As world tensions ratchet up, given the unresolved Iran conflict, on cue, The Brink of War about the Reykjavík Summit some forty years ago, is out in theatres today.

Starring Jeff Daniels as President Ronald Reagan, the film dramatizes the standoff between two nuclear super powers, the US and the Soviet Union, with hundreds of nukes pointed at each other—some 250/300 each—threatening global destruction, at a time when there were no interceptors—what Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative achieved. Given the high stakes, the two men, the US President and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, set aside their differences, on very human terrain, and hammered out an agreement The Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, to ratchet down the nuclear tensions, signed in Washington, DC on December 8, 1987.

That the treaty was signed that day, December 8, Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Patroness of the Americas, was surely no coincidence as Pope John Paul II and Pres. Reagan had worked closely together since shortly after both were nearly felled by assassins, to bring the world to this moment, about which this author wrote in “Ronald Reagan put out global fires with best friend, JPII.” Completing this triangle was Mary, Saint John Paul II’s best friend—”Totus Tuus,” his motto: “All hers!”

Furthermore, that The Brink of War is out today, Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish Franciscan monk, deeply devoted to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who famously offered to take the place of a man, married with children, slated to die in the Auschwitz prison camp, is also surely no coincidence.

As St. John Paul II, famously said, “In the designs of providence, there are no mere coincidences.” He made these remarks one year after he was gunned down on May 13, 1981, Feast of Our Lady of Fátima. He was on a pilgrimage to the Fátima shrine that day in May, 1982, bringing one of the bullets that nearly killed him to place in her crown. On the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima, 1981, he realized with great clarity, “One hand shot, and another guided the bullet.” That is to say, Mary saved his life. (Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, A Life with Karol: My Forty Year Friendship With the Man Who Became Pope, 136).

Now, Our Lady of Fátima is surely guiding the world from nuclear Armaggedon given that Fátima, the daughter of Muhammad, the Moorish princess to whom the town is dedicated, after whom Our Lady of Fátima was named, and whom Shiite Muslims revere, is the symbol for understanding and compassion, healing and forgiveness between individuals and nations alike.

Which gets to our very humanity.

At a time when “dehumanization” is the root of what ails us.

Exactly the spirit in which “Iran exit ramp: Love, healing & forgiveness” was offered.

A friend, who served as a Navy Captain, wrote me that while he “really enjoyed” “Iran exit ramp: Love, healing & forgiveness,” “(t)he reservation I have regarding any interactions with Iranian officials is that they habitually lie and deceive and cannot be trusted, full stop. From childhood they have been indoctrinated with hate vs the USA. They only understand force. Trump and the generals know this, but prefer the blockade over wiping out all Iranian infrastructure upon which the civilian population relies. Like you, I pray this situation resolves very soon and that Our Lady of Fatima hastens the resolution… Best regards…

To which I replied:

“The lying is all of a piece with the ‘dehumanization’ I reference in the piece. My idea is that Fátima - the daughter of Muhammad and the Queen of Heaven - and their influence might somehow guide the discussions. Obviously we need to bridge the divide at the human level… Maybe human to human a solution might be found. I do know we can not bomb, or kill, our way to a solution. Essentially my piece suggests a miracle is needed. Another Miracle of Our Lady of Fátima!

Then on cue, The Brink of War is out in theatres… Brilliant!

And, maybe, just maybe, a human solution to the inhumanity the world is now suffering, can be found by August 19, the next Fátima date, as I suggest… or September 13, the next Fátima date after August 19, or perhaps October 13, “Miracle of the Sun”… the sooner the better… for, as we all know, the nuclear threat has only intensified, and war is no solution. As Cardinal Adam Sapieha, who ordained young Karol Wojtyla, said, as dramatized in the “2005 film ‘Pope John Paul II’ shows love has power,” “violence begets violence.” And, love begets love. Love, which, as St. John Paul II showed, is the most powerful weapon of all.

Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

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Listening to Chris Plante’s guest providing a simplistic view of the Iran conflict we became entangled in on February 28—basically, Trump looks week, so time to go in guns blazing—made me realize the moment we find ourselves in.

The idea that we could vanquish Iran’s current regime seemingly underestimated some critical elements.

But there will be a silver lining.

There always is.

Admittedly, Iran tragically and wrongly maimed and killed over 1,000 of our soldiers, 2005-2011, with IED’s (Improvised Explosive Devices)—as Iran’s elite Quds Force, Gen. Stanley McCrystal has likened to the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) combined, and its umbrella Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), seeded Iraq with these devices just waiting for our fighting men and women to trigger them, blowing off their limbs, blowing out their brains, if not sending them into eternity.

But, as President Ronald Reagan famously said, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

Iran clearly believes they are on the side of right and might. And, now that China is vowing to arm them, they will have more might. Meantime, yesterday’s IED is today’s drone—a relatively inexpensive weapon that changes the military calculus.

The United States, of course, is pursuing a vitally righteous cause as well—wanting to eliminate, once and for all, the threat—especially that of nuclear Armageddon—the current Iranian regime, composed of more than a few radical (read: batshit crazy), clerics—poses to the world.

Quite clearly, diplomacy is needed to end this conflict.

Diplomacy that blessedly took a quantum leap forward with the “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) that was agreed to in Vienna in mid-June. That it occurred c. the anniversary of the second apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, seems no accident, about which this author wrote.

But, of course, that MOU has been severely challenged, starting almost immediately with the Lebanon conflict heating up. Then, in early July the U.S. tried to help Iran feel the heat if not see the light, with more kinetic attacks, even as Pres. Donald J. Trump recognizes, with crystal clarity, it is time to exit this conflict.

Apropos of which, it is also time step back and see the larger cultural moment we are in.

Basically we are living in an era that is characterized by “dehumanization.”

This cultural sickness metastasized when a young Karol Wojtyla was coming of age, confronting the Nazi, then the Marxist threat, as illuminated in “2005 film ‘Pope John Paul II’ shows love has power.” A column published on June 19—marking perhaps the most important inflection point in modern history when Pope John Paul II said mass in Victory Square for nearly one million souls followed by two more equally historic visits, also in June—1983 and 1987—which, in combination with back-channel diplomacy, joined by Pres. Reagan—was the death knell of Eastern Bloc communism.

Now, two months later, on August 19, we mark the 109th anniversary of Our Lady of Fátima’s fourth apparition to the three shepherd children—Lúcia, Francisco, and Jacinta—at the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal as World War I raged.

Her visit was delayed from August 13—she appeared every month on the 13th starting in May—because the mayor of nearby Ourém had kidnapped the children, imprisoning them and threatening to boil them in oil if they stayed mum about the secret Mary had conveyed to them. They remained silent, as Our Lady had requested, even as 20,000 pilgrims waited at Cova da Iria, the children fearing for their lives, until finally a small white cloud and flashes of light became visible to the pilgrims.

Six days later Our Lady appeared to the children at Valinhos, asking them to pray the Rosary every day and to sacrifice for sinners, noting that many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them. She also directed them to use the funds pilgrims left at the apparition site to build a chapel.

Finally, she promised a great miracle on October 13th—a promise kept in spectacular fashion with “The Miracle of the Sun,” also called “The Miracle of Fátima,” witnessed by some 70,000 people of all stripes, i.e., believers, skeptics, journalists, in which the sun spun and hurtled toward the earth while changing colors—this miracle clearly affirming that she was, indeed, from Heaven and her message must be followed, lest the world plunge into a worse war, as happened, when World War II broke out.

Besides significant developments occurring on Fátima dates, Fátima, as I have written, was the name of a Moorish princess—named for the daughter of Muhammad, prophet of Islam, who is the symbol for understanding and forgiveness between individuals and nations alike.

Quite clearly, this is the moment to seek healing—that understanding and forgiveness—love—which as St. John Paul II knew is the most powerful weapon of all.

More than sweet words, he practiced it in deed when he forgave his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, two-and-a-half years after Agca nearly killed him on the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima, no less—telling Agca Our Lady had saved him, albeit, permanent wounds and ailments remained.

Poignantly, Agca, who had his own spiritual conversion, laid roses at the tomb of St. John Paul II, it was reported, on December 27, 2014, some eight months after the pontiff was canonized in Rome.

For America and the world to find healing at this difficult moment, love will, likewise, need to be manifest in forgiveness and moving forward as a family of nations, helping each other survive and thrive—the opposite only ending in catastrophe.

As Cardinal Adam Sapieha famously said, as dramatized in the 2005 film, “Violence begets violence.”

Yes, love is a powerful weapon.

On August 19, anniversary of the fourth Fátima apparition, if not sooner, let’s end this conflict and begin a new era of love, healing, understanding and forgiveness between individuals and nations alike.

***

Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

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Mary came through with flying colors this weekend, on the 109th anniversary of the second apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, with the announcement that an agreement has been reached in Vienna to end the Iran War and open the Strait of Hormuz, due to be signed on Friday in Switzerland.

As if to underscore her role, June 13 coincided with the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, following the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 12, occasioning President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump joining the Catholic Bishops in prayer as they consecrated America to the Sacred Heart on our 250th year of Independence.

The deal, announced on President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday (June 14) just before the big UFC match on the White House lawn—the ghost of President Teddy Roosevelt, an avid wrestler, who competed at Harvard and frequently jostled in the respective Executive Mansion as Governor of New York and as President, no doubt hovering over the fight and the deal that harkened back to TR’s mediation of the Russo-Japanese War in the 1904–1905, in which he negotiated the Treaty of Portsmouth, garnering him the Nobel Peace Prize, the first American to be so honored.

In the film Pope John Paul II starring Jon Voight, the pope marvels at how, on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, in 1981, he came within an inch of losing his life, one of two bullets that perilously close to piercing his abdomen—convincing him that Our Lady was guiding the bullet.

In the same way, I have no doubt, one month after the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, when I opined, the meeting with President Xi Jinping might catalyze an end to the Iran War, which began on February 28, that Our Lady of Fatima was guiding the negotiations toward, blessedly, an exit ramp, that will allow the world to walk back from the cliff of possible economic and kinetic Armegeddon.

Significantly, the name of the town and parish where Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children, Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco, in the fields of Cova de Iria, near Fatima, Portugal, starting on May 13, 1917, and every month thereafter on the 13th until through October—excepting August when the local administrator kidnapped the children—derives from the Arabic name Fatima (Fāṭimah, Arabic: فاطمة).

Fatima was the name of a Moorish princess—named for the daughter of Muhammad, prophet of Islam, the symbol for understanding and forgiveness between individuals and nations alike.

The Fatima Apparitions

Fatima is a town located 142 km (88 miles) North of Lisbon. Our Lady promised peace would come to the world if prayer, reparation and consecration were offered.

Lucia described the lady who visited them as appearing brighter than the sun, the rays of light emitted more crystalline than a crystal glass filled with the most sparkling water, pierced by the sun’s burning rays. According to the detailed account Lucia gave, the lady confided “Three Secrets of Fatima” and exhorted penance and sacrifice for sinners. In response the children wore tight painful cords around their waists and abstained from drinking water on hot days, among other works of penance.

Most important, Lucia said that the lady reiterated the importance of saying the rosary every day as key to peace, both global and personal.

The apparitions occurred as many young men were fighting on the fields of World War I. Our Lady explained that war was a punishment for sin and warned of further wars, hunger, and persecution of the Church, the Holy Father and the Faithful, should disobedience to God’s Holy Will continue. Mary warned if her requests were not granted that Russia would spread its errors worldwide along with war and persecution, including martyrdom, the suffering of the Holy Father and annihilation of nations. Everytime she appeared, she stressed the importance of saying the rosary.

“I want you to come here on the thirteenth of next month,” she told Lucia on June 13. “I want you to continue saying the Rosary every day. And after each one of the mysteries, my children, I want you to pray in this way: O my Jesus, forgive us our sins , save us from the fire of hell. Take all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need. I want you to learn to read and write, and later I will tell you what else I want of you.”

Clearly, our ailing world is getting a powerful assist from the Queen of Heaven, who sits at the right hand of her Son Jesus, ready to help us, if only we ask…

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

Each time I visit I am dismayed to see how the film capital of the world has deteriorated—old furniture tossed along the curbside on Melrose Avenue not far from Paramount Pictures, drug paraphernalia and the like, strewn along the sidewalk.

Mind you, it’s beautiful country—God’s country, said Paramount founder Jesse Lasky.

So the Mayor’s race the first Tuesday in June, featuring a newcomer named Spencer Pratt, a reality TV star, was cause for optimism.

His AI ads were classic as he spoofed sitting mayor Karen Bass’ pitiful record.

He was riding to victory—the last poll conducted, May 26-28, by McLaughlin Pollsters, showing him in the lead 30%, to Bass, 29%. Unsurprising given how Bass had so grossly mismanaged the Palisades fires in January 2025, in which Pratt and so many others lost their homes

Pratt came in a solid number two election night, just behind Bass, giving him a shot to duke it out with her in November.

A week later as they continued counting late-arriving absentee ballots, it was a different story—Pratt nudged out by the late-entering newcomer socialist Nithya Raman, who had been trailing him by a few percentage points—the vote tally now showing: Bass 291,397 (34.3%); Raman 246,333 (29%) and Pratt 216,783 (25.52%).

As the Carter-Baker Commission that analyzed elections in the wake of the 2000 election debacle, found, absentee ballots are the quickest way to steal an election.

Some experts estimate there may be as many as ten million fraudulent names on the rolls in California—either because they are illegal aliens, they are dead, or they no longer live in California.

Yet absentee ballots are sent out to everyone on the rolls whether requested or not, legal or not, living or not, resident or not; and someone signs and mails them back in.

With the right to mail unsolicited absentee ballots as late as election day—and if there’s no postmark, it can be written by hand—it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to intuit that the dishonesty is rampant. And, the reason they have until election day is, it would seem, so that fraudsters who are on the payroll until election day have time to complete their handiwork. A regular citizen would know to return their ballot in advance of the election so that we know come election night soon after the polls close, who won. That the citizen’s instinct. The fraudster, not so much. For, among other schemes, that time-honored tradition of harvesting ballots whereby elderly and otherwise limited individuals, who receive these ballots and toss them aside, forgetting all about them, requires time on the part of election workers who fish out and fill in their ballots for a candidate not necessarily of the respective voter’s choosing.

Then, too, it is being reported that operatives paid homeless to vote for either Karen Bass or Nithya Raman in the election.

And, on it goes, the fraud seeming to know no bounds.

The Justice Department announced an investigation on June 5 into the voter rolls in California. They had tried to clean up the rolls before the election but the state did not cooperate.

To encourage cooperation, President Donald Trump issued executive orders: “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” on March 25, 2025, and a year later, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” Perhaps he was waiting to enforce these orders until after they cheated?

Mind you, all of this fraud in California has traveled eastward since it was perfected by the California slicksters in Washington who cheated their way to power, as needed.

(And, we haven’t even gotten to the Governor’s race, where Steve Hilton maintained his number two spot, no doubt, as Pres. Trump said, because they knew they had gone too far in LA!)

Meantime, as the proof of the fraud is being assembled in the LA Mayor’s race, as the case may be, here’s an idea:

Why not conduct a poll to find out who voters actually voted for?

Instead of asking, “How do you plan on voting?”

The question would be, “How did you vote?”

If the results are widely at variance with the official results, you have one very good barometer besides common sense suggesting fraud and begging for a new election to pick the next Mayor of LA, fair and square.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

Operation Epic Fury, which US Central Command, at the direction of President Donald J. Trump, launched on February 28, is designed, once and for all, to end the Iran nuclear threat.

It’s a noble and worthy, and, many would say, vital goal.

Yet, since almost the start, this operation has cried out for an exit ramp—something the President has desired since Easter, some five weeks in, evidenced by the cease fire he agreed to on April 8, Easter Wednesday, after threatening, in so many words, to bomb Iran to smithereens unless they promised to shutter their nuclear weapons program, and his continued efforts, with the help of Pakistan, to negotiate an end to the war with Iran.

Perhaps Pres. Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping, paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China, which begins tomorrow, will open the way wide to such an exit ramp.

It could not happen on a more propitious day — the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, celebrated May 13 — Fatima being the beloved daughter of Muhammad and a symbol of understanding, forgiveness and healing between individuals and nations alike.

It would not be the first time Our Lady of Fatima has come to Pres. Trump’s aide—not unlike the way she saved Pope St. John Paul II’s life in that Pres. Trump had visited her shrine in Asbury, New Jersey, the morning of his near-assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania. That afternoon, on stage he turned his head just as the bullet was aimed at it. In the same way, as the Pope wrote to Sr. Lúcia after the assassination attempt, on May 13, 1981, “(I)t was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path and in his throes [he] halted at the threshold of death.” A year later, Pope St. John Paul II made a pilgrimage to Fatima, bringing one of the bullets that almost felled him, where it was placed in the crown of the statue of Our Lady. On May 13, 2000, the day Jacinta Marto was canonized, the third part of the secret Our Lady shared with Lucia in Fatima in 1917 was disclosed—namely, the story of a “bishop clothed in white” who is killed—foreshadowing the assassination attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II.

Yes, Our Lady of Fatima is powerful and will, no doubt, help bring an end to this war.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

President Donald J. Trump and Pope Leo XIII are in the difficult “getting to know you” phase.

The Pope is urging the President to choose peace over war in Iran. Truth be told, no one wants an exit ramp more than Pres. Trump.

Trump said he was “not a fan” of the Pope and, on Sunday, April 12—Divine Mercy Sunday, no less—posted on Truth Social: “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” The Pope responded the next day, saying he was speaking out according to the Gospel: “I will not shy away from pronouncing the message of the Gospel, of inviting all people to look for ways of building bridges for peace and reconciliation, of looking for ways to avoid war any time that’s possible.” Vice President J.D. Vance, a Catholic convert under the tutelage of Scott Hahn, sought to quell the controversy by urging the Pope “to stick to matters of morality.” Fair enough, but war and when to wage it, often concerns faith and morals.

Also on Divine Mercy Sunday, Trump posted, then later deleted, an image of himself as, ahem, a doctor—as in Jesus, the doctor of souls.

Blasphemous, many said. Yet, if you think about it, Christians are called to be other Christs. Then there’s the matter of “the royal touch,” which Pres. Trump surely feels moved to replicate. If only. Also known as “the king’s touch,” it dates back to the time when French and English monarchs laid hands on subjects regardless of their station with the intent of curing them of various maladies.

But, more than Trump emulating Jesus—or the leaders of old—looked at inversely, it is more true that Jesus is just the doctor Trump needs for his soul. The Pope will surely become the bridge—what “Pontiff” means—that President Trump needs to be led along rich paths of spirituality. If Trump did become religious, perhaps the Catholic Church given its elegance—the pageantry, storied cathedrals, and possiblity of sainthood—would be the best fit for him, especially given that First Lady Melania Trump is Catholic.

He would find its rich source of grace transformative and truly be a changed man.

But, then he’s already evinced a love of “Holy Mother Church” by virtue of beautifully accenting Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in Butler, Pennsylvania when he revisited the scene of his near-assassination, ringing out the Bells of Notre Dame at the exact moment he was nearly killed followed by Chris Macchio’s moving rendition of Schubert’s “Ave Maria” as the late Charlie Kirk noted in an X post. (That Charlie posted this moment is something I just realized as I re-read my piece:“Donald Trump’s Poignant Nod to Mary.” Goosebumps!)

Trump knows Our Lady saved him that Saturday, July 13, 2024 when his life was nearly snuffed out, but for turning his head at just the right moment. Amazingly he had visited a Fatima shrine near Bedminster that morning. July 13 was a Fatima anniversary, and then, just like Pope St. John Paul II on May 13, 1981, Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, he moved his head and the bullet missed him. (JP II had, on cue, bent down to bless a little girl’s Fatima medal, the bullet thereby missing his heart.)

Those small but powerful gestures on the part of Trump were tacit admission Our Lady saved his life.

And, now she is surely saving his life in a more profound spiritual sense, opening up his eyes, so that the quality of his leadership will become that much richer, and the quality of his love that much more refined—the Holy Spirit definitely at work in the back and forth between the Pope and the President—in this getting to know you phase.

I look to them to become great friends, not unlike President Ronald Reagan and Pope St. John Paul II—First Lady Nancy Reagan noting the Pope was her husband’s very best friend, something this writer first reported back in the summer of 2009. As this SNL London opener a month ago on Saturday, March 21 suggests, to know him is to love him—which I am confident Pope Leo will figure out in due course.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

In April 2012, as the Republican party was trying to coalesce around a winning presidential candidate, I set my sights on then-Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour.

Albeit, in June 2011, I had told Haley’s BGR founding partner, Ed Rogers, that I thought real estate tycoon and reality TV star, Donald J. Trump was someone to keep your eyes on—that he had that “fire in the belly,” Haley realized, in time, he lacked.

Lee Atwater, a politically-gifted South Carolina boy, who like Barbour, rose to the Chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, the Party thriving under both—who died 35 years ago today—would have surely agreed and quietly advised Trump—if he had been around.

No doubt he’s been ‘pulling strings from Heaven,’ as former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, Bush-Quayle ’88 Chairman imagined him doing, in his eulogy for Lee— working through his former allies, who helped tee up Trump’s run for the presidency.

Lee would have been 75 years old this year, while his good friend Haley is a thriving elder statesman and influential Washington insider.

I first met the pair at the opening reception for Ed Rollins’ lobbying firm, Russo, Watts and Rollins (RWR).

Ed had just run Reagan’s landslide re-election—Lee serving as his deputy, Haley as regional political director.

Of course, there was no love lost between Ed and Lee, a self-professed bad boy, as Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story reveals, which made that night uniquely interesting.

No matter. Lee knew the art of politics—the art of the possible, said Pres. Reagan—better than anyone in the arena.

As Secretary Baker said in his eulogy at Lee’s funeral, when it came to politics, Lee was “Machiavellian… in the very best sense of that term.” He pictured him in Heaven, “halo askew, strumming a guitar instead of a harp . . . getting things ready for the big convention in the sky.” Indeed, some 2000 government officials, including myself, joined President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush at the National Cathedral on April 4, 1991 to mourn the passing this “pol’s pol” who had a “truly uncanny feel for America’s political pulse.”

He would push politics “to the edge wholeheartedly and unabashedly,” Secretary Baker said, “just the way he played guitar and just the way he lived. . . . Lee did it his way — with hardball politics, yes. But also with hard work.”

Quite simply, Lee knew how to win and winning is what politics is all about—mirroring what F. Scott Fitzgerald said: “There are no second acts in American lives.”

Losers are yesterday’s news.

Then Lee lost his battle with cancer on March 29, 1991. Yet in losing, he won—eternity.

I know a little of his story.

In August 1985, I interviewed with Lee at Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly (BMSK) in Old Town Alexandria, after he had been jogging in the hot summer heat. He slouched back in his chair with his knees leaning against the desk, as I, dressed prim and proper—wearing pearls and a classic Kathyrn Conover navy blue fit-and-flare dress with white hearts, complemented by white polka dot stockings—did my best to answer his questions.

What a character!

I got a job instead at Ed Rollins’ firm right up the street from BMSK. (Watts had produced the famous “Morning in America” ads for Reagan-Bush ’84 ).

Lee was always so gracious and encouraging to me when he would call to talk with Ed and schedule their next early morning breakfast meeting at 7:30 a.m., Ed pleading to move it up to 8 a.m. No dice: 7:30 a.m. it was!

Then, I remember that day in February 1990, when I was watching Lee being interviewed on TV with his cousin Steve, a fellow political appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services. In the course of the interview, Lee gave out his jogging route—a security breach, which shocked Steve, given what a target Lee was.

A month later, it became clear why Lee had been so careless. That day Steve and I went to a White House arrival ceremony for President Arnold Ruutel of Estonia. All I could remember was how shaken Steve was because Lee had had a seizure the day before while speaking at a fundraising breakfast for Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX). He was soon diagnosed with a brain tumor.

I started getting together with Steve to listen to tapes on alternative therapies that he thought might help Lee. In April 1990, after a few of those sessions, when it became clear Lee’s condition was much worse than first contemplated, I told Steve I would pray for him through the intercession of this holy priest, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, featured in Roland Joffe’s film, There Be Dragons. I told him Escriva was on the way to being canonized, explaining that asking him to intervene with God was like asking Lee to intervene with the President. I prayed novena after novena, twenty-seven in all; then in December I got sick with the flu, and slacked off. On May 6, 1991, totally exhausted, I stayed home and read the papers, cover to cover, and, lo and behold, that day there was the story of Lee’s conversion in December 1990.

In the waning days of Lee’s life, he apologized to Michael Dukakis for saying of him he would “strip the bark off the little bastard.” It was a gracious gesture and, I think, was Lee’s way of saying, ‘The ’88 campaign was an extremely rough fight and I’m sorry if it was a little too rough at times.’

Of course, Lee always knew his best campaign tactic was Dukakis himself—Dukakis’ ride in that M1 Abrams tank, where, Lee observed, he looked like Bullwinkle, a classic. That day on the campaign, the sense that the tide had turned, as, indeed, it had, was palpable— as was the mirth and feeling of elation, on the cusp of winning.

God bless Lee, who, no doubt, is busier in Heaven, than he ever was here on earth.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

There is definitely billowing smoke coming from the Epstein files.

Who knew that smoke would lead to the dumpster fire known as the 2008 Global Financial Meltdown.

A meltdown famously dramatized in The Big Short (2015) when Dr. Michael Burry, played by Christian Bale, could see quite clearly the housing market was built on worthless Subprime Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS). So he went about shorting the “rock solid” sector, as Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan characterized it, to cash in once the housing market, propped up by these bad loans, imploded.

Burry thought the storm would hit in 2007. He was right. The first bank to go bust, New Century Financial Mortgage Corporation based in Irvine, California, declared bankruptcy April 2, 2007. than the mThe investment instruments used to bet against the housing market were a bit more complicatedovie portrays, as banks sought to protect their investors.

Even so, the big picture is this: It was heads the investment bankers won, tails, the taxpayer bailed them out. Though, we never quite knew how this all played out.

Now with the second release, this time of some three million Epstein files, on Friday, January 30, the veil is being lifted as suggested by this June 2009 email from Jeffrey Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell about “petie,” i.e., Lord Peter Mandelson.

Lord Mandelson’s grandfather Herbert Morrison was Deputy Prime Minister for real. He served during the ministries of Clement Attlee, invited by King George VI to form the first ministry on July 26, 1945, succeeding Winston Churchill as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The Labour Party’s landslide victory gave it the power to establish the welfare state and nationalize 20 per cent of the economy. After Conservatives took power in 1951, Morrison was given a peerage as Baron Morrison of Lambeth in 1959, and seat in the House of Lords.

Lord Mandelson was forced resign his position as British Ambassador to the United States given his continuing friendship with Epstein after the late pedophile’s conviction, as the first batch of Epstein files revealed.

Now, with the revelations that he was leaking sensitive information to Epstein after the global financial meltdown, he has had to resign from the Labour Party as well as his seat in the House of Lords.

At the time of his alleged leaking he was serving as Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (2008–2009) and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (2009–2010).

If verified, Epstein was the fixer for his billionaire buddies, Mandelson, his insider, tipping him off about bailouts and asset sales as the crisis unfolded. For instance, it is alleged he shared details of the euro bailout package on the eve of the government’s announced plan to shore up the flagging currency. Scotland Yard confirmed on Tuesday, February 5 that “Mandelson was being investigated on suspicion of misconduct in public office, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.”

Quite a dumpster fire, indeed.

Meanwhile President Trump continues to dismantle the system Wall Street bankers found so lucrative at the expense of taxpayers that made The Big Short possible so that Main Street might flourish, providing American workers with good-paying jobs, sound housing, and affordable health care, by which to support and grow their families.

Key initiatives, besides energy independence include recent initiatives like Project Vault, establishing a new strategic mineral reserve, Trump Rx, providing affordable prescription drugs and the Trump housing initiative keeping Wall Street from competing with Main Street buyers.

As for the rest of the Epstein files, I’ll leave that to the British press.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

Of course, it may be too soon to dub “Operation Absolute Resolve” a “Trump masterstroke,” but it sure feels like it one day out.

When you extract the head of a narco-terrorist empire, posing as the President of Venezuela, with such precision and skill, you have to hand it to Trump.

He knows how to use U.S. military might and does not fool around when it comes to cutting down criminals like Maduro overseeing a drug smuggling operation into the United States, with intricate routes—a criminal enterprise the likes of which we have never seen responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of our youth. In 2023 alone, Venezuelan cocaine laced with Chinese fentanyl was responsible for 199 deaths every day. Some 400,000 lost their lives from the time Joe Biden was sworn in as president.

It was six years to the day after the Trump-directed operation that took out Qasem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Quds Force, responsible for maiming countless U.S. soldiers in Iraq with IEDs.

So, it was, said Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine, that “On the order of the President of the United States and in support of a request from the Department of Justice… the United States conducted an apprehension mission in Caracas, Venezuela to bring to justice two indicted persons, Nicolás and Cecelia Maduro.”

Operation Absolute Resolve was “discrete, precise and conducted,” Gen. Caine said, “during the darkest hours of January 2 and was a culmination of months of planning and rehearsal, an operation that frankly only the United States Military could undertake.”

Then he shared “some of the preparation and the details without compromising any of our tactics, techniques and procedures” given the “chance that we’ll be tasked to do this type of mission again.”

“Our interagency work began months ago and built on decades of experience of integrating complex air, ground, space and maritime operations.”

It was truly interagency—requiring “every component of our joint force”—”with soldiers, sailors, airman and marines and guardians working in unision with our intelligence agency partners and law enforcement team mates in an unprecedented operation,” which “leveraged our unmatched intelligence capabilities and our years of experience in hunting terrorists… (aided by) the incredible work of various intelligence agencies including the CIA, NSA and NGA.”

“We watched, we waited, we prepared, we remained patient and professional.”

“This mission was meticulously planned, drawing lessons… from many missions over these last many years.”

“This was an audacious operation that only the United States could do.”

“It required the utmost of integration and precision”— “an extraction so precise” involving “more than 150 aircraft launching across the Western Hemisphere in close coordination all coming together in time and place to layer effects for a single purpose—to get an interdiction force into downtown Caracas while maintaining the element of tactical surprise.”

“Failure of one component of this well-oiled machine would have endangered the entire mission. And, failure,” he said, “is never an option for America’s joint force.”

“Those in the air over Caracas last night were willing to give their lives for those on the ground and in the helicopters.”

Part of the operation, said Gen. Caine, were elements of ordinary life, including Maduro’s living habits, and weather—to “minimize civilian harm” as well as to “minimize harm to the indicted personnel, so, as the president said, they could be brought to justice.”

“Last night the weather broke just enough clearing a path that only the most skilled aviators in the world could maneuver through… but when tasked with a mission, this organization does not quit.”

“At 10:46 p.m. Eastern Time last night, the President ordered the United States Miliary to move forward with this mission. He said, ‘Good luck and Godspeed’ and those words were transmitted to the entire joint force.”

The operation, launched from the USS Iwo Jima, beginning with helicopters taking off with the extraction force, protected overhead by aircraft from all the various forces. As they approached, among other tasks, they began dismantling the air defense systems, and soon realized they had “maintained totally the element of surprise.”

They arrived at Maduro’s compound at 2:01 a.m. while maintaining security.

“One of our aircraft was hit but remained flyable and as the president said today all of our aircraft came home and that aircraft remained flyable during the rest of the mission.”

“As the operation unfolded at the compound, our air and ground intelligence teams provided real-time updates…”

“U.S. Delta Forces slipped into the home of dictator Nicolás Maduro,” reported CBS News, and awoke them from their sleep then whisked away the indicted pair—their attempts to escape to their safe room foiled when the door would not shut.

“Maduro and his wife, both indicted, gave up,” said Gen. Caine, “and were taken into custody by the Department of Justice…”

“The force successfully exfiltrated and returned to their float lauch bases and the force was over the water at 3:29 a.m. Eastern Standard Time with indicted persons onboard. Both Maduro and his wife were embarked aboard the USS Iwo Jima.”

From there, they were transported to New York Harbor where they were once again transported by aircraft to land for the trip to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Just a masterstroke.

Not only in terms of national security but also geostrategically whereby the Monroe Doctine articulated by President James Monroe on December 2, 1823 was revived, some calling it the “DonRoe Doctrine,” with President Trump enforcing it—namely that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers is considered a potentially hostile act against the United States and will not stand.

It was also a political masterstroke.

For if classic old liberals praise the operation, as reason dictates, they alienate the socialists/Marxists in their coalition, thus fracturing it. As for the contention by Democrats hoping to hold the coalition together that fentanyl that has killed so many youth is not made in Venezuela, but China; the fact is the whole narco-terrorist network, with its intricate smuggle routes, is all interconnected. Without Venezuelan cocaine, Chinese fentanyl can not be slipped into the systems of unsuspecting youth.

Then, too, the inner workings of Maduro’s “win” in July 2024 are now being revealed. When classic old liberals realize the truth—that, by extension, 2020 was, in fact, “rigged,” as Trump always asserts— it will be quite the eye-opener.

And, oh, one more thing: Venezuelans have been liberated! “Viva Trump!” Venezuelans packing the streets of Miami, New York, Madrid, Buenos Aires—and Chapecó, Brazil, too—are now shouting in jubilation.

Mind you, Venezuela was such a beautiful and rich country before its Marxist takeover in 1998, and will be again.

Only this time the new duly elected leaders need to figure out how to give the poor more of a stake in their future to head off a future communist takeover.

So many martyrs from the brutality of this dictatorship are now surely smiling down from heaven seeing their country being liberated and restored—Nicaragua, Columbia, Mexico and Cuba perhaps following suit in the not too distant future.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

So, let me offer an alternative perspective viewed through a more compassionate lens.

Trump was, in fact, quite gracious in his post, again noting the “very sad” news and Reiner’s great talent as a comedian and movie director, but that he had gotten off track “reportedly” over his TDS, i.e, TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.

Pres. Trump obviously has his sources, so he is not commenting in a vacuum. (Indeed, Reiner quipped after the Butler, Pennsylvania near-assassination of the then former president, maybe next time someone tries to kill him, he will not miss.)

Then he wished them eternal rest.

And, who knows, maybe he is telegraphing that he will show mercy for the troubled son of Rob Reiner, Nick, who reportedly sent his parents into eternity.

Time will tell.

This is my quick take. Piling on Trump is a contact sport these days. But, I prefer taking a broader view.

More importantly, may Rob Reiner and his lovely wife Michele Rest In Peace.

And, may their troubled family find peace here on earth.

One more light from a perspective one day later:

I think Pres. Trump was pointing out the corrosive effect of hatred wherever it emanates from... we’ll have to see how the story plays out... very sad for the family... hopefully out of this tragedy our nation can start to heal the wounds of division and realize, as Rob Reiner now does from his heavenly perch, with a more balanced view, all the good that Pres. Trump has done for our nation... Democratic presidents, too, have done great good... all duly elected through the democratic processes... (well, most all duly elected... 😉)

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, saved Donald Trump’s life on July 13, 2024, the anniversary of her third appearance to the three shepherd children in the Cova de Iria in Fátima, Portugal.

Though little reported, that morning, then former and future President Trump visited the shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima in Asbury, New Jersey, not far from his home in Bedminster. That was the day, 107 years earlier, that she had first discussed Russia falling prey to Godless communism.

On October 13, 1917, she brought us the “Miracle of the Sun.” She had promised a sign to prove that she was truly from Heaven.

And, now on this anniversary, her sixth and final appearance in Fátima, peace breaks out in the Middle East. While the initial ceasefire deal to end the Gaza war was announced on October 8, 2025, the final declaration finalizing the agreement was inked today, Monday, October 13.

That seals the deal.

While all the politicos are congratulating themselves—and, no question, they do deserve great credit—Mary is clearly the major player.

She had asked the children on the 13^th of each month, May to October 1917, on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, to pray the rosary for world peace; the end of World War I; sinners; and the conversion of Russia.

Our Lady of Fátima was appearing at a time when sectarian tensions were rising as empires fell in World War I’s wake.

That she chose Fátima is no accident. Fátima was the prophet Muhammad’s favorite daughter. As the Muslim occupation of Portugal (711-1250) was coming to a close, a Christian knight named Gonçalo Hermingues fell in love with a Moorish princess by the name of Fátima, daughter of the last Muslim chief. Hermingues married her, and renamed their town Fátima, so deeply in love was he.

Shiite Muslims of Persian consider Fátima the “the purest of women” and believe that she brings healing, compassion, forgiveness and understanding, for individuals and nations alike.

Clearly!

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

As Republicans worked on the Fiscal Year ‘26 budget, hoping to reinstitute the regular budget process, it has taken more time, Speaker Mike Johnson said last week. So they asked for a “clean” continuing resolution (CR) to maintain the current FY ‘25 spending level for seven more weeks as they finish their work.

Accordingly, the House passed this clean CR. Yet it failed in the Senate because Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (R-NY) sought to use this opportunity to load it up with a Christmas tree of Democrat spending priorities, notably a $1 trillion in expiring health care subsidies.

The Senate on Tuesday rejected this Democratic stopgap spending bill along with the Republican CR, both of which would have required 60 votes to pass—thus teeing up a government shutdown at midnight tonight.

One can only hope the grown-ups will assert themselves and that the CR Speaker Johnson asked for will pass, while policy differences are worked out through the normal budget and appropriations processes, not at the twelfth hour, as is always done in a brinksmanship displacing orderly governance.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (R-NY) has signaled a desire to come up with a compromise before midnight since he knows that Republicans may well use this opportunity to cut programs. As President Trump told reporters at the White House today, a shutdown is “probably likely” and his administration may use this lapse in funding to make “irreversible” cuts to programs Democrats cherish.

Democrats should be careful what they wish for. Little progress was made during the White House meeting yesterday between congressional leaders and President Trump given this health care spending speed bump. But what else will they be giving up if their intransigence forces the government to shut down?

Politics is the art of compromise.

Time to deal.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

Put me down as highly skeptical that, after the stumble-bum 22-year-old, Tyler Robinson, alighted the roof at the Utah Valley campus last Wednesday, September 10, he landed a perfect kill shot that whisked Charlie Kirk, the world’s most famous “influencer,” into eternity and miraculously missed everyone else.

I think Pastor Lucas Miles is right.

The enemy wants to create social chaos.

It’s their time-honored weapon. Starting with the Bolshevik Revolution.

And, here we are over 100 years later with our own such revolution.

Only this time, we have the power to do it in reverse.

To have a revolution of social order and harmony, where God’s love prevails.

God-willing, through an investigation of Charlie’s assassination that reveals the truth of how/why he was felled.

We don’t have sixty years to finally find out, like Oswald, Robinson was a patsy.

We need to know now.

At the Utah Valley campus packed event kicking off Charlie’s campus tour, we have the alleged assassin jumping off the roof, which FBI released footage of.

But there’s no evidence of the fatal bullet whizzing through the air a la that famous photo of the bullet whizzing by Trump’s head when he was nearly felled by another roof-alighting kid.

A rigorous investigation is needed.

Too much is at stake.

Notably the future of Western civilization and the social order and harmony God so desires.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

This summer, as the Jeffrey Epstein story sucked up the oxygen, key opinionmakers opined over how and why he was so protected, and just how big the scandal was.

What was Donald J. Trump’s involvement, if any, given his friendship with Epstein?

Would he survive? Democrats were sure he would not.

One wise friend commented that he thought President Trump had laid a trap that he would later spring.

Meanwhile, Michael Wolff made a statement on one of the myriad podcasts that stuck with me, that comported with the trap theory.

No fan of Trump, he revealed that Trump had “dropped a dime” on Epstein.

That assertion towered above all the rest breathlessly claiming to know the score. It seemed spot on given the timing—right after Trump discovered what Epstein’s operation was all about, grooming and trafficking underage girls aspiring to be models, to powerful men.

Yesterday, that is exactly what Speaker Mike Johnson revealed. That once Trump realized the “terrible, unspeakable evil,” as he described Epstein’s operation, he kicked Epstein out of Mar-A-Lago and began serving as an FBI informant to try and end it.

“The President has clean hands,” he said. “He wants all the records out.” “He has great compassion for (the victims).”

And now it’s time for the victims of this “terrible, unspeakable evil,” who began to tell their stories this week on Capitol Hill, to find healing and for the roots of the moral degradation that made such an operation possible, to be excised.

For to claim, shock, shock gambling is going on in Casablanca, so to speak, is a little disingenuous. Our culture is morally corrupt—the proliferation of nudist beaches in the South of France and Southern California, a case in point—and this scandal is a wake-up call as to just how corrupt and our culture’s need for healing and restoration of pure love.

The Democrats’ “motives,” by the way, said Speaker Johnson, are “impure” regarding their sudden discovery of this scandal. “If they cared so much about this, why didn’t they do something during the four years of the Biden Administration when the Biden DOJ had all the records.” Not a peep. “Now they’re doing it for political purposes”— “creating a hoax” a la “the Russian dossier”—in this case, guilt-by-association.

Yes, now is a time for healing not partisan politics.

Remarks on Epstein case begin c. 3:45 minutes in.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

Michael von der Schulenburg has it just right. The Alaska meeting between President Donald J. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “game changer.”

Von der Schulenburg is a German member of the EU Parliament and spent 34 years as a UN diplomat. He knows whereof he speaks. That the leaders of Europe rushed to the White House in Washington, DC three days later to actualize the promise of this meeting is testament to the reality Von der Schulenburg spoke of to Professor Glenn Diesen of Norway in the aftermath of the Alaska meeting.

Most importantly, Von der Schulenburg said, the meeting between Trump and Putin rebuilt trust. That is why it was “so extremely, extremely successful.” Earlier, Putin did not know if he could trust Trump to deliver because the NATO leaders were saying, we’ll just wait until Trump is gone. But Trump has shown his leadership chops and Putin decided, Trump can deliver. And, so they met in Alaska. And Putin has invited Trump to Moscow. Amazing!

The meeting recognized the reality that Russia has won the Ukraine conflict—why Trump met with Putin and gave him such a fulsome welcome. The reality, said Von der Schulenberg, is that he was essentially welcoming the victor. Not what we expected, said Von Schulenburg. But the reality must be recognized. Ukraine, he said, is “at the point of military collapse.” And, he counsels them to “negotiate, negotiate” and ignore the siren calls from Europe, and end the war once and for all, enabling Ukraine to get the best deal possible before it’s too late. “If you want to save Ukraine as an independent functioning state, you have to do this very quickly.”

And, to negotiate you need trust, which, again, is why Alaska was so important. Without it, war is the inevitable outcome.

And to build trust you must show respect and listen and try to understand the other side.

“The self-righteousness of each side is the fuel for war,” said Von der Schulenberg.

These are hard realities and he’s not sure Ukraine is ready for this. But absent such clear thinking we keep bumping along, right into World War III, while Europe would risk further economic and cultural deterioration, something that Von de Schulenberg, a grandfather many time over, is gravely concerned about. And, he points out, Trump’s main foreign policy plank during the 2024 campaign was to avoid World War III. And, Alaska has now prevented the Ukraine conflict sliding into World War III.

Mind you, Von der Schulenberg is no big Trump fan, and while the reality is painful, it is simply undeniable, he said, that Trump is showing strength, Europe weakness.

Stunning to observe how world events are unfolding, with Trump at the apex.

Truly, the stone the builders rejected is becoming the cornerstone.

And, yes, Alaska was a “gamechanger.”

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

Last Sunday, July 6, exactly six years from the day he was arrested, Attorney General Pam Bondi did a 180 and said there was no Jeffrey Epstein client list. Meaning his partner-in-non-crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking to no one. It was all a charade. The underage girls were all being groomed to no end.

Of course, as everyone in Washington knows, said Tucker at Turning Point USA on Friday, July 11, it was a well-funded operation for a very specific purpose, blackmail it seems, on behalf of some very powerful interests, probably not American, and, furthermore there is not a single soul in Washington who believes otherwise.

Meanwhile, President Donald J. Trump, who has bigger fish to fry, asserted on Truth Social Saturday evening that no one cares about the Epstein matter: “We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening,” he wrote. “Let’s not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.” In response, for the first time, he was “ratioed”—meaning his post received more replies than support.

As his polls drop in the wake of the DOJ Epstein memo—and he is now underwater at just 48% support—I have a feeling, he will figure out that most everyone, especially those in his base, do care about the Epstein matter.

A lot.

And, that, as Tucker said, the line, “Case closed. Shut up conspiracy theorist,” is “too much…”

Tucker said he thinks we will “find out more” and that the reason the DOJ did not release “lots of incriminating sex videos with Epstein and his billionaire pals” in compromising situations is that “the search warrant” from 2006 or 2007 “was written in such a way to make sure that the feds never got their hands on the actual incriminating evidence.”

“It’s another way of saying, the cover-up has been going on since 2007—almost 20 years.”

“So the real question is not, was Jeffrey Epstein a weirdo who was abusing girls?,” asked Tucker. “Yes. We can answer that. The real question is, why was he doing this, on whose behalf and where did the money come from?… I think the real answer is Jeffrey Epstein was working on behalf of intel services, probably not American. And, we have every right to ask on whose behalf was he working. How does a guy go from being a math teacher at The Dalton School in the late seventies with no college degree, to having multiple airplanes, a private island and the largest residential house in Manhattan? Where did all the money come from? And, no one has ever gotten to the bottom of that because no one has ever tried. And moreover it’s extremely obvious to anyone who watches that this guy had direct connections to a foreign government…” (For more, see Tucker’s conversation with Saagar Enjeti on Monday, July 7, 2025.)

Quite an inflection point in American history.

President Trump obviously knows the score.

Just as obvious, he loves America.

And, it looks like, the ultimate dealmaker has cut a deal. To wit: The day after the DOJ Epstein memo was released, CIA Director Ratcliffe referred former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey to the FBI for criminal investigation.

But, a year ago today, then former President Trump was protected from being felled by an assassin’s bullet by a spiritual powerhouse.

Clearly, we’re in a battle of good versus evil.

And, no matter how good the intentions, evil must be exposed.

In due course.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

Today, on the 46th anniversary of John “Duke” Wayne going to Heaven, he is surely smiling down at the sight of law and order being restored to his old stomping ground as President Donald J. Trump, recognizing the reality of the violence that threatened to engulf Los Angeles in the wake of riots that ignited on Friday, June 6, federalized the National Guard, and not two days later, brought in the Marines, as a grateful city and nation looked on.

Duke’s good friend, A.J. Fenady, Chisum writer and producer said, “At the very end of Chisum (1970), Pepper says, “There’s an old saying, Miss Sally, there’s no law west of Dodge and no God west of the Pecos. Right, Mr. Chisum.” And Duke says, “Wrong, Mr. Pepper. Because no matter where people go, sooner or later there is the law and sooner or later they find God’s already been there.” I think that sums up how he felt. (“John Wayne’s Longest Journey,” Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends )

That surely sums up how President Trump feels who, on the way to restoring law and order, is restoring the spiritual foundations which made America great.

Ten years to the day before he went to his reward, the film True Grit in which Duke gave an Oscar-winning performance, was released.

Just before he began making True Grit, the Duke’s “awakening spirituality was helping him channel his nervous energy into more than just making films,” as I wrote in Oasis. “‘He was always a closet Catholic, I think,’ said Fenady, who, while developing Chisum (1970), spent much time in many places with Duke during and between the filming of Hellfighters (1968), True Grit, and The Undefeated (1969). ‘He never talked [about it but] I know he went to Catholic mass down in Durango,’ Mexico—one of Duke’s preferred filming locations. ‘That was one of the few times you’d ever see John Wayne on his knees,’ said Fenady.”

Time for all of us to get down on our knees to pray for America’s safety and thank God for his many miraculous interventions.

God bless the Duke!

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

A brief, overarching commentary on the tectonic plate shifts since the second inauguration of President Donald J. Trump:

We are now 111 days into the second presidential term of Donald J. Trump, which began on the cold wintry day of January 20, when he took the oath of office for a second time after winning the presidency. An office, President Trump and his allies would say he won for the third time; but, the interregnum was allowed by the Divine Stage Manager, who clearly had a better plan!

It’s been a dizzing 111 days. And, while this commentator has been beyond busy, given publication of her book, Hemingway’s Faith, in addition to many other literary pursuits; even at that, commenting seemed futile given the overwhelming number of pieces being put into place on the way to making America great again.

The pieces of the puzzle are now, thankfully, coming into clearer focus.

And, what we are seeing in the person of President Trump is a leader who embodies the “can do” American spirit, marshalling great resources, beginning with common sense and economic reinvigoration and strength, to make America — and the world — great again.

His mission is so large, given that America’s role is so historic and key, that, in the process, he is influencing world events.

The fact that the Cardinals in Rome on May 8, Victory Europe’s (VE) 80th, inspired by the Holy Spirit, chose an American from Chicago, that great engine of human ingenuity and progress when America first rose to greatness, is all of a piece with the Trump phenomenon. And now it will be infused with spiritual capital.

Then, too, also on VE’s 80th, President Trump announced an historic trade deal with the United Kingdom, solidifying the “special relationship.” This deal came in the wake of Nigel Farage’s galvanizing win at the polls six days earlier, in which his Reform Party rose to become the main opposition party in Great Britain, besting the Conservative Party, promising his ascension to the office of Prime Minister in the not too distant future when the Liberal Party PM runs out of steam. What a different world we were looking at a little over a year ago when Farage spoke of grim “darkest hour” realities at CPAC’s Inaugural International Summit.

Quite simply, we are witnessing the re-emergence of a trio mirroring that of President Ronald Reagan, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope St. John Paul II.

It can be done!

We can make America — and the world — great again.

With a little help from the Divine Stage Manger.

Aided by that new fellow from Chicago, Pope Leo XIV. (Who even looks like JPII!)

Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

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Our first President George Washington would, today, have turned 293 years old, which, as we learned in recent days, would still not qualify as the oldest Social Security recipient.

No wonder President Donald J. Trump, General George Washington’s successor 236 years later, is held in such high esteem by the voters, as reflected in recent YouGov.com polls.

Trump is cleaning house governmentally, spearheaded by DOGE head Elon Musk, so that our bloated bureaucracy will become a lean, mean fighting machine aimed at “making America great again”— the vision Washington had as he “forged the nation” to become that shining city on the hill, as beautifully portrayed in George Washington II: Forging of a Nation (1986)—a compelling miniseries about Washington, who, as the first President of the United States of America, spent eight years trying to run the country, amidst many trials.

Now it’s President Trump’s turn.

And, while the United States might not have won the inaugural 4 Nations Face-Off Championship hosted in Boston on Thursday, February 20, by the National Hockey League, America stands tall as its new president is a course-correcting at a furious pace vis-a-vis reversing the border invasion, restoring energy-dominance, transforming foreign policy fiascos, and so much more.

And, like the NHL, he is doing it with class.

During the pre-game festivities, Team USA hockey legend Mike Eruzione honored the late Johnny Gaudreau, the “Miracle on Ice” captain donning Gaudreau’s No. 13 Team USA jersey, as he swirled around the ice.

Then, too, President Trump graced the nation as he spoke from his heart to the nation in his Second Inaugural address, telling us the “Golden Age of America begins right now” and delivered with a bevy of executive orders actualizing his words. There is nothing worse than the talk, talk, talk of Washington pols. Trump is doing.

And, on this, George Washington’s birthday, he is doing it guided by great American giants, namely, the Father of our Nation. Indeed, he is in the mold of these giants.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.

On Monday, January 20, shortly after taking the oath of office for the second time, this time in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, President Trump humbly acknowledged the role that God has played in his life and the life of our nation.

“Over the past eight years,” he said, “I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history, and I've learned a lot along the way. The journey to reclaim our Republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you. Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and indeed to take my life. Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin's bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.”

Shortly afterwards, Pastor Lorenzo Sewell of Detroit, Michigan delivered this stunningly beautiful inaugural prayer fittingly including poignant passages from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, whose birthday we were also celebrating on Inauguration Day.

Let us pray for our 47th president. Heavenly Father, we’re so grateful that you gave our 45th and now our 47th president a millimeter miracle. We are grateful that you are the one that have called him for such a time as this. That America would begin to dream again.

We pray that we would fulfill the true meaning of our creed, that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. We pray that you use our president, that we will live in a nation where we will not be judged by the color of our skin but by the content of our character.

Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, we are so grateful today that you will use our 47th president so we will sing with new meaning, ‘My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died. Land of the pilgrims’ pride. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.’ And because America is called to be a great nation, we believe that you will make this come true.

From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, let freedom ring. From the snowcap Rockies of Colorado, let freedom ring. From the curvaceous hilltops of California, but God, we’re asking you not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain, Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill in Mississippi, from every state, every city, every village and every hamlet. And when we let freedom ring, we will be able to speed up that day where all of your children, Black men and white men, Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile will be able to sing in the meaning of that old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, free at last. Thank you God almighty, we are free at last.’ If you believe with the Spirit of the Lord, there is liberty. Come on, put your hands together and give your great God great glory.”

“Free at last, free at last,” indeed!

American voters spoke on November 5^th. They want their country back. They want to feel safe in their own homes. They want to have a president who puts Americans first. Who respects our borders, language and culture. Who is not afraid to ‘do right’ by Americans.

Then came Tuesday morning at the Washington National Cathedral which has hosted ten official inaugural prayer services for presidents dating back to 1933. Glaringly absent from the line-up of speakers were conservative evangelicals. The snub notwithstandinng, many still attended including Robert Jeffress, pastor of Dallas’ First Baptist Church, a long-time Trump ally; Paula White-Cain, a televangelist and spiritual adviser; and Pastor Sewell.

The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, an American prelate of the Episcopal Church, who has served as Bishop of Washington since November 2011, began by extending a “warm welcome” even as she poured cold-water all over Pres. Trump, in remarks, which, though thoughtful, were also surprisingly uninformed and steeped with political emotions.

“Unity at times is sacrificial in the way that love is sacrificial,” she said, adding “Jesus went out of his way to welcome those society deems outcasts.” Yet, she said, “We are not naive about the realities of politics.”

“Is true unity among us even possible,” she asked. “And why should we care about it? Well I hope we care… Because the culture of contempt that has become normalized in this country threatens to destroy us… It’s a dangerous way to lead a country.”

The rancor dripping from her remarks delivered with a smirk on her face, undercut her role as a spiritual leader, her affirmation that “I am a person of faith,” notwithstanding. Quite clearly, she was there to deliver a political message concerning her idea of unity—not what Jesus taught, even as she tried to wrap herself in the message of Jesus, without directly quoting him.

“We are right to pray for God’s help as we seek unity,” she said but only if we tend to the foundations of unity, three of which she offered, playing off of Jesus’ parable about building a house on rock not sand.

Firstly, “Honoring the inherent dignity of every human being… the birthright of all people as children of our one God.” Which means “in public discourse… refusing to mock or discount or demonize those with whom we differ, choosing instead to respectfully debate our differences… and if common ground is not possible dignity demands that we remain true to our convictions without contempt for those who hold convictions of their own.”

Secondly, “Honesty in both private conversation and public discourse.” Then she said, “To be fair, we don’t always know where the truth lies. And there is a lot working against the truth now. But when we do know… what is true, it’s incumbent upon us to speak the truth even when, especially when it costs us.”

Thirdly, “humility.” Especially necessary “when we are persuaded without a doubt that we are absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong. Because then we are just a few steps from labeling us ‘the good people’ vs. ‘the bad people.’ And the truth is we are all people both capable of good and bad.”

“But, without unity we are building our nation’s house on sand.”

Then came the “final plea,” which she directed to “Mr. President” in which she undercut her message and her role. But then, her weakness in affirming what is “true” was so glaring that, really, she was there as a partisan, trying to persuade President Trump not to carry out his promises to the American people, without acknowledging the very real pain Americans have suffered the last four years under the now former Biden-Harris administration.

As my great grandmother Lillian Webster Keane, who moved with her family in 1888 to Washington, DC at age ten, where she lived until her death in 1965, said, “Consider the source.”

Quite clearly, Bishop Budde’s partisanship made it all but impossible for her to resist adding this last statement, which, if she had excised it, would have rendered hers a thoughtful message (except for the part about not knowing what is “true.” Oy vey!)

“Millions,” she said directly to the president in closing, “have put their trust in you and as you told the nation yesterday you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now… some who fear for their lives.” She singled out “Gay, Lesbian and Transgender children in Democratic, Republican and Independent families” and illegal immigrants, “the vast majority of (whom) are not criminals… I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose parents fear their parents will be taken away… Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger for we were all once strangers in this land.”

Totally inappropriate.

Or as Pres. Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job!” Trump said. “She and her church owe the public an apology!”

Indeed.

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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was published summer 2024. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, was published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.