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Special thanks to my friend, William Kendall, who blogs here.

Ben Carson Admits Evangelical Leaders Don't Care About Religious Values By Supporting Trump

Donald Trump met with almost a thousand Evangelical leaders yesterday to try and convince them that he's one of them. Dr. Ben Carson joined MSNBC's Morning Joe program earlier today and was by the co-host why evangelical leaders were lining up behind Trump. SCARBOROUGH: Dr. Carson, I want to circle back to yesterday's meeting again and…

Who REALLY Loves Hair Trump?

Reaping the Whirlwind

[Jesus and the rich young man: "You've got to leave it all and follow me!"]

The New Testament character known as Jesus is an enigma.  He preaches and teaches and heals and acts like a biblical prophet.  He's not always consistent which is to be expected for his story was created and then recreated by at least four different people.

For example, he heals some folks, and then simply refuses to heal others with no good reason for doing so.  His curses a fig tree because it is barren and declares it will never bear fruit; but it wasn't the season for figs.

Most of the time he is non-violent, but then he attacks the money lenders in the temple courtyard, which makes no sense for they were doing nothing wrong; they were simply making it easier for people to make sacrifices.  In the Gospel of Matthew he says his ministry is specific to the Jews and the gentiles can go to Hades.  Later in that same gospel he sends his disciples out to the ends of the earth of preach his message to all people.

But some things stand out.  He has no use for hypocrites!  He hates religious phonies who wear their religion on their sleeves (or on the bumper of their cars).

Those who love to stand on the street corner and pray so that they can be seen and applauded by their peers are hypocrites. They have had their reward and what the afterlife holds for them is not going to be pretty.

Jesus said nothing about sex.  His teaching as regards homosexuality is nil.  He recognized government as necessary and useful and thought his followers should support it while realizing they had a different ministry.  He had no intention of changing the world by taking control of the government and bending it to his will or God's will, which in this case, amounts to the same thing for Jesus the man is really God the god.

What he did teach was that those who follow him must give up their luxuries and reach out to the sick, to the poor, to those in prison, and to all who have been beaten down by their own failings or by circumstance.  His followers were not to judge but serve.  Those who can be called by his name will be known, not by what they claim to believe, or what they confess in public, but by their devotion to helping the sick, the poor, the lame, and those who have landed in dungeons of despair.


If there is anything that defines present day Republican politicians, it is their blatant hypocrisy.  They, almost to a man (or woman), profess to love Jesus, to believe in Jesus, to follow Jesus, but it's all a pretense.  In actuality, they couldn't care less!

They parade around the country in their suits of piety spewing their non-biblical views as being God's views and condemning to hell all those who disagree with them.  And they are gleeful about it.  To those they determine are sinners, they cry out happily, "God is going to get you!"


These people are not Christians by any definition of the word.  Pat Robertson is not a Christian.  He is a pagan pervert. Donald Trump is not a Christian.  Not even close.  Paul Ryan may be a Catholic but he's not a Christian.  You could say the same about almost every single Republican congressman, senator, governor, mayor, school board member, etc.

Pat Robertson, in the wake of the Orlando tragedy, wants gays to kill themselves. Donald Trump wants to ban all Muslims from entering the country.  The moron who is governor of Texas tweets that the gays in Orlando had it coming to them. And little pious pompous asses all over the political landscape mimic such nonsense.  In the name of Jesus, of course.


There's a horrendous human being who claims to be a Christian pastor by the name of Kevin Swanson.  Mr. Swanson is from the midwest which is a politically important area for poobahs wanting to be president.

Many Republican politicians believe that in order for them to win political office they have to make nice with Swanson.  That isn't hard, for they share most of his views re religion and society and politics.

Let's look at three of them:  Ted Cruz,  Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal.  All three are self-proclaimed Jesus lovers, Christians extraordinaire, and all three want to "bring our country back to Jesus" so God will bless it once again, which generally means the poor will get poorer, the rich will get richer, the minorities will get lost and fundamentalist Christians will get the power.

Cruz is a fundy, a crazy fundy who has been anointed by self-appointed "apostles" to somehow help these true believers take over not only the government but all major areas of life.  He had been anointed to become president but evidently his god didn't get the word in time.  Huckabee is a hack of a Baptist preacher who exemplifies all the really bad things about Southern Baptists; he also has sold his soul at the altar of money.  Jindal is a Roman Catholic.  Actually, he's more of a fundamentalist than a Catholic, but he also believes it is his duty to make the government into a Christian power to force his version of religion upon all people.

In the wake of the recent horror in Orlando, all three of them used the social media to express their concern for the survivors and their families.  Oh, you should read such sad sorrow and gnashing of teeth.

Don't believe a word of it.

Just a few months ago, these three phony Christians attended a rally led by the self-appointed pastor, Kevin Swanson.  It was called the National Religious Liberties Conference and was basically a Republican presidential candidate rally.

Pastor Swanson stood before the attendees and spewed his usual message of hate which he claims he must do because that's what his god requires.  Part of that message of hate was to call for gays to be put to death.

He said god wants gays to be put to death.

Then he introduced and shook hands with the three would-be presidents.  Their silence in the midst of this horror was palpable.  None of them said a word.


So, when you read they sent heartfelt condolences to the families and survivors of the Orlando massacre, remember the bitter root of hypocrisy that grows the tree that these and most other Republican politicians hide behind.  Their claim to be Christian should fall on deaf ears for if there is one thing they are not, is Christian.


Finally, they, along with all the other right-wing fundies who have preached hatred of gays, must assume some responsibility for what happened in Orlando.  For they have sowed the wind and we have reaped the whirlwind.  

The Face of Neo-Fascism

Ken Burns Warns Stanford Graduates To Make Donald's Defeat Their Top Priority

Filmmaker and historian Ken Burns took to the podium at Stanford University's commencement this weekend to warn graduates of the impending threat Donald Trump poses to the American experiment, and he did not mince words. Rather than try and excerpt it, I'm going to simply put the entire transcript here, courtesy of Media Matters. For 216…

Congressional Republicans are Traitors

I am enraged as should be every other person who cares about the United States of America.

In 2008, Congressional Republicans, took the position that they would bring down these United States rather than treat President Obama as if he were the real, actual, elected president of the country.

Republican leaders publicly declared they would rather see the United States default on a variety of issues rather than to work with the president on solving the problems faced by the country.

Now, we have a Supreme Court nominee waiting in the wings for the Republicans in Congress to do their sworn duty.  They refuse to do so.

The following is from Shakesville:

"How unusual is the Republican blockade of the nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court? After a comprehensive look at every past Supreme Court vacancy, two law professors have concluded that it is an unprecedented development. ...In every one of the 103 earlier Supreme Court vacancies, the professors wrote, the president was able to both nominate and appoint a replacement with the Senate's advice and consent."

Based upon the evidence before us, we can only conclude that these Republicans are, in fact, traitors.  They have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and defend the country.  Their continued failure to do these things constitutes treason!

The Republican Descent into Political Hell

This is from an article at Daily Kos titled "The Dark Truth of John Boehner's Resignation."  You can read the entire article here.

The quote is attributed to Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein and explains well why at this time in our history the Republican standard bearer is the ignorant bully, the loud-mouthed con man, the deceitful lying fraud:  Donald Trump.

It also explains why Republican leaders, past and present, can look at Trump and even mention the fact that he is completely unqualified to be president of the United States, while at the same time claim to support him, which is very much like making a pact with the Devil to retain the false promise of power.

Mann and Ornstein say:

One of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

D. Trump - pathologal. liar. fraud. con artist. petulant. toddler.

And from Crooks & Liars, in regard to Republicans having to try to calm the fears of our South Korean allies relative to Trump's foreign policy nightmares:

This is only the beginning of what the Republicans will have to face, the

"consequences of nominating a pathological liar and petulant toddler as their presidential candidate."

There is more here.

Michelle Obama: 'In America We Don't Build Walls To Keep People Out'

Withering indeed. Michelle Obama makes the idea of 'Trumpism' unthinkable. Source: The Guardian Michelle Obama has delivered a withering attack on Donald Trump, warning a graduating class of New York students, and through them America, that those who seek to rule by intimidation and fear end up diminishing the hope and freedom of their nations. Without…

Trump Enters Rally To One Of Hitler's Favorite Songs

Donald Trump held an unhinged rally in San Jose tonight. Clearly Hillary Clinton's harsh criticism of him earlier in the day unsettled him enough to really turn up the heat. In addition to confusing his wife with his daughter, Trump staged his entrance to one of Adolf Hitler's favorite tunes, Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. I've…

Comrade Trump Sings Songs Of Love

Comrade Trump promises that under his regime he will... ...tell American companies what they can produce and where they can produce it. ...tell American companies who they can hire and how much they will be paid. ...use the power of government to keep American workers working in dying industries despite what the market says. ...conquer inferior…

The Republican Jesus

Thanks to Crooks & Liars.

Why Trump's Fake Publicist Charade Matters: A Closer Look

Why is Google sponsoring Trump’s hate?

Da Trump Said These Things About Women

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