New Pope Has Already Scolded JD Vance - The Friday AM Quickie 5/7/25
The Fetterman situation is sad and scary. It's also untenable. I'm out, Whitney's back Monday. - Corey
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THE BIG NEWS
Is the New Pope a Never-Trumper?
White smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney yesterday heralded the selection by Catholic cardinals of a new pope – who is, surprise surprise, an American from Chicago's South Side, White Sox fan "Robbie" Prevost, known around the Vatican as the "Latin Yankee" for the decades he spent in Peru, where he holds a second citizenship. Prevost chose to call himself Pope Leo XIV, a name loaded with significance. Prevost's namesake, Leo XIII, was known as the workers' pope, who "condemned 'wealthy owners and all masters' who sought to profit off 'the indigent and destitute.'" As Brown University professor David Kertzer tells the New York Times, the original Pope Leo was "addressing the rising socialist threat — as the church saw it in the late 19th century," by calling on the church to "ameliorate" capitalism and "work out a amicable relationship between capital and labor." Good luck with that.
Long story short, don't mistake the new Pope Leo for some kind of liberation theology Marxist. Per the Times, he voted in three Republican primaries since 2012, most recently in 2016, and no Democratic primaries. It's a clue that he may be that rarest and strangest of species, an anti-Trump Republican.
A social media account under Prevost's name, and linked to his email and phone number, earlier this year shared an article in the National Catholic Reporter titled Vice President "JD Vance Is Wrong" and attacking the Trump regime's decidedly uncharitable immigration policies. Vance, a recent Catholic convert, yesterday posted that "I'm sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church," which is not exactly an enthusiastic endorsement. Grotesque fellow Catholic Trump adviser Steve Bannon, meanwhile, "called Leo the 'worst pick for MAGA Catholics,' deeming him the 'anti-Trump pope.'" We'll see. Prevost is 69, so his tenure is almost certain to outlast Trump's.
Catholics supportive of LGBTQ inclusion are reacting with caution, skeptical that Leo will be as welcoming as his late predecessor, Pope Francis. Prevost has previously criticized the "homosexual lifestyle" as well as "gender ideology," which he called "confusing." But "a lot can change in 13 years," one LGBTQ-inclusive Catholic observes. Back in 2020, Prevost also shared messages of support for George Floyd, the Black man murdered by Minneapolis cops. As Popes go, the church has done a lot worse than Leo. At least he was never a member of the Hitler Youth!
MORE STORIES TO WATCH
Worcester Cops Turn on Their Own Community to Help ICE Split Up a Family
The latest flashpoint for state violence in the Trump regime's cruel and lawless mass deportation campaign is Worcester, Massachusetts. As the Boston Globe and the Springfield Republican report, an apparently warrantless ICE arrest of a woman carrying a baby sparked a chaotic scene involving some 30 bystanders – and as many local Worcester Police Department officers dispatched to back up the feds, some of whom were not in uniform, and deal with what they called a "hostile crowd" trying to protect the family. According to local journalist Bill Shaner, the crowd included City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj, who tailed the federal agents yelling, "You are cowards" and "this is an innocent woman." Police provided no names for two people they arrested at the scene, but witnesses said one was the 16-year-old daughter of the older woman with the baby who had apparently been targeted for deportation; and the other was School Committee candidate Ashley Spring. Worcester Mayor Joe Petty says he is "deeply disturbed" by the spectacle of family separation, adding, "we cannot have this happen in our community."
Trumpocalypse: Jeanine Pirro of Fox News Is the New Pick for Top Federal Prosecutor in DC
- Justice Department Opens Criminal Investigation of New York Attorney General Letitia James, Who Secured Trump's Civil Fraud Conviction "A grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia has issued subpoenas over a mortgage application in which James attested that she intended to make a single-family home in Norfolk her primary residence." via the Washington Post.
- With Supreme Court's Blessing, Pete Hegseth Begins Purge of 1,000-Plus Trans Troops Meanwhile at the West Point military academy, administrators are canceling course lessons on Immanuel Kant and and forbidding the teaching of books by Black authors "such as Toni Morrison, James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates." via the Associated Press and the New York Times.
- Trump Changes His Mind Again on Token Pseudo-Populist Millionaire Tax Meanwhile, West Virginia coal miners are suing the regime for cutting a program that screens coal workers for black lung disease. via the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.
- Laura Loomer Is Being a Big Meaning to Surgeon General Nominee Casey Means "SHE PRAYS TO INANIMATE OBJECTS, COMMUNICATES WITH SPIRIT MEDIUMS, USES SHROOMS AS 'PLANT MEDICINE' AND TALKS TO TREES! SHE ALSO DOESN’T EVEN HAVE AN ACTIVE MEDICAL LICENSE," the unofficial national security adviser writes, concluding, ironically, that "THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM!" via the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Politico.
QUICKEST QUICKIES
- As India and Pakistan Engage in Drone War, JD Vance Says It's 'None of Our Business' Secretary of State Marco Rubio however did speak yesterday with both Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar; Saudi Arabia and Iran also sent diplomats to India. via the Washington Post and the Guardian.
- UnitedHealthcare Investors Sue, Saying the Company Must Resume 'Aggressive, Anti-Consumer Tactics' to Boost Profits The legal defense fund for Luigi Mangione, charged with assassinating CEO Brian Thompson, meanwhile surpassed $1 million in donations this week. via NBC News.
- Evo Morales Is Plotting His Comeback in a Bolivian Jungle Hideout Under Guard of Coca Farmers Armed with Bows and Bamboo Batons "Morales's supporters insist they only produce coca, not cocaine – 'the green one, not the white one.'" via the Guardian.
- More Than 5,000 Potential Candidates Respond to Bernie Sanders Appeal to 'Run for Something' "'We're not just asking people to run for office,' said Jeremy Slevin, a top Sanders adviser. 'We're giving them the tools they need to actually do it.'" via Politico.
SOME NUMBER
80 percent
That's the share of buyers who bought the official $TRUMP crypto coin who "have seen the value of their holdings nosedive," the Washington Post reports. Senate Democrats yesterday voted down a Republican bill to establish a weak regulatory framework benefiting select cryptocurrency scams, including those hawked by the Trump family.
ON THE SHOW TODAY
5/9: Happy Friday! Today's guest is Digby, aka Heather Parton, joining us for the weekly news roundup.
DON'T MISS MR CLIPS
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He only wishes he had the influence of a towering MAGA figure like Loomer.
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You can find Zeteo's new documentary here.
PARTING WORDS
"The picture of the world's richest man killing the world's poorest children is not a pretty one. ... I'd love for him to go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut that money."
-- Bill Gates, formerly the world's richest man, speaking of his Nazi-saluting successor Elon Musk in the Financial Times and denouncing Musk's DOGE-driven cuts to US foreign aid programs. Gates claims he will spend more than 99 percent of his wealth on philanthropic projects before he dies, with a focus on "reducing preventable child deaths, eradicating infectious diseases such as malaria and measles, and increasing graduation rates," all of which would be frankly better done by a government that taxed the fortunes of billionaires.
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