Trump IS Evangelical Christianity

March 1, 2016 by James Croft from Patheos.

A Peter Wehner Opinion Piece in the New York Times today laments the ascension of Donald Trump as the anointed candidate of American Evangelicals, expressing amazement that Trump “won a plurality of evangelical votes in each of the last three Republican contests” and has gained the endorsement of prominent evangelical leaders. “If this embrace strikes you as discordant, it should,” Wehner writes, before outlining all the ways in which Trump should be unacceptable to evangelicals.

As an English atheist I’m an outsider both to American politics and to Christianity. Perhaps that’s why I see things differently: Trump is not a perversion of American Christianity, but its apotheosis. What Wehner calls “inexplicable” – the appeal of Trump among evangelical Christians – I see as totally predictable, even inevitable: Trump is the creation of a fetid political culture which has been fostered, for decades, by the religious right.

Wehner complains:

Mr. Trump’s character is antithetical to many of the qualities evangelicals should prize in a political leader: integrity, compassion and reasoned convictions, wisdom and prudence, trustworthiness, a commitment to the moral good.

He is half right. Trump is antithetical to these qualities. Yet American evangelicals – for decades the most prominent face of American Christianity – have long eschewed them. That they do so now by supporting Donald Trump should come as no surprise: they are merely continuing their sordid tradition. It feels strange to say it, but not supporting Trump would, for the religious right, be the hypocritical move.

Why do I say this? Because the religious right in America has always been a political philosophy based on bullying, pandering, projecting strength to hide fear and weakness, and proud, aggressive ignorance. That’s what it’s been about from the beginning. Trump has merely distilled those elements into a decoction so deadly that even some evangelicals are starting to recognize the venom they have injected into American culture.

American evangelicalism has never supported “reasoned convictions”: the religious right has long supported the teaching of anti-scientific material in public schools, alongside the imposition of their religious views on others using the power of the government (the popular campaign to emblazon “In God We Trust” on police cars being the most obvious current example).

Neither wisdom nor prudence are served by evangelicals’ insistence on abstinence-only sex education, which unwisely and imprudently increases rates of teen pregnancy while effectively lying to children about their own bodies.

The purported evangelical value of compassion is poorly evidenced in their decades-long campaign against the rights of LGBTQ people: organized homophobia in the USA is an essentially religious activity, with evangelicals leading the charge to deny us equal rights. At every step on the journey to LGBTQ equality evangelicals have formed our primary opposition, mounting well-organized, well-funded, and often viciously personal campaigns against our rights. Compassion, indeed!

And nowhere in the constant alarmism of the religious right – “America is under threat from godless progressives who wish to destroy our freedoms!” – do we find anything approaching “a commitment to the moral good.” The religious right wants an America that is good for them and to hell – literally and metaphorically – with everybody else.

Where is Jesus in this? Nowhere. Jesus never was and never has been the focus of politicized US evangelicalism. It is transparent to anyone who views the megachurch spectacles of a Rick Warren or a Joel Osteen that the story of Jesus is useful only insofar as it offers a vehicle for the regressive right-wing politics these pastors prefer. Jesus has become the ultimate fig leaf, a flimsy shroud to drape over social views which would otherwise be revealed as nakedly evil. That the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed Trump makes perfect sense: they are shamelessly self-promoting bigots who, to give just one sample from a lifetime of grotesqueries, blamed the 9/11 attacks in part on feminists and gays. These are precisely the sort of people Trump should appeal to. I’m surprised by Wehner’s surprise.

What appalls more genteel conservative evangelicals about Trump, this outsider suspects, is not his views or his character, but that he is saying so blatantly what their movement has always believed, ripping off the fig leaf to display the tortured form beneath. They are looking in a Trump-shaped mirror, and don’t like what they see.

See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/templeofthefuture/2016/03/trump-is-evangelical-christianity/?

We Are Governed by Children!

We'll begin first with a few of the Republican candidates for president, the dumbest and most ignorant of which is probably Ben Carson.

Ben Carson has said so many stupid things in the course of his candidacy that they would fill a book.  

He’s still out there, pretending he can become president because…well, he’s really a black man and president Obama is not.  You see, says Carson, Obama was raised “white” and therefore does not understand the black experience.

Ben Carson is dumb as a stump about too many things.  He may be 64 years of age, but he’s still a child.

Marco Rubio is a child also.  He’s lied consistently about his background and how his family came to the U.S. from Cuba.  He is a non-entity in the Senate to which he should never have been elected in the first place.

Rubio is not very bright.  As Paul Krugman says, “His notions on foreign policy seem to boil down to the belief that American can bully everyone into doing its bidding, and that engaging in diplomacy is a sign of weakness.  His ideas on domestic policy are deeply ignorant and irresponsible, and would be disastrous if put into effect.  

In other words, he’s a George W. Bush clone but not quite as bright as Bushki.

Now consider D. Trump.  Yesterday morning at the National Prayer Breakfast he put a couple pieces of bacon - a banned food for Muslims - inside the Quran.  

He said he was “just fooling around.”

That’s our not-so-presidential presidential candidate, D. Trump.

He probably wasn't happy with the news that he really doesn’t have much pull in the city of New York.  According to those in the "know," he’s not one of the players although he pretends to be.  He’s 2nd-rate when it comes to New York in that his holdings and businesses there don't compare with the real powers in Gotham.  Some of the banks don’t want to do business with him because he can’t be trusted to do what he says and he doesn’t pay his bills.

Then there’s this little tidbit which I discovered, that so far has stayed under the radar, but I think speaks volumes as to Trump's character.  In John Feinstein’s book, “A Good Walk Spoiled,” which details life on the PGA Tour back in the early 90s, Feinstein says that at the 1994 Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Trump was paired with Paul Goydos.  Goydos, a relatively unknown on the Tour, was surprised and wondered why.  He was told, “‘This way it will be Donald Trump’s group.  If we put him with a big name, then he would be shoved into the background."

Trump is a decent golfer and he actually shot a hole-in-one during the tournament.  He told his friends there were 5,000 people who saw him accomplish that feat.  Goydos said it might not have been more than 50.  Also, while out on the course, Trump talked to Goydos about a sponsorship deal which was music to the struggling pro's ears, but Trump never followed through.

A sponsorship deal did happen the next year when Goydos was paired with Jack Olsen, Hertz’s chairman of the board.  Goydos and Olsen worked out a deal where Goydos got $50,000 for wearing a Hertz hat and carrying a Hertz bag for the rest of the year. 

As Feinstein put it:  “Trump talked.  Olsen produced.”

Ted Cruz.  He’s the darling of the far-right evangelicalistas.  He’s the one anointed by the Dominionists to take over the U.S. and then the world.  God wants him to be president.  Just ask his crazy father!  

Ted has no morals, no ethics, does not believe in the American system of government and by his words and actions demonizes the United States Constitution.  He would break down the wall separating church and state.  He has no empathy with people, either, recently stating he would eliminate the serving of gluten-free meals in the military.  On this issue he is also either totally uncaring or just plain ignorant.  He seem to think gluten-free is some kind of liberal plot having to do with political correctness when in fact, for many people, to eat gluten means sickness and death!  

He’s a child-man.  

One of those stumping for Cruz is the Duck Dynasty dumbass, Phil Robertson, who is a racist, a misogynist, and homophobic scumbag but thinks Cruz is the right person for the White House.  And Cruz, who will pander to any moron who will vote for him suggested if he’s elected he’ll appoint the Duck Dynasty fool as ambassador to the United Nations!

Not to be outdone by the temper-tantrum child, D. Trump, Cruz also wants to build a BEEG fence to keep all the Mescans out of our fine country.  Heh, heh.  Nobody told him that more Mescans are going back to Mexico than are coming here.  It ain’t so hot here anymore for the folks who do the crap labor nobody else wants to do.

The Republican children in Idaho are mostly rightwing Christianists so it's not too surprising they want the Bible to take center stage in our public schools.  

To ensure this happens the Senate’s education committee has put forth Senate Bill No.1232 which “expressly” permits the Bible to be used to “further the study of literature, comparative religion, English and foreign languages, United States and world history, comparative government, law, philosophy, ethics, astronomy, biology, geology, world geography, archaeology, music, sociology, and other topes of study where an understanding of the Bible may be useful or relevant.”

Unfortunately, the Bible is not a good source for information on any of these topics but more to the point, it is unconstitutional!  This bill would be laughed out of town by adult legislators.  But we have too few of those these days to make much of a difference.

The Republican members of the Oklahoma legislature, also children, are dealing with a piece of legislative crap which would basically drop all regulations and rules for the public schools.  

Now, because these stupid childish legislators have had their way before, private and charter schools in Oklahoma are already exempt from the normal regulations.

Here is what this bill means for the public schools:  (from Daily Kos)

Elimination of the teacher's minimum salary schedule.

Elimination of the requirement for school districts to participate in the Oklahoma Teacher's Retirement System (OTRS).

Elimination of school district provided health insurance.

Elimination of criminal background checks on school employees.

Elimination of teacher evaluation and due process protections.

Elimination of payroll deduction.

Elimination of due process protections for support staff.

Elimination of all certification requirements for all school district positions.

Elimination of negotiations between a school district and employees.

Elimination of student curriculum requirements.

Elimination of required continuing education for local board of education members.

Those of us who are adults should also be aware that his is part of the Koch-inspired attempt to rid our nation of all public schools.  The above is just one way of achieving that goal.

And then down in Iowa, Republican children in the legislature are considering a bill which would allow children of any age to shoot guns.  This bill, they say, puts the power back where it belongs, in the hands of the people.

Okay, but why stop there.  Let's give the people all power.  Let’s no longer have any speed limits; let’s no longer have any laws at all.  The people can decide what is best for them and their families and their neighbors.  

This is all so sad.  The children who lead us say over and over again, because they are children, “You can’t tell us what to do!”

Or, as so many Republicans put it today, “We don’t need no damn guv’mint!”

Every Voter Needs To Know This About Ted Cruz

Educational Levels in the United States

The following was sent to me by a friend.  It tells a tale that we need to heed.  Instead, the people who govern us currently are doing everything they can to destroy our public schools.

This map shows how states could be renamed based on education levels within them.  Americans like to think they are #1 in everything, but when it comes to education, the U.S. quickly loses boasting rights. Math and science are particularly rough: U.S. ranks 28th in the world for those subjects. Although we may be a developed nation, when education is broken down by state, we aren't all that different from countries that are more economically challenged.

HomeSnacks.com used information from the U.S. high school graduation rates from the U.S. Census and compared them against the education index of each country from the United Nations Development Program.  The result? A map of the U.S. with each state renamed as the country that resembles their level of education.

h/t to Lou Cardamone

The Holy Quran Experiment

Scalia's Black Beemer by Greg Palast

Scalia's Black Beemer By Greg Palast | for OpEdNews 

It was one of our team’s weirder investigative discoveries: The recently departed Justice Antonin Scalia – aleha hashalom – in 2011, was ticketed for recklessly driving his black BMW. To his family, I offer condolences. To my readers, I offer the facts. A man's soul must be laid to rest, but history must not be buried as well, especially now that the Justice's passing has become grounds for stories that border on historical obscenity, cf. the New York Times "Liberal Love for Antonin Scalia". Love?? Well, if you want a Valentine, this ain't it.

There's been a lot of gleeful chuckling, for example, about Scalia's courtroom bench "humor." But behind his jokey comments lay a cruelty aimed at the poor, the injured, the Beemer-less class that turns to the Court as the last hope for protection against corporate and state violence.

Here’s a telling example of Scalia’s humor from a crucial voting rights case. In 2005, Indiana's Republican legislature passed a law barring the vote to anyone without current state photo ID. The excuse: an official ID would prevent voter fraud – despite the fact that the state had not found, in over 100 years, even one case of a voter illegally impersonating another.

The media did get a laugh out of the ten nuns who were turned away from an Indiana polling station because the sisters' driver’s licenses had expired. The nuns were in their eighties and nineties. Their licenses had expired, though they had not. Tough luck ladies, you lose your vote.

Bobby Kennedy and I covered the cute story of the nuns; but we also wrote about the unnoticed 78,000 African-Americans in Indiana who lost their right to vote because they did not have the right ID to vote. A disproportionate number of African-Americans lack cars, and therefore driver’s licenses; and only a few, apparently have passports for weekends in Paris.

Get a free copy of the investigative report – in comic book form, Steal Back Your Vote

Civil rights groups sued, stating the obvious: that the Indiana law is racist in its operation, a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Black folk, the elderly, students, and poor whites – were all blocked from registering and voting. Federal Justice Terence Evans threw out the biased ID law, writing, “The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic.”

But Indiana argued before the Supreme Court that anyone could get an ID – they just had to get a non-driver ID from a county office. Experts pointed out that the average poor person in Indiana – a poor person likely to be Black – lived an average 17 miles from a county seat. That’s when Justice Scalia rode, recklessly, to Indiana’s rescue. Scalia chortled that “Seventeen miles is seventeen miles for the rich and the poor,”

Black or white. How cute. How droll, Mr. Justice. And it's true, at 65 miles per hour, 17 miles is just a 15 minute cruise, whether your BMW is black or white. But the experts I spoke with told me they calculated that travel required two bus rides, cost a day of work, and included fees that amount to a poll tax. In the non-BMW world, 17 miles is just another long, obstacle-choked road to the ballot for voters of color.

All week I’ve heard Scalia praised as an "originalist," that is, sticking with the intent of the writers of the Constitution. Really? The right to vote without regard to race, the 15th Amendment, grew from the ground watered by the blood of Abraham Lincoln’s warriors. "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state.”

Was it the original intent of these words to enable the creation of new Jim Crow obstacles to citizen rights? Since when does an "originalist" so insouciantly ignore the clearly marked signposts of the law?

My suggestion: The President should not nominate a replacement for Scalia. Let's make this election a referendum: make Americans choose our Court. Let Americans decide if our Court will defeat or cuddle up to Jim Crow, whether our government may dictate whom you love and marry, whether the Bill of Rights is just a porous veil covering an unfettered and brutal spy state. Let's put the soul of America to a vote.

We are completing our film on the latest, hidden tactics of racially poisonous vote suppression which has grown like a mold from the 2013 decision by Scalia and his Court comrades to gut the Voting Rights Act. As John Pilger kindly said of my work, "The information is a hand grenade."

This film is the peaceable weapon for the new civil rights movement. Right now, support the completion of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: a Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits, with a $100 donation and I'll list you in the film credits as a supporter and I'll send you the signed DVD once the film wraps.

Donate $50 if you just want the signed DVD ... For $1,000 or $500, get a film credit (Producer or co-Producer respectively) and tickets to the film's opening. Or support the film for any amount you can, no matter how small or large.
Please make this donation to our foundation right now. All donations are tax-deductible.

We're so close to the finish line, I can’t thank you enough for keeping us going. For 15 years, Greg Palast has been uncovering voter suppression tactics in investigative reports for BBC Television, The Guardian, Harper’s and Rolling Stone.

In 2016 Greg Palast will be releasing his new feature film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy—A Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits, which includes his award-winning investigation Jim Crow Returns. Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Armed Madhouse and the highly acclaimed Vultures' Picnic.

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Boycotting the Jews

I'm not sure where this piece originated. It was sent to me by an enlightened and honest friend, a man of integrity. I'm reprinting it here because I feel it deserves the widest audience possible. 

Boycotting the Jews

A short time ago, Iran's Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the Muslim World to boycott anything and everything that originates with the Jewish people. In response, Meyer M. Treinkman, a pharmacist, out of the kindness of his heart, offered to assist them in their boycott as follows:

"Any Muslim who has Syphilis must not be cured by Salvarsan discovered by a Jew, Dr. Ehrlich. He should not even try to find out whether he has Syphilis, because the Wasserman Test is the discovery of a Jew. If a Muslim suspects that he has Gonorrhea, he must not seek diagnosis, because he will be using the method of a Jew named Neissner.

"A Muslim who has heart disease must not use Digitalis, a discovery by a Jew, Ludwig Traube. Should he suffer with a toothache, he must not use Novocaine, a discovery of the Jews, Widal and Weil. If a Muslim has Diabetes, he must not use Insulin, the result of research by Minkowsky, a Jew. If one has a headache, he must shun Pyramidon and Antypyrin, due to the Jews, Spiro and Ellege. Muslims with convulsions must put up with them because it was a Jew, Oscar Leibreich, who proposed the use of Chloral Hydrate. Arabs must do likewise with their psychic ailments because Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew. Should a Muslim child get Diphtheria, he must refrain from the Schick reaction which was invented by the Jew, Bella Schick.

"Muslims should be ready to die in great numbers and must not permit treatment of ear and brain damage, work of Jewish Nobel Prize winner, Robert Baram. They should continue to die or remain crippled by Infantile Paralysis because the discoverer of the anti-polio vaccine is a Jew, Jonas Salk.

"Muslims must refuse to use Streptomycin and continue to die of Tuberculosis because a Jew, Zalman Waxman, invented the wonder drug against this killing disease. Muslim doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements by dermatologist Judas Sehn Benedict, or the lung specialist, Frawnkel, and of many other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts.

"In short, good and loyal Muslims properly and fittingly should remain afflicted with Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Heart Disease, Headaches, Typhus, Diabetes, Mental Disorders, Polio Convulsions and Tuberculosis and be proud to obey the Islamic boycott."

Oh, and by the way, don't call for a doctor on your cell phone because the cell phone was invented in Israel by a Jewish engineer.

Meanwhile I ask, what medical contributions to the world have the Muslims made?" The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature: 1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace: 1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat 1990 - Elias James Corey 1994 - Yaser Arafat 1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics: (zero)

Physics: (zero)

Medicine: 1960 - Peter Brian Medawar 1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7


The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature: 1910 - Paul Heyse 1927 - Henri Bergson 1958 - Boris Pasternak 1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1966 - Nelly Sachs 1976 - Saul Bellow 1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer 1981 - Elias Canetti 1987 - Joseph Brodsky 1991 - Nadine Gordimer

World Peace: 1911 - Alfred Fried 1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser 1968 - Rene Cassin 1973 - Henry Kissinger 1978 - Menachem Begin 1986 - Elie Wiesel 1994 - Shimon Peres 1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics: 1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer 1906 - Henri Moissan 1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson 1908 - Gabriel Lippmann 1910 - Otto Wallach 1915 - Richard Willstaetter 1918 - Fritz Haber 1921 - Albert Einstein 1922 - Niels Bohr 1925 - James Franck 1925 - Gustav Hertz 1943 - Gustav Stern 1943 - George Charles de Hevesy 1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi 1952 - Felix Bloch 1954 - Max Born 1958 - Igor Tamm 1959 - Emilio Segre 1960 - Donald A. Glaser 1961 - Robert Hofstadter 1961 - Melvin Calvin 1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau 1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz 1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman 1965 - Julian Schwinger 1969 - Murray Gell-Mann 1971 - Dennis Gabor 1972 - William Howard Stein 1973 - Brian David Josephson 1975 - Benjamin Mottleson 1976 - Burton Richter 1977 - Ilya Prigogine 1978 - Arno Allan Penzias 1978 - Peter L Kapitza 1979 - Stephen Weinberg 1979 - Sheldon Glashow 1979 - Herbert Charles Brown 1980 - Paul Berg 1980 - Walter Gilbert 1981 - Roald Hoffmann 1982 - Aaron Klug 1985 - Albert A. Hauptman 1985 - Jerome Karle 1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach 1988 - Robert Huber 1988 - Leon Lederman 1988 - Melvin Schwartz 1988 - Jack Steinberger 1989 - Sidney Altman 1990 - Jerome Friedman 1992 - Rudolph Marcus 1995 - Martin Perl 2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics: 1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson 1971 - Simon Kuznets 1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow 1975 - Leonid Kantorovich 1976 - Milton Friedman 1978 - Herbert A. Simon 1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein 1985 - Franco Modigliani 1987 - Robert M. Solow 1990 - Harry Markowitz 1990 - Merton Miller 1992 - Gary Becker 1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine: 1908 - Elie Metchnikoff 1908 - Paul Erlich 1914 - Robert Barany 1922 - Otto Meyerhof 1930 - Karl Landsteiner 1931 - Otto Warburg 1936 - Otto Loewi 1944 - Joseph Erlanger 1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser 1945 - Ernst Boris Chain 1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller 1950 - Tadeus Reichstein 1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman 1953 - Hans Krebs 1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann 1958 - Joshua Lederberg 1959 - Arthur Kornberg 1964 - Konrad Bloch 1965 - Francois Jacob 1965 - Andre Lwoff 1967 - George Wald 1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg 1969 - Salvador Luria 1970 - Julius Axelrod 1970 - Sir Bernard Katz 1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman 1975 - Howard Martin Temin 1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg 1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow 1978 - Daniel Nathans 1980 - Baruj Benacerraf 1984 - Cesar Milstein 1985 - Michael Stuart Brown 1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein 1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini] 1988 - Gertrude Elion 1989 - Harold Varmus 1991 - Erwin Neher 1991 - Bert Sakmann 1993 - Richard J. Roberts 1993 - Phillip Sharp 1994 - Alfred Gilman 1995 - Edward B. Lewis 1996- Lu RoseIacovino

TOTAL: 129!

The Jews are NOT promoting brainwashing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non-Muslims. The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants.

There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people. The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems. Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel 's part, the following two sentences really say it all: 'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel."

Benjamin Netanyahu: General Eisenhower warned us. It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead. He did this because he said in words to this effect: 'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened'

It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. It is now more than 65 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.


h/t to Bob Poris

Youthful Cruz Wants To Rule the World

Young Ted Cruz

In 1988, Ted Cruz was kidding about ruling the world, and it's sort of funny. In 2016 he's making the same same joke and it's not funny any more. Since this clip was provided by a former classmate, it's a fair bet to make that young Ted was not that well liked. Source: Politico A new…

Rafael Eduardo Cruz Belongs to Canada!

Born in Canada.  Can he be president?  OMG!  Maybe Canada will take him back.  We have enough scum in our country.

[The graphic is from Daily Kos]

The Jewish Version of the Night Before Christmas

This came from a friend of mine who got it from a friend of his.  I do not know the author of the piece, but thought it was wonderful in light of the right-wing's nonsensical "War Against Christmas." 

It's even more meaningful if you know anything about southeast Florida, or in particular, the city of Boca Raton.

The Jewish Version of the Night Before Christmas

T ‘was the night before Christmas
Down here in Boca.
I was sitting in Starbucks,
Drinking my Mocha.

I know we’re all Jewish,
But was wondering still
If Santa would come here
And give us a thrill.

On my way home
No Christmas lights did I see
On the houses, the windows,
Not even the trees.

What a strange feeling,
Not a decoration in sight.
Was it really December
Or a warm summer night?

I drove past the deli,
There were lines out the door.
People were waiting
For corn beef and more.

The restaurants were busy,
Christmas dinners not planned
Never, not here
We’re in Boca Land.

At home all was quiet.
I left out Kosher wine
In case Santa came to Boca
For the very first time.

Snoozing came easy
To me Christmas eve.
I wasn’t waiting for presents
To be left under a tree

I could hope all I want
I could fuss and then see
If Santa would make time
For little old me.

Then all of a sudden
He pulled up in his Jag
With a sack full of presents
Each sporting a tag.

Oy Bloomies, Oy Saks,
Oy Niemans and more.
He knows where to shop,
He frequents my stores!

He looked for the rye bread,
The coleslaw and deli.
He came to Boca first
To fill up his belly.

“I have a long night ahead
I want you to know.
From Boca I leave
For the North and the snow.”

He stayed for a while
He chatted and ate,
Then he left in a flash
Before it got late.

What a great night
I thought with a sigh.
That jolly old Santa
Is a really nice guy.

As I cleared off the table
I heard with delight
“SHALOM TO YOU ALL”
“AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT”

Marion County, Florida Sheriff Wants YOU To Carry A Gun!

[Photo of Sheriff Blair from OcalaPost.com]

The sheriff of Marion County, Florida, Chris Blair, "is urging residents who have gun permits to carry their weapons."

Here's his rationale:  It's dangerous out there.  We live in an era with "a level of violence and hatred ... that we have never seen before."

Of course he wants only those gun nuts "who carry firearms responsibly and are confident in their abilities," to handle their weapons to actually stick them in their pants, for they "can -- and should -- be our first line of defense in an active shooter situation."

This is all bullshit!

The argument about the right to carry guns has gone from stupid to horrendous. First of all, the Constitution does not give every Tom, Dick, and Mary the right to carry any weapon they choose.

It is very clear that only those members of a State Militia in a time of crisis can have weapons and that "right" is to be closely regulated.  That's what the Constitution says.  The NRA has become so extreme and so successful with their propaganda that even our Supreme Court is bamboozled by their unhistorical interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Be that as it may, to think that the people I meet on the street might be carrying loaded weapons which are made specifically for the purpose of killing other people, is scary to the nth degree!  In fact, I know very few people who I would trust with a loaded water pistol in their pocket much less a real gun!

Another statistic that might set your shorts to twitching is that about one in ten of our citizens are mentally ill.  And a whole lot more are merely neurotic.  Do you want those people walking around your local mall with guns at hand?

Sheriff Blair teaches a "concealed weapons" course and implies that taking such a course provides the gun carrier wannbe with the necessary resources to "bring the fight to the attacker ... [and] help save lives."

What a crock.  A concealed weapons course includes a few lectures and a few minutes on a shooting range.  An "active shooter situation" is another world and would bring most people to their knees crying for their Mommy, whether they were carrying a concealed weapon or not.  

Furthermore, just about every day we read about a "responsible" gun owner shooting a friend to death or shooting herself in the foot.  My uncle Carl was a "responsible" gun owner and he put a hole in Grandma's kitchen while cleaning one of his rifles.

It takes a lot of work and very close attention to be a responsible gun owner and that is best left to the professionals that we hire to protect us from domestic enemies, and to the military who are in charge of keeping us safe from foreign nasties.

Finally, I cannot think of any mass shooting in recent memory where people carrying concealed weapons made any difference whatsoever nor can I recall any "active shooter" situation where a concealed weapons carrier had a chance of stopping the shooting.  Take for example, the mass shooting in the Colorado theater of a few years ago.  Can you imagine what horror might have ensued if a bunch of folks pulled out their concealed weapons and began shooting into the darkness?

When a person walks into a place of business only to pull out an automatic weapon and begins spraying the room, you could have a tank in your pocket and it wouldn't do you any good.

So why would Sheriff Blair suggest such a patently stupid proposal?  It must be political.  He's a Republican.  The Republican Party belongs to the NRA.  A Republican in good standing cannot be allowed to say anything negative about NRA policy, which is basically to put a gun or guns in the hands of every man, woman and child in the world.

Sheriff Blair's suggestion has little or nothing to do with making our community safer!  It is painfully obvious that such a policy creates many more chances for gun violence, death and misery!

What we desperately need these days are leaders who are not bought and paid for by the NRA, who are not unconscious right wing nut cases, who have at least a modicum of common sense.

You would hope the local sheriff would be one of those kinds of leader.  That's not the case in Marion County, Florida.

"We made it on our own" ... with lots of government help!" - Mr. Ben Carson

On Mystical Experiences & Belief in God

"Mystical experiences are not ineffable."  [Ineffable = Beyond expression; indescribable or unspeakable."]  By downregulating posterior-medial-frontal-cortex activity via transcranial magnetic stimulation, an interdisciplinary team reduced subjects' belief in God."

Or, to put it more simply, scientists, by manipulating the brain, can make it so we don't believe in God so much.  I would love to test this out on several thousand fundamentalist Christians and several thousand extremist Muslims.

--- Harper's Magazine / "Findings," p. 96 / December 2015

Touching Ted Cruz Family Moments Brought To You By SuperPACs

Oh wow, these moments are so awkward it makes you wonder if Ted Cruz's family needs a professional producer to show them how to hug him. Gawker: Thanks to the (few) rules governing campaign Super PACs, candidates aren't technically allowed to coordinate with them. Which means candidates can't technically feed them hours and hours of raw…

Mass Shootings R Us

Ben Carson - A Diatribe on a Moron

It is impossible to refrain from mocking, deriding, and otherwise slapping down Mr. Ben Carson.  He invites disdain.  His heart expands by blowing smoke up the asses of the Republican base.  It is possible he's some kind of Manchurian Candidate - someone who is so far out in space mentally, that in the end even Jeb Bush or Rubio would look good. 

But I don't think so.  It may be as simple as he's using his candidacy to sell books.  We know from his previous connection with a grifter that he'll jump at a chance to make money.

The clue to understanding Carson, I think, is to realize he is a 7th Day Adventist. I know there is no religious test for political office and that candidates can hold some pretty strange religious beliefs, but in Carson's case, you need to consider his religion in order to understand that man.

It is his religious beliefs that define his weirdness, his implausible world view, his immunity to science and fact and truth.  The 7th Day cult was built on the beliefs of a rather strange woman, Ellen G. White, who was hit in the head with a rock when she was young, which might explain her numerous "visions."  Ellen White believed that every word in the Bible is true, that only a certain number of folks would reach heaven, that God demands his followers to obey the Sabbath.  

It's curious, though, why Adventists want to claim that particular facet of the Hebrew faith and ignore all the other commands of the Hebrew god.  

Consistency has never been at the heart of Adventism and thus Carson can hold a variety of beliefs without shame or fear of contradiction; he can deny science and he can make stupid claims about the world (which he often denies making) and feel justified in this dichotomy because to be an Adventist requires you to undergo a mental lobotomy!  

This brain surgeon is a moron.  

And no one has said it better than my friend, William Kendall, in a post titled "The Odd Case of the Sleepy Candidate," here.

The Visions of a Young Ben Carson

Thanks to William Kendall, who blogs here.

Operation Enema

Thanks to YellowDog Granny.

Second Amendment Scoreboard

Thanks to YellowDog Granny.

Whining about the so-called "war" on Christmas

Thanks to YellowDog Granny for this.

Turning Water Into Wine

Now, if he could only turn the clowns in the Republican contest for the White House into normal, intelligent people!

Carson And Jesus: Best Buds

Wow. Just wow. https://twitter.com/pauloCanning/status/663028755464605696 I understand the notion of the personal relationship with God, even though I'm an atheist -- however, I find that my reaction to this sort of thing is colored less by my lack of religious belief than by the fact that I live in New York, where a lot of people work…

Pope Francis Visits The Sick

Our thanks to William Kendall for this photo.  Please check out William's blog, "Speak of the Devil," here.

Jeb! and Oregon

News Item 1:

Nine people were shot to death at a community college in Oregon. Some were young students. Parents were also killed. One victim was a professor. It appears the shooter was an unhappy young man. Multiple weapons were found at the scene.


The Response of Jeb! Bush:

"Stuff happens."  

And we don't need any more gun control laws. 


News Item 2:

We are averaging one mass shooting a day in the U.S. in 2015.

Pope Francis - A Gentle Old Man

In essence, nothing much has changed in the Roman Catholic Church.  From its inception the Roman Catholic church has claimed all authority for itself.  The Pope, being the Vicar of Christ and the mouthpiece of the Christian god, has access to the truth for all time.  And when he speaks "ex cathedra," he cannot err.  He is infallible.

Additionally, the Pope rules not just the many millions of Catholics around the world, but he is the temporal ruler of the Vatican, which is a political state. It even has an ambassador.  And we send our ambassador to the Vatican; for what purpose I do not know.  Some 50 years ago, this was an huge issue because of our notion of church v. state.  Many felt we had no business sending an ambassador to a religious cult.  We did it anyway.

Thus, it should not be surprising when political robots such as Scalia and Santorum and other "devout" Catholics conclude that their religious doctrine trumps our Constitution.  For that is what the Roman Church teaches and that is what it has taught throughout its too-long life; nothing trumps Catholic dogma.

Down through history, the Roman church has been as much a political institution as a religious one.  And in every place where it had enough power, it demanded obedience to its doctrines and policies.  Nothing has changed, in spite of the "sweet" face of Francis.


I really hoped things would change under Francis.  But nothing has; nothing of substance.  Francis has, as some say, brought a breath of fresh air into the church, especially when arguing the church has spent too much times on issues having to do with sexuality.

But despite the efforts of Pope Francis to slightly alter the church's emphases, the Roman Church still considers women as lesser than men, to be 2nd-class citizens by disallowing them from participating in the priestly work of the church.  Women's orders remain under the thumb of the pope and Francis, as we have seen, is perfectly capable of putting Catholic women in their place if they start questioning the system.

Nothing has changed.  Homosexuality is still considered a deviation and an abomination.  The church continues to move slowly on priestly sexual predators.  Ordination in Roman Catholic theology confers a special blessing which is not and never will be, available to the laity.  Those ordained gain a special status in the sight of god which can never be taken away.

And much Catholic theology drips of ancient mysteries and cultish practices.  The Mass continues to be said in churches around the world and the people participating truly believe that their god demands blood sacrifice for their sins, and that when the priest says a few "magic" words the wafer and wine become the physical flesh and blood of the long dead mythical Jesus and that by eating and drinking said flesh and wine they will be saved from hell forever.


I really hoped things would change, but that was a false hope.  Francis has come and gone and is now back in Rome. Prior to leaving, however, it is said he met privately with our homemade piece of Kentucky piety, Kim Davis, following which he made an incredibly anti-American statement.  Roman Catholics, said his highness, may be justified in not doing their jobs if their job involves activities contrary to Catholic doctrine.  In other words, Kim Davis, just got a papal blessing for her refusal to do her job.

[The above paragraph needs to be clarified and modified.  Evidently, Pope Francis did not meet privately with Ms. Davis, but with a group of people, and at no time addressed her particular situation as a county clerk in Kentucky.]

Whatever comes of this eventually, one thing needs to be said very clearly to every public servant:  YOUR PERSONAL BELIEFS DO NOT TRUMP THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION!  And if you find yourself in such a situation, you must resign immediately!

If Pope Francis said what he was initially reported to have said, he is wrong.  But we must understand that the Roman church is not a democratic institution.  The Pope is an authoritarian figure, heading up a non-democratic structure and ruling via Canon Law.  Nevertheless he as well as his followers in this country should respect our Constitution and democratic procedures.

This is true because the U.S. is a secular country.  While our citizens believe in wide variety of deities, we as a country are not subject to any of them.  Our founding fathers made that clear.  We believe in the Constitution.  Our laws are based upon the Constitution.  We do not allow discrimination.  While people are free to engage in whatever religious activities their little hearts desire, they cannot use their religious beliefs to deny other citizens their rights.  A landlord cannot deny an apartment to Sikh people because he/she does not like the Sikh religion.

If there is conflict between a person's religious beliefs and the U.S. Constitution, the Constitution wins every time, which is a good thing because the Constitution guarantees the right to hold a religious faith in the first place.  Thus, while a Roman Catholic like John F. Kennedy, could be president he could not command obedience to Catholic doctrine.

Kim Davis Explained in Four Easy Steps

 

 

 

Thanks to my friend, 

William Kendall, 

for these photos.

William blogs at 

Ottawa Daily Photo.

Trump: What's the Deal?

An old documentary film on The Donald which he worked hard to suppress. Read all about it at Crooks and Liars here.

Palin and the Iran Nuclear Agreement

This is from Daily Kos.

At a rally held to foment opposition for any nuclear arms deal with Iran, Sarah Palin gave a speech.  This is, in part, what she said:

"So up there in Alaska, across the way Russia," Sarah Palin said. "You know there is a name for this taking advantage of America. There is a Russian name for that. And it is called 'fortushka.' And that means Obama's window of opportunity. So as Obama leads from behind the skirt of his right-hand man, Valerie Jarrett, then it's up to Congress to close that window. He may propose. You dispose, Congress. You gotta be in it to win it because we want peace. With unapologetic mighty red, white, and blue, will have peace."

Rachel Maddow, among others, is trying to determine what these words mean, if anything.

Just think, this moron had an actual chance of become our vice president!

Huckabee and Cruz to head to jail

If only that headline were true!  Unfortunately, they're heading to jail, not to be incarcerated, but to visit and share their wisdom and good wishes with Kim Davis, the serial-adulterer, super Christian, who believes, not in our Constitution which she swore to uphold, but in the "laws" of her Santa god in the sky who will reward her with an eternity in heaven if she obeys his will as spelled out in ancient Semitic documents.

At this point, this brouhaha is no longer about Kim Davis.  She's an elected official who refuses to do her job because she claims doing her job would violate her deeply-held personal beliefs.  This is about whether or not elected officials have to obey the Constitution and the laws of the land.

Even the 8th-graders that I taught would know that Ms. Davis is way off base.  This is a country governed by the Constitution and the laws that have derived from it.  One's personal beliefs, no matter how deeply felt, matter not at all.

Ms. Davis doesn't see it that way.  She thinks she's being persecuted for being a Christian.  Ms. Davis seems to have the mistaken impression that her Christian beliefs provide the foundation for her work as a county clerk.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Unfortunately, the two Republican president wannabees coming to visit her in jail, Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, are of one mind with Ms. Davis.  Huckabee is a Southern Baptist preacher without a church but with the SBC mentality who disbelieves in separation of church and state and would argue that the U.S. is a Christian nation and God's laws therefore supersede the Constitution.  Huckabee, in the past, said he intends to take this country back for Jesus.  He has said that Ms. Davis should obey the law but "only if the law is right."

According to his definition, the law allowing gay marriage is wrong and therefore Ms. Davis is not beholden to it.

Do we want a Mike Huckabee in the White House.? God forbid!

Ted Cruz is as crazy as Huckabee.  Maybe more so.  Cruz has been anointed by the "Apostles" of his religious affiliation to be God's servant as president of the United States.  He is a "chosen one."  Just ask his father, a extremist Christian pastor.  Cruz, also, has little use for the Constitution.  For him, as for Huckabee, the Constitution is fine so long as it follows the "true" path of their religious beliefs.

Do we want a Ted Cruz in the White House?  All the gods forbid?

Update:  Huckabee and Cruz arrived just after Ms. Davis was ordered released from jail. 

One More Good Reason Not To Vote for The Donald

When asked, Trump said that he would indeed consider Sarah Palin for a job in his administration, should the craziness continue and he be elected.

Sarah Palin, who owns one of the weakest intellects known to humankind, is all agog.  "And please, Mr. Donald, sir, kin I be the boss of the energy department.  I'm not sure what they do there, but that department ain't needed, so I'll make disband it as soon as possible and maybe you'll have another job for me."

Palin the fed'ral guv'mint shouldn't be messing around with energy; that should be the responsibility of the states.

But the real reason she'd make a good head for that department is because of oil.  Alaska has lots of oil.  She knows Alaska has barrels and barrels of oil.  She's burned a lot of it shooting wolves from helicopters.  What other qualifications does she need?

Dick Cheney: Wrong then, wrong now!

Kentucky County Cluck Refuses to Issue Gay Marriage Licenses

Citing God as her ultimate authority, Rowan County clerk, Kim Davis, has steadfastly refused to issue licenses for gay marriages, even though the law instructs her to do so. 

Finally, a federal judge has ordered her to court.

Ms. Davis can believe in any kind of deity she wants.  She can believe in Zeus.  Or Osiris.  Or Allah.  Or Yahweh.  Or Jesus.  Or the Pope.  Or the Poop.  She has that right. 

But as an official governmental officer, paid by the taxpayers, she does not have the right to refuse to do her job because her teeny little brain tells her that her god thinks gay marriage is wrong. 

[What I find incomprehensible is the insistence that homosexuality is an "abomination," while these same people totally ignore all the other "sinners" out there committing other abominations.  By a more strict fundamentalist Christian standard, she'd have to refuse marriage licenses to about 99.9 % of the population.  And she herself would not qualify for a marriage license as you can bet she's screwed up somewhere along the line.]

It's all such crap and it's so stupid to have to mess around with these ignorant and bigoted people in 2015.  

I hate to see anyone go to jail, but if she continues to refuse to do her job, she should be impeached (no matter the cost involved), fined and given jail time.

So often these days, piddly-ass religious twerps use the "god" scam as a way to bless their own bigoted beliefs and undergird the little power that they think they have.   But that can't work in this country because this country is a secular country governed by the people, not by any god. 

The Ten Commandments- the basis of our laws and morals

Rick Scott gives hypocrisy a new name

Rick Scott, the hypocritical criminal governor of Florida is involved in auditing "Florida hospitals to ensure they haven’t committed Medicaid fraud. This comes from a governor whose tenure as CEO of Columbia/HCA hospitals led to the company being fined a then-record $1.7 billion for Medicaid and Medicare fraud. Scott pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times in a deposition to avoid discussing the case.
 

"On Aug. 3, Scott ordered audits on 29 hospitals that failed to meet an Aug. 1 deadline for providing information on their Medicaid contracts. As The Sun reported this week, he has now added another 100 hospitals — including North Florida Regional Medical Center and several run by the University of Florida — to the list because he was unsatisfied with their responses.

"Hospitals receiving public money should be scrutinized, but this seems like a politically motivated witch hunt. Scott has been on the warpath against hospitals since they sought state funding to supplement the federal aid lost due to the failure of Scott and the Legislature to expand Medicaid."


[From the Gainesville Sun].

h/t to Ybor Stogie

War Criminal

When you see this guy on TV talk shows and listen to all of his justifications as to why he was involved in leading the U.S. into an illegal and unjustified war and why he thinks torture is the cat's meow, remember that he is, without question, a war criminal, and should be in prison along with several others, including his boss!

h/t to Crooks & Liars

The Teabagger Socialist-free Purity Test

[by Laura Clawson at Daily Kos]

I, ________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

I will complain about the destruction of my 2nd Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

I will fore-swear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls.  Also.

I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life.  I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

• Social Security
• Medicare/Medicaid
• State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)
• Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
• US Postal Service
• Roads and Highways
• Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)
• The US Railway System
• Public Subways and Metro Systems
• Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
• Rest Areas on Highways
• Sidewalks
• All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009 federal senate appropriations)
• Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)
• Public and State Universities and Colleges
• Public Primary and Secondary Schools
• Sesame Street
• Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children
• Public Museums
• Libraries
• Public Parks and Beaches
• State and National Parks
• Public Zoos
• Unemployment Insurance
• Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services
• Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)
• Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)
• Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)
• Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD's ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking
• Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies
• Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies

If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care

I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist locations, including but not limited to:

• Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History
• The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments
• The government-operated Statue of Liberty
• The Grand Canyon
• The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials
• The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery
• All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC

I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.

I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.  

I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army

I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees

Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.

         Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health
         insurance until I die.      

SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF __________ IN THE YEAR ___.
_____________   _________________________
Signed       Printed Name/Town and State

The Republican Party Rape Advisory Chart

attribution: Brainwrap

 

Thanks to Daily Kos for the above.

Bloviating Dumps in the Clown Car

I thought we had banned DDT a long time ago.  Well, we did, but not the political kind.  We still have Donald (Dump) Da Trump with us today.  And now this bloviating bully wants to be president of the United States because he's got all the answers and will make our country great again.

When Dump da Trump spoke to some folks in a football stadium down Mobile way, he got suddenly religious - Mobile is deep in the Bible Belt, ya know.  He said, looking out at the crowd, that now he knows how Billy Graham felt.   [Notice how in one sentence he brags about attracting as many people as Billy used to for his "crusades," and at the same time implying his message is as important or even more important than Billy's].  Da Dump then extended his religiosity by claiming he likes the Bible mostest of all the books he has yet to read.

In recent days a few TV personalities had the temerity to ask him how much he likes the Bible, and whether he likes the Old Testament better than the New Testament, and could he please quote some of his favorite Bible verses.  Well, da Dump had to think fast.  He looked like he wanted to fire someone.  His face turned redder and his hair began to sweat and it quickly became clear he knows next to nothing about the Bible; that he couldn't remember anything from the Bible; and he kinda likes both the Od and New testaments about the same.

A funny aside:  Da Dump was interviewed by Ms. Icansee Alaska herself, and she declared that it was unfair to ask him to name a favorite Bible verse.  I suppose she relates this to the time Katie Couric asked her which magazines and/or newspapers she read after bragging how she keeps up to date on current events, and she could not name one!

Da Dump says he's a Presbyterian Protestant.  That phrase is a giveaway.  It would be used only by someone who's unfamiliar with both Protestants and Presbyterians.  Then he claimed he attends the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City.  Marble Collegiate is NOT Presbyterian, though; it is affiliated with the Reformed Church in America and was the church of the famous Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, he of the positive thinking approach to life.

Marble Collegiate says da Dump is not a member. 

A prophet he is not, also.  He's been bloviating about how he's going to deport 11 million illegal immigrants but when pressed about how he will pay for it, he clearly has no idea.  One big problem with such a deportation is that it leaves you without people to harvest our fruits and veggies, a job that's been handled largely by immigrants from Mexico - legal and illegal. 

A Christian he is not.  He wants to excise the 14th Amendment from our Constitution which grants citizenship to everyone born in the United States.  He would, in a most unChristlike manner, uproot all of our illegal immigrant families, including their children who are citizens of the U.S., and send them lock, stock and barrel, back across the border.

And then, says da Dump, let's build a wall all along the border.   Wait, we've tried that.  It didn't work.  People climb over it, build tunnels under it, or blow holes through it.  We've also found it's incredibly expensive and again da Dump has no idea how he'd pay for it.


One might think da Dump's past, which is filled with failed marriages and bankrupt businesses and shady gambling casinos, would put off fundy Christians, but that does not seem to be the case.  For one thing fundy Christians really have no values worth speaking about.  When they talk about values they mean abortion should be abolished, gays should be put back in the closet and liberals should leave the country along with the immigrants.

So, da Dump's values or lack thereof bother them not at all.  If it looks like he can return our country to the 1940s or 1950s, well, I'm sure they think that is what Jesus would want to happen. 

That's why da Dump dares to join with da Cruz to headline a rally, the purpose of which is to show opposition to the nuclear agreement with Iran, a rally organized by Tea Pot crackpots (The Tea Party Patriots), the Center for Security Policy and the right-wing Zionist Organization of America to be held on Capitol Hill on September 9.

According to TPM, "The Center for Security Policy is an anti-Muslim think tank founded by former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney, who often speaks about the threat of creeping Sharia Law and has accused Republican and Democratic officials alike of being Muslim Brotherhood plants in the U.S."  He also claimed at one point that President Obama had "slipped an Islamic crescent into a government logo."


Da Trump symbolizes how our political system has turned pathological.  It has become a dump where toxic fumes and gasses leak into the air to despoil all that with which they come into contact.

When a field of candidates, almost to a man (or woman), publicly disrespect our Constitution and our laws, we have sunk to a new low, we are in dire straits.  Perhaps its time to try another system, the British or Canadian parliamentary system, maybe.

Consider this:  Ernest J. King was a five-star admiral who served as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet and was the Chief of Naval Operations during WWII.  When 47 years old, at the Naval War College, he wrote a paper suggesting that the greatest weakness we have is our representative democracy.  "[...] our representative form of government has developed as to put a premium on mediocrity and to emphasize the defects of the electorate...[people think they know it all, people are concerned only for their own welfare, people are ignorant of our history, our foreign affairs, and are uninterested in such things] ..."

How a top admiral in our Navy could get by with penning such an anti-democratic and anti-American paper is beyond me.

But there is a disease that affects many of those who inhabit the top ranks of our military services.  It's a disease that infects them with permission to think they are gods of a sort, that they know what is best for the country; and it leads to a disease that allows them with ease to slip into the role of dictator.  I have experienced this in person.  The captain of a naval base or a ship is, in fact, a dictator.  He is to be obeyed at all times without question.  In some cases, that might work out for a time.  In my case, the captain was also crazy.  Eventually, he was relieved of his command and later drove his car off a cliff near San Francisco.  But it was a harrowing time between his arrival and his relief.


Listen to da Dump, to da Cruz, to da Bush, to da Santorum, to da Carson, to da Perry, etc., and ask yourself if you do not hear echoes of the Admiral's anti-democratic and thus anti-American sentiments hanging in the air around them.

The real danger is not that they are a bunch of clowns or fools on an errand.  The danger is that one of them might actually get elected. 

All is not lost, however.  Consider DDT, a terrible pesticide.  Thirty years ago, the brown pelican had become almost extinct because of the use of DDT.  But shortly after DDT has been banned, the brown pelican began making a comeback and today they are thriving across North America.

There is hope.


Note:  I don't care whether Dump da Trump ever reads the Bible or knows any verse in the Bible.  That's irrelevant to the presidency.  But if he's going to pander to the religious right nutcases, and parade his faux religiosity in public, then he needs to be called to account.