win the next time around. Otherwise their incentives to play the spoiler increase. A breakdown of democracy is always a possibility, but the country is more resilient than it may seem, and consolidated democracies seldom break down in any circumstance. That said, this is one of those propositions that is better left untested.

Full article https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/democrats-may-not-be-able-concede/616321/

Happy Feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross!

Fr. George Rutler will be a guest on Dr. Mazza’s radio show today, Noon PDT, 3pm EDT:

https://www.virginmostpowerfulradio.org/our-shows/the-bar-of-history/ 

They will be discussing Father’s latest book: 

https://www.sophiainstitute.com/products/item/our-peculiar-times

I predict lively conversation. Fr. Rutler’s ability to formulate a devastating argument is nothing less than Inspired. Back when he was pastor at Church of Our Savior, he was always in the box, to my eternal benefit. Let’s just say he had the ability to explain you to yourself such that you walked away with a radical reordering of priorities… things you weren’t even thinking about or knew existed before you walked in. Maybe because it was in the early years of my reversion.

Dr. Mazza is no slouch either, so tune in and enjoy.

You really aren’t ready for what’s coming. In so many ways.

To the protesters blocking the entrance & exit of the HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM yelling "We hope they die" referring to 2 LA Sheriff's ambushed today in #Compton: DO NOT BLOCK EMERGENCY ENTRIES & EXITS TO THE HOSPITAL. People's lives are at stake when ambulances can't get through.

— LA County Sheriffs (@LASDHQ) September 13, 2020

The second video is better. (Language)

https://twitter.com/selfdeclaredref/status/1305045405202345984?s=20

Blessed Feast of the Holy Name of Mary.

In the Fall of 1683, the Muslim Turks were poised to overrun Vienna. Demands were made to convert to Islam, pay the jizya, or die. After a two month siege in which the city was starved, its walls had finally been breached. The Calvinist leader of the Hungarian revolt had pledged allegiance to the Turks, and persuaded the Hungarian army to desist. The Austrian emperor fled, along with 60,000 Viennese. The treasure that awaited the invaders was vast. So the Grand Mustafa launched the final assault to take the city, by first celebrating with the execution of 30,000 Catholic prisoners. It was 11 September 1683, and it was for this reason this date was chosen in 2001.

The following day, King John Sobieski of Poland, leaving his own country totally undefended, entered the battle. Along with his Hussar cavalry, he lead additional forces from Germany, and was backed by the Habsburgs and the pope. Heavily outnumbered 75,000 Catholics to 150,000 Muslims, the Holy Name of Mary was invoked to aid in procuring a miracle.

Whole books have been written about this battle, so if you have interest, have at it. Spoiler alert, the decisive action was Sobieski himself leading 18,000 of his Hussars straight into the fight and routing the exhausted Muslim forces, in the largest cavalry charge in the history of warfare.

In the sky at that moment, a cloud obscured the crescent moon.

The strategic importance of the victory cannot be overstated. Had Vienna fallen to the Muslims, you wouldn’t be reading this right now. The Protestant Revolt had torn the fabric of Europe so badly at that point, there is no way it could have united itself to withstand a huge invading force operating with Vienna as a beach head.

In thanksgiving, Pope Innocent XI moved the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary from the Sunday after the Nativity of the BVM to the 12th of September, and ordered it’s celebration in the Universal Church.

Virgin Most Powerful, pray for us.