Combat veteran, common sense conservative, father, husband 👨🏿❤️👨🏼, Catholic. Enjoy traveling (40 countries so far), gym 5 days a week, UGA.🗣🇺🇸🇩🇪
Atlanta, GA
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Amazing weekend reuniting with Army battle buddies after over 30 years. Honored and grateful that we finally received our Bronze Star Medals with V for battlefield valor 34 years ago.
Thanks again Maj. Gen. William L. Thigpen and the entire @ARMYSOUTH team for welcoming us back into your ranks!
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Reflection on this 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
I feel blessed and fortunate to be part of the Shrine family. Having experienced rejection, criticism and judgment, including from my own family, I find real comfort in belonging to a community where I feel loved and accepted.
Like any family, we are not perfect. We have disagreements and sometimes even quarrels. But beneath those differences is a genuine love and affection for one another. Our diversity goes beyond skin color, sexual orientation or gender. It includes our backgrounds, beliefs and worldviews. We do not have to agree on everything to love each other.
Father Joseph’s homily today touched my heart because it helped explain why this community means so much to me.
He began with Cyrus, the pagan king whom God chose to free his people from exile. Isaiah calls him God’s anointed. Here was someone outside the faith who nevertheless became an instrument of God’s goodness.
That should give us pause before we decide who God can work through. Goodness can come from unexpected people and places, and we should welcome it wherever we find it. Religious affiliation alone is no guarantee of kindness or righteousness.
As Christians we need to remember that. Too often we become so occupied with judging others that we forget to extend the love and grace we have received. None of us has earned God’s grace. None. That should make us humble and compassionate.
In the Gospel religious leaders try to trap Jesus with a question about paying taxes to Rome. Jesus asks for a coin bearing Caesar’s image and tells them to give Caesar what belongs to Caesar and God what belongs to God.
Father Joseph reminded us that while the coin bears Caesar’s image, every human being bears God’s image. Every one of us, including the person we disagree with, the person we struggle to understand and the person others have rejected.
The coin is lifeless metal. We are living people whose worth comes from God. Giving God what belongs to him means offering our very selves and we do that through how we treat others in both word and deed.
That is what I love about the Shrine. It is a giving, caring, vibrant and Spirit-filled community where I see that love put into practice.
We also know how to laugh at ourselves. When Father Joseph officially became our priest, I told him, “Congratulations! But I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into. Being a shepherd at the Shrine is like herding cats.”
We are different and we often joke about our weirdness. There is something wonderful about a family where we can acknowledge our imperfections, laugh together and still know we belong.
If you are reading this and feel rejected, unwanted or unloved, or know someone who does, please consider this a personal invitation. Whether you are a person of faith or not, have questions or are simply searching for a place to belong, there is room for you in our family.
Our motto is “All are welcome here.” And we mean it! Come as you are.
Peace. 🕊️
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It's not about skin color, race or gender. It's about truth, and principles.
Black woman shares that she voted early in Georgia.
“[Democrats] were hoping to leave the border open long enough, so that a large majority of foreigners could come in here & overcrowd us black people out.”
“We have been played.”
“We have been played for fools.”
“We have been misused.”
“We have been abused by the democrats.”
“I went red all the way.”
TikTok: @ geebabyteaup3
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Wow! Disappointing, and disturbing.
The SPLC is Going Down! ‼️
The Justice Department says a grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center: six counts of wire fraud, four of bank fraud, and one of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The indictment alleges the group paid at least $3 million to eight people tied to extremist groups between 2014 and 2023, including about $270,000 over eight years to a member of the leadership group that planned the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
It is over.
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And the mainstream media and government keep ignoring these attacks. Then they wonder why the AfD is gaining public support.
Two gay men, aged 29 and 33, were attacked by around 10 Arab men in Bremen, Germany, while returning home from celebrations marking German Unity Day.
The attackers loudly insulted them and shouted homophobic abuse in Arabic.
When the 29-year-old attempted to film what was happening, members of the group punched him before fleeing on foot. Paramedics treated him at the scene before taking him to hospital.
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Mike Russell for Atlanta retweeted
It’s happening ..
February 2026
The jury found the doctors liable, awarding $1.6 million for pain and $400,000 for future medical expenses ..
This case is the first of its kind More lawsuits like this coming .
Take them all broke !!!
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Love this story for two reasons. Kindness counts, it's the human connection that makes a difference.
Second. The American dream is still alive and well. This is another example.
Tonight the Atlanta Braves play an elimination game against the Philadelphia Phillies, and the man taking the ball first quit baseball to work at a 7-Eleven.
Ray Kerr went to Hug High School in Reno, a program that has won 27 games since 2008 and lost 245.
He had been to exactly one major league game in his life, a Giants and Athletics game in Oakland when he was 13.
He pitched two years at Mendocino College and went 3-7 with a 4.60 ERA.
So he quit. Went home to Reno. Took a job at the IMAX theater and a job at the 7-Eleven.
Here is how he describes it.
"I cleaned up a lot of popcorn. I said, I'm done cleaning up popcorn."
And the other one.
He "stocked the shelves in the cold fridge, listening to my music, kind of forgetting about baseball."
He thought that was the rest of his life.
Then a junior college coach named Eric Perry called him.
"Let's go back to school. Let's go to Lassen Community College. I still think you have baseball left in you."
Here is the part that matters most.
Somebody had to pay for that school, and Ray Kerr grew up in foster care. The woman who paid was his foster mother, Lisa McCarthy.
In his words.
"She's the one who gave me all these opportunities to go back to college, to pay for it if I actually wanted to."
He had to earn a 3.5 GPA to get in. He earned it. Then he went 7-4 with a 3.45 ERA over 91 innings.
That summer he pitched in Alaska against Division I hitters and put up a 1.11 ERA, and his fastball started doing something it had never done.
"I thought I could only throw maximum 92."
It kept climbing into the mid 90s.
The Seattle Mariners signed him as an undrafted free agent in August 2017. Four years later they traded him to the San Diego Padres, and in April 2022 he walked onto the mound at Petco Park and struck out Justin Turner, Max Muncy and Chris Taylor in order.
He called his foster mother first.
Then in June 2024, with the Atlanta Braves, he tore his elbow and needed Tommy John surgery.
Career over. Again.
They re-signed him on a minor league contract. He did not throw a major league pitch again until August 17 of this year.
Since that day he has a 1.47 ERA, and left handed hitters are batting .174 against him. Which is why he is getting the ball tonight with Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper due up in the first.
Now the honest part. He is an opener, not a traditional starter. He may face six hitters and hand it off. The Atlanta Braves are doing this because of matchups, not sentiment.
But a kid from a high school that loses 90 percent of its games, who stocked a cold fridge at a convenience store and figured that was it, is throwing the first pitch of a win or go home playoff game.
He is done cleaning up popcorn.
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On this 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, I had the good fortune to attend Mass at St. Richard Parish in Borrego Springs, California. What a warm and welcoming little parish. I felt at home almost immediately and was very grateful to celebrate Mass there today with Father Emilio Magaña.
Today’s readings reminded us that humility and service are at the heart of doing God’s will. In the Gospel, Jesus tells of the two sons. One said no but later obeyed. The other said yes but did nothing. The lesson is pretty clear. Faith is not just about what we say. It is about what we actually do.
Father Emilio also made an important point about prayer. Sometimes we do not receive what we ask for because we are praying for what we want rather than what we truly need or what is in accordance with God’s will.
.Who among us has not prayed for something we really wanted without first considering the will of God or whether it was something we truly needed? I know in my own prayer life I have sometimes reacted the wrong way when the answer was not what I wanted, with disappointment and even resentment. But that was me failing to trust God and seek His will.
Sometimes no is the right answer because God sees what I cannot and knows what I do not. That is where trust, obedience and faith come into play. God does not fail us. His will is ultimately for our good, even when we may not understand it, agree with it or like the answer we receive.
@BorregoSprings #Catholics #Catholism #CatholicMass
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This would be a clever move.
But if @Paramount really wants to change the culture at @CNN, move it out of New York’s narrow, self absorbed media bubble and back to its Atlanta roots, closer to the country it is supposed to understand, inform and serve.
@ElonMusk
🔥 LMAO! The CEO of Paramount is reportedly considering asking ELON MUSK to get involved in the merger with Paramount-Warner Bros — which would mean CNN AND CBS fall under that umbrella
The most entertaining outcome 😂
Elon would technically have OWNERSHIP INTEREST in CNN, though without operational control
Still, this would be hilarious, imagine all the Democrats on CNN realizing they now technically fall under Elon 🔥
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Congrats to #DavidEllison and the share holders on the Paramount Warner merger.
However, changing the faces at CNN won’t be enough. The network needs a cultural reset, and that should start by returning to its Atlanta roots. Get CNN out of the New York bubble and closer to the America it is supposed to cover.@Paramount @CNN
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Well said!
Why is it “sad” to see a child LEARNING?
Some of the comments on our videos say it’s sad that I have to teach these boys certain things.
I don’t understand that.
You weren’t born knowing how to pay bills, fix things, communicate, grocery shop, handle emergencies, or navigate life. Somebody taught you. And I guarantee everything you know didn’t come from your mama and daddy.
That’s the whole point of a village.
These boys have parents who love them and teach them. My own children learn from people besides me too. More good adults pouring into a child is a blessing, not evidence that somebody failed.
Instead of being sad that they didn’t know something, be happy somebody cared enough to teach them.
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This woman is clueless. Who in the right mind would vote for her?
Killer Mike: “We [Atlanta] lost the All-Star Game. I thought that was a big mistake.
We lost ~$40 million in terms of losing the All-Star Game.
It didn’t feel very good to me, and I felt like some people didn’t say, ‘Man, we should’ve thought about that a little longer before we called for boycotts in Atlanta and Georgia.’
Keisha: “I was happy.”
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The really are the Communist Party now.
California Democrat mayor just quit after admitting she was a Chinese communist agent.
Eileen Wang, mayor of Arcadia, stepped down after striking a plea deal and admitting she acted as an illegal foreign agent for the Chinese government — spreading Beijing’s propaganda in the U.S. under their direction.
She faces up to 10 years in federal prison.
How many more are still in office?
#ChinaSpy #CCP #California #Arcadia
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Agreed. No decent person should celebrate the fact that our former president is suffering from cancer.
Humanity, compassion, and civility should transcend politics.
Anyone celebrating what this man is going through is evil. Our decency should outweigh our politics. Prayers for him. Cancer is a horrible thing to go endure.
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