Open Thread
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.

The single biggest successful propaganda Big Lie of the last 75 years has been somehow that Nazis are right-wing and the opposite of the Commies rather than competitors for the same authoritarian/economic shelf space.
On a brighter note, it is Tech Week and I am playing a minor role in the school production this weekend (they needed an old man character filled). May there be lots of broken legs!
Putin’s pathetic propaganda fools some in the Russian Republic, and a couple of writers at Crisis Magazine, and nobody else. His military is getting its posterior kicked in Ukraine. Putin could do nothing to help Maduro. He can do nothing for the mullahs, and when the time comes, he will do nothing for the Communists in Cuba.
To say this year has been difficult is an understatement. My mom, the hit and run semi driver and my brother in jail have all been hard. My oldest son listens to Nick Fuentes and it is all I can do to keep from going Sgt. Hartman from Full Meta Jacket on his keester.
To change the subject, it’s no secret the Canada and the US aren’t the best of buddies right now.
The Quebecois and the Liberals tend to look down their noses at the US. All Trump did was call them on it. I’m going in this direction because since Pierre Trudeau, Canada has been a buddy to the Communists in Cuba. A quick Google search revealed billions of dollars in Canadian investments in Cuba.
Cuba has long been an abuser of human rights. Cuba has sent its army to Angola to support a Marxist government. Cuba sent its state police apparatus to keep Chavez in power in Venezuela. Cuba has close ties to the Colombian ELN, the smaller of the two Marxist narcoterrorist groups in Colombia……and here is our neighbor, the True North Strong and Free, aiding and abetting a dictatorship that has allowed the USSR, the Russian Republic, China and Iran to spy on the US
When the Communists are out of power in Cuba, there is going to be hell to pay and the Western governments that helped prop up the Castros will never see a cent of the money loaned to the Castros repaid. I would hope the the foreign held investments there get nationalized by whoever succeeds the Communists.
What an embarrassment, Canada.
March 26, 2026 and Rev Marko Rupnik is still free to move about Rome.
Rupnik has never been called to account. Leo XIV knows this, of course.
What is with Ed Feser? When it comes war issues, not only with the Iran conflict, but with the atomic bombings, he’s Tony Annett, Mike Lewis, and Mark Shea all rolled into one, with a dash of deranged Israel hatred.
Has anyone read “Abraham Lincoln: A Life” by Michael Burlingame? I’m looking for a deep read into a Lincoln biography, wondering if this two volume biography is worth the investment.
https://instapundit.com/785425/#disqus_thread
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See Mike Royko’s Boss. A single Chicago police officer was stationed at Richard J. Daley’s home, protecting his wife during the day. Daley himself was ferried to work each morning in a government car. IIRC, there were two officers in the car with him.
The municipality I grew up in was about had a population about 8% of that of the City of Chicago and enveloped about the same % of the population of the whole metropolitan settlement. If Mayor Ryan had had a security detail like Brandon Johnson’s, he’d have had two or three bodyguards on a shift, or a dozen in all. I knew a neighbor of his; the mayor had no security and you could see him shlepping about the neighborhood walking his dog. Ran into his successor once removed outside a rep theatre downtown ca. 2006. If the man had any security, they were well concealed.
I have read Burlingame’s bio of Lincoln. It can be a bit dry, but I learned new things about Lincoln, which does not occur in most books I read about Lincoln. He is especially good about the coverage of Lincoln and the Civil War by the press of Lincoln’s day.
Stephen Colbert will be writing the next Lord of the Rings movie.
He has plenty of time on his hands now.
https://the-american-catholic.com/2026/03/26/open-thread-37/#comment-429336
They literally made that exact joke in the announcement video, Don.
Invest in whisky futures now.
I hope Colbert doesn’t make it a musical!
“What they don’t tell you” or hide subtly is…. “Putin is not Stalin”, Poland today would kick Russia’s arss and the Russians did suffer.