Ukraine, Omar Smear, Racism, Guns, Climate, Blackface, God on Trial

  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz describes himself as a newly retired optimist who once believed in checks and balances and the capacity of people to do the right thing. Now he still has some theoretical hope of coming out of retirement and becoming an optimist again.
     
  • So today’s outrage is Trump’s bullying of Ukraine to get them to smear his, at this point, likely Democratic opponent. Green Eagle goes to a bubbleheaded headline in the Washington Post to illustrate the inherent problem with mainstream campaign coverage.
     
  • Tommy Christopher reacts as my President is unable to deny he spoke with the head of Ukraine and demanded an investigation into Biden, insisting It doesn’t matter what I discussed.
     
  • News Corpse calls out my President for yet another lie, this one dangerous for his target, as he retweets a message accusing Representative Ilhan Omar of gleefully dancing in celebration of the anniversary of the 9/11 attack. My President includes a video of the celebration, but it turns out the dancing actually occurred on a different day for a different reason. Ilhan Omar was attending a Congressional Black Caucus event on September 13. Fox News covers the whole thing as a clash of different opinions.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger listens as President Trump complains that attacks against him are unfair, and answers with a simple quote from President Obama about attacks against him.
     
  • Frances Langum watches Republican conduct during a hearing on Violent White Supremacy, as they recruit a Black conservative, Candace Owens, who explains that the entire issue is no big deal and not worth looking into. Move along, folks. No White Nationalist inspired killings worth watching here.
     
  • Scotties Toy Box brings personal, very personal, testimony from victims of unanticipated medical costs. After the fact, people get horrific bills for treatment they had been led to believe was covered.
     
  • Beto O’Rourke says we will take your AR-15, and assault weapons enthusiasts react, well, explosively. Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged notes the unusually personal commonality of the responses. It’s almost as if they are being asked to amputate an important part of the anatomy, the intense personal nature of which would strike at the core of masculine identity, if you get my circumloquacious drift. This is a family blog, after all.
     
  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara repeats the familiar charge that a major climate change crisis is nothing more than propaganda from the collectivist left media. Joining with those damn scientists with their damn measurements. All in on the plot.
     
  • Michael John Scott of MadMikesAmerica takes a close look at the blackface controversy engulfing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and suggests the man is being condemned for having fun twenty years ago.
     
  • Prime Minister Boris Johnson supposedly lied to Queen Elizabeth in order to get her to dissolve Parliament. Andy Borowitz reports the Queen is preparing for the PM’s next visit to the palace by training the royal dogs to attack.
     
  • Two of the most troublesome issues for thoughtful Christians, at least in my experience, are suffering and evil in the world and evil in ourselves. I have never heard, or expressed, a compelling answer to either, beyond evasion. That doesn’t keep me from my beliefs, but I feel some fidelity to truth, including that truth.
     
    In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce takes that first issue, suffering in the world, and argues eloquently against the existence of an all-powerful, beneficent God.
     
    Most of what I have learned about being human came from one individual who angrily rejected the idea of God on exactly that basis. I suppose, had he known, he would have regarded as unforgivably arrogant my private thought that God just may be holding a place of special honor and love for those who reject him out of compassion.
     
  • Infidel753 argues against modern Christian reinterpretation of ancient scripture to explain away slavery, genocide, bigotry, and other horrors. The Bible means what it says and religious beliefs that flow from it should be embraced or rejected on that basis.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil goes all Dali with an acerbic headline as his own commentary on Christianity.
     
  • Hamilton! finally came to a cramped, rundown theatre in Omaha. Max’s Dad came to hate and to mock in his always-entertaining style of rant. Then he stayed to love and praise in …well… an entertaining rant. I haven’t seen the play, but the review is worth the read.
     
  • For what it’s worth, The Journal of Improbable Research found an actual conference on cannibalism at the University of Leeds. The schedule included an hour for lunch. No clarity on whether the irony was conscious.