Month: July 2017

 
From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:

“You should stay out of politics and stick to preaching the Gospel.” – Bill, a Christian

Several times a day I’m chided by a well-meaning friend, complete stranger, or soon-to-be-disconnecting social media acquaintance for being “too political” as a Christian and or as a pastor. Curiously, I most frequently I hear these sentiments from Conservative Christians—and I’m never quite sure what “Gospel” they want me to stick to, but it certainly isn’t the one Jesus mentioned:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come – Jesus (Luke 4:18-19)

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Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.

 
From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

The essay Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian by George Reisman difinitively explodes the lie that Nazi Germany, a country controlled by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, was a derivative of capitalism.

Yet, despite socialism’s brutal history, people continue to fall for the idea that socialism somehow empowers the people. Here is a comment from TomPaineCommonSense, posted under Reisman’s essay:

If Nazi Germany was socialist, how come all the corporate leaders, bankers, and military generals were able to make so much money and spirit it out of Germany through banks for themselves and their families? Why did their leading companies – steel, chemical, construction – make such fat profits from all the armaments, materiel? Why weren’t profits distributed to the people if it were socialism? Why would a socialist state form such a close alliance with the fascist state of Italy? WWII Germany had elements of private enterprise, fascism, and socialism blended for the economic and political benefit of their elites, and because the people had little if any influence I would say socialism was the minor element of their economic system.

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From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

Here’s the thing: the GOP knows that those disruptive town halls this time are genuine (as opposed to the Astroturf protests when the ACA was enacted) and they cannot stand up to 22+ Million Americans who don’t want their healthcare taken away.

And they know that they cannot justify taking away healthcare from their constituents.

Also/too: politicians know (hahaha) how to read polls pretty well (or at least their literate staffers do) and they know that The Russian Usurper is the most loathed preznint in modern history.

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From Iron Knee at Political Irony:

Trump and his campaign originally (repeatedly) denied that the Russians interfered in our presidential election, but under mounting evidence of Russian hacking, they eventually admitted that the Russians did interfere, but that there was no collusion between the Russians and Trump or his campaign.

Well, that was a lie too. It turns out that last June, just after Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, his son, Trump Jr., along with his campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with a Russian lawyer who is connected to the Kremlin. What did they talk about?

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A different way of narrating Russian history:

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Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.

Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.

 
From Earth-Bound Misfit:

Even from a paper that should know better:

President Trump* questioned President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election, using their epic first face-to-face meeting to directly raise what has become a vexing political issue for the White House.

Mr. Putin denied any meddling, and aides for each offered differing versions of the exchange. But both sides said the two leaders quickly turned to a discussion of how they could work together, including on combating cyberattacks and de-escalating the war in Syria.

Right. Tell me another one.

Nowhere in the account is it explicitly stated that there was no independent observer in the room. Who was there was Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, both of whom are fully capable of deception and lies and, frankly, are very good at it. And Trump, who wouldn’t know reality if it bit him hard on the ass.

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From The Borowitz Report:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is being dispatched to Pyongyang in what the White House is calling a high-stakes mission to reverse North Korea’s years of progress in math and science.

DeVos, who is expected to arrive in Pyongyang later this week, plans to throw a monkey wrench in North Korea’s swiftly advancing nuclear program by replacing its current system of training scientists with a dizzying array of vouchers, sources said.

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