Seldom Balanced – Usually Fair
From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:
A few days ago, Donald Trump shocked the nation when he suggested some of his “Second Amendment” supporters might take care of Clinton if she is elected (i.e., kill her). The family of John and Robert Kennedy understands the horror of Trump’s suggestion, and they replied to it. Here is the reply — written by William Kennedy Smith and Jean Kennedy Smith:
From Capt. Fogg at Human Voices:
Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the West behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia’s always on my mind
-The Beatles-
OK, let me get this right: Russia is in league with Iran against ISIS and Iran is letting Russia use their air bases. Trump wants to abandon NATO and assist Russia in the Middle East. Russia is in favor of supporting Al Assad against the Rebels we’ve been trying to support. That would make us not only an ally of Russia, but of Iran and of Bashar Hafez al-Assad, the bloody tyrant. Yep, the man sure can make deals!
That would make us an enemy of NATO, whom Trump wants to abandon and put us in violation of our long standing treaties, which are, as I should remind the Trumptsters, the law.
From Iron Knee at Political Irony:
Donald Trump seems have lost it, and is being reduced to lunatic raving in order to get attention. On Thursday, he just kept repeating his accusations that Barack Obama is the founder of the Islamic State (despite the fact that the IS was founded in 1999, ten years before Obama became president, and even before Obama was elected to the Senate in 2005).
How bad is it? On the conservative Hugh Hewitt radio show, Hewitt even offered Trump a way out by suggesting “I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.” But Trump would have none of that, replying “No I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do.”
From driftglass:
The Republican Talking Point Delivery System called Sean Hannity has always had one, crucial flaw.
He is very stupid.
He is an excellent dumb-bomb who can blow things up real good when he is properly loaded and fired, but left to his own inspirations and devices, he tends to make a big, stupid ass of himself. And now that Big Daddy Ailes has been cashiered for being a degenerate workplace sex offender, there is no one left at Fox who has the throw weight to tell Sean Hannity which lie to tell, on which day, and when to shaddap because he is killing the brand.
Which is when the fun begins
From Frances Langum at Crooks and Liars:
What is it with conservatives and conspiracy theories and faking desired results?
This happened last week with someone faking Hillary Clinton’s health records. The photoshops or faked documents spread over the right wingo-sphere like news of a two-headed goat.
And this week someone decided to post fake, totally fake, results of an “internal, restricted access” Florida PPP poll to Scribd. The “poll” shows Trump has 74% of the vote total in the Sunshine State, and (I am not making this up, but they are)…
It’s kind of an open secret that, as Christians, most of us are not well versed when it comes to scripture. Even the basics are buried for the sake of simplicity.
Resurrection has gone from a universal foretelling, applying to everyone, to only a singular event. With the exception of Jesus who was resurrected and rose to heaven (that was THE resurrection), most of us take for granted that everyone who tries really hard to be good will pretty much go to heaven as soon as breath leaves the body. Of course, that’s not what it says in the Bible. Scripture is pretty clear that people who die, die. Then, at some future time, everyone comes alive again, when the sea shall give up its dead, and death and the grave shall give up their dead, in the life of the world to come.
Resurrection is not central to my own belief. If, after death, I awaken amid a crowd of fellow souls coming out of the ground, I’ll be okay with it. If I find myself at the other end of a brightly lit tunnel, I won’t complain. If, as friends point out, all of the imagery is part of an implausible myth, that none of it is true, that all that lies beyond is emptiness, I won’t be around to be disappointed.
But I am sometimes startled, in minor surprise, by those who have never heard of beliefs as written in biblical times. What I see as ignorance extends to spiritual law.
Jesus pretty much summed up his entire approach when challenged about which biblical instructions from God were most important.
I don’t know, but I do try to imagine what answer most religious folk in those days might have given. I suspect they would have insisted that there is no priority. Every biblical law must be followed to the fullest.
But Jesus said that following completely in the path of love toward God and toward every other member of the human family was the foundation of all spiritual instruction. You do that, and everything else would be okay.
Paul was even more explicit when he said that everything is lawful, then added that not everything is helpful. He insisted that love is the first last and middle of everything positive. Everything that God requires.
So Jesus and Paul make things simple for me. When Jesus says he came to fulfill the law, not to break it, that fits right in. So do the times he tells crowds of people not to judge.
Hell, Jesus even used as an example of that love a fictional Samaritan. Samaritans were a sort of offshoot from traditional Jewish beliefs. Most Jews pretty much despised Samaritans. Think of Irish Catholics and Protestants from not so long ago. Or the Hatfields and the McCoys. Or Sunni and Shiite Muslims. al Qaeda, and now ISIS, pretty much hate Christians, but they have been most aggressive in going after Shiites, and those Sunnis whose hatred of Shiites they see as insufficient.
In ancient times, the relationship between most Jews and most Samaritans was not really brotherly.
But Jesus deliberately described a Samaritan, someone of different religious beliefs, as the ideal example of brotherhood, fulfilling the true law of love.
This tolerance for someone of a different belief was followed a bit by Paul. When he spoke in Athens on the Hill of Mars, he started out by complimenting the local folk on their faithful worship. He told them that the sheer number of temples to pagan gods was evidence of their great spiritual devotion.
We are reminded by Paul that our blind belief is not entirely willful. That blindness is an inability to comprehend anything more than the small part of true reality that is bent toward our limited understanding. So we are wiser to resist a too tempting attitude of superiority. Everyone tries to finds a path that meets their spiritual needs, and we all take that long climb toward that truth of which we might come to some limited understanding.
And so I try not to be judgmental, but . . . DAMN . . . it’s hard sometimes.
I have tried to avoid the more judgmental of my brethren, at least partly because intolerance makes me kind of mad, which pretty much is counter to the whole idea of non-judgmental love, isn’t it?
Some of what I sometimes hear makes me sometimes bite my lip until it bleeds.
Jesus went through a lot of trouble and considerable pain to tell us to stop worshiping rules and get back to what should have been behind those rules – a decent regard for the inherent value of every child of God. God is just crazy about you, and God is just as crazy about those you may have been taught to hate.
Jesus started the original movement for the separation of church and hate.
So it pains me to see Christians proclaim that what Jesus REALLY wanted was to abolish old rules that got between God and his children, and put in their place new rules to get between God and his children.
When Jesus saved a woman from execution by stoning, he told the crowd that those who were without sin could throw their stones first. That poor woman was lucky there were no Christian evangelicals back then.
God loves you, you see, and He joins in your hatred of gays, Muslims, Obama, and Hillary.
Makes my teeth itch.
I do have to admit that some of those who use evangelical Christians have also given me uncomfortable bicuspids.
And I tell you, with the evangelicals, they get it. They get it. They get me. They understand me. I’ll be the best thing that ever happened to them. I mean that 100 percent.
– – Donald Trump, in Jupiter, FL, March 8, 2016
Hurts my molars.
When Donald Trump described himself as the best thing that ever happened to evangelicals, Josh Marshall responded:
“The resurrection had its run. Times change.”
The church members Donald Trump is pursuing are developing a more forgiving attitude. The marriages, the language, the complete lack of familiarity with basic Christian concepts.
Two Corinthians, right? Two Corinthians 3:17, that’s the whole ballgame.
– Donald Trump, Liberty University, January 18, 2016
Okay, so many of those who occasionally go to church might not be aware that, as he traveled, Paul wrote a series of letters to the churches he had established. So it isn’t Two Corinthians. It’s Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. Any of the liturgists in our church might have made that mistake.
There is a certain brashness in never needing forgiveness.
I have a great relationship with God. I have a great relationship with the evangelicals. In fact, nationwide, I’m up by a lot. I’m leading everybody.
I like to be good. I don’t like to have to ask for forgiveness. And I am good. I don’t do a lot of things that are bad. I try to do nothing that is bad.
Donald Trump, CNN, January 17, 2016
Wow.
I admit I have developed a jaundiced view of many conservatives. I try to remember that even bad actors are more than the two dimensional caricatures we see on screen. We should hate the sin, not the sinner. We should hate the bite and not the biter. When we are intolerant of intolerance, as we should be, that does not mean we need to become intolerant of the intolerant.
The embrace of Mr. Trump by evangelicals might be laudable. Their embrace of his proclamations is less so. It brings to plain view the dark shadows of religion. Are evangelicals willing to depart, not only from the liberating teachings of Jesus, but also from their own crimped interpretations? All to be baptized in the boiling hatred they happen to share? Is that hatred a result of their religious fervor, or was that religion merely a cover for the hate that was already there?
I’ll tell you, with the evangelicals, they get it. They get it. They get me. They understand me.
When Mr. Trump proclaims that evangelicals get it, that they understand him. It is possible they see something many of us miss. Perhaps they perceive something deeper and more worthy than a hatred of others, a mocking of the disabled, a preening pretense of moralism.
I think back to the Old Testament, as Moses asked God how he should present the Commandments to the Israelites. How should Moses speak with authority. How should he say that the Lord had sent him? And so we hear from the Creator of the universe by way of scripture.
God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
And, as he is asked and asked again, to moderate his public statements, to use judgement and a decent regard for the value of others, we hear from Donald Trump, by way of Twitter.
I am who I am
He invites evangelicals to a new discipleship, joining him in a different sort of reverence.
Donald Trump considers himself a self-made man. Let’s think about that as he invites others to join in worshiping his Creator.
From Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson:
Any discussion of Tuesday night’s election results has to begin with House Speaker Paul Ryan’s victory over recent transplant and alt-Right favorite Paul Nehlen.
In the closing days of Nehlen’s campaign he even said there should be a discussion about deporting all Muslims from the United States. His fellow bigot Ann Coulter campaigned for him. Breitbart News pumped his candidacy. Even odd talk show hosts from around the country started to believe the hype.
Ryan’s win was bigger than Congressman Ron Kind’s over his primary opponent, and about the same margin of victory as Congresssman Gwen Moore’s victory over the crook Gary George. When the alt-Right’s bigots took aim at the intellectual leader of the conservative movement in Congress, they failed miserably.
Wisconsin’s conservatives were tested in the fires of the Recall Elections and the Republican Party is now more united than ever. The party base has very high expectations for their elected officials, and are often not shown in expressing frustration. However, they’re not going to hand over the Republican Party to Donald Trump clones.
From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara at Principled Perspectives:
After denying in a Chris Matthews interview on CNBC that she’s a socialist, Hillary Clinton said:
“I can tell you what I am, I am a progressive Democrat … who likes to get things done and who believes that we’re better off in this country when we’re trying to solve problems together. Getting people to work together.”
So, how does she propose to “work together” to solve the “problem” of tax inversion? Fix the corporate tax code to make America competitive with the rest of the industrialized world, which will reduce the incentive for companies to relocate or “park” earnings abroad? Nope. As Reason.com’s Ed Krayewski reports, Hillary Clinton Wants to Keep Companies From Leaving U.S. By Holding Patents Hostage:
From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:
In the 1950s, thanks to men such as there’s-a-red-under-every-bed Catholic Congressman Joseph McCarthy, American Christianity’s God found a home in the Pledge of Allegiance and on the back of our paper money. Under God was added to the Pledge (1954) and In God we Trust was added to American paper currency (1957). In 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill into law that stated the national motto was In God we Trust. These blatantly unconstitutional acts are still with us today. In 1954, then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson proposed an amendment to U.S. tax code that would forbid churches and other non-profit, tax exempt institutions (501(c)(3)) from endorsing and campaigning for political candidates. This amendment is currently part of the tax code.
From Darcwonn at The Intersection of Madness and Reality:
Gabby Douglas had to deal with plenty of foolishness in 2012. Instead of a focus on her youthful success, there was more criticism about her hair. After that came the support. Many people realized that her hair isn’t really much of a factor because she is being athletic. And being athletic deals with having your hair get a little messy. So, why even concern ourselves with something that may just look bad eventually?
Now, it is 2016. Gabby Douglas has won more medals. And the criticisms have grown.
More criticism about her hair.
Newfound criticism about her being unpatriotic.
Silly criticism about her not being a supportive teammate.