VP Vance holds first formal press briefing since Karoline Leavitt left as press secretary, addresses conflict with Iran, gas and energy prices, Venezuela oil deal – and sauerkraut; Trump administration launches Foundry School to build American workforce – ‘We believe in making things again’; Canadian prime minister says trade talks can resume when ‘Americans stop doing memes’ – guess what happens?; Catholic writer posthumously extols brilliant Jesuit scholar canceled for ‘airing dirty laundry’ and ‘upholding two-thousand-year magisterium of the Catholic Church’; Priest gives short powerful lesson on how to – and how NOT to – help the poor; Reminder: Today is First Friday; Catholics honor 13th century Franciscan tertiary who preached in the streets and public squares of her city with a Crucifix – curing many people; and more —
Watch VP make his way to the White House press briefing
Watch @VP
Watch VP’s Press briefing in full, addresses conflict with Iran, gas and energy prices, Venezuela oil deal – and sauerkraut
Watch @RapidResponse
Trump officials are eating all the sauerkraut they can get
Big Macs are out, and sauerkraut is in at the White House — or at least on the plates of several Cabinet officials.
As nearly 1 in 10 American adults take GLP-1 weight loss drugs, these officials are attributing their slim physiques to fermented foods. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and Vice President JD Vance have all embraced the diet, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Within 30 days, I lost 20 pounds,” Kennedy told a Michigan audience this week. “JD Vance is also on the diet, and you can see how different he looks.”
Officials are also opting for red meat on restaurant menus and forgoing alcohol and excess sugar. The diet comes at the behest of Dr. Sean O’Mara, a Minnesota diet consultant and former physician assigned to assist the White House.
Read more at the Washington Examiner; read also Read ‘Vance reveals who’s behind his recent weight loss in first White House press briefing since July’ at Fox News
Trump Administration Launches Foundry School to Build the Workforce Behind America’s Manufacturing Comeback
Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary Marco Rubio announced today the launch of Foundry School, a training program for entrepreneurs, engineers, technicians, and industrial leaders to rebuild American manufacturing. Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg hosted the event at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, joined by presidents and senior leaders from the eight universities working to deliver the Foundry School curriculum and chief executives and company presidents from manufacturing and technology companies.
President Trump’s reindustrialization agenda has already brought trillions of dollars in industrial investment to American soil. Foundry School will focus on turning that investment into jobs. American manufacturers will need an estimated 3.8 million skilled workers by 2033 in semiconductors, defense, energy, and beyond. The State Department, working with Congress, plans to support the participation of Pax Silica economies in Foundry School and is working with Stanford University to develop the curriculum for U.S. and foreign participants. Foundry School will collaborate with Pax Silica economies to create opportunities for America and partners in industries critical to our nation’s economic security.
Read more at US Department of State
VP Vance at launch of the Foundry School (September 3, 2026): ‘We believe in making things again’
Watch @RapidResponse47
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says trade talks can resume when ‘Americans stop doing memes’
Watch @theblaze
Mr. Prime Minister, What do you think is going to happen when you tell Americans to stop making memes?
Watch @CALI4AZ
VDH: Source of the acrimony between US and Canada
Read @VDHanson
Secretary of Interior announces DC’s Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck
See @SecretaryBurgum
NY vaccine mandates spark legal fight — and possible exodus — for the Amish
In one-room parochial school houses near the Canadian border in upstate New York, clusters of Amish children study reading and writing, arithmetic and God.
These are church-run schools on private land. They generally receive no public funding.
But the schools are racking up big fines: up to $2,000 for each day an unvaccinated child attends classes.
The fines — and New York state’s demand that the children receive vaccinations for once-common but largely eradicated diseases like measles and polio — are fueling a battle over religious liberty that could be decided by the Supreme Court. The Amish say that if they lose, they may leave New York en masse, in search of a new home where they can disregard secular public health mandates.
“Only the Supreme Court can save the Amish in New York now,” Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, a Texas-based Christian legal organization that is representing the Amish residents in a lawsuit against the state, told Straight Arrow. “Nine people hold in their hands the future for the Amish.”
Read more at Straight Arrow News
Maine’s Highest Court Rules Against Mother Fighting to Take Child to Church
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled on Tuesday against a mother who has been fighting an order preventing her from taking her child to a church in Westbrook.
The child’s mother, identified as Emily Bickford, and father, Matthew Bradeen, have been involved in a legal battle over their 12-year-old daughter’s attendance at a local church, WTMW reported.
A district judge sided with Bradeen, “ruling that some of the church’s teachings could be psychologically harmful to the girl,” the outlet said. “The order allows Bradeen to solely decide on his daughter’s involvement with Calvary Chapel Church. When it comes to any other religious organization, the order states that the parents share rights and must discuss decisions.”
In November, legal advocates said the case’s outcome could have ramifications for Americans across the nation, per the Standing for Freedom Center.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments in November regarding the mother appealing the custody ruling that prohibited her child from going to their church.
Read more at Breitbart
Joe Rogan weighs in on Lindsay Vance trial
“If She Gets Free, Her Supporters Should Have to LET HER BABYSIT.”
Watch @JoeRoganRecaps
The treasure the Jesuits squandered by Phil Lawler
Six years ago today [Sept. 3], Father Paul Mankowski, a brilliant Jesuit scholar and frequent contributor to the CatholicCulture site, died suddenly and unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm. Some of us are determined that his life and work—and the gross injustice done to him by the Society of Jesus— should not be forgotten.
Today Father Mankowski is fondly remembered by longtime readers of this site (who saw his work under the pseudonym “Diogenes”), by students at the Biblicum in Rome and the Lumen Christi Institute in Chicago, by former West Point cadets and current Oxford dons, by scholars and policy-makers in Washington and Rome and New York and London and Canberra. Yet while his influence has been enormous, his name is not well known. That is the injustice.
By rights “Mankowski” should be a household name among American Catholics. But during the most productive years of his life he was not traveling the lecture circuit, and his essays were not appearing regularly in print, because he was silenced by his Jesuit superiors: penalized for the “offense” of telling inconvenient truths.
As a conservative young man in a liberal environment, Paul Mankowski had been viewed with some suspicion from his earliest days as a Jesuit. Why did this novice persist in kneeling at Mass? Why did he avoid the disco parties? Why would he not join in the dinner-table conversations about the damage that Pope John Paul II was doing to the Church?
Gradually Jesuit leaders realized that they would not be able to bring this young priest around to their way of thinking. Years later, preaching at his father’s funeral, Father Mankowski would say:
…anyone—anyone—who tried to get Jim Mankowski to move away from Catholic doctrine found a man
Who.
Would.
Not.
Be.
Budged.
Like father, like son. …
Read more at CatholicCulture; read also review of ‘The Sound of Silence: The Life and Canceling of a Heroic Jesuit Priest’ by Karen Hall at Sophia Institute Press
Catholic priest’s short, powerful lesson on how to – and how NOT to – help the poor
Read @FrDaveNix
Watch: Unapologetic expression of Faith on Moscow metro
Watch @gavinashenden and @MichaelPoliako3
Reminder: Today is First Friday
See @AmericaNFatima
Today is the Feast of St. Rose of Viterbo
See @FriarMario; read more about St. Rose of Viterbo at America Needs Fatima
